Happy World Maths Day!

All classes at my school for the past 2 weeks have been participating in trialing Live Mathletics to celebrate World Maths Day (today - 5th March).

It has been a huge success with my class and definitely a favourite. The children have loved having their own log on names and passwords (although with 5 & 6 year olds logging in has proved testing at times)... but mostly they have loved playing against children from other countries.... Spain, Germany, Australia, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom to name just a few.

It has brought out the competitive side in most students and really challenged them to race against the clock to improve their maths basic facts.

In the past few weeks we have had students playing both at home and at school. Marnie in Auckland is my personal Mathletics expert as she has been using the entire programme in her mainly year 2 classroom during 2007. Our decision now is do we want to continue with the programme as a school, or just offer it to families...

Here are some thoughts on Live Mathletics from the 5 & 6 year old in my class.

You can view them on the embedded slideshare below or click here.

| View | Upload your own

Happy World Maths Day to you all :)

Slideshows will never be the same again...

I was delighted to come across this gem of a site this morning in my del.icio.us network and haven't stopped playing with it since!

Animoto.com is a fabulous new site that allows you to make a slideshow like you've never seen before! (actually like a slideshow on steroids!)

Using Animoto you can make your own 30 sec 'photo video' (or movie trailer for your pictures) for free - just upload up to 15 of your own pics (or tell animoto where to find them on the Internet: ie Facebook etc.) and then either choose their music or upload your own! (There is also the option to pay to create longer videos with more images.)

The great thing is that animoto is automatic and it customises the video to your chosen music. You just choose and upload the photos and then choose some provided music or upload your own (ensuring it doesn't breach copyright!) Every video made on animoto is different and you can even choose to remix your video to create a slightly different show as well.

Check out these two animoto photo videos (original and remixed version) embedded below of Kia Ora Kiwi's adventures down south in Invercargill and Riverton, New Zealand. Kia Ora Kiwi is an established member of our class and is destined for international travel shortly.

If you're a keen spotter, you may even see NZ famous mayor Tim Shadbolt, a real (and not so real) tuatara and even the bike from 'The World's Fastest Indian' as seen at the Southland Museum.

Original:


Remix:

Now that I have finished playing and have finally got to read my feeds, I've discovered Ewan and Paul H have also been enjoying having a play!

PS- Music is 'Flash60' from Freeplay Music

How addicted to blogging are you?

So how addicted are you?

What if you had to put it into a percentage?
What would be your blogging addiction %?

Just for fun, try this site, I was very pleased at the outcome for me (glad it wasn't 100%!) and was able to happily wave the results under a very surprised husband's nose!

80%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

Hosting your files on your blog

Box.net is one of many great sites to host your files on. Essentially, it is a virtual storage place for your files! For free you get 1GB of storage.

A great feature is that you can also create a great widget to put on your blog to share your files with others (see my box.net widget in the sidebar).

It's reasonably easy to join and upload your files. I suggest if you are interested in a widget for your blog that you join and upload your files all on the one page here at the Box Widget page.

Once you have browsed and chosen your files, create a box.net account using your email address. You can then upload your documents and grab the code to put on your blog.

In Blogger blogs go to Layout>Page Elements>Add Page Element>HTML/Java script and paste in the code to add the widget to your sidebar. You can then save and view your new box.net widget and files on your blog!

Another popular hosting site used by educators I know is esnips which gives you a much greater storage (5GB) although you don't get a widget that is quite as good to add to your blog. Wikispaces could be yet another option! (if you want a wikispaces account for educational use click here)

It's really handy to have some of your important files hosted online, either to share or just to have access to your most used files across a variety of computers. As a teacher, you could also host documents for parents and caregivers to access, like notes to help with homework or documents for how they can help their child with their reading etc.

Please feel free to browse my Box (in my sidebar), currently it's all blogging related. I'll continue to add to it with more documents over time! If you find any useful, please leave me a comment :D

More great Slideshow Tools!

Another fantastic tool for displaying slideshows on your blog is One True Media I know.. dumb name huh!). It is equally as good as Rock You and Bubbleshare and good to use for variety.

I quite liked it because it allowed me to choose all my photos first, then upload them. I didn't have to constantly monitor the site to know when I could upload the next photo.

Once uploaded I was given a choice of "styles" - currently there are 4 to choose from. My example uses the "wheel" style. You can also upload music, but I presume it really should be non-copywrite etc.

One difference with using One True Media for a slideshow is that you can also add in short video files.

Here's what my One True Media slideshow turned out like:

Free MySpace slideshows, photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

PS - to make it smaller to fit my template I changed in the html coding to height: 400; width 400. I could not find a way to resize my slideshow on the actual site. It may be fine being big with your template, mine is just quite narrow.

Slide is another similar site that allows you to upload your photos. Like Rock You it allows for several layers of customisation like:
* style (type of transitions - in my example I have used "revolver")
* themes (extras that appear in background)
* skins (which are a bit like borders)
* you can also select the size of your slideshow.

I uploaded the same photos to Slide as used above so you can see what can be produced.

Lots of scope for variety and customisation here.... happy slideshow making!

A new feature - translate my blog!

You can now view my blog in 10 different languages!

I have installed a new widget in my sidebar! It uses Google's Translation Services and converts the whole page into the desired language. I have this fantastic blog to thank for my new gadget.

I spent about 10 minutes "googling" a widget to put on my blog and this was one of the best that I found to translate the whole page without having to copy and paste the text over to a translation page.

Two reasons I have installed this translator are:

• The State of The Live Web, April 2007 report showed that only 36% (down from 39%) of all blogs are in English - Japanese is currently the top blogging language @ 37% (click to enlarge graphic)
  

• I stumbled upon a link to my site on this blog in some foreign language (maybe Spanish?) and thought it only polite!
  

... go on, try the translator for a laugh... you know you want to! :)


PS: If you haven't already read it I suggest you read the State of the Live Web (April 2007) report here.
Click here if you want to copy and paste the code to get a translator on your site :)

The Power to Change the World

Iain from over at Edge of the Seat has started a fabulous Ning project that you might want to consider contributing to.

"If I could change the world" has been set up "with the idea that this could be a place where children could raise their voices."





From the website: "This is a global project where children from around the world can submit artwork and writings outlining their own ideas for making the world a better place. The submissions from this project will hopefully be made into a book."

This fits really nicely with our school's theme for the year "The Future Starts Now!" and is something I will be getting my students to be involved with next term.

Topics selected so far are: poverty, pollution and violence.

We will be creating original digital art and creating our online art gallery. Time permitting, I'd also like the students to create a short video that addresses the pollution issue.

Brilliant idea Iain! Head on over to this site if you think this is something you'd like to be involved in!

Silent Reading 2.0

When I first read this post on Mark Ahlness' blog it struck me as an odd idea... silent reading 2.0.

Mark came up with an idea to revamp silent reading in his secondary classroom. He used his SSR time to get his kids reading BLOGS instead of books! Blogs written by kids... for kids! This was not a time for students to be "creating" or commenting on blogs, rather a time purely for reading them.

When I actually think about it, it's easy to see how my own personal reading habits have changed over the past months. I still consult "books" to get ideas for my teaching and units etc, but when was the last time I actually read a physical book?!! I believe I now read more than ever, but it's a different kind of reading, a kind that is constantly up to date and written by ordinary people.

This quote from Mark's blog also struck me... could this be the future for our kids?

"By the time they grow up, I bet their reading preferences will be worlds away from where they and I are now. My hunch is it will not be cuddling up with a chapter book."

Perhaps before then we'll need more computers in our classrooms!
Do you think we'll ever find cuddling up to our computer in bed to read as comforting as cuddling up to a good book?

Is your mac hot??

Does your mac (specifically macbook) get really hot with use??

Mine certainly does... actually to the point of lightly burning my skin if I am using it on my lap wearing shorts etc.

Recently I downloaded smc Fan Control. It is a tiny but great free programme that lets you increase the minimum fan speed to make your mac book run cooler. It works like a charm and within minutes the mac is running cooler and no longer is a danger to me.

Recently I have also added this application to my start up list so that it automatically loads when I start my computer. I am finding that setting the fan control to "higher RPM" is proving beneficial too.

Smc Fan Control now just runs seamlessly in the background and displays a reading of the temp and rpm that the fans are running at.

Sorry macbook... you're not so hot anymore :)

Fun with Photo Booth

Today we had fun in class with one of the new Apple laptops with the built in "isight" camera. We used the programme Photo Booth to capture end of year FUN and QUIRKY photos of all of us!

Each child took a photo of themself using their chosen photo effect: either comic book, thermal, glow or coloured pencil. We then took some group shots. I am going to make all the photos into a slideshow, set it to music and add it to the end of year DVD that I have made for my class.

Check out some of the neat photos we took!!!!