A week of experiments

This week I had a week long block in Geography and Commerce. My lovely teacher friend left the bones of the lessons and she said she didn't mind if I added a little dazzle. So I tried Kick Me. The idea is based on the silly thing kids do when they put a post it on the back of someone that says 'Kick Me'. The students were given a sheet they had to read and think about. They then had to turn it over and not look at it. They were given stickers with the answers on it. Two stickers were placed on each students back. As a class they had to remove the stickers from each other's back and work together to place the correct sticker in the correct part of the table. The students enjoyed the activity and all students were engaged in working together. We then discussed the table when we were finished. All in all quite successful.

I really love the work that Presentation Media do with their artistic flare for powerpoints. http://www.presentermedia.com/
I used many of their animated power points in my lessons this week to make my presentation engaging and interesting.

My other little fabulous tool this week has been my portable scanner. It only cost me $75 on ebay and I use it heaps. I had quite a few casual Maths classes I had to take this week. Unfortunately for one class their text books were locked in a room in a cupboard where the School Certificate was being undertaken. Forunately I had a copy of the textbook and scanned in the page and put it up on the board via the data projector and the lesson went quite smoothly. I have also used the same technique in Maths when I want the whole class to work on a problem or sheet. I scan in a worksheet and project it on the board and as a class we work through the problems together. My ePad (RM Education) is a device that allows me to interact with my computer and the computer screen that is projected on the board anywhere in the room. I can write notes or the students can write in their Maths answers from where they are sitting and don't need to get up to write the answer on the board. The students love using it and you can save the work and email to the teacher or email it to students that were away that day instead of rubbing it off the board and all that work is gone.

As I type I am battling a bad case of the flu and a chest infection and am feeling it quite a struggle to come up with things to put in my blog. However I am dedicated to the cause.

I am part way through Cert IV in Training and Assessment. Finding it interesting to learn about the VET sector. Have asked one of the Art teachers at school if he could do some designs for me for my company logo. Heard from the bank about getting a credit card for the business. Got sick and haven't got any further than that. The company thing is still chugging along.

Until next week,
K