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By robert, March 2, 2010 9:16 pm

I read the volume of anti-APP threads on the TES forums, I listen to the comments of my secondary colleagues and I speak to friends who teach in the primary phase.  On top of this I’ve checked out the growing software industry making APP tracking products and I’ve spoken to colleagues who are responsible for moving APP forward.

Yes APP arose from the need for consistent assessment data between schools and more importantly to fix the discrepancy between primary and secondary NC levels (I’ve yet to find a secondary teacher who uses primary science levels as a reliable baseline!).   Yes APP came from the National Strategies team but the bank of APP statements represent a very useful resource for AfL – after all what is the point in having accurate and reliable assessment data and doing nothing with it?

As a leader of APP practice within the authority I’ve given a lot of thought to the subject.  The points below summarise my thinking about APP

What APP is:

• An assessment system that allows for consistency between teachers, between schools and between key stages
• An opportunity for AfL linked to meaningful (sort of) criteria
• Customisable to suit the needs of you, your school and your learners.
• An opportunity to gather reliable formative assessment data for every learner

What APP isn’t:

• Statutory – no one can tell you what you MUST do
• Hours of trawling through students’ work and books
• Something that need increase our workload
• A tick-list of what a student has or hasn’t achieved (software companies take note)
• Just another type of summative assessment
• Perfect!

I teach in a special school where teacher assessment has been for norm for years.  APP is nothing new to us – we’ve been following a very similar process for years, finding new ways to make assessment work.  I know APP isn’t perfect, but it occurs to me that a lot of teachers seem to be getting into a flap about nothing – APP will be what you make it!

Click on the APP tag to read my other posts about APP

My opinions are based on my experiences of using the Science APP framework.  Whilst I’ve looked at APP materials for other subjects I haven’t used them with students.

Comments

By robert, March 1, 2010 9:57 pm

Following the posts I’ve read by Doug Belshaw and others, I had a think about which software/websites I use on a regular basis.  I try to match my software at home and work since it makes me more productive – but I’m sometimes limited by the fact we run clunky old Windows XP on our school laptops.

Firefox

I know Chrome is quicker but every time I use Chrome I end up moving back to Firefox.  I love the extensions/plugins available for Firefox and have a very similar set on both home and work computers.

Firefox extensions I have on both PCs.

Live Mesh

I tried Dropbox but first I became annoyed when it kept syncing MS Office temporary files (because I work straight out of my drop box).  Then I exceeded the amount of space they offered for free – but I only needed around 4-5Gb storage and I’m not paying for 50Gb that I’m not going to use.

I moved to Live Mesh and it works flawlessly.  Files are synchronised between my work folders and home and school, and updates happen without any user intervention.   Add a net book to that mix and it becomes even more useful (also allowing you to remote control another PC on your ‘Mesh’).  You can also access your files from your Live Desktop should you find yourself working on a different PC.

Office 2007 and 2010

The new ribbon interface.  You either love it or you hate it.  I love it – and now I’m used to using it I couldn’t go back to the old version of Office.  I am the only member of staff at my school running Office 2007 (and I use the beta of Office 2010 at home) and I hope to convert my colleagues at some point in the future! 

GMail (Google Mail)

Feature rich, spam free and hosted in the cloud, Google Mail is useful because I can access my email from any computer (and also from my phone/iPod etc).  For those who don’t like web email it supports POP3, IMAP and SMTP so can be used with a desktop email client if you prefer.   Although I tag my emails, the search feature comes in useful for finding those emails where you only remember snippets of information.  I use Google Mail as a client for my work based Exchange mail, and prefer the interface to any of the desktop clients I have tried. (The to-do-list whilst basic is pretty handy too)

Google Reader

I started using Google Reader to keep track of blogs and news sites I like.  Google Reader pulls in RSS feeds and can then be accessed from anywhere.  Interesting articles can be emailed to friends, or shared with other users (and mine are even imported into Facebook!).   The addition of Google Buzz added a new layer of functionality to Reader and you now see articles/posts that your friends (who you follow) have shared.  Google Reader keeps me up to date with educational and news feeds.

Windows Live Writer

Part of the Live Suite available free of charge from Microsoft.  This is a useful piece of software for writing blog posts offline (and publishing them to your website).

Other software/sites

Google Calendar (I’ve tried lesson planning again this year using Google calendar. I kept it up for a over half a term but still ended up going back to a paper diary).  The SMS reminders are useful for reminding me of appointments when I’m not near my email.

Twitter.  I have a PLN (personal learning network) on Twitter but I’m still not convinced that this is a must-have tool.  A significant majority of people I follow are broadcasters rather than being interested in a two-way conversation, and most don’t reply to tweets directed straight at them.

What software do you use every day?  What software couldn’t you do without?

Comments

By robert, February 17, 2010 10:06 pm

We have a camcorder at work that records straight to DVD.  Of course the price you pay for this convenience is a lack of flexibility.  I needed some clips off a handful of old DVDs to use in a presentation.  I needed clips off the DVDs in the easiest way possible and in a format I could re-edit easily (using Windows Live Movie Maker for simplicity).

VLC

I managed to grab several clips using VLC following these steps.  First of all enable advanced options

Then play back your video/DVD.  Click on the red button to start and stop recording.  The recorded file is saved in your documents folder.  It is possible to change the output video format, however the defaults worked fine with movie maker. [Mac users – I believe you press Shift & Command & R instead]

Unfortunately I had problems with one of the DVDs so I had to use a different method.

Handbrake and K-Lite pack.

I installed the K-Lite pack to give me codecs I would need later on.  (Without the codecs from this pack windows movie maker was not able to use the audio on captured files in AAC format).

Handbrake is simple to use, but the files it generates will probably need some editing/trimming unless you need the whole DVD.

(You can also use handbrake to convert DVDs into a format suitable for an iPod/iPhone just by changing the preset at stage 2).

That’s all there is to it.  If you are grabbing clips from DVD make sure you own the copyright or else you could get into bother!

Comments

By robert, February 17, 2010 3:59 pm

We’ve all seen PowerPoint used where students are asked to prepare a presentation on a topic.  More often than not this turns into a cut-and-paste-athon and students can’t always be said to be engaging with the content of the lesson.  There is also the time one spends playing with the fonts and animations (and I’ve seen adults guilty of some pretty bad presentations on this score too!).

I looked for some other ways that PowerPoint (and possibly its Open Office equivalent Impress) could be used as a teaching tool with students who have special needs or perform below national expectations.

Sequencing

Give students a presentation in which the slides are in the wrong order.  Tell them to put the steps in the right order and then give a presentation based on the new order.  It is a good idea to use pictures/slides in which the order is ambiguous or where there could be more than one correct answer.  For extremely weak students this could involve sequencing photographs from a previous lesson e.g. ones taken during an experiment.

Example: Year 7 students (Wikid Science – Forensics) are asked to solve the mystery and explain how the forensic investigator came to be in hospital covered in burns.  Students have to solve the mystery and put the slides in the right order.  They then present their ideas to the group where they receive peer assessment/feedback.

Audio (or video) annotation

Give students a presentation with information to be interpreted on each slide.  Pupils must record an audio or video clip for each slide with an explanation.  Play back to group, possibly with some peer assessment.  Can also be exported as a video clip.

Example: Year 7 students (Wikid Science – Extinction) are asked to interpret the graphs and say what they mean.

Completing presentations

Using a partially completed presentation you would ask students to complete it.  This could include adding suitable graphics to text already created (or vice versa) or adding existing information to a scaffold.

Example: In this writing frame I would ask students to add information to each slide from planning through to conclusions and present it.  Students can add extra information and peer assessment information about the content.  To differentiate the activity, add more detail to the scaffold (e.g. sub-steps).  Students then present to another group or the whole class.

Story telling

Ask students to prepare the narration and present to a pre-created presentation.  This is similar to adding narration but is simpler to organise and doesn’t require microphones.

Example: In this presentation on the water cycle (from the TES resources site) students have to explain what is happening and present to another group of pupils (or the whole group depending on numbers)

Multiple choice questions

Just as it sounds – using a presentation with a quiz, let pupils answer the questions individually at computers, or on the IWB in a group.  If you search Google you can find pre-created templates, or you could make your own.

Example: Multiple choice quiz on plant classification.  Plays a different sound for right and wrong answers.

I hope you found some of these ideas useful.  Please leave a comment below (or via the contact me form at the top of the page) if you did, or if you have any questions.