Comments

By robert, January 31, 2010 8:53 pm

I posted a while ago about using Google Custom Search with children who need a little extra help.  Google have since updated their Custom Search facility and I thought it was worth posting an update (to save people wasting time fiddling as I had to).

Google Custom Search is extremely useful because you can set it to search over a list of pre-selected sites, knowing that learners will be getting the results you want them to see.  It’s also a good tool to use with an interactive whiteboard so no unexpected results come up on screen (even the most innocent of keywords can bring up some dubious results!).

To use Google Custom Search you need a webpage that you can embed the HTML code in – I use Google Sites which is free and simple to configure.  Follow the steps below and create your own custom search engines.  You can even add a logo to your results (and remove adverts if you are a school or non-profit) but I haven’t shown these steps in my guide.

Set up your search engine and enter a list of sites to search 

Once your search engine is set up, follow these steps from the ‘Control panel’

Pick a style and get the code to put on your website

Copy and paste the code and then go to your site to embed it.  These pictures are from Google sites

Use these options to change where the search engine appears on the page, and the size of the search engine box.

Save your page and the custom search engine is ready for use.

Comments

By Rob, December 30, 2009 9:40 pm

• Disable sharing outside of the domain unless you know need this functionality.
• Make sure pupils are aware of the sharing status of their own site.
  
• Have all pupils tag their Google site with a class or even site-wide tag so make monitoring easy
  

Google – you need to add an easy way of checking if any of your employees are leaking company information by mistake!

Comments

By Rob, July 19, 2009 6:23 pm

I’ve managed to set up a joint science group between pupils at my own school and another class at a local mainstream school.  Pupils will be working together on the mainstream site, with team teaching from staff of both schools.

Clearly working in this way makes planning hard, since the staff involved are on different sites 2 miles apart.  In the past when we’ve worked in this way we’ve had to meet up and plan in blocks of lessons, emailing resources and materials between sites.  However this time we’ve decided to use technology to make life easier! I chose Google Sites since we already have a Google Apps account for school, and I’ve used it before for personal sites.

The site is a little bare at the moment since we haven’t planned much of the course.  However you can see how the site is starting to take shape, with individual modules down the left hand side.

Within each topic I’ve added an overview of the topic as a table, and individual sub-pages for each lesson.  Clicking on a lesson brings up an outline lesson plan and all the resources added as attachments.

The real beauty of working this way is that either party can add, delete and edit content, and the site always shows an up-to-date copy of the plans.  Another huge advantage is the ability to subscribe to changes – meaning you can opt to receive an email when changes are made to the site by staff from either school.

As the collaboration develops, we will be using Google Docs to jointly create and edit assessment material, and also to track pupils’ progress.

I’ll keep posting through the year and report on our progress.  I’d also be interested to hear from anyone who uses a wiki or similar to manage collaboration of any kind.

Comments

By Rob, July 18, 2009 6:00 pm

I have a website on which I upload resources I want to share with other teachers.  It is hosted on Google Sites which means it is simple to administer and free of charge.  I never bothered to advertise it, apart from mentioning it here on my blog, and posting a sample resource and link on the TES site.

I’ve been pretty amazed at the number of people (presumably teachers and teaching assistants) who have found my resources online.  I’m getting 20 to 40 hits a day which I was quite pleased with.  In the three weeks since I uploaded the BTEC Science resources, 230 people have followed the link from the TES site and the BTEC resources have had 800 page views (according to Google Analytics).

I attribute the popularity of these resources to the price (FREE!) and the fact that there are very few BTEC Science resources on the market despite the spiralling popularity of the course.  My head told me I ought to sell my resources commercially through a publisher, but that means polishing them further, and filling them out to cover more topics.  Having seen the dubious quality of many published SEN resources from authors who seem to have done just that I didn’t want to go down that route.  All of my resources were created to use with specific classes and not for cash.

After completing my NPQH I returned to the classroom as an AST because of my passion for science teaching and ensuring students have the best possible science education.  If giving my resources away means more teachers using them in their classrooms and enhancing the science education of their students then that is reward enough.  Ultimately I want to see teachers taking my ideas and techniques and using them with their own pupils to improve science provision for all.

That is why I give my science resources away!

(And that’s why I like to hear from people who use them!  If you use my resources in your science lessons, leave a comment below and let me know what you think of them!)