Saturday, January 26, 2013

Worth watching - Sir Ken Robinson's thoughts on Creativity, Imagination and Innovation

I found this on Sir Ken Robinson's Twitter stream (which I follow) and it resonated with me.

It is also rather apt for my school at the moment as well. Lots of food for thought here - it could be a great springboard for discussion!

Friday, January 25, 2013

An Awesome App for Mathematics

I got an iPad mini late last year and have been having a lot of fun looking into different Apps and how I might use them for Teaching and Learning during the holidays.

One that caught my attention is 'Folidfy', mainly because there are quite a number of children I worked with last year who love lego, Minecraft and Eden and were not always easy to engage. I was looking for something that would help them build or papercraft real life models of what they had created in a virtual space.

During the last few weeks of school there was a core group of boys who had been busy creating nets or skins of characters and sets created in Minecraft so they could create a stop motion movie about this world they had created, but it was really tricky for them to get the resolution right so that they could make models in a range of sizes. I think that this app may open up some possibilities for them to experience a little more success and at the same time, develop an understanding of lots of concepts related to both Mathematics and Visual Design.

Have a look at this little video I made using another App called 'Explain Everything'. It is pretty rough as it's the first time I've used it.

As you watch just think and IMAGINE the possibilities that Play, Exploration and Questioning using Technology present to us as learners and educators!

Enjoy...