Useful Apps
No Hands
This allows you to type in the names of all your students in each class you teach, add what time you teach them, then can be used as an overlay in the corner of a PPT to randomly select names for questions - great when you're not sure of everyone's names!
If you have any trouble setting it up, Matt Kennedy is also a whizz :-)
Bomb Countdown
Scares the students to death but gets their attention back! It won't stop bombing of it's own accord so make sure you can easily get to the computer to turn it off!
Starting Off on the Right Foot
An extract from a newspaper article in PDP:
Don't start with the "rules lesson." Instead of lectureing them, do something that makes them go "Whoa!" Take a risk. Surprise them. Delight them.This (sort of) fitted in with watching Sister Act 2 today (cringe!) She does this 3 lesson in, the one after they glue her bum to her chair :-S
Red, Amber, Green Trays
Following a lesson or assessment - ask students to place their books / papers into one of three trays depending on how well they think they understood the lesson.
Dish Up the DIRT
D = Dedictaed
I = Improvement (&)
R = Reflection
T = Time
Find time for students to work on their own or together to improve their work (provide a checklist for this to happen!)
Learning Objectives
Separate learning objective from context and include "success criteria" so that students know how they can achieve those objectives!
Just purchased labels so they can stick them into their books - one attempt at getting them to write it down turned out to be terrible!
Also, after a colourful display of language from a girl I had otherwise considered to be very well spoken, I'm going to try to give them cards if they say a swear word and get them to write down 5 alternative words they could have used - may go horrendously wrong but I thought it was worth a try!
