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View Full Version : Some interesting student centered activity ideas


markrobinson
11-10-2008, 08:54 PM
I had to post this... My wife loves Promethean Planet (too shy to post but an avid downloader!) and she recently downloaded the Halloween Resource pack.

This led to some neat ideas about the Promethean system that I though were worth posting...

1) Quickly saving pages as images.

One idea was to exploit the "Export Page" function (Right Click a page in Activstudio) which allows pages to be saved as JPEG images, Effectively letting students use the software as a painting package. It does not always have to be a lesson that is created with the software. Before she had been printing them out and then scanning them - so this saves lots of time, paper and electricity!

'A' (our rule is we do not put kids names online) had made a poem completely inspired by the Halloween backgrounds.

http://thedragontree.wordpress.com/2008/10/10/halloween-fun-activeboard-style/


2) Having children record the presentation of their flipcharts.

The Screen Recorder was also discovered - and was used to make an immediate recording of 'A' reading out her presentation. The power of this is that the student can use their voice to add emphasis or explain things. A presentation without the actual presenter can be a bit dry and does not always allow a student to "say" what they want to say. I think they we will be doing this a lot more.

Just stick on the Screen Recorder, let it do its stuff - and one file upload later and the result is on YouTube!

http://thedragontree.wordpress.com/2008/10/11/halloween-poem-performed-on-youtube/


3) Using a blog to extend the classroom.. (on in our case our homeschool)

When I was teaching in school I would spend a good time each day making displays for the wall so that parents can see what is going on and the children can feel proud of their work. I also posted a lot online on our school website which was popular.

But free tools like blogs are like an extension of the school display - and it only takes seconds to add a new post base on all the various outputs of the Activclassroom.

When the children start to the see the visitor numbers and analyse the stats to see what people are looking at and searching for they really do take their work much more seriously.

Margaret Allen
12-10-2008, 10:09 AM
Mark this is lovely.... real child centred engagement! [clap][clap]

jvines
15-10-2008, 03:10 AM
I love it! What a great way to help a student be proud of the work they do.

Kaylea
15-10-2008, 04:13 AM
Mark, I love all the great suggestions for actively engaging the students.
After writing descriptive paragraphs, my students took pictures and made their own background. Then they were encouraged to record themselves reading their masterpieces to the class. I plan on using them during parent conference in 2 weeks. For many students, this is the first time they have been excited about their parents coming to school. Think it will also increase parent attendance.
Keep up the good work and share future ideas.[clap]
Bren