A revision slide presentation I made for Unit B181 - Understanding the Leisure and Tourism Industries:

A series of revision films I made for GCSE Leisure and Tourism (OCR) - Unit B181 - Understanding the Leisure and Tourism Industries:          

We use ClickView across the school to stream videos from our online library - for those who have not seen it ClickView is an online video platform, in our case containing our 1,600+ videos, plus access to another 11,000+ in the ClickView Exchange. With our staff moving over to Chromebooks it gets us over the lack of a DVD drive and also moves much of the content watching out of lesson time.     ClickView have now added direct sharing to Google Classroom, using the recently released API’s - allowing staff to directly share a video into Google Classroom without the need to leave ClickView. (Seemed appropriate to pop the video in ClickView)

I made this document for a staff training session on Google Classroom - feel free to copy and use if you want to.. Getting Started with Google Classroom For more detail the Google Classroom Help Centre is also quite useful.

  When it comes to one off events (such as Open Evening) I use Guidebook to build a mobile app to support the event. The free account gives access to most of the features and enables you to have up to 200 downloads on the App - so far I have not had an event reach this limit. The site uses a fairly easy drag and drop method to build up the app, which can then be published to Windows, iOS and Android devices. You can include a schedule for the event and a "What to See" area to list features (in my case areas of the school which are open for parents to visit). You can also use it to link back to Social Media, such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The result is a professional looking guide produced in a relatively short amount of time.   

Gizmodo featured an article a few days ago on 15 Technologies that were supposed to change education forever.  I was struck by how many of these technologies tablets are trying to address today.  The nostalgic pictures alone are worth the read.  As always share your thoughts below in the comments section. Enjoy! 15 Technologies That Were Supposed to Change Education Forever

As an educational technology advocate and a "tech-savvy teacher," I am always a little cynical of adopting any system, strategy or philosophy that promises to create universal or mass appeal for students. I am reminded by works like Why don’t kids like school? by Daniel Willingham that the teaching of students is a complex business and often shortcuts don’t bring desired results. I feel the same way about the energy around gamification: I do think there is something here but it is something we can draw from in the way we can plan and deliver instruction.  I am not sure if it is the answer to the motivation and engagement questions in a K-12 classroom, but, it couldn’t hurt to explore. There are two great pieces that you should review on the topic. In a post on Lifehacker this week, Thorin Klosowski doesn’t an excellent job looking at the topic, including the psychological power behind the model and the interesting admission that it doesn’t work for him.  There is excellent advice here on caveats about the model and the notion that context matters. You should also view Paul Anderson’s talk on game design in the classroom at 2012′s TedX in Bozeman, Montana.  What I love about this specific talk is that while it acknowledges the power in the framework, it can’t along overcome some weaknesses our diverse student body, like the lack of deep reading skills of some students: What do you think?  Hit is up in the comments about where you think gamification could be a winner in our educational system?  

Thanks to everyone who responded to our blog post on Wednesday for your chance to win a free registration to NCCE’s 2015 Conference in Portland! The  two winners are Andrea Miles from Eisenhower Middle School in Everett, WA, and Michele Stern from Ferndale High School in Ferndale, WA! Congratulations!

What could you do for two dollars?  That is a question Julien asked himself four years ago in the sixth grade.  His answer: He wants to change the world.  Many people, young and old, have big ideas that fade overtime, but not Julien.  He is a great example of how social media can give students a global voice.  As a middle school student, Julien founded the Archimedes Alliance to do his part to fight world hunger. Where did the Archimedes Alliance come from? A 13-year-old boy saw a world filled with hunger, poverty and disease and he wanted to change it, but he didn’t have a million dollars lying around. And he knew there were other 13-year-olds like him. And 30-year-olds. And 83-year-olds. And he was inspired by Archimedes, the Greek philosopher and mathematician who said, "give me a lever long enough and a place to stand, and I can move the Earth."  The Archimedes Alliance is that place to stand. You are the lever. Together, we will move the Earth. Last year Julien spoke at the TEDx conference in Portland about the power of social media to create change: Giving students an opportunity to find there voice on the global stage is so important.  Do they have to start a charity? No, but even just showing students that there is more to social media then videos of cats, video game cheats, and epic fails sets students on a path to do more with social media. Support Julien at www.archimedesalliance.com Who knows, you might just help him change the world.

Well that got your attention, right? We are dabbling with a new feature at the NCCE blog called Tech Savvy Writing Prompts.  The idea: Everyone loves a good writing prompt + most kids love technology topics + Tech savvy geeks = Mind Blowing Tech Savvy Writing Prompts.  Our goal is to provide a high quality graphic (image cited) with a thought provoking prompt.  Depending on your interest, this may become a regular feature.  We really want this to be a useful site to our readers and we hope this useful.  Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.  This prompt was inspired by Jake Knapp’s My Year with a Distraction-Free iPhone.  And now for the Greatest Writing Prompt Ever Created: The post The greatest writing prompt ever created! appeared first on NCCE's Tech-Savvy Teacher Blog.