images

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mamchenkov/113248878/

A phone?

No not just any phone - next week I am teaching a class about office equipment and why and how its used the office. So that's why this photo is an educational resource. I'm still searching to find one that it taken from more of a front on angle but if I don't I'll be taking the camera to work. A image is as close to the actual piece of equipment as I will get in the lesson I am teaching - so a good image is a very important resource.

Cliche but true - a picture can say a thousand words. Verbal explanation is good, and as a teacher being able to verbally explain and teach certain information is a tool that needs to be developed and maintained but verbal explanation isn't always enough. If you want to class to all picture the same thing the easiest way to do it is to show them. For example trying to explain the phone pictured above. It's dark grey, has a number of buttons, the phone is connected to the handset.... It doesn't work. Showing the picture and explaining the functions of the phone is much more effective.

Until this week I thought that flickr.com was just a site for sharing photos but I now know that by clicking on Creative Commons I am able to safely use images from the Attribution Licence section and acknowledging the source of the image without worrying about copyright. This will be a great resource for me as a unviersity student and as a teacher and also for students, as it provides great explanations of the allowed uses for each of the licences.

podcasts

I don't know a single person my age who doesn't have either an ipod, mp3 player or a computer. Podcasts can be listened to on any of these three devices and therefore are an accessible medium for students. They are also effective in helping students learn. In my prac I attend a year 9 English class who are studying Shakespeare. The main difficulties of learning this has been the reading and understanding of the texts. Difficulty with pronounciation has been a major issue. Also although their text has a thesaurus on the side of each page to help with understanding; it is difficult to read both and have the narrative flow. I have found http://www.shakespearecast.com/ which provides podcast downloads of a number of Shakespeare's works. Listening to this would allow students to follow along in their texts. They would then have a greater understanding of the pronounciation and would be easier to check meaning.

I haven't yet created my own podcast but will get onto to.