Inspiring TeachMeet at Microsoft
On Monday 4 June Microsoft hosted its second TeachMeet at its Johannesburg offices. Teachmeets are the new informal type of professional development where teachers share for three minutes by means of a laptop and data projector on something they have done in their classrooms involving technology integration. Approximately 120 teachers, including officials from the Department of Education in Gauteng and North West Province gathered to hear what the 13 presenters had to say.
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It is just day or two before the greatly anticipated Google Teacher Academy, and I thought I would take a look at what some of the other 49 attendees get up to in their daily technology explorations. This podcasting site, TeacherCast http://podcast.teachercast.net/ caught my attention. It is hosted by Jeffrey Bradbury, one of the Google attendees, and it contains many really interesting educational podcasts, blog posts, app reviews and much more! I follow Jeffrey Bradbury o...
Submitted by Fiona Beal
In a few days time (on the 3rd and 4th October) 50+ excited educators from the United States, Mexico, Canada, Colombia, the Czech Republic and South Africa (that’s me) will be descending on New York to attend the Google Teacher Academy New York 2012. These educators have been selected from the hundreds of applications from around the world, so undoubtedly many interested folk will be following the #GTANY Twitter hashtag to get a glimpse of the proceedings.
I love the way ...
Submitted by Fiona Beal
The Google Teacher Academy is not really all that well known in South Africa yet, but in countries like the USA, Britain and Australia, teachers who are interested in integrating the curriculum with technology clamour to attend. Just as Microsoft has its popular products and free tools, Google provides very useful programs such as Blogger blogs, Google Forms, Google Chrome with its huge selection of extensions designed to make browsing a dream, and Google Reader as a place to r...
Details
Three superb short presentations on ‘Learn the news’, ‘Brainpop’ and “Prezi’ presented by Mary Lou Berndt, a teacher in East London on Thursday from 6pm till 6:30pm.
Background
Last week I had the privilege of attending the first TeachMeet in the Eastern Cape which was co-hosted by Stirling Primary School and Clarendon Primary School in East London, but held at Stirling Primary this time round. The two enthusiastic teacher organisers were Claire Dean...
Recently we had a very interesting email from a teacher in Seattle who is a librarian at her school. She would like to donate some books to a school in South Africa and also set up a Skype collaboration with a teacher at this school. Here is an extract from the email…
“We have 5-6 boxes of brand new paperback picture and chapter books sitting in our school that are not being used. I have a dream of putting them in the hands of an impoverished school where need a library or need books. I’d l...
Recently we asked our SchoolNet premium members to vote for the Adobe Youth Voices media project they thought was the best. (https://www.schoolnet.org.za/2012/09/south-african-teachersplease-help.html) We had 39 people vote and this is a great gesture of commitment as it was no small feat to download and watch all the projects. What a dedicated team of premium members we have!! Here are the results:
Winner
Title: Rise of Racism and Hazardous Stereotyping
Educator: Maropeng TL Monareng
Prize: wins...
Recently I have become very aware of the benefits of YouTube for an educator. There are amazing resources for the classroom – one can so easily start making a collection of useful clips that can add spice to your daily lessons.
Here are some ideas:
1. Chop videos using TubeChop
(http://www.tubechop.com/)
Using TubeChop you can cut interesting bits out of a YouTube video and keep the link. (If you wanted to download it you would probaby have to use Screencastomatic to record the clip)
&...
Submitted by Fiona Beal
On Wednesday 29th August at 6pm I made my way to the Helderberg Basin’s second TeachMeet. This was held at the beautiful Cape Dutch style school Somerset House in Somerset West and I knew I was in for a treat. If you as a teacher have never been to a TeachMeet, please consider it – you come away inspired and enthusiastic and you just want to try EVERYHING that was recommended.
Teachers appeared from all around Somerset West, ready for an engaging evening. Somerset...
Please help SchoolNet vote for the best media project
If you are a South African teacher we invite you to consider assisting SchoolNet with judging the best Adobe Youth Voices media project for 2012? The teachers who were selected into the project worked with their students to create a film that give a voice to youth concerns. The film that is chosen by our premium members as the best media project carries with it a WONDERFUL prize for the teach...
