Thursday, May 28, 2009

Chess

Turns out chess is good for students.

Teaching King Lear

I have just started King Lear again with a class. This time it is Year 11 - the difference is that this is the first class to have laptops. It is a new challenge to engage the students as they learn, using the powerful tool they have at their disposal.

Today was our third class. After two periods of intro, mini dramas and raising the importance of the introduction - I had them do some laptop work.

Students were each required to choose a minimum of two lines from the first four scenes of the play - learn them, recite and video them (along with an explanation) and upload them to the school's intranet.

They were able to do all this in 20 minutes from start to finish.

Below is one example:


Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Gaming Module for Year 9

Today I start planning a new module of work for Year 9 English class. Students spend more time gaming than reading by choice, and therefore it makes sense to me for us as Teachers to examine and educate about gaming.

No doubt students will teach us more about games than we know, but walking through the development process will be a great learning experience for both teacher and student in the classroom.

I am looking at using Game Salad as my creation tool - so I am off to learn how to use it!

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

The Start

So it begins...