15 Minutes Well Spent

Alan November's Ted Talk

This is worth watching. It confirms and illustrates in typical Alan November style,  what many of us believe about education and the direction good practice in learning should take.



This sort of teaching and learning may prove quite challenging initially. Schools probably aren't set up for it. Teachers and students may have difficulty adopting new teaching and learning strategies as the responsibility for learning shifts quite heavily onto the learners' shoulders. Isn't that where the responsibility for learning should lie?

 Teachers as facilitators, empowered students who make good choices, problem solve and publish work worth sharing with others; have got to be steps in the right direction.

ICT Project-A Better World- Creating Global Connections through Global Issues

The 6th grade students have been working on a multimedia project this CAL period, which has focused their attention on global issues. This is a collaborative project which has now extended beyond the ABC walls and is currently shared by two other schools. These schools are both located in the United States.

During the project students have: researched global issues, collaboratively written a group rap song (based on one issue) using Google Docs, performed Google Advanced searches for Creative Commons licensed media, “Blabberized” images so as to create speaking avatars, mixed musical loops and recorded their raps using GarageBand, edited and dubbed their videos in iMovie and uploaded their work, including a reflection to the project Wiki.
This was a great project which enabled students to learn many new skills, add a number of digital tools to their tool kits, enjoy each step in their learning and share their work with other schools as well as the entire world. The projects can be viewed at our “A Better World” Wiki. Enjoy!

Working with Prezi

This is the second year we have used Prezi as our presentation platform for 8th grade ICT. This year however, was special! We got to use Prezi Meeting for the first time, while creating presentations on student tours of France. This was a collaborative initiative between ICT and the French Dept wherein the students researched destinations, bookmarked and annotated websites using Diigo Groups,  tweeted their findings and finally wrote up their presentation in French and created a Prezi to go along with it.

 The power for Prezi Meeting is the ability awarded users to edit simultaneously, present and view the changes each member of the group makes while they are making them.

Please take a look at our French Prezi  Project Gallery.

The following is a short video of our students working on the project.