Month: March 2010

Superhero Ideas That Didn’t Make It Through the Revolving Doors

Curriculum, Literacy, SuperheroesPublished onUpdated on11 Comments on Superhero Ideas That Didn’t Make It Through the Revolving Doors

Earlier this year we completed a very successful Superheroes topic in school. However many of the initial ideas I had never made it out of the revolving doors, so to speak.

One of the biggest influences for ideas and content was discovering the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company and the spin off thoughts that occurred. The Superhero Supply store is a real shop in Brooklyn which sells all sorts of hero paraphernalia, from capes to muscles in a tin. Behind a swinging bookcase is of course a secret lair, a children’s writing and tutoring workshop.

BSHS Front

The Superhero Supply Company is part of 826 National a non-profit organisation in the US to help support school children with homework and writing. Established by Dave Eggers it now has “stores” across the country with a simple aim:

Our goal is to assist students ages six to eighteen with their writing skills, and to help teachers get their classes excited about writing.

Of course what struck me about the concept and especially the Superhero online store, was the level of meta fiction that could be explored. This topic can easily focus on the comic book fiction but the mundaneness of shopping for a suitable replacement cape struck me as such a great idea to work with.

  • Turn your classroom into a store for Superheroes.
  • Try and find a mannequin that you could use to show a superhero outfit.
  • Use the Pixar film The Incredibles.
  • What happens in the everyday life of a Superhero?
  • In drama explore everyday routines with a superhero costume on – queuing for a bus, picking up some milk from the shop.

Brooklyn Superhero Supply Co The online store provided me with a rich vein of ideas for writing beyond children’s own fictional heroes.

The persuasive language used to sell the special products on offer would be a great text to unpick. For example on sale at the online store is Item No. 2503 – STANDARD 58″ SUPERHERO CAPE.

For over two centuries, the BSSCo. Standard 58″ Superhero Cape has been the industry standard in fly-wear for professional heroes. Every cape we ship meets all Superhero Alliance and FAA regulation requirements, and is specially designed for maximum flight control and resistance to air burn.

If you’re a working, flying superhero, the Standard 58″ Superhero Cape is a must-have. Because let’s face it. Without one, you’re just some guy who looks like he’s falling.

Available in a variety of colors.

4447594737 9acfe091c5 oThe act of exploring the sophisticated persuasive devices used in the short product descriptions would be an excellent class activity.

  • Develop your own online Superhero Supply store.
  • Invite children to bring in toys and gadgets that could be rebranded as hero gear.
  • Model how to write a similarly persuasive piece for their own gadgets.
  • Children could role play the real life store or an order by telephone- Superhero and sales assistant, “I’m looking for something a little darker…”
  • Develop a customer newsletter from the store or a flyer.
  • What other things might we find in tins? Muscles, gravity – create your own Hero Basics range
  • Script a radio or TV commercial as a Superhero endorses the store.

Further to these ideas we looked at how the children could design and make their own superhero costumes. This could be done so that they could wear them and then use them in subsequent drama and fictional work.

On reflection we did think that full size costumes for each child might end up quite a complex operation, so considered three alternatives. (1) To buy lots of dolls that could be dressed in miniature (2) Invite some local fashion design students to help (3) Creating a utility belt may be a design project that would allow children to work individually.

Accompanying these little design and make projects children could provide instruction manuals for the products that are created, such as the functions of the belt or the unique features of their cape.

Of course the stores have real products and their sale raises money for the 826 tutoring programmes and running costs. Each store has a different style as explained on the 826 National web page:

San Francisco’s pirate supply store sells glass eyes and one-of-a-kind peglegs, 826NYC’s Superhero Supply Company offers custom-fit capes, Seattle’s Greenwood Space Travel Supply Company sells all your space commuting appurtenances, 826michigan’s Liberty Street Robot Supply & Repair Shop specializes in must-have mechanical conveniences, while 826LA features a time travel store, there’s a secret agent supply store in Chicago, and the Cryptozoology shop in Boston is now open!

Spend any amount of time browsing the products available in the online store and you are bound to be inspired.

It is unfortunate I never got to put some of the ideas I have outlined into action, but I hope that sharing them here may give you the opportunity.

Pic: Jeffrey O. Gustafson

Marmite: Love it or Hate it? – Using Google Forms and Twitter

Google Docs, Maths, My class, Networks, TwitterPublished onUpdated on10 Comments on Marmite: Love it or Hate it? – Using Google Forms and Twitter

Over the next two weeks in our year 5 class we will be exploring data investigation and the tools with which we can use to undertake them. The first three days of this week we will be looking at some technology that can enhance data handling and make our life easier. In today’s session we learned about Google Forms and I demonstrated how they work with the help of my Twitter network.

We wanted to achieve three things from our maths session today

  1. Make a short survey using a Google Form.
  2. Complete other people’s surveys and get a feel for the process.
  3. Review the data added to our own and explore some of the ways it is represented.

After placing the lesson in the context you see in the first paragraph, I began the session by explaining that I was going to use my Twitter network to help demonstrate how we can use Google Forms to collect data.

I spent some time with the class going through the process of creating a Form from the Google Docs home screen and then adding my questions and running through the different types of questions you can use. We talked a lot about how this type of data collection is only good for some occasions and a pencil and paper method can still be the best way. It is a matter of choosing the most appropriate.

The class would be making a simple favourites or preference type survey and so our shared one was similar. You can see it embedded in the post below.

Once complete, I sent out the link to this to my Twitter network (Look at the bottom of the Form edit page for the link – I used bit.ly to shorten it for Twitter, more on that later!) I did this because I wanted the children to see data being added, I wanted to demonstrate the moment of data submission from the Google Form. This also helps the children see how a spreadsheet is linked to the form. (15 minutes)

We switched to the spreadsheet and the children thought it was rather magical as the responses started to drop into the cells as we watched. I reminded them that as soon as someone clicks SUBMIT we were seeing the result.

The children then worked in groups of three with a single laptop (2 groups per table) – one of the children signed into their Google Docs (part of Google Apps for Education) account and created their own “Favourites” Google Form. To keep the children focused I asked them to only give 5 choices for their questions otherwise they tend to get longwinded and only create one or two questions. (15 minutes)

One of the useful things about writing up lesson experiences on my blog is that it is wonderful to go back and look at what I learned and make adjustments to lessons. With some of these things in mind, once the groups had made their Forms, rather than share via email etc (this just adds a complication) we clicked on the Live Form link at the foot of the page.

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So everyone had on their laptop screens their form and I asked them to simply change places with those on their table and complete each others’ surveys. They then moved around the classroom adding their responses to other forms from other groups. Although it is nice to share via email, in my experience of working with Google Forms and lots of children it is much easier to move the children rather than share the Form. The children certainly got more responses this way and contributed more, there was less in the way.

4436414860 2d23642d09After each child had submitted their responses they clicked on the Go Back to the form link which reset the form for the next child – this worked out really well. (15 minutes)

Up to this point the children were able to appreciate how Google Forms is a great way to gather information and how it organises it for us in the spreadsheet.

Back at their own Google Form the children spent some time exploring the results Summary page to look at how their data can be represented. (5 minutes)

As a class we returned to our Edu Favourites survey of educators in my Twitter network. By the end of my second session we had over 125 responses and it was a great pool of data to explore. Real data from real people that we literally witnessed being entered. I was able to ask children lots of questions from how it was represented. It proved to be a great plenary. Here are the results from the survey, there are currently 170 responses – thankyou if you were one of them. (5 minutes)

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As a final exploration of this whole process you could explore the link data. I used bit.ly to shorten the long Google Form URL. bit.ly provides traffic data, with a free account, and you can show the class where the people clicking on the form are from. Currently there have been 269 clicks on the Edu Favourites form link and here is where everyone is from.

Datahandling Locations

You could even do some work on how many didn’t fill in the form and compare it to those who did.

Thankyou for taking the time to help with our maths lesson today, I am always so grateful for your contributions – and some of you have even gone away wondering what Marmite is – life will never be the same again. By the way I hate it too!

The Curriculum Catalyst – Stage 2 – Contribute Your Ideas

CurriculumPublished on4 Comments on The Curriculum Catalyst – Stage 2 – Contribute Your Ideas

The Curriculum Catalyst is about the online education community coming together to produce practical resources that we can all use to support curriculum development.

At the end of last weekend the Catalyst had over 280 topic ideas for the curriculum and over 70 people had voted more that 3000 times for a top topic. It turned out to be SEALIFE and since then I have created an open Google Document to collate our ideas for the topic. (Stage 2)

The document already has over 50 crowd-sourced sealife ideas (thanks for your help so far) for teaching and learning including:

  • Subject specific lesson activities
  • Books to support the Sealife topic
  • Web based resources
  • Details of the Ocean layer in Google Earth
  • Nintendo Wii games that can be used
  • Possibilities for places to visit in the UK
  • DVD titles

I hope that it proves useful in sparking some ideas for you and your staff. Please consider adding a short idea to the document to continue developing it. Don’t forget to just explore the 280+ topic ideas themselves (and vote), maybe there is something there you haven’t thought of.

After a week, so this Sunday, I will repeat the process for the next highest voted topic and create a new ideas document to work on. Currently “Imaginary Creatures” is in the lead. All of the weekly docs will be linked from my blog’s Curriculum Catalyst page.

5 Fledgling “Interesting Ways” Presentations

Interesting WaysPublished on4 Comments on 5 Fledgling “Interesting Ways” Presentations

Currently there are close to 30 different presentations exploring Interesting Ways to use a whole variety of different types of technology in the classroom.

Here are a few of the most recent fledgling resources, please let me know if you would like to contribute by adding an idea.

Don’t forget to explore the rest of the Interesting Ways resources.

The Curriculum Catalyst – Stage 1.5 – Which crowd-sourcing tool?

Curriculum, NetworksPublished on4 Comments on The Curriculum Catalyst – Stage 1.5 – Which crowd-sourcing tool?

The Curriculum Catalyst has made a great start, it is only a few days old but 61 people have submitted 193 ideas and cast 1,896 votes. Thankyou to all of you who have helped so far.

Out of those 193 topic ideas will emerge one. For Stage 2 we will take that topic and crowd-source ideas, over the course of just a week, in a single space that will then be a resource for other teachers to use. After that is done we will turn our attention to voting for the next topic to develop and so on…

But which tool should we use to collaborate and gather our ideas?

The most important feature must be the ability to print a well formatted document. The printed page will have more influence, difficult as it might be to admit, to the vast majority of teachers. It can be copied and passed around, pinned on the notice board and shoved into pigeon holes.

Which tool will give us the crowd-sourcing freedom and access as well as the quality printed outcome?

I have been thinking this through and although Google Docs is terrible at printing, if the document is a straightforward heading /sub-heading / bullet list type of document it will export well to PDF and print well too. This will allow us the collaborative power of docs as well as the simple process of contributing a bullet point to a list.

What do you think? Do you have any ideas for tools that would fit perfectly for what we need for Stage 2? I would appreciate your help.