Having a go at My Brainshark

I've been meaning to try this for ages and I am doing a presentation shortly so I thought I would trial my Brainshark with some of my own photos. We had a fabulous holiday and i would thoroughly recommend this company if you get to Port Douglas for your reef trip!

However my main point is that you can use this site for adding commentary to any documents, powerpoint or photoshow and I think it has great potential for inspiring better presentations by our pupils, as well as enlivening materials we put together. I might be tempted by the pro version in order to refine security, notifications and so on.

Have a watch!



Forgive the amateur commentary but I set myself the task of recording really fast with no script, just to see how manageable it was. I am impressed at how feasible it is to make a good -looking presentation and I will be able to set my pupils a more interesting way of preparing their work. 

Presenting for colleagues

I was pleased to have the chance to put together some ideas for colleagues at school recently - I must admit - with a little trepidation - it's not easy presenting to teachers, I think. Well, I did the presentation and enjoyed presenting and sharing. So I tried to present my journey, my inspiration for the engagement with "Web 2 tools" - soooo 2005! according to my techie son - I'll have to change the terminology.
I have learned a lot from the MFL Twitterati, who share so well and also from the MFL ICT conferences which have been excellent.
It was pleasing to get positive reactions from my colleagues in other departments so I put my presentation on slideshare and found that many people enjoyed discovering slideshare also! I was grateful for this positive feedback and encouragement - I am nowhere compared to the speakers I watch in my turn, but there are still many professionals working away on their own, needing support and feeding with new ideas, grateful for a bit of something new or a reminder of something they have forgotten. Here's my presentation - simple but a reasonable starting point, which won't overload.

Web 2 tools presentation june12

View more PowerPoint from Valerie Mcintyre

Livebinder for teachers

I just found this link on Twitter the other day and was delighted with the fabulous comprehensive content. Maybe you are very familiar with this guy, but I thought the link was worth investigating in detail. Great stuff Tim and thank you for such a brilliant overview of the tools available for teachers in such a good filing system! Tim lists hundreds of tools in types within his filing system. I particularly want to try more of the curation tools - livebinder, symbaloo, pinterest, linoit,- museumbox looked good for History teachers.

http://www.livebinders.com/play/play_or_edit/365641

Mind your shoulders!

I have been a bit quiet for some time - I am a Head of Department and I find it very hard to make as much time as I would like for writing my own posts, doing the business of reflection, sharing new materials or just writing about the stuff I do in class with ordinary kids, day to day. Like most teachers, I live with guilt about it too!
However any computer activity has had to be curtailed as I found that I was getting RSI in my right shoulder and mouse hand.
Very common apparently - physios deal with lots of us and the modern world is causing a lot of shoulder injury.

To look after yourself - always stretch your shoulders regularly. Keep your shoulders down and back, keep your neck moving and try to keep the mouse nearer to your body for example.
If you use a laptop, get a stand, buy a separate keyboard and mouse and use them at the correct height for you - you need to be looking straight at the screen at eye level.

You need to get the levels of inflammation down and then do exercises to build up upper body strength too, which can be problematic for women of a certain age also! See your doctor and don't ignore your aching shoulder! All for now, before I set it off again.