Because of Liam....

This post is dedicated to Liam Dunphy (@liamdunphy) who has done so much for me and my teaching pedagogy this year. He does so much and gets little in return, so here is my tribute to one person who has been one of the biggest influences on my teaching.


Because of Liam, I’m using technology more in the classroom.

Because of Liam, I want to use more technology in my classroom

Because of Liam, I’ve enjoyed teaching using technology.

Because of Liam, I’m on twitter.

Because of Liam, I longer no just follow Ashton Kutcher on Twitter.

Because of Liam, I have a twitter addiction.

Because of Liam, Liz & I are trying to out do each other on twitter.

Because of Liam, I’m now connected with other educators around the world.

Because of Liam, I’ve got my class to interact with other classes around the world.

Because of Liam, my class connected with Van Meter Iowa.

Because of Liam, my class has created an advert for Australia that was viewed in Iowa and around the world.

Because of Liam, I participated in #ccGlobal.

Because of Liam, my class swapped Christmas greetings with other classes around the world.

Because of Liam, my class was mentioned in the Sydney Morning Herald for the work we have been doing with schools in other countries.

Because of Liam, I’ve lost the amount of educational websites I’ve now joined.

Because of Liam, Liz and I have changed the way we teach and view technology.

Because of Liam, Liz and I have sort out new furniture the primary at our school through Bizfurn.

Because of Liam, I can’t wait to teach next year in the new classroom.

Because of Liam, I go to Teachmeet and am looking at hosting one next year.

Because of Liam, I now want a tablet or other fancy IT device.

Because of Liam, I’ve checked twitter numerous times whilst writing this.

Because of Liam, each statement starts with a conjunction.

Because of Liam, you are reading this.

Because of Liam, my teaching pedagogy has completely changed.

THANK S LIAM.

If anyone else has a because of Liam please comment and I’ll post it after mine.

ccGlobal Christmas Message

Welcome to my Blog. I'm new at this so please bear with me.

A little about me first, then I'll go into a project I've been working on in school with my class.

My Name is Andrew Allmark. I'm a Yr 5 teacher at St Augustine's College. I'm jumping into technology and loving what it can do for me as a teacher. I'm always (like we all are) looking for new ideas and ways to teach kids in the classroom. I'm into my sports (AFL, Cricket)  and music (Foo Fighters), big time, and I'm slowly taking up photography (need plenty of help here). Follow me on twitter @andallm.

What I've noticed this year is that the world, and teaching world, is becoming a smaller place and social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Skype have played a big part in this. This has made it easier for teachers to collaborate around the world.

It's great to see that there are so many teachers all over the world looking to collaborate with one another and also do some lessons and activities together. My grade partner Liz (@lizarmenio twitter name) and I have being working closely with a school in Iowa, VanMeter. We have created an advert on encouraging people to come to Australia for them to view and comment on, and have also got the classes in different countries to write a Xmas book together using My Ebook (http://www.myebook.com)/

By doing this we have seen a new engagement and focus in the boys and an excitement in them doing their work that we just haven't seen before.

Liam Dunphy (@liamdunphy twitter name) decided to take the whole global classroom phenomenon one step further and created ccGlobal (http://ccglobal.ning.com/?xg_source=msg_mes_network). For December he and other teachers came up with the idea of getting students to send Christmas/holiday messages to each other using qr codes.

I took up on this idea with no idea what a qr code was or how to make one. After watching Liz go through the process and creating a great message with her class, it only inspired me further. I talked it over with the boys in my class and we decided to read to the world 'An Aussie Night Before Christmas' adapted by Yvonne Morrison.

The boys relished participating in this project and all thoroughly enjoyed themselves. All boys participated and wanted to be involved. They only had about 2 lines each but they practiced reading them, adding expression to the voice and making sure they made no errors.

My next task was to upload the video somewhere and create the qr code. Creating the qr code was easy, just go to http://www.qrstuff.com/. Uploading the video was the hard part. First, I tried Voice Thread but had trouble trying to view it with the qr reader. I then went to glogster (http://www.glogster.com/) and couldn't believe how simple it was to create a poster/blog. One other thing is that it turned out much more visually appealing than I could have ever imagined. Great results and will definitely use it again and introduce the students to it.

A big thanks to Liam and Liz for all there help.

Here's a link to the ccGlobal Message http://mrallmark.edu.glogster.com/5accglobalxmas and the QR code. Have a look and comment.

Oh and Merry Xmas to all and a Safe and enjoyable New Year.