mrvanw

[mrvanw]

Inserting Transitions & Animations in Google Slides A question I get asked by colleagues who've switched over to Google Slides from PowerPoint is how to insert animations and transitions into the slides.

[mrvanw]

The Learning Rainforest by Tom Sherrington - there is no Binary in teaching.

The Learning Rainforest by Tom Sherrington – there is no Binary in teaching.

“Are we more concerned with students reaching specific standards in subject disciplines or with developing them as rounded individuals? Can we have both without unacceptable tradeoffs?”

Tom Sherrington The Learning Rainforest, Chapter 1.

The above quote from the first chapter of The Learning Rainforestby Tom Sherrington is essentially the first question I ask whenever I consider the perspective…

[mrvanw]

Running into feedback of my own

Running into feedback of my own

Just before Christmas I started running because I couldn’t get to the gym while we were away. I’m not a runner. Well, I thought I wasn’t. But it seems that I do like it.

Now, by no means am I fast and I’m not going to get fast; I’m for sure a fatty for life. But the thing I’m learning is that I can get faster. Maybe not a lot but I like the challenge there. It feels good. Like many aspects of…

[mrvanw]

Accessibility in the classroom and presentations: Accessibility is not an option

Accessibility in the classroom and presentations: Accessibility is not an option

I’m uncomfortable around teachers who use the phrase “I’m not a computer/tech person”. Always have been, and there are lots of reasons why. For a long time I’ve considered the issue at the heart of it being one based on a certain sense of hypocrisy with teachers pushing for students to be lifelong learners, yet they have this massive area where they not only refuse to grow. But that’s not it, I…

[mrvanw]

Education research and the teaching profession: Barriers and solutions

Education research and the teaching profession: Barriers and solutions

In tonights #AussieEd chat on Twitter this article was shared again. It’s about a year old and given that we’ve hit the cycle of talking about the interaction of teachers and research, again the blog pretty much distills the problems with teachers using academic research in their classrooms.

[mrvanw]

Education research and the teaching profession: Barriers and solutions

Education research and the teaching profession: Barriers and solutions

In tonights #AussieEd chat on Twitter this article was shared again. It’s about a year old and given that we’ve hit the cycle of talking about the interaction of teachers and research, again the blog pretty much distills the problems with teachers using academic research in their classrooms.

[mrvanw]

Behaviour in Australian schools is fine; our media not so much

Behaviour in Australian schools is fine; our media not so much

So we have the 2019 PISA results coming out and OECD releasing its index of disciplinary climate this week. It’s been a big week of teacher bashing in the news. It’s OK. We can take it, we’re all adults who are professionals and understand that the media, politicians and bureaucrats know so much more about my profession than those that are the trained experts on the ground. In fact, you might say…

[mrvanw]

Concatenate in both Excel and Google Sheets

Concatenate in both Excel and Google Sheets

=CONCATENATE

The =CONCATENATE function allows you to string text together in a cell. It works identically in both Sheets and Excel and I really dig it. In the past I’ve used it to create Dashboards that make sense for students.

But now I’ve decided to try and use it to make email lists of students. I’m not sure if you struggle as much as I do to student emails from the databases in large…

[mrvanw]

Splitting Text in cells in both Google Sheets and Excel

Splitting Text in cells in both Google Sheets and Excel

Remember as kids when we first got PCs how we’d play “MS Paint”. Well as an adult apparently I like to play spreadsheets. I’ve decided to make some videos on how the many functions of Excel and Google Sheets work as I play with them.

The two videos below are me describing how to split text in a cell in both Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel. Useful for separating names in a mark book (but any…

[mrvanw]

My accidental book club

My accidental book club - #literacy #AussieEd #Edchat #tmbne

This post was originally written as an outline of my talk at the Teachmeet Brisbane #tmbne hosted by Steven Kolber and Courtney and made public as part of the Teachers Education Review podcast. The video of my talk is at the end.

Our school, like most schools I suppose, is working quite explicitly to improve the literacy of their students. This has had many different forms over the years,…

[mrvanw]

Teach Meet Brisbane 2019

Teach Meet Brisbane 2019

This was a ridiculously good time with ridiculously good people. Enjoy. I’m towards the end.

Teachmeet Brisbane #tmbne was hosted by Steven Kolber and Courtney and made public as part of the Teachers Education Review podcast. Here it is in both Audio and Visual formats.

Total Playlist

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4…

[mrvanw]

Flipped Exam Prep, sort of ...

Flipped Exam Prep, sort of …

Our lovely year 12s are off in their examination period for the Trial HSC. This means two weeks off doing their end of year examinations before they come back and have the last few weeks of class before a longer study break and then BANG State Exams (HSC in NSW).

As if my classroom looks like this, but exam halls do

One of the ways we’ve supported our students in the past is by “question of…

[mrvanw]

Shifting the educational goalposts

This article is all about the political football that education has become. That and a concerned email from a listener to our podcast.

Shifting the goal posts won’t result in more kicking goals.

[mrvanw]

Recalibrating ...

Recalibrating …

It’s been a weird month or two at work. The stress levels have been through the roof and I’ve just been bouncing from one task to the next. It’s been a real punish.

This is a photo taken by a student of mine. I’m the ball.

The major problem is that this is impacting on both my home-life (such as teachers have) and my outlook on the profession. It’s been a trying time and to be honest the…

[mrvanw]

Rapport with a Reluctant Audience: A Teach Like a Pirate read along

Rapport with a Reluctant Audience: A Teach Like a Pirate read along

This is Part II of me doing my homework as I read Dave Burgess’ Teach Like a Pirate. It’s available here btw (this is not an affiliate/sponsored link, I get no money from this).

Occasionally I think of my job as a teacher as akin to that of a stand-up comic with a reluctant audience. The job is to bring them along, build trust with your audience to the point where they’ll come along. That…

[mrvanw]

Immersion - Undividing my attention: A Teach Like a Pirate read along.

Immersion – Undividing my attention: A Teach Like a Pirate read along.

This is Part II of me doing my homework as I read Dave Burgess’ Teach Like a Pirate. It’s available here btw (this is not an affiliate/sponsored link, I get no money from this).

Before I go on, we talked about this on our podcast – Teachers Talking Teaching – and I just want to clarify the use of the word Trashy. In that conversation it made perfect sense and it made perfect sense…

[mrvanw]

The truest chart about ADHD ...

The truest chart about ADHD …

Some people would call this painful, I just call it good story telling.

This chart below from u/danidonovan on reddit may have to come to class to help my students understand. Although I feel as though it would just start another tangent …

For context the original post is here.