Philanthropic Extension

http://freerice.com/category

You are probably very familair with the philanthropic 'Free Rice' website which donates rice according to the number of vocabulary words you get right but did you know that the website also offers other subjects. As you can see above there are a number of categories which could be used as extension, homework tasks or revision in some cases. You might even decide to set a test based on the website.  It's a whole lot of fun, I've tried it and enjoyed it thoroughly.

Randling - a game show about words

 

RANDLING
A game show about words

Premiering 8.30pm, Wednesday 2 May on ABC1

Randling – created for ABC1 by Andrew Denton and Jon Casimir, the creators of The Gruen Transfer – is a game show about words. The game show pits ten teams, with two players a side, against each other over twenty-seven rounds of fiery and fierce word play. Each team is vying for a place in the 2012 Randling Grand Final and the chance to take home the Randling premiership trophy. Designed to enlighten, educate and amuse viewers, Randling is the only game show that comes with a guarantee that every episode will leave you at least 1% smarter and 100% happier.

Learn more about Randling, the randlers and how to randle online at http://www.abc.net.au/tv/randling/.

How to make an English lesson funner-er
One of the stated aims of The Australian Curriculum: English is to ensure that students appreciate, enjoy and use the English language in all its variations and develop a sense of its richness and power to evoke feelings, convey information, form ideas, facilitate interaction with others, entertain, persuade and argue. Given this aim, a game show about words that encourages players and viewers: to discover new and archaic words; to invent words and definitions; and to realise how entertaining word play can be, makes Randling a recommended resource for use in secondary English classes.

Randling offers teachers the opportunity to develop students’ knowledge, understanding and skills within the strand of Language and within this strand to examine the sub-strands of: language variation and change; language for interaction; expressing and developing ideas; and sound and letter knowledge.

ATOM study guide
ATOM have created a study guide to accompany Randling that provides activities to support students’ viewing of the program. Explanations of Randling games are included, so that teachers and students can randle in their English classes. Teachers and students are encouraged to design their own questions and challenges based on the examples provided.

To download this free ATOM study guide, visit http://www.metromagazine.com.au and click on ‘study guides’.

Recording off-air
Teachers and AV Technicians: Set your recorders to record Episode 1 of Randling at 8.30pm, Wednesday 2 May on ABC1. Alternatively, the program will be repeated at 11pm, Friday 4 May on ABC2.

Information taken from ATOM's newsletter - ATOM - editor@atom.org.au

'Tagxedo turns words -- famous speeches, news articles, slogans and themes, even your love letters -- into a visually stunning word cloud, words individually sized appropriately to highlight the frequencies of occurrence within the body of text.'

Below is an example I whipped up in a few minutes using a poem I'd written.

 

FREE online books, puzzles and more

Funbrain offers a range of FREE novels online. The novels are popular, well presented , colourful and easy to read. They could be set as extended reading for homework, extension work (for those students who always finish a task well ahead of the others) or even be studied as a classroom text. Why not prepare your own online activities and questions to go with your chosen novel?

With the ABC series 'Once Upon a Time' about to debut on Australian Television, it seems timely to re-visit a favourite writing activity which was very popular some years ago - the fractured fairytale. 



http://www.slideshare.net/USAteacher/fractured-fairytale



This unit of work on Slideshare gives all the information you need to create your own unit or piggyback using this slideshare presentation.

Fractured Fairytale

by USAteacher on Aug 28, 2008

Left is a quirky example of a fractured fairytale you might like to use as an introduction to the task.

The website also includes numerous features that you might like to use.



Year 9 Book Trailer

As a part of the Year 9 Wide Reading program, this year we'll be trialing student-created book trailers. Below I've compiled a number of examples that I've taken from YouTube .  They all feature Scott Westerfield's novel 'Uglies' which is being studied as an English text for all of Year 9. The range of YouTube trailers available for 'Uglies' is truly astonishing as is the range and sophistication.
 
 

1. View the following trailers and see what you think.

2. Using the criteria created for the book trailer task, grade each trailer.

3. Choose a definitive winner, then in one hundred words, justify your choice.

QR codes - easier than you think

QR codes (Quick Response Codes) are two-dimensional codes that can store huge amounts of data. They are somewhat like the product bar codes we are all used to seeing on our purchases. The scanning app needed to read the codes can be downloaded for free from the following website: http://qrcode.kaywa.com/ suggested by Annette as one of the more user-friendly versions available. 

Having used myself this morning to create a QR for BookCloud in only a few seconds (see above), I can vouch for its ease of use.  If you're interested in experimenting with new FREE apps, especially those with smartphones or the new iPad 2 and netbooks, visit the e-Support wiki.