WEEK 4 - Retelling a story and m&m maths

This weeks workshop consisted of 2 activities.

Activity 1 - Story sequencing with Inspiration Software.

The focus for this lesson was Aboriginal dreamtime and storytelling. We were introduced to the dustechoes website:
http://www.abc.net.au/dustechoes/dustEchoesFlash.htm
This website contains "a series of twelve beautifully animated dreamtime stories from Central Arnhem Land, telling stories of love, loyalty, duty to country and aboriginal custom and law." (From the Dust Echoes web page).There are 12 animated stories altogether, each accompanied with information about the story, activities and study guides.
Definitely a great resource to use that could be incorporated across the curriculum. Not just an English resource but also the Arts etc, especially getting the students to research the stories and the meaning behind them. I agree with Greg in that some stories may be a bit too graphic for some students so the lesson definitely needs to be teacher guided. However after the initial introduction further extension activities could follow. Have the students write their own dreamtime stories, I guess if you have that creative flair then the learning opportunities are endless. I think such an activity would also work fantastic in literacy rotations, where students can create a story board for the story they are reading.

I really enjoyed the idea of using the concept map (from Inspiration) as a learning tool, where the students design and put the story in in order of sequence. Think it is a great hands on way of developing the order of sequence concept, especially for those students that enjoy the hands on learning...but i guess what student doesn't. Definitely in this day and age with the use of technology and incorporating it into the classroom at any chance that you can get is great. Makes for a great engaging lesson and if the students are engaged then they are more likely to learn or more importantly remember what they have learnt.

For myself this is definitely the case. I'm finding the hands on approach great, yes i am slow at it and constantly nagging my peers for assistance. For it to gel with me i need to actually do it over and over. So the one off approach does not really work. I am the perfect pupil for my peers, they may become frustrated but they need to remember that they are entering the teaching profession very shortly so this is a great learning experience for them; how to deal with those that are slightly frustrating and doing it with a smile!
My attempt at this activity was on the story Brolga and is below:

I have also found another website that has stories form the Aboriginal dreamtime.
http://www.dreamtime.auz.net/default.asp?PageID=41&n=Water
This website also has Aboriginal dot paintings of the stories. My favourite TIDDALIK the Frog, as this is a story that i remember from my childhood. As i previously mentioned using ICT in the classroom is a wonderful idea, but it is important not to forget that we can use it in combination with childrens literature. Why not begin with Tiddalik the frog story book and then have students explore the websites for others...just a thought!

Activity 2 - Spreadsheets.

Moving on to speadsheets. I guess this is easy, why of course it is!
Again a great use of technology incorporated into a maths lesson.
Here we have used a small packet of m&m's. Students would be required to divide the packet into colour groups, count the number of each colour and then enter the details into MS Spreadsheet and produce a graph.
I have to admit using the computer to do this had me a little nervous, but i was pleasantly surprised to find out that it is quite easy to do. This sort of activity would also lead to discussion on graphs, reading graphs, the types of graphs etc. I think its also worth mentioning that it is a great tool that could be used for other subject and not just maths, for example science or graphing survey results etc.
My attempt at this activity is below with the logo retrieved from google pictures. But as Greg mentioned you could have students can compare results, guess the contents of the packet, read the nutritional value on the packets and explore the actual MARS website looking at various data and ingredients etc etc. It is also worth mentioning that in some school using food may not such a great idea, as we need to be mindful of those students that have allergies.