Alternatives to PowerPoint

 This is our PowerPoint on Alterntative to PowerPoint. The alternatives we considered: - Prezi - Pinterest - Spicy Nodes

I have already reviewed Prezi on another post.

Review of Prezi

The first is a prezi on the benefits of Prezi:
Sometimes it is showing, sometimes it's not - if you can't see it, you can find it here

 This is just an example showing how it can be used. Personally, I am not a big fan of Prezi, it does tend to make me feel nauseous with all the moving about. I am just as happy reading of a plain, boring piece of paper and I don't require a more stimulating method of presentation.


 There have been two important lessons taught on this course:

 1) You, with your knowledge and experience, are your greatest asset - more so than any technology, any presentation, any game etc. Just you and your brain is more valuable and more beneficial to students and their learning than all of the other gimmicks.

2) You, the teacher, are the presentation - not your presentation.

I think these are very valuable lessons and I like to remind myself of them when I am worrying about delivering a lesson without a PowerPoint to accompany it.

That is why I cannot see myself using Prezi in the future. I don't want it to be a distraction from me and what message I am trying to get across.

However, I do have an example of how Prezi can be used in the classroom. It is a Prezi that one of my Law lecturers created for answering legal problem questions.
(Click here to if you can't see this one either)


 My opinion of this is that, firstly, it is brilliant advice and tips and secondly, it helped me greatly. However, (because there's always a 'but') this was something he shared with us outside the classroom (on Twitter actually). Although PowerPoint is done to death and it is unoriginal and uninspiring etc I think to use something more interesting like Prezi would only serve as a bigger distraction.

My experience with Microsoft Applications

My earliest experience with Microsoft Apps was in school and having to spend a lesson creating a presentation on Word or PowerPoint.

This reminded me of a tweet I saw a few months ago (but can't for the life of me remember who tweeted it) and it made me laugh, but it basically said:

"The hardest part of any IT lesson was deciding which one of these to use for your presentation"

The first half hour of an IT lesson was literally spent selecting one of these to use and then choosing a colour scheme. And that was the extent of my experience with Microsoft apps at school. Oh, and there was one lesson using Excel where they talked about using 'cells' and that's all I remember and I haven't ever used it/needed to use it since.

A more recent experience is using Microsoft Word to type up essays/coursework for University. I think that referencing on Word has been the most horrifying and traumatic experience. Unfortunately, my University required us to use 'OSCOLA' referencing, which is a specific referencing format for Law. This meant using footnotes. This then led to massive problems when you needed to re-number them and had to manually alter around 100 footnotes individually. Absolute nightmare.

BUT I was very impressed with the Harvard referencing tool available with Word that Mandy introduced to us. I'm hoping it will make referencing far less tedious and painful in the future.













That's as far as my experience with Microsoft Apps go, I don't use any of the others, so I do feel as though I'm spending a lot of money when I purchase the Microsoft Package because I only ever really need to use Word.

I would like to know if there are any other useful tips and tricks to Microsoft Word that I don't know about that would make my life much easier.

Blog Review

So me and Aled have been looking up blogs related to Law. Unfortunately, I couldn't find anything to do with teaching Law but I did find:

http://ukcriminallawblog.com/   and http://www.theguardian.com/law/guardian-law-blog

They are both very similar in that they are reporting current legal news. As they are both very similar and offer the same type of posts, we thought it would be pointless to both review just one as we would be saying the same thing and thought it would be more interesting to compare and contrast both blogs to see which we preferred, sicne they both serve the same purpose. Therefore, I have decided to review the Criminal Law Blog and Aled is reviewing the Guardian blog.

This blog is pretty self explanatory - it's about criminal law. 

It has a section concentrated solely on current and high profile cases, as well as sections relating to explanations on areas of the criminal law. It has a an easy to navigate layout. The purpose of the blog, as found on their page*:

*Using the Snipping Tool for the first time, and to think that all this time I've been print screening and pasting to Paint...

Anyway, keeping up to date with topical issues and developments is extremely important for teaching law, as a judgment handed down by the Supreme Court today will alter what you will be teaching to your students tomorrow.

Of course, I could just keep track of the news in order to stay up to date with cases. However, the advantages of this blog is that it explains things in much greater detail and corrects a lot of issues that are sometimes poorly reported in the media. Decisions/judgments are rarely 100% clear and there will always be uncertainty so it's essential to read around and find out what others in the profession are saying about it. Aled has said something similar about the Guardian blog, in that he thinks it's important to read a blog with different authors so as to get a varied opinion. The same can be said for this blog that I'm reveiwing.

Also, it aims to invite discussion on the topics - the comment section can actually be more interesting than the post itself... 

I prefer this blog over the Guardian blog just because the Guardian blog isn't updated regularly - as Aled concludes:
"the Guardian's law blog provides a valuable teaching tool not only for up to date legal issues but also for interesting discussion. This is what I would write if it was 2012. At the minute the blog does provide an interesting selection of opinions but with a lack of recent posts its use is very limited. If it were to start again with frequent posts however I may revise my verdict."
  
Whereas this one is far more frequent and has a wealth of posts overall.


I will definitely be using this blog for keeping track of legal developments - especially when students may ask me about a case that I don't fully understand myself!
 

Reflective practice and Bubbl.us

 I think that Bubbl.us is be an amazing tool for making mind maps, just because it can be so easily edited.

I've always found mind maps to be useful for starting essays. Students (myself included) often see an essay title and think 'where do I begin?' and become stuck because they can't think of an opening sentence. Mind maps is a way around that linear way of thinking (i.e.first write an introduction, then the main body, then the conclusion). Mind maps are a really handy tool for just putting all the ideas down and then provides you with the option of connecting points and linking them up and it's then easier to visualise how the essay will flow.

I think I would use it a lot with students for revision purposes.

However, you have to pay, which is a shame as I think many students would benefit from Bubbl.us.

Unfortunately, the Bubbl.us I made a few months ago and posted to this very page seems to have disappeared (perhaps the link/account has an expiry and my free trial is up). I found a Google image of Bubbl.us.

My first one was detailing reflective practice and all the necessary components relating to that. I couldn't find one on the same topic, but did find this amusing one on world domination. Although I am little concerned about this individual's post-domination plans - 'eat all the Pokemon?' - this, nonetheless, demonstrates the basic concept of Bubbl.us

This is a more academic one on the use of ICT in the classroom. Probably more apt for this blog than world domination. 

Today's Meet Social Media Discussion

Unfortunately, my 'TodaysMeet' has expired and so the embedded link ceases to work.

Review:
I think this is an incredibly handy tool. It allows the creator to post a question and members of the group can reply and view each others responses also.

I can see this being very beneficial in lecture environments - i.e. where the lecturer wishes to ask a question to a large group of students, but anticipates that with such a large group size he/she will be unable to facilitate any sort of organised discussion (and possibly where everyone is too afraid to speak and answer for fear of embarrassment of getting the answer wrong). So the lecturer could instruct everyone to the TodaysMeet page, post a question and watch all the responses feed through.

Benefits:
No one can get in the group unless they are given the link - security is essential for students safety
The group has an expiry - so it cannot be left to be view and added to, once it has served its purpose it can be closed
Nearly everybody has a smart phone, or access to technology that would allow access to this type of app - so it is just a method to utilise the technology students are already carrying around in their pockets.

Limits:
This would be difficult to implement in a small class setting - as many students may ask the teacher 'why don't you just ask us directly? Why do we have to answer online?' Therefore, it may be suitable to implement as an outside the classroom activity - the issue is then student participation (or lack thereof!)

An introduction...

My name is Sophie.

 I am a Law graduate.

I'm currently training to be a teacher in the post compulsory sector (hopefully in Law).

My legal areas of interest are Criminal Law, Law of Evidence, Medicine Law and Law of the European Union. They all sound thrilling, I know.

Law covers every aspect of life. From birth to death - everything is regulated, controlled or permitted by the Law. Therefore, I believe that to study Law is to study life. That sounds a bit more interesting (and prentious)!

I'm hoping to learn new ways of making Law interesting to students. Often, learning Law can be dull and boring and can seem like a memory exercise. I want to find new ways of communicating with students besides just talking at them.

I also have a dog who I talk about an awful lot. So expect to see photos of him too. Seriously, look how cute.

Tecnhology

Firstly, I have to say I agree with Louise and Dave on the typewriter. You may be interested to know that there is a new (free!) app out, called ‘Hanx Writer’. It is a simulated typewriter complete with authentic sounds. It was developed by the actor Tom Hanks because he loves typewriters too. So, if you’re like me and just enjoy the clicking of a typewriter it’s a pretty cool app to type your work on.

Anyway, describing the technology that I have without being specific is tough. The vaguest way I can think to describe it is:

- I have technology that helps me with my work (e.g. PC)

- I have technology that I use for leisure (e.g. game consoles)

- I have technology that I use for communicating (e.g. smartphone)

Mandy also mentioned writing about the technology that I would like to see. Honestly, the first thing that came to mind was the film, 'Minority Report' - here's a small clip if you haven't seen the film. 

Maybe one day?