It’s been a Looooong time!

Hi Everyone,

It has been a really long time between posts, I swore to myself that I would endeavour to blog more this year… As with most promises to myself, I broke it. Funnily enough, when I did come to write a blog post, it had been so long that I totally forgot my login details, I’ve made a 2nd Blog on Blogger, it was only at a training session last night that I managed to remember the login details.

So a lot has happened in my life since 2014! I have risen to the challenge of teaching Senior History (Year 12 Modern History under SACE), that was during 2015. It was stressful, but ultimately a rewarding experience.

This year has also seen me enter a new phase of my career. I’m the “Digital Learning Coordinator” at Nuriootpa High School, but I’m also responsible for the entire Barossa Region! This has been a real eye opener, previously I only had a vague idea of what it might be like working at a Primary school. My new role has given me great insight into what it is like to work in the Primary education system, I tip my hat to all the Primary Teachers out there, you all do an incredible job!

The position of Digital Learning Coordinator has been a real eye opener, as I am able to leave my site and visit schools around the state of South Australia. I’ve done several site visits and seen some really inspiring examples of truly innovative education. It has also really highlighted the realities of the “digital divide” the disparity between the haves and have nots is significant. The Barossa region has some truly innovative educators and educational pioneers. However, the reality is that the infrastructure in the region is holding back most schools.

I see my role as a facilitator of professional development, the conduit allowing teachers to up skill their EdTech knowledge and embed ICT into their teaching practice. I believe that I have been successful in this endeavour, as many teachers are now embracing ICT into their everyday practice. I’ve been especially impressed by the willingness of the regions Primary School staff to engage with Professional Development offerings

The project that I am currently working on is getting Google Apps for Education (GAfE) up and running at my site. Due to the education departments fear of Google, it has been an absolute nightmare trying to get this off the ground. However, there is light at the end of a 8 month long tunnel! We should be moving to GAfE by the end of this term, if I achieve nothing else this year, I know that this will be the major win, my legacy if you will.

Finally, I would like to thank all of the wonderful staff that I work with, it is there passion that has enabled me to keep going. The incredible work of Chris Gambell and Daniel Searson in “Flipping” their classes has led to the beginning of a Flipped Revolution at Nuriootpa High School. Without them embracing new ideas, I wouldn’t have been able to get nearly 20 staff to attend a Flipped Classroom conference session last weekend.

I will link their channels below as well as share a couple of the videos I have made recently. Well, that about covers things for now, I will try to make at least 1 post a week in September, hopefully I can manage that!

Have a good one!

Bakes

 

Tutorial for Using Screencast-o-Matic

 

A Guide for using a Wacom Digital Drawing Tabelt

 

The Flipped Classrooms of

Chris Gambell & Daniel Searson

Chris Gambell’s Flipped Physics Channel 

 

Daniel Searson’s Flipped Maths Channel

Introducing Mr Baker – Starting 2014

This is the Presentation I give to students each year, I have found it really useful for building relationships and letting students see me as a person, not just their teacher.

Let me know what you think.

Bakes

“Video Games and Learning” A MOOC from Coursera

Hi InterWebs!!!

It has been a very, very long time since my last post. I am sincerely sorry for that, life has a tendency to get in the way and priorities change quite drastically. Well what is new you may ask? Quite a bit actually, in the time I have been away from Blogging, my wife and I have had a 2nd child. We had another boy, “Talon Johannes Baker” he is doing really well and growing up so quickly.

I have just finished the two terms of back filling a leadership position at school. I was the acting Year 10 Manager for Terms 2 and 3. It was fantastic to gain an insight into how the leadership of the school works and I had a great time in the role. During my time as the YLM I had many fantastic professional discussions with my colleagues and also had the chance to strengthen my relationships with the student body. It was incredibly rewarding and I would definitely put my hand up to have a crack as a YLM again.

I was also nominated over 30 times by various students and parents in the South Australian Teacher of the Year Awards, this was so rewarding to receive positive feedback in only my first year of teaching. I participated in and completed a short program as a “Mentee” being one of the lucky early career teachers to receive guidance from some awesome teacher leaders. The culmination of the program was presenting what we learned at a Principals day, with a room full of Principals. It was a great experience and gave me a chance to network as well.

Finally, I have successfully won a permanent teaching position at Nuriootpa High School!!! It was a process that took several weeks and was incredibly stressful, initially through writing the application, to gaining  nomination and finally having to wait out the challenge period. I would like to thank everyone that supported me during this time and helped proof my application.

 

So now onto the topic at hand: MOOCs

A MOOC is a “Massively Open Online Course” they are (well they should be) free and are being increasingly offered by a multitude of institutions. I have enrolled in several courses, my current site of choice is http://www.coursera.org as I really like the layout and ease of use. The current course that I am enrolled in is called Video Games and Learning. This is a course offered through the University of Wisconsin and so far I have been really impressed with it. As an avid gamer (PC naturally), I have often wondered about how to integrate computer games into the classroom.

Normally this is too difficult, as school computers are often lacking in the hardware which is capable of running most modern games, not to mention the paranoia around the idea of letting students play games! I however don’t feel that games are a bad thing. There are so many games I could use in the classroom, especially from a History perspective. The Total War Series, Assassins Creed, Call of Duty (World War II) and good old Sim City. These are all powerful tools through which learning can be conducted, if used in the appropriate manner.

The course aims to highlight the possibility of how games can and do help learning. “Successful learning looks and feels like good play” and vice versa. Although I am only in the first week of the 5 week course, I do have high hopes for it and I think that I will find it really useful. I plan on blogging about my learning as I work my way through the course.

For the first time ever I have been given a uni assignment that I couldn’t wait to start! That may sound like madness, but hang in there. The assignment was to play a game and de-construct how it facilitated learning. This was an awesome assignment, as not only was I excited about playing a game, but I was offered the chance to think far more deeply about it than I would normally have to. I chose the Battlefield 4 Beta as I love my first person shooters, but it also had to do with timing, the Beta came out just as the assignment was issued.

The video I created is my attempt to dissect the game in as short a time as possible (it should have been 1 minute!), as I don’t own a webcam I thought I would use FRAPS and Camtasia to create a video. This led to a video well over the 1 min required, but I did get to learn several pieces of software in the process, so win-win really.

 

So there you have it, I promise not to leave it so long before the next post, I think, or at least I want to aim for weekly posts over the final term of the year. So stay tuned and if you have any questions, comments or ideas you want to share, please post them. Have a good one!

Cheers,

Bakes

Haiku Deck – Death to PowerPoint!

Greetings All,

I have been having a little play around with Haiku Deck recently, it is a Free App for iPad and I highly recommend it. Creating attractive and powerful presentations is so easy and can be done from the comfort of the couch!

This is the Second Presentation that I have made so far, it is an Overview of Ancient Greece. It is designed to be played to a Year 11 Ancient Studies class. I will be aiming to make a Screencast using Camtasia Software, this will allow any absent students to view the presentation in its entirety.

So please let me know what you think.

Cheers,

Bakes

http://www.haikudeck.com/p/QNOja6dCNZ/ancient-greece—an-overview

The Barossa Airshow 2013

Hi Everyone,

Well Sunday the 14th of April was the Barossa Airshow, it was a fantastic day for all those that attended. I went with my family and had an awesome time. There were a multitude of Aircraft on display, these ranged from old Tiger Months through to the latest in Model Aircraft (Jets). The show was a fund raiser for the St Jakobi Lutheran School, from what I saw it was highly successful.

My highlight of the day was undoubtedly the Spitfire, which is a replica to 80% of the original scale. It was simply fantastic to see the Hero of British Skies flying around the Barossa. My father worked in Aviation for his entire careers, thus I have always been raised around Aircraft and Airports. Ever since I was a small child I’ve always had a fascination with aircraft, especially military planes.

It was fantastic to see several vintage World War II and Post War era aircraft at the show. I even got  bitten by the bug again and purchased two model aircraft kits (Airfix), a Spitfire Mk II and a Mitsubishi A6M Zero kit, I will upload photos when both kits are completed.

As a qualified Archaeologist and History Teacher, I was also interested in the promotion of Aviation Archaeology by last nights episode of 60 Minutes. A Lancaster Bomber was excavated which had many artefacts in remarkable condition, this allowed the team to identify the Aircraft and provide closure to loved ones. There have been several emails floating around recently providing stats on how many aircraft were lost during World War II. The numbers are simply staggering, many of these were lost over the Seas and Jungles of South East Asia.

This provides an exciting prospect for Aviation Archaeology and History, recently a Spitfire was uncovered in the sands of the Sahara, it was in remarkable condition and is on its way back to the UK. There is a search in Burma for a “hidden” cache of up to sixty Spitfires buried somewhere in the Jungle. Not to mention the downed Zeros and other aircraft around Papua New Guinea, Saipan, Guadalcanal and other Pacific Islands. I hope to inspire my students next term with the prospect of finding some of these lost aircraft.

After all, Archaeology is not only about the Ancient Past, but can include any material culture. Until then I hope to continue attending Airshows and letting my inner child get excited!

Cheers,

Bakes

The bird in all its glory

After landing

One of the Adelaide Warbirds

American Post War Plane

Close formation flying

RAAF Roulettes coming in for their acrobatic display

The workhorse of WWII

Barossa Helicopters were offering flights

It was a great display

It was great to see these old Bi Planes in action

These two did lots of circuits

Shot of the crowd

 

Barossa Airshow 2013

One of the many Aerial displays from the show

I have returned!

Hello Cyberspace!

I apologise for an extended absence, life got quite hectic for a while. However, I shall endeavour to post on a regular basis. I shall aim to bring you all things history, education, technology and geek related.

Stay tuned for a write up on the Barossa Air Show for 2013.

Bakes

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Nuriootpa, Australia

My Prezi Page

Prezi is a Powerful Web 2.0 Presentation package, if you are tired of using PowerPoint, give Prezi a go, you won’t be disappointed.

Simon Baker’s Prezi Page.

Where the Magic Happens

PowToon : Create Animated Presentations Online

Check out this Web 2.0 Presentation Tool, it is similar to Prezi

PowToon : Create Animated Presentations Online.

First Day of Term 4 – A Great Success!!!

Once more into the Breach!

Well after a short 2 week break, term 4 commenced today. It was great to be back into the classroom again. I was especially pleased with my Year 8 and Year 11 classes today. My Year 11 class started a unit on Terrorism today, I was blown away by how engaged the students were.

Since Terrorism is a real issue that everyone faces during the 21st Century, I believe the students found it easier to relate to the material. The initial discussion was based on:

“What is the difference between Terrorism and Murder?”

Initially the arguments were along the lines of there is no difference, but by the end of the lesson it was great to see students formulate a definition for Terrorism.

With the Year 8 class, they recently completed a unit on Medieval Europe with a Pre-Service teacher, I was thinking of taking them back to the Ancient World (my favourite), but on the account of having a replica Crusader Helmet and a replica sword, I came up with an idea. I thought we could do the Crusades as a natural follow up to Medieval Europe.

Unfortunately I don’t have photos, but using two England flags, some staples/string, an old belt and the replica items I was able to create a make shift Knights Templar outfit. The look on the kids faces was fantastic, first lesson back after the holidays and bang! I have them hooked on the topic. The students tried on the Helmet, felt the weight of the sword and we had a brain storm on what they already knew about the Crusades.

So all in all, the first day back at school was fantastic, I look forward to sharing my progress with you all over the coming term. My plan is to try the “Flipped Classroom” method with my Year 11 History class, while keeping to a traditional format with the middle school students.

Let me know if you have any great engaging ideas for introducing a new unit!

Cheers.

History Geek 2.0 Is Live!!!

Greetings everyone,

This Blog shall be on all things History, Education and Geek related. I’m a High School History Teacher that has a keen interest in Educational Technology. I live and teach in the Barossa Valley, South Australia. I hope to share with you all my journey to integrate ICT into my classes.

Please feel free to leave a comment. Happy reading.