Warren Sparrow: March 2014

30 March 2014

Golden rules of storytelling

Andrew Stanton, the Pixar writer and director behind both Toy Story and

WALL-E, has many ideas. The clues to a great story.
Above see his golden rules of storytelling visualized

by Karin Hueck and Rafael Quick of the Brazilian culture and science

magazine Superinteressante.

Click the image above to see a larger version.
Brilliant!!

28 March 2014

FreeImages

FreeImages has more than 6000 original stock photos all for FREE!

Free images is a high quality resource of digital stock photographic

images for use by all. All images in their collection are free to use on

websites and printed materials.

Brilliant!!

PublicDomainPictures.net

PublicDomainPictures.net is a repository for free public domain photos.

You can download high quality photos, upload your own pictures, earn

money to charity, get exposure and gain popularity and improve your

photographic and graphic skills.

Easy to use!!

Overlap Maps

Overlap Maps is a free service that can be used to quickly compare the

size of countries, states, provinces, and some bodies of water. To create

a visual comparison of two countries select one country from the "overlap

this" menu and select one country from the "onto this" menu. The comparisons

you make are displayed on a map. You can make comparisons from different

categories. For example, you can overlap South Africa onto United Kingdom.

Very Cool!!

Geosense Geography

Playing Geosense is a fun way to use and improve your knowledge of

world geography. Players can play against the computer or challenge

another player. Geosense can be played anonymously or you can register

and have your scores recorded for you. There are four Geosense maps

(US, World, Europe, or advanced) that players can select from. Geosense

is also available as an iOS app.

27 March 2014

Pharrell Williams Happy Cape Town

This is really awesome.

Someone has taken Pharrell Williams Happy music and created their

own local music video all about Cape Town and being Happy.

Brilliant!!

26 March 2014

8 secrets to writing faster blog posts

Very cool infographic!!

Map of Life - The Distribution of Animals Around the World

Map of Life is a mapping project sponsored in part by Yale and the University of

Colorado, Boulder. The map offers the option to see distribution of a species around

the world. To do so, select a species from the species menu and placemarks for that

species will be displayed on the map. Map of Life also provides the option to see a

distribution of animals closest to you. To do that select "what lives near me."

Very Cool!!

17 March 2014

Rules for Plural Nouns

Here is a simple A4 poster to help learners understand the different rules

when changing nouns from singular form to plural form. There are obviously

always exceptions to every rule, however these rules apply in most cases.

Click below for the original pdf

16 March 2014

Animal Alphabet Tracing Sheets

I found a really great fun alphabet tracing sheets to help learn to write the letters of

the alphabet. Teach both upper case and lower case or focus on just one. Each

page has a fun picture of an animal starting with the letter.

Perfect for Foundation Phase.

Click below to download the original.

Get more out of Google

This is a great poster that show you how to Google, shortcuts and tricks.

Very Cool

Click below for the original PDF.

15 March 2014

2D Shapes

2D shapes

Here is a great poster to print for the various 2D Shapes for Math.

South African Money Poster

Click below for the original South African Money poster as a PDF.

8 2D shapes flashcards

Clear cards for 8 2D shapes - circle, square, rectangle, equilateral triangle,

right angled triangle, pentagon, hexagon and octagon. Each card contains

information on number of sides/right angles/interior angles. Pitched at a low

level but could be used as discussion starters to investigate further properties

of each shape included

Click below to get the original PDF

Mitch Resnick Scratch TED Talk

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Mitch Resnick, one of the main creators of the coding program called Scratch,

delivered a TED Talk outlining the benefits of teaching childrens to code, so

they can do more than just “read” new technologies — but also create them.

Just under 16 minutes, but very worthwhile!!

14 March 2014

Make a Word Folder

This is a great template for creating a word folder.

Perfect for Foundation Phase.

You can also add any other letters to it as well.

13 March 2014

Our Education System

Absolutely brilliant!!

All About Explorers interactive Internet search task

All About Explorers has been designed as an interactive Internet search task

to guide pupils through making more discerning use of information presented

online. The task includes a range of spoof material to help show primary pupils

how to evaluate what they read online, and how to be selective about the

information they find. The tasks are presented to pupils as an interactive

Webquest. There is a section for teachers which includes a series of lessons and

explanations of what the pupils are learning about better online searching as they

complete each webquest.

Brilliant!!!

Alphabet Organizer

Alphabet Organizer is a great little tool from Read Write Think that students

can use to create alphabet charts and books. The idea behind Alphabet

Organizer is to help students make visual connections between letters of the

alphabet and the first letter of common words. This is accomplished by having

students choose a letter of the alphabet, write a word that begins with that letter,

then upload a picture that is representative of that word.

Alphabet Organizer allows students to create charts or simple booklets from the

words and pictures they've uploaded. Completed works can be saved as PDFs,

printed, or emailed to teachers.

Perfect for Foundation Phase!

Google Search Tips poster

This is a great poster that you can use in your classroom.

It is how to use Google Search more effectively.

It goes through "", ~, -, or and ...

Click below for the original pdf.

Components of a 21st Century Classroom

Click below to see the original document. 1.5 MB

12 March 2014

The Importance of PLNs in Education

Watch this excellent video to learn about the importance of creating

a Personal Learning Networks.

Excellent

04 March 2014

Getting started with Windows 8

This is a great 44 page manual on using Windows 8.

It is written very simply and easy to follow.

Very worthwhile having a read, even if you think you know everything, you

will pick up a few more tips!!

Click below to download the manual.

Windows 8 Desktop Shortcuts

this is a 3 page document that shows 7 different shortcuts that you can do on your

Windows 8 desktop.

Very easy and simple to use.

Click below to download the file

Windows 8 shortcut keys

This is a great file that shows all the different Windows 8 shortcut keys.

It is 2 pages long. It might be a great idea to print and put in your classroom somewhere.

Click below for the file

Windows 7 manual

I realize that this is a bit old, but so many people are still on Windows 7.

This is a very nice manual of the key features and tools for Windows 7.

Click below to download the manual (8MB)