Me…a scrooge?

Hi there!
Am so excited re the holidays which are fast approaching! With one week to go, I know the class are going to be going slightly more mental than usual! Before every celebration or big event, i.e. Halloween, Easter, Christmas or Bank Holdiays, certain members of my class will start to lose the plot, get overexcited and become hyperactive little aliens.

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How to get an Interactive Whiteboard for less than €2,500

An interactive whiteboard can cost you and your school a lot of money.  The most expensive one I can find costs nearly €6,000.  The marketing people say it’s the cream of the crop – adjustable height, short-throw projector, excellent after-sales service, free training, etc. etc.  However, when you can buy an Interactive Whiteboard for less than €2,500 that does everything anyone would want an Interactive Whiteboard to do, is the extra €3,500 worth it?  I don’t think so.  And…furthermore, is the sub €2,500  Interactive Whiteboard any worse than the €6,000? In a word, no.  So, here’s what you need for an excellent Interactive Whiteboard.

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Are Interactive Whiteboards All That?

I encountered Interactive Whiteboards for the first time when I trained to be a teacher in 2002.  A year or so before, the Welsh government had given every school in Wales an Interactive Whiteboard, (with full training), and every teacher was able to use it.  The Interactive Whiteboard usually resided in a computer room or in some cases, each classroom had one equipped.  Teachers designed work for themselves and each other and they seemlessly integrated with their school plan.  By the time I got to Wales, although children were happy to use the Interactive Whiteboard, the novelty had completely worn off.

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Presenting New Software

Just a small announcement… Anseo.net is releasing its first full educational software called: “Bhí Ocras Orm”.  It’s an Interactive Story with 6 games.  We’ll be releasing it on December 6th after the big march in Dublin. (Also…shhh… it’s free!)

Jolly Phonics pronunciation in Irish Schools

Jolly Phonics is a British produced synthetic phonics scheme.  Therefore, sometimes the pronunciation of certain sounds is different to how they are pronounced in Ireland, e.g. “u”, “aw” and even “a”.  Kat2 checked it out…
You have to adapt JP to suit the Irish accent as it is written to reflect ‘British received pronunciation’ (I think that’s the correct term.)

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Why are we not liked?

Hello and I am delighted to be back after my little break away from Anseo world!
A lot has happened in teacher land. The Budget!
The government have acted selfishly and without communication from educational partners, teachers, principals and parents…
Looks like they won’t back down and I could go on and on about it. But you know what, no-one is listening, it seems like?

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So why Synthetic Phonics – what's wrong with other methods of teaching reading?

I have found that the multi-cueing methods which are recommended by our own infant curriculum and which amount to guessing using picture, context and/or initial sound cues, and which are also encapsulated in the Reading Recovery method, to be far less effective when teaching both beginner readers and older strugglers than teaching according to the synthetic phonics teaching principles.

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A non-Interactive Whiteboard Solution?

Using a projector and a normal whiteboard rather than investing in a full IWB set up is often the case in cash-strapped or possibly clever schools.  A discussion on this very topic is going on on the DICTAT mailing list and Education Posts Forum so here was my twopence worth…

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How do you explain phonics to parents?

The following is a link to a simple ‘parents’ guidance’ to support early reading ( by Debbie Hepplewhite – a teacher, synthetic phonics consultant, trainer and advisor and editor of www.rrf.org and www.synthetic phonics.com) which may be of help to you.

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A nice Website X5 Website

By accident while browsing the web looking for a link to the NCCA, I came across a school’s web site. At first glance, I thought that this was a nice web site.  The colour scheme is very good and there seems to be a lot in it.  Then I balked.  It was clearly written using my arch-nemesis: Website X5.  From the menu system to the staticness, it had all the signs.  But it still looked nice.

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