Wizkid (Studywiz) in the Curriculum

Embedding in Wizkid

2010-03-28T18:06:00.001+01:00

The possibility to embed a whole range of resources and activities into online learning platforms such as Wizkid has fantastic potential. Not only does it keep everything in one place, it is much easier and more instantaneous and attention grabbing for the children to immediately access embedded content rather than following links.

In Wizkid it is possible to embed a video above a discussion to then immediately discuss below. Class clips from the BBC is fantastic resource for this.

I have also embedded Primary Pad which offers an easy to embed option at the bottom of the page which gives you the link to an iframe immediately to copy and paste into the html editor in Wizkid. Again this keeps everything in one place and is easier for younger children to manage. Primary Pad is a fantastic tool for collaborative writing, editing of writing or just as a place to gather ideas that can be shared.

A new tool that I've come across is Spicy Nodes which looks to be a fab mind mapping tool where the user can add links, images and videos to each section of the mind map. Could be a great tool to use as a class or across classes to collaborate ideas especially in something like history or a specific research topic and could be combined easily with a tasc wheel activity. Again they offer an embed button that will automatically grab the code for you to paste into an html editor.

Other websites or resources can be embedded using code for an iframe

Using the Chat Tool to Improve Speech Punctuation

2010-01-12T12:42:00.001Z

Accident Scenario
Doctor, Patient & Nurse role play in classroom
Moving on to chatrooms one setup per group (3 pupils per chat room)
15 mins to chat in role
Copy the chat and paste it into Word
Find and Replace to change names
Time spent adding good punctuations
Especially useful for speech punctuation which was the main theme.
Kids loved it and work standard was very high.
Idea from Dave Bessant

Santa mail

2009-12-15T14:14:00.003Z

Hi Folks
We hid little elves in all the public areas with letters on their hats in the style of a treasure hunt. The letters make a christmassy word, hurpold anyone?
We created a user 'Santa' to message all the children to ask them to find the elves, work out the word and message Santa back. Of course we made sure all the adults knew so that there was no worry of a stranger using Wizkid.
Now this is a pretty trivial and fun activity, but I am thinking that historical figures /fictional characters could message the children and require them to respond to activities in character. Just take care of your passwords, and remember to delete the user once the activity is done.

Christmas Decoration Instructions (Literacy)

2009-11-26T19:24:00.003Z

Year 3 Pupils, mixed ability class, paired more able with less able, one between two.

Demonstrate how to make a Christmas decoration step by step
Share write instructions for each step using Word
Upload to Wizkid (File or Assignment Activity)
Children logon to Wizkid
Download the instructions
Edit the instructions to make a similar decoration
Also edit to include time connectives and adverbs
Name & Print
Use to make decorations

Really easy to do and the children were really motivated. All five classes in the year group ended up doing this. Rachael Hobbs Year 3 Teacher Abbotswood Junior School

Sound Embedding in Word

2009-11-05T03:33:00.004Z

Year 4 SEN Pupils
Science electricity topic
SEN pupils downloaded a teacher created Word 2003 based proforma from Wizkid using the Assessment Activity. Pupils then used microphones to record their predictions into Word. They then carried out the test. They used the same Word proforma to record their conclusions. Finally they uploaded the Word document to the Assessment activity for the teacher to mark. Lesson went well, this as the first time this class have used the Assessement activity on Wizkid and the embedding sound into Word so bearing this in mind it was remarkably successful. Same process as embedding sound into Excel which this video demonstrates.

PS Directly recording sound has been removed from Office 2007 as well as directly scanning into a document.

Pupils as Teachers

2009-09-18T17:17:00.002+01:00

Year 6 Pupils have made some excellent file activities linking to their favourite maths games. They were so good I got distracted after school trying some of them out.

Simple Idea to save time

2009-05-18T10:21:00.003+01:00

Pupils made their own PowerPoints to share the results of their plant experiments. They then uploaded their PowerPoints to a shared gallery. This meant that when we shared the PowerPoints they were all in the same place and that pupils didn't have to log on and off of the computer attached to the interactive whiteboard. A simple idea but it saved time in the classroom.

Year 5 Plant Blog update

2009-04-27T21:58:00.001+01:00

Kids enjoying keeping their plant blogs. Most have named their plants. Had to make sure they published them to internal not private as no one could see them otherwise.

-- Post From My iPhone

Loving Voki!

2009-04-26T20:44:00.001+01:00

Thank you for introducing me to Voki!
I love it and so do my Yr R/1 class. It makes things so much easier when they can hear the instructions and not struggle to read them.

2009-04-26T07:42:00.006+01:00

Really pleased that this blog has been set up and we can share ideas about studywiz.
I have finally introduced it to all our year 3 children. I knew the logging on would take ages so I just had 2 websites uploaded where they could choose one of the activities to complete about plants (current science topic). Some had heard of studywiz (having older brothers/sisters at senior school). We haven't introduced it to the parents yet and so far keep the access to school. Will be introducing to rest of staff next month and hope by end of summer term the whole school will be using it.
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Supporting emergent readers

2009-04-25T21:25:00.005+01:00

Well I thought it was time I finally posted. I have been using Wizkid quite a bit since my return from maternity leave at the beginning of March. One of my areas of interest is how we can make Wizkid more accessible to non-readers and emergent readers. Did you know you can easily add an mp3 file anywhere where there is the standard text editor by using the repository tool? Mp3s usually play in a media player type frame similarly to flash files. These usually autoplay when you browse to a lesson, section or activity where they have been added. This is a great way to give children instructions on use of the learning platform removing the need to read lots of text. Don't forget Audacity is a great piece of free software that allows you to record sound and export it as mp3 files.

Using Wizkid for discussion texts

2009-04-24T15:24:00.002+01:00

I have used Wizkid successfully with my year 6 pupils as a basis for writing discussion texts. I provided them with several hyperlinks to news websites where they were able to watch a news report on elephants performing in the Great British Circus. After watching the clips they were then able to vote on whether they thought animals should perform in the circus or not. I then asked them to contribute to a discussion board on the same subject, responding to the opinions of others. The children clearly felt very strongly about the subject and the children produced some excellent writing without realising that they were 'writing'! I then reproduced the main points of the discussion on separate pieces of card which the children grouped and prioritised. These then formed the basis of their written discussion text. The written outcomes were of an incredibly high standard and the children were very motivated to write.

Graham Cutter - Kings Copse Primary School

Plant Blog

2009-04-21T08:42:00.003+01:00

We are looking at what plants need to thrive and what happens to them when you remove a factor needed for growth. My class have all prepared their own plants and taken them home to record what happens over the next three weeks. Most of the children opted to record their plant diaries using the blog facility on Wizkid.

Voki

2009-03-19T20:36:00.002Z

Ok, so i've finally made it on to the blog. It is encouraging seeing lots of different things happening in schools, you are all coming up with some great ideas!

Anyway, my input is Voki...This was first brought to my attention in User Friendly (Stella Kenny's ICT Magazine) before Christmas. I was training a few weeks back and we were playing with embedding google maps. Someone asked if we could embed Vokis, so we tried and it works pretty well.

What is a voki? It is a talking avatar/character that you can design and edit using undreds of different heads and features. You can then make your Voki speak. This is brilliant for young children as you could get your Voi to read instructions to the children. www.voki.com

It is a bit temperamental in school sometimes, but bear with it and you'll have great fun. I have written a guide. To find it go to Elocker-->LA Works With Studywiz-->Useful Files-->Documentation

You can embed this anywhere you have html - assignment, discussion, ebulletin, multimedia, test, class page...

Have fun!

Water Cycle

2009-03-18T23:19:00.003Z

On Monday I was teaching about the water cycle. After my input the majority of the class were creating their own labelled water cycles. I uploaded a publisher document with a picture of the water cycle without labels to an Assignment. My SEN pupils downloaded this and used the built in sound recorder to record the stages of the cycle where they happen on the picture. They loved it and I got completed water cycles out of them in less than 20 mins. Result!

Astronomy

2009-02-24T22:58:00.002Z

Last week I designed an Astronomy section for our whole school group on Wizkid. I must admit it started life as a collection of planet pictures in a gallery and ended up as four sections including embedded videos from teacher tube of the moon landings, great solar system models and links to an online telescope that takes a photo of deep space objects and sends you a link to the picture in your e-mail. I added a few simple quizzes and then sent all the pupils in school a teaser via the messaging system. If you are on Wizkid you can download the content from the wws section of the elocker.

Snow Closure

2009-02-03T08:06:00.004Z

School has now closed Abbotswood for the second day running. I have created four optional activities for our pupils to do on Wizkid. A tables test, snow description or poem using the online assignment, discussion to say what fun activities they are getting up to and a gallery that they can use to upload their snow photos or pictures. This should still leave lots of time to enjoy the snow. I also used the messaging facility to inform everyone that the school is closed.

Foundation Stage

2009-02-01T17:36:00.003Z

Wiz Kid is in full swing in the juniors and as the Foundation Stage Teacher and ICT Manager I thought that I should have a go with my children. The first lesson consisted of us mainly looking at the site I have built on the IWB , I have put a few videos and games for them to play which instantly got them wowing. The real excitment came when I told them that they could email each other, the teachers and their friends in other classes - we then needed a brief discussion on email - some had their own email at home others didn't. So myself and my classroom assistant along with a few prepared parents helped the children to log on to Wiz Kid and got them going on Email. A very noisy session in the ICT suite but as I looked round each computer I smiled as each child with their partner was attempting to write something (not much made sense but they were emailing) as well as looking through the address book to find their friends. The greater excitment came of course when they got an instant reply from me! I now know that there is no excuse from anyone if Year R can do it anyone can!! Next Time - discussion!!

How I used Studywiz successfully so far

2009-02-01T17:35:00.002Z

I am new to the blog but going to have a go at sharing one way I have used the multimedia activity and assignment in Studywiz.

I am currently working on the Fire of London with a year 2 and 3 class. For the children to have an understanding of how big London is I used Google Maps and the multimedia activity to allow children to view aerial pictures of both London and where our school is (a village). I then asked them to complete an assignment to let me and others what they had found the differences were between London and our village.

This activity was successful for the main part but it did highlight rather well how many of my children didn't read the question - with answers like there are Chinese people in London. Because it was all on Studywiz we were able to view each others answers though and I was able to question how they found this out from looking at the maps!!

I added the google maps using the links but if I remember rightly you can embedd the maps but I couldn't remember how to do this!

Myself and another teacher are launching it to the parents of our classes this week which should be interesting!!!! We have set up a discussion board for them to comment.

Mental Maths using QTS Assessment

2009-01-26T17:38:00.002Z

This week my Maths set have been given five short mental maths activities to do each day for homework. I created these using QTS Assessment, the more advanced Wizkid test tool. Each test is designed to time out after 5 minutes which encourages speed. When we first started using these I didn't set a time limit as the children needed time to get used to working under pressure. Last year I found that this paid out handsomely when we did their timed tape test at the end of the year.

Bridging the gap between home and school

2009-01-21T19:21:00.003Z

Our Year 6 are in full swing using Studywiz. One of the most useful things we have done so far (according to the children) is to place a whole medium term plan's worth of resources for French for children to access at home. We use these resources straight from Studywiz in the classroom and then publish those resources at the end of the session so the children can go home and use them at their leisure - and consequently consolidate their learning.

Maths Games

2009-01-21T17:39:00.004Z

Using the 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire' style game (can't remember it's name!), children created their own quiz based on the properties of shapes. They were really excited by how good their own games looked, but were also really keen to trick each other with the alternative, multiple choice answers which meant they thought really carefully about which vocabulary and alternative answers they gave. We then made these games available to other classes who were working on shape also. This gave their work a great level of importance (and saved us a lot of time too!)

[Edit] - In order for the children to be able to create the games we had to set up several 'pupil / teacher' accounts, giving the children rights to add a new activity to a selected lesson. The accounts were time-limited and had their passwords changed at the end of the lesson. I believe an easier option for allowing children to create their own resources is currently under development.

Editing for speech

2009-01-21T17:35:00.004Z

In a similar style to Fiona's use of a chat room to create a playscript, we found that using StudyWiz really motivated the children to use the correct punctuation and layout for speech. We set up a chat room and gave the children 5 mins to discuss a given topic. They then copied and pasted the text into Word and added the speech marks, punctuation and spacing.

In this instance they printed their finished work, but next time we will copy it back into StudyWiz and allow children to offer feedback to their peers.

Thinking Skills

2009-01-19T17:10:00.001Z

A colleague of mine has found that using the Discussion facility on the WizKids website a really useful tool for developing 'Thinking Skills'. She will post a weekly question or thought that the children will respond to. It is great when a child responds to another child's train of thought. Discussions that have been used are 'The car is parked. Has it broken down?' and 'You are made headteacher for the day - what would your assembly be about and why?'. Some really interesting discussions have come out of this.

Playscripts

2009-01-19T15:12:00.002Z

We have just completed a unit of planning, using the WizKids Chat Room facility. We are using the Chat Room to generate a playscript. The children will be asked to enter a specific Chat Room and they will be given a role to play. The dialogue that is produced can then be copied and pasted into a Word document to be manipulated by the children, stage directions added, narration etc.. We thought that the groups would need to remain small so the dialogue did not overlap. We were disappointed the script could not be directly printed but it was useful to be able to edit it Word. It is useful to be able to open a chat room for a certain length of time to focus the dialogue and pace.

Tudor Homes

2009-01-19T14:25:00.003Z

My year 5 class are looking at similarities and differences between a Tudor Yeoman and peasants house. I uploaded a MS Word document (with a table template) to an Assignment. My SEN pupils are adding their comments by recording them as sound files and inserting them as wave sound objects into Word. After completing their work they will upload the finished copy to the Assignment where I can view or listen to them to assess the work. Before Wizkid I would have had to arrange for pupils who have embedded sound files to e-mail me with their work or copied it during the lesson onto a usb stick or added it to a shared drive, this is far easier.

Symmetry Activities

2009-01-19T11:00:00.010Z

We used wizkid once in my year 5 maths lesson, to look at flags of the world and see what lines of reflectional symmetry they have. I embedded flag pictures that are already on the internet so I didn't have to upload anything. I also linked to or embedded a lot of internet symmetry activities for homework. There are so many good internet maths resources, the difficulty is choosing which ones to use. My set love doing their homework online. Those without the internet at home have chosen to use school computers at breaktime as they prefer doing the work online than on paper.

What happens when a candle burns?

2009-01-14T21:08:00.002Z

The children used Digital Blue Cameras to record their candles burning. They downloaded these to the computer but we found that they wouldn’t play in Windows Media Player ( I have since found that they worked in Quicktime). The idea was to upload their movies into a Whizkid Gallery, but as there was a technical hitch we decided to upload the one picture we had (!). Each child then made a comment on what they had learned about what happens when a candle burns. The teacher responded to each child asking them a question to extend their thinking on the subject from where they were with the answers they gave. She then set homework for them to login to Whizkid and respond to her question.
I like this because it promotes personalised learning and formative assessment. The teacher now has a record of what each child learned from the lesson and was able to extend their thinking. Parents were also involved through the homework assignment.
It could be improved by using movies – so that the children could be reminded of the wax burning and reducing in evaporation. It would also be good if the teacher could receive e-mail notification of when the children had posted their responses.

Creating a Tudor Timeline

2009-01-13T11:38:00.008Z

Pupils: Year 5
Subject: History
Activity: Creating a Tudor Timeline
Setup: 1x Tudor picture gallery (My LSA found the pictures) 1x Assignment with Publisher document which had a timeline from 1485 until 1610 and instructions to create a timeline using the pictures from the gallery

The start of the lesson involved pupils in groups piecing pictures of the Tudors Monarchs together and then investigating who they were. I then showed them how to use that info to create a timeline using MSPublisher. They then downloaded a template Publisher Document from the assignment with the line marked out between 1500 & 1600. Pupils then downloaded pictures from the gallery, put them together with facts from the earlier part of the lesson and uploaded that to the assignment. Lesson went really well and these are the best history timelines we have produced and they can add more facts to them as the module progresses.
Next time I will differentiate the template and let my more able pupils create the line as well.