The itslearning recipe book
Volume 1
© itslearning 2012
The itslearning
recipe book
The recipes in this book come from real teachers and
real classrooms. They show how teachers are using the
itslearning platform to make a difference for their students,
save time and connect with students in new ways. We
hope that they will inspire you in your teaching.
Of course, you don’t have to teach a recipe exactly as it’s
written here. If you do find a new approach to a recipe,
a new flavour that you think other teachers might like,
please let us know. We love it when teachers tell us how
they are using the platform. Those real life stories show
that our learning platform is making a difference – and we
enjoy sharing these stories with other teachers.
If you have a recipe that you think other teachers would
benefit from, email us at education@itslearning.com or send
your recipe via our website: www.itslearning.eu/recipes
Contents
Easy: recipes for teachers who are new to itslearning
6
Anne’s digital leaders
8
Ashley’s extra materials
10
The school play
12
Inger’s double-quick concept check
14
Lyndsey’s pre-teaching warmers
16
Magnus’ review lessons
18
Nil’s lesson summaries
20 Robert’s creativity toolbox
Intermediate: recipes for teachers who are ready to do more
24 Becki’s talking avatars
26 Christian’s audio feedback
28 John’s differentiated assignments
30 Line’s keyword revision exercise
32 Mieke’s celebrity language book
34 Morten’s time-saving book reviews
36 Trond’s student-made tests
38 Benjamin’s encyclopaedia articles
Advanced: recipes for teachers who are looking to find new
ways to use itslearning
42 Alastair’s worry button
44 Anne Cathrine’s flipped classroom
46 Paul’s ePortfolio showcase
48 Kjetil’s questionnaire for individual feedback
50
Monika’s learning plans
52 Anita’s interactive whiteboard notes at home
55 How to re-use your materials in different courses
3
Easy recipes
for teachers who are new to itslearning
Easy
Anne’s digital leaders
Like many schools, the students at the primary school where Anne
works have better ICT skills than their teachers. So Anne created Digital
Leaders, a group of students who help teachers with ICT issues during
their lunch breaks.
Anne wrote a ‘job advertisement’, added it to the school dashboard
and invited students to apply. She then chose six students to be Digital
Leaders. She then created a Digital Leaders course page in itslearning
where staff can request help from the Digital Leaders.
Anne embedded a Google spread sheet on the course page that teachers
can use to book Digital Leaders. But there are several ways to manage
this. For example, you could use a Bulletin on the course page. Or you
could use a discussion if you want a dynamic area where teachers can
add requests and the Digital Leaders can respond.
The recipe:
Serves: Any teacher needing help with technology
Preparation time: 30 minutes to set up the course
Execution time: As long as you want
Technical ability: Low
You need: Students who love technology and teachers who don’t
Adding the ‘job advertisement’ to the school dashboard
1. You need to be logged in as an Administrator to add items to the
school’s main page. If you don’t already have a News content block on
the dashboard click Add content block. Select Aggregated and choose
News. The News content block will now appear on the dashboard.
2. Click Add news. Give your advertisement a title and description.
You can add images by selecting Insert and then following the
instructions on the screen. Click Save when you are done.
Setting up the Digital Leaders course
1. On the dashboard, click Courses and select Add course. Give the
course a title and click Save.
2. To add all teachers to the course, click Participants in the left hand
menu, then click Add participants. In the First name field write %
and untick all check boxes except for Teachers (or Staff or Employees,
depending on what your school administrator has chosen).
3. At the top of the list, click the tick box next to Name so all teachers are
selected. At the bottom of the page under Select role, choose Teacher
and click Add.
4. Repeat this to add your Digital Leaders to the course. Obviously, you’ll
need to search for students instead of teachers, and only tick the boxes
next to the students you want to add.
7
Easy
Ashley’s extra materials
As a psychology teacher at a college in a rural area of the UK, Ashley’s
biggest problem is dealing with classes of mixed abilities and interests.
Her answer is to set up folders on her itslearning course page. The
folders contain resources for students, aimed at different levels.
• Support: includes basic materials such as class notes, PowerPoints
and revision strategies for students who missed class or need extra
time to grasp the basics
• Additional: includes materials for students who found a
particular topic interesting and would like to explore more, such as
films that explain the subject, case studies and articles
• Extension: includes more advanced materials, such as real
psychology papers and links to the latest research on the internet,
for students who really want to go deeper into the subject
This way, students can always access the information they need and
can choose to read further in their own time if they want.
Quick tip
Ashley discovered that students tend to search for materials by
teacher rather than by theme. So, it’s worth working with your
students to find out how they use itslearning when setting up
your file structures.
The recipe:
Serves: A full class of students with varying abilities and interests
Preparation time: A few hours to set up the file structure
Execution time: None
Technical ability: Low
Adding a file to My web files
My web files is your personal file storage area on itslearning.
1. Click ePortfolio in the top menu. Then click My files and choose My
web files.
2. Click Upload file and then Choose file (or Browse). A pop-up box will
appear. Find the file you want to upload from your computer and click
Open.
3. Click Upload file and your file will be saved to itslearning. It will now
appear in the list in My web files.
Adding files to your folder
1. Start by adding a folder. On the course dashboard, click Add at the
bottom of the left-hand menu. Click Add folder and give the folder a
title and description. Click Save. Repeat this to create the number of
resource folders you want.
2. Once the folders have been set up, you can re-arrange them in the
left-hand tree menu simply by clicking them and then dragging and
dropping them into place.
3. To add a resource to the folder, click the folder you want in the lefthand menu and then click Add under the folder.
4. Choose Add note. Give your note a title. In the text field, write some
information about the file so your students know what it is.
5. Click the Insert drop down menu and then click File from ‘My web
files’.
6. Find your file and then click
(If you are adding a video, it may be
better to embed it directly into the note by clicking
)
7. Click Save and your note containing the file will appear in the tree
folder.
9
Easy
The school play
When one school put on A Christmas Carol as a school play, they
decided to set up an itslearning course for everyone involved. As well
as basic information about rehearsal times, the course also included
recordings of the songs in the play so the cast could practice at home.
The school is convinced that the level of performance improved as a
result.
Quick tip
These courses can be used for any club or extracurricular activity.
The school also has a course for the school choir, for example,
where recordings of the practice sessions are available for anyone
who missed practice, allowing them to catch up at home.
The recipe:
Serves: An entire school
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Execution time: A few minutes to add new resources when needed
Technical ability: Low
1. Click Courses on the top navigation bar, and then click Add course.
2. Give the course a title (for example, School play). If your school uses
course codes and credits, include this information as well. Click Save.
3. Your school play course is now ready to use. You can add resources
and information as usual to fill up the course.
4. To add people to the course, select Participants in the tree menu.
Then click Add participants. You can search for individuals to add. If
you want a list of all students, type % in the first name field, tick the
Students box and click Search. (You can do the same for all employees,
administrators, etc.) You can now simply scroll down the list of
students and tick the ones you want to add to the course. Click Add at
the bottom of the page and you’re done.
11
Easy
Inger’s double-quick
concept check
Polls are not only useful for gauging student opinion. Language teacher
Inger Alice uses them to quickly survey whether her students have
grasped the key points of the topic she’s teaching – and she uses the
results to decide if she needs to dedicate more class time to the topic or if
her students are ready to move on.
The technique is both easy and quick. Inger Alice simply creates a poll
and adds it to her course page. She then asks her students to log on and
quickly answer it. (They can do this in class or at home.)
According to Inger Alice, the key to these kinds of polls is choosing
questions that students can answer quickly but that also give a clear
idea of their understanding of the concept. Here’s an example of a poll
she uses in her language classes to check how well her students have
grasped a grammatical point.
The recipe:
Serves: The teacher
Preparation time: A couple of minutes
Execution time: A few minutes to check the results
Technical ability: Low
1. On your Course, click Add content block. Select Poll.
2. Give the poll a title and write your question. (You can select more
alternatives by clicking Add alternative.) Click OK and you’re done.
13
Easy
Lyndsey’s pre-teaching
warmers
When Lyndsey first saw the itslearning discussion forum, she realised
there were many ways she could use it to engage her students – both
in and out of the classroom. Using the discussion forum before class, for
example, allows her to get her students thinking about a topic before
she covers it in a lesson.
Lyndsey simply creates a discussion forum on her itslearning course
page that introduces the theme her students will be covering in class.
She asks her students to log on and comment on the discussion before
class. As well as getting her students in the right frame of mind before
the class, the comments on the forum give Lyndsey a good idea of how
much her students know about a topic and what their opinions are.
Quick tip
The key to making these discussions successful is starting with
a question that inspires the students. One way of doing this
is beginning with something controversial. Before teaching
a unit about IT security, for example, you might want to start
with a discussion about whether or not students would like
closed circuit TV cameras installed in school corridors and
playgrounds.
The recipe:
Serves: An entire class
Preparation time: 5 minutes
Execution time: None
Technical ability: Medium
1. In your itslearning course page, click Add in the tree menu and then
click Add discussion.
2. Give the discussion a name and write a short text to explain what
the students need to do. (Remember to make sure the topic of the
discussion will engage your students.) Click Save and the discussion
will be visible to students in the tree menu.
15
Easy
Magnus’ review lessons
Magnus has developed a simple way of helping students who miss
class. He records each lesson using a Dictaphone and posts the MP3
file on itslearning along with lesson notes and other materials. The
students can then listen to the recording directly through itslearning or
download it onto their MP3 player or mobile phone.
A few months after starting the recordings, Magnus surveyed his
students and discovered that even students who came to class used
them – sometimes listening to them at home with their parents.
Quick tip
As a variation, you can simply record the lesson using itslearning’s
in-built sound recorder. This will automatically save the file in the
right place, but you may need an external mic to get decent sound.
The recipe:
Serves: Anyone who missed class
Preparation time: None
Execution time: A few minutes to upload the sound file
Technical ability: Medium
You need: A Dictaphone or external mic
1. Record the lesson using your chosen recording device. You don’t
need to record the entire lesson. Only record the parts where you (or
a student) are talking and pause the recording during the rest of the
class.
2. At the end of the class, connect the Dictaphone to your computer.
3. On the itslearning course page, click Add in the tree menu and then
click Add file.
4. Give the file a title and click Choose File.
5. Select the recording and click Open.
6. Press Save and the file with the recording will be visible to students
in the tree menu.
17
Easy
Nils’s lesson summaries
As an itslearning trainer, Nils has the pleasure of meeting hundreds
of teachers around Norway every year. It’s generally his job to show
teachers what they can do with itslearning, but it’s not uncommon for
Nils to be inspired by the teachers he meets. This recipe is one example.
Nils liked it so much, he now includes it in his training sessions. Here’s
how it works.
Once a week, simply add a summary of the main points from that
week’s lesson onto your itslearning course page. You can write the
summary in plain text or add images, videos and PDFs depending on
the topic. Then, when your students log into the course, they get a quick
overview of the most important points from that week. Your students
can use them when doing their homework and, at the end of the course,
the summaries form a good basis for their revision.
(There’s a slightly more advanced version of this recipe that uses a
collaborative writing document and keywords so the students can
write the summaries themselves. See Line’s keyword revision exercise
if you want to try it.)
Quick tip
You don’t have to write the summary. It’s also possible to record an
oral summary of the lesson. Simply create the note and then select
New audio recording under Insert.
The recipe:
Serves: An entire class
Preparation time: None
Execution time: 10-20 minutes to write the note
Technical ability: Low
1. On your Course page tree menu, click Add. Select Add note.
2. Give the note a title and write your text. (If you want to do a video or
audio summary, simple click Insert and select New audio recording
or New video recording.)
3. Press Save and the summary will be visible to students in the tree
menu.
19
Easy
Robert’s creativity toolbox
As a primary school teacher, Robert is always looking for different
ways to stimulate his students’ creativity. He’s found that his students
particularly enjoy using J2e Infant Tools to create simple texts,
paintings, charts and animations.
For Robert, the real beauty of J2e Infant Tools is that his students
can choose to use them whenever they complete an assignment in
itslearning.
Quick tip
Your students can use J2E Infant Tools in any activities in
itslearning that uses the text editor. This includes tests, messages
and discussions.
The recipe:
Serves: A full class or an individual student
Preparation time: None
Execution time: As long as you or your students want
Technical ability: Low
How students use J2E Infant Tools in an assignment
1. Open the assignment your teacher has created for you. Click Submit
answer.
2. In the text editor, click Insert and choose Browse app library. Find J2e
Infant Tools and click Include this app.
3. Back in the text editor, click the Insert menu again and choose J2e
Infant Tools.
4. Create your stuff. When you are done, click Send to itslearning to add
your work to your assignment.
Note: Your school needs to have the J2E Infant Tools app enabled before
your students can use it. If it’s not there already, speak to your itslearning
administrator.
21
Intermediate recipes
for teachers who are ready to do more
Intermediate
Becki’s talking avatars
Becki uses a lot of multimedia to make her courses more engaging for
her students. Avatars – or talking animations – are one of her most
popular techniques. Creating them is really quite simple, and it adds an
extra dimension to an itslearning course page.
Becki uses avatars from www.voki.com to introduce students to
content and learning objectives for each unit. She places a little
animated character on her course page, and when her students enter
the course they can play the avatar to get a spoken, animated and often
amusing introduction to the subject they are going to study.
Avatars can be placed pretty much anywhere, and can be used to give
the students a homework assignment, announce class news or pretty
much anything else.
What is an avatar anyway?
In computing, an avatar is a character, either drawn or animated, that
represents the user. Many people use avatars instead of real photos on
discussion forums or blogs, and they’re also popular in games.
Quick tip
There are lots of websites where you can create avatars. Type
‘create avatar’ into an internet search and browse around until
you find a site that you like.
The recipe:
Serves: A full class
Preparation time: 5-10 minutes
Execution time: None
Technical ability: Medium
Creating your avatar
1. Go to www.voki.com and click the Create tab at the top of the page.
Then follow the instructions on screen to create your avatar (there are
hundreds of styles, shapes, animals and people to choose from) and
record what you want the avatar to say. (You can type what you want
the avatar to say or record yourself talking.)
2. When you’re finished, click Publish. Give your recording a name and
then copy the embed code voki.com produces.
Adding the avatar to itslearning
This method shows you how to embed your avatar into your course
front page, but you can embed it anywhere you use the text editor.
1. On your main course page, click Add content block and select Rich
content.
2. Give your content block a title. In the editor click the Source button
and paste the embed code from voki.com into it. Click OK and your
avatar will appear on your course page. Click Play to hear what it has
to say.
25
Intermediate
Christian’s audio feedback
As an itslearning trainer, Christian meets hundreds of teachers every
year. His job is to help teachers get the most out of itslearning. But he
also picks up a lot of ideas from the teachers he works with – like this
idea to improve the quality of feedback students get from teachers.
The idea is pretty straight-forward. Instead of giving written feedback
on an assignment, you record your feedback using itslearning’s inbuilt sound recorder – and your students can play the recording when
they open an assignment. The technique allows you to give quicker
and more nuanced feedback, and many students prefer it because the
feedback often feels more personal than written notes.
Quick tip
You can also give feedback with video. Simply select New
video recording instead of New audio recording from the dropdown menu.
The recipe:
Serves: A single student
Preparation time: None
Execution time: 2-3 minutes
Technical ability: Medium
1. Make sure your computer has a microphone or internal microphone.
2. Open the assignment. Click Show next to the name of the student
whose assignment you want to assess. Click the Comment text field
and then click Insert. Select New audio recording from the dropdown menu.
3. If a pop-up box opens, click Allow.
4. Enter a name for the recording. Click the red button to start recording.
When you’re done, click the stop button. You can re-do the recording
by clicking the red button again. When you’re happy with the
recording, click Insert.
5. The recording will be automatically inserted into the Comment text
field. (An icon represents the recording.) Click Save and the student
will be able to play the recording when they open the assignment.
27
Intermediate
John’s differentiated
assignments
John Murdin got the idea for this recipe when one of his students did
something he wasn’t supposed to do. John had asked his class to write
a newspaper article for homework. But, instead of writing the article,
one bright spark decided to record a TV news report using itslearning’s
built-in video recorder. The student was so pleased with his work that
he uploaded it well before the assignment deadline.
John showed the video to his class. The next thing he knew, all his
students had done something creative with the assignment: made TV
news reports, recorded radio reports or wrote articles. Now, when John
sets any creative assignment, he gives his students a choice of how to
complete it – and believes it’s a great way to differentiate an assignment
without extra effort.
Quick tip
There are lots of ways students can get creative with itslearning.
Check out the App Library to find tools for making animations,
designing web pages and more.
The recipe:
Serves: A full class with varying abilities and interests
Preparation time: 3 minutes
Execution time: None
Technical ability: Low
1. In your itslearning course page, click Add in the tree menu and then
click Add assignment.
2. Complete the assignment form. In the description, make a note that
students can write a newspaper article, record a TV news report or
make a radio story.
3. Click Save and your students will see the assignment when they
log in. You’ll get notification when a student uploads a completed
assignment.
29
Intermediate
Line’s keyword revision
exercise
As a science teacher, Line found that her students had to learn a lot of
new concepts and words throughout the course. So she developed this
simple way to help them.
After each lesson, Line gives each student one keyword from that
day’s class (it could be a single word, concept or person). As part of their
homework, students have to write a short explanation of the keyword
and add links to useful summary information on the internet.
The students all work in the same live typing document in the
itslearning course page. This means they can see other students’
keywords and explanations, and they know they’re not just writing the
explanations for themselves, but also for their classmates.
The keyword document helps students focus on the key points from
each lesson. It also grows each week, and becomes an excellent revision
document by the end of the course.
Quick tip
According to Line, you should choose the keyword for each
student carefully because this enables you to differentiate
the exercise for each student.
The recipe:
Serves: An entire class
Preparation time: A few minutes to set up the live typing document
Execution time: 5-10 minutes after each class
Technical ability: Medium
1. On your course page tree menu, click Add. Select Add note. Give the
note a title and write a short introduction text if you want.
2. Now open another browser window and go to www.typewith.me.
(There are plenty of other websites that provide similar live typing
documents, if you prefer.) Give your typewith.me pad a name (for
example, science revision) and click OK.
3. Your new typewith.me pad will open. This pad is unique to you and
people can only access it if you send them the URL (or embed it into
their itslearning course, which is the next step). Click the </> button
in the top right-hand corner, and copy the Embed URL code.
4. Now return to your note on your itslearning course page. Click the
Source button and paste the Embed URL code into the text editor.
Click Save.
5. Click Show note and the typewith.me pad will appear in the note on
your itslearning course page. Delete the welcome text and you (and
anyone who can see the course page) can now type in the note.
6. At the end of the lesson, go to the note and type in the keywords,
followed by the name of the student who you want to write the
explanation.
31
Intermediate
Mieke’s celebrity language
book
This recipe from Mieke in the Netherlands is a great way of combining
learning a language (in this case Spanish) with students’ fascination
with celebrities – and it results in a book that every student in the class
will have contributed to.
Each week, every student writes an article in Spanish on a celebrity of
their choice and submits it via itslearning. Mieke gives feedback to the
student so they can make changes. After the students have completed
the final version, they upload it again to itslearning. After nine weeks of
writing, the articles are published as a book.
Quick tip #1
To save yourself time and further engage your students
in the activity, you could ask them to put the articles
together into a book themselves, perhaps using J2e
online documents, a free desktop publishing tool in the
itslearning App Library.
Quick tip #2
If you are concerned about plagiarism, you can check the
Plagiarism control tick box when you set the assignment.
The recipe:
Serves: A full class
Preparation time: None
Execution time: Time to give feedback on each article and collect them
in a book
Technical ability: Medium
1. In your itslearning course page, click Add in the tree menu and then
click Add assignment.
2. Give the assignment a title and description. (At this stage, you can set
deadlines, assessment criteria and attach files with example texts if
you wish). When you’re done, click Save and your students will see
the assignment when they log in.
3. You’ll get a notification on your dashboard when a student submits
an article. To see student answers, click on the assignment in the
left-hand tree menu. A list of students who have submitted the
assignment appears at the bottom of the page. Click Show next to the
student’s name to see their assignment.
4. You can make your comments in the Comment field at the bottom of
the screen or directly in the file. After adding your comments click
Save and the student will be notified that her work has been assessed.
5. You’ll get a new notification when the student has corrected the
article. All that you have to do then is save the file so it’s ready to go
into the book.
33
Intermediate
Morten’s time-saving book
reviews
Morten is an educational researcher at itslearning, former teacher and
self-confessed teaching nerd. When he worked as a teacher, one of his
passions was reading, and he used to motivate his students to read by
asking them to read a book every couple of weeks and then review the
book in front of the class.
But there was never enough time for all 25 students to present their
books in front of the class, so he developed this technique as an
alternative.
Morten created a discussion forum called Book reviews, and then asked
each student to post a video review of their book under a new thread
in the discussion. (Students who didn’t want to appear on camera could
also write reviews.) This gave each student an opportunity to present
their book to the class, and enabled their classmates to comment on the
review.
Quick tip
In order to get a classroom discussion going, you can show
some of the review videos to the class (or ask students to
review the book again ‘live’ in front of the class) and then
open up the floor to a discussion of the book.
The recipe:
Serves: Full class or group of students
Preparation time: A couple of minutes
Execution time: As long as it takes for the students to write or present a
book review
Technical ability: Medium
Equipment: A web camera with microphone.
Setting up the discussion forum
1. In your itslearning course page, click Add in the tree menu and then
click Add discussion.
2. Name the discussion Book reviews, and write a short text explaining
what the students need to do. Click Save and the discussion is ready.
How your students enter their reviews
1. When the student is ready to add a review, they open the discussion
forum and click Start new thread. They give the new thread a title
and write or record their review in the text field.
2. To record a video review, they need to click Insert in the text editor
and click New video recording. (If a pop-up box opens, they need to
click Allow before proceeding.)
3. They can re-record the video as many times as they like. When they
are happy with the recording, they click Insert to add it into the
thread.
35
Intermediate
Trond’s student-made tests
Trond is head of itslearning’s international training team, but this
recipe comes from his days as a primary school teacher. The idea behind
the recipe is to encourage your students to take a more active role in
their learning by asking them to create the end of term test themselves.
Tell your students that you’d like them to write five questions for the
end of term test and you’ll choose the best 20 questions for the final
test. Then spilt them into groups and ask them to create their questions
using the itslearning test tool. When they’re done, review the questions
and select the ones you want to use.
What your students do
1. Your students need to click the folder you created in the tree
menu and then select Add elements to folder.
2. They then need to choose Add test with test 2.0, and give their
test a name and description. After they have clicked Save,
they choose Add questions and they are ready to go.
The recipe:
Serves: An entire class
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Execution time: 30 minutes to review and create the final text
Technical ability: Medium
What you do
1. On your Course page tree menu, click Add. Select Add folder. Give the
folder a name and description and click Save.
2. On the next screen, choose Select which elements may be added to
this folder. Deselect all items except Test 2.0. Click Save.
3. Now click Permissions and Select who may add new elements to this
folder. Click the box next to the names of the students you want to
take part, and then click Add. Click Save.
How you create the final test
1. In the tree menu of your course, select Add. Then select Add test. Give
the test a name and description and click Save.
2. Click Show test and then select the Questions tab.
3. Click Import and make sure Another test is selected. At the bottom
you’ll see two drop-down menus under Select area. Choose the
correct course from the first menu and the test you want to import the
questions from in the second menu. Click Insert.
4. Select the questions you want to import from the test and click Import.
Repeat with the other tests that you want to copy questions from.
37
Intermediate
Benjamin’s encyclopaedia
articles
As a secondary school history teacher, Benjamin knows that his
students have different levels of interest in his subject. He was
looking for a simple way to give his more enthusiastic students extra
materials that they could study between classes, and found that using
Britannica’s Encyclopaedia app inside itslearning was the answer.
At the end of each class, Benjamin writes a short summary of the
main points from the day’s teaching and adds it as a note on his course
dashboard. He also includes relevant articles from Encyclopaedia
Britannica, embedding them straight into the note using the app
inside itslearning. This way, every student has a summary of what was
covered, and any students who want to take their research further have
a good place to start.
Quick tip
You can also include the Britannica Online search box on
your course page or even inside assignments and tests,
giving students a quick way to look up topics and words.
The recipe:
Serves: A full class with mixed motivations
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Execution time: None
Technical ability: Medium
1. You need to add the Bulletin content block to your course dashboard.
(If you have a Bulletin content block on your course dashboard
already, jump straight to the next step.) On your course dashboard,
click Add content block, select the Aggregated tab and choose
Bulletins.
2. Click Add bulletin on the bulletin content block. Write your summary
text in the text editor.
3. Click Insert and choose Browse app library. Find Britannica
Online Content and click Include this app. (If you already have the
Britannica Online Content app, you can skip this step.)
4. In the Insert menu choose Britannica Online Content.
5. Do your search and select the articles you want to add to your course
dashboard. Click Insert.
6. Click on Save in the text editor.
39
Advanced recipes
for teachers who are looking to find new
ways to use itslearning
Advanced
Alastair’s worry button
As part of his work at itslearning, Alastair is lucky enough to travel
to different schools around the world to share ideas on improving
teaching and learning with itslearning. This idea is one he’s seen
employed to good effect at a number of schools.
The worry button is a simple way for students to voice any concerns
– from work pressures and bullying to troubles at home – to someone
at the school. They can choose to remain anonymous, but even if they
don’t give their name, it still alerts the school to issues that they might
not have known otherwise.
All you need to do is create a worry button at the top of the itslearning
interface. Students can see on every itslearning screen, and when they
click it they are taken to an itslearning survey. The survey invites them
to write their concern and leave their name if they wish.
In order to protect privacy, the survey is hosted on a course that only
the school safety officer or student welfare officer can access. They can
decide on the appropriate action when a concern is registered.
Quick tip
It’s possible to link the worry button directly to an external
student advice webpage, such as www.bullyhelp.org.
The recipe:
Serves: An entire school
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Execution time: None
Technical ability: High
Setting up the course
1. Click the Courses tab at the top of the page and then click Add course.
Give the course a title and click Save.
2. Now click Participants in the tree menu and select Add participants.
Type the name of the school safety officer in the search field, make sure
the Employee (or whatever term you use for staff) tick box is selected
and click Search.
3. Tick the box next to the school safety officer’s name and click Add. The
course will now only be accessible by you and the school safety officer.
Setting up the survey
1. On the course dashboard, click Add in the tree menu. Select Add survey.
Give the survey a title and introduction. In the Type field, select Open
externally (anonymous) and click Save.
2. Now click Add questions and use open questions to invite students to
write their concerns, and to leave their name if they wish.
3. When the survey is ready, click Permissions and then choose Select who
can see the results of the survey. Tick the box next to the school safety
officer’s name, click Add and then click Save. In the course tree menu,
click on the survey. Click Activate and copy the External survey URL.
Creating a worry button (You must be logged on as an administrator)
1. Go to the Admin tab. Under settings, click Edit Global Settings, then
Layout.
2. Under Define links for site, you can enter a link that people can see
at the top of their itslearning screen. Choose a Site defined menu link
that isn’t in use. Add a title and paste the survey URL into the URL
field. Tick the groups of people who you’d like to be able to see the
link, and click Save at the bottom of the page.
43
Advanced
Anne Cathrine’s flipped
classroom
The flipped classroom concept is simple. In the traditional classroom,
students study theory during class time and complete practice exercises
as homework. In the flipped classroom, students study theory at home
and then use classroom time on practice exercises. This gives you more
time in class to address any knowledge gaps.
To put this into practice, maths teacher Anne Cathrine makes a video
recording of herself explaining the theory. She then embeds the video
into a test and adds a couple of concept-check questions.
Students watch the video at home before answering the questions.
Then, before the class, Anne Cathrine reviews the test results to see
which areas caused problems and plans her class time accordingly.
Quick tip
You don’t have to record yourself on video. There are plenty
of educational videos online that you can use. Check out
www.khanacademy.org or www.teachertube.com to start.
You can also use software, such as Camtasia or the free
Screencast-O-Matic, to record your computer screen as you
talk. This means you can make your own video without
using a video camera.
The recipe:
Serves: : A full class
Preparation time: Up to a few hours
Execution time: A few minutes
Technical ability: High
You need: A video camera (if you make your own videos)
1. In your course page tree menu click Add. Then choose Add test.
2. Give the test a title and description. At this point, you can also set a
deadline for the test.
3. Option 1: Adding videos saved in My web files/your computer:
Click Insert and choose File from my web files. A list of your files
will appear. (If the file isn’t in your web files already, click Upload file
and then Choose File. Find the file on your computer and then click
Upload file again to include it in your web files.) Find the video you
want and click the embed button (<>) next to it. Click Save.
Option 2: Adding videos from the internet: Click Insert, choose Web
2.0 content and click Paste your own code. Paste the video embed
code into the HTML code field and click Insert. Click Save.
4. Click Add questions and create your concept check questions.
5. Before the next class, open the test by clicking it in the tree menu and
click Reports. You can then see a number of reports that will show
you how well your students performed.
45
Intermediate
Paul’s ePortfolio showcase
Many students enjoy showing their work to their peers, parents and
teachers. ePortfolios are perfect for this. But how can you get started
with them? Paul developed this idea for teaching languages, but it can
be adapted to suit other subjects.
The idea is to encourage your students to show pride in their work by
showcasing their skills in their ePortfolios. They can then share their
ePortfolios with other students or teachers, or show their parents when
they get home.
To help his students get started, Paul creates a simple Word document
listing the things that his students can do in the language they are
learning (for example, ‘I can count to 10 in French’ or ‘I can talk about
the weather’). He then asks his students to create an ePortfolio and
paste the list into it.
The students’ final task is to show what they can do. Under each item,
they demonstrate their skills by writing text or recording themselves
speaking using the in-built sound recorder.
Quick tip
If they want, students can get more creative and use the in-built
video recorder, images or even one of the creative tools in the App
Library, such as the stop-motion animation tool J2Spotlight.
The recipe:
Serves: A full class
Preparation time: 10-20 minutes to create the Word document
Execution time: None for you
Technical ability: Medium
How students create an ePortfolio
1. On your dashboard, click the ePortfolio tab at the top. Click Portfolios
and select New portfolio.
2. Give the ePortfolio a title and description.
3. You can now set some basic settings, including who can see the
ePortfolio and the ePortfolio’s theme (how it looks). Click Save when
you’re done.
How students add information
1. Click the ePortfolio tab in the dashboard. Then click Portfolios and
select the portfolio you want to work with.
2. Click Add to pull up a normal itslearning text editor. Then simply
select the text in the Word document and paste it into the text editor.
3. You can now add work to the ePortfolio in a number of ways:
• Type directly into the text editor
• Click Insert to insert images, PDFs, videos and other files
• Click Insert to record sound or video
47
Advanced
Kjetil’s questionnaire for
individual feedback
Like many teachers, Kjetil has students on his secondary maths course
who are there for different reasons. Some students want to get high
grades in his course while others are happy to scrape by with a pass in
order to focus on other subjects. His solution is to find out exactly what
his students want to achieve at the start of the course – and then tailor
his feedback to each individual’s goals.
On the first day of the course, Kjetil asks his students to complete a
quick maths test so he can assess their level. He also asks his students to
complete a survey about their motivations, including what grade they
hope to get and their future goals.
He uses the test results when he plans his teaching for the course and,
if most students struggled with a particular topic, he plans extra time
in his classes. He also notes down the results of the motivation survey.
This way, he can refer back to it when giving feedback to individual
students, and can ensure that the feedback matches the student’s stated
level of achievement.
According to Kjetil, even if he only speaks to a student for a couple of
minutes, they still feel they’ve got a lot out of it because the feedback is
directed to their specific goals.
The recipe:
Serves: An entire class
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Execution time: None
Technical ability: High
Setting up the course
1. In your course page tree menu click Add and then select Add survey.
2. Give the survey a title and description. Click Save.
3. Now click Add questions and create the questions for your survey
(you can use a number of different question types, including open
answer and multiple choice).
4. Now click Permissions and click Select who should take this survey.
Tick the boxes next to the students who you want to take the survey
(you can tick the top box to select all the students) and click Add. Click
Save when you are done. The survey will appear in your course’s tree
menu.
49
Advanced
Monika’s learning plans
Monika teaches at a lower secondary school in Norway, and each year
her students move on to study at the nearby upper secondary school.
According to teachers at the upper secondary school, Monika’s students
are better able to reflect on their learning than students from other
schools. So what does she do that makes a difference?
Monika uses individual learning plans to help her students better
understand and take responsibility for their learning. Here’s how you
do it.
Start by looking through the curriculum to create concrete goals that
your students can aim for. (For example, a writing goal may be to
“produce work with no spelling or grammar errors”.) Then ask each
student to choose a number of goals and add them to their individual
learning plans in itslearning. Next, ask the student to establish a
concrete plan for achieving each goal and add it to the individual
learning plan. (This, for example, could be to “look up any word if I’m
not sure of the spelling” and “check all my written work thoroughly for
grammatical errors before I hand it in”.)
You, your students and their parents can view the individual learning
plan at any time. Encourage your students to comment on their
progress – and you and the student’s parents can also add comments to
acknowledge success and give advice.
The recipe:
Serves: Individual students
Preparation time: Up to a few hours to create the goals
Execution time: A few minutes each week to check student progress
Technical ability: High
1. Click the Mentor tab at the top of the page, and then click Individual
learning plans. Click Create new next to the relevant student’s name.
You can now choose whether to create a new ILP or whether to copy
the contents of an existing one.
2. If you are creating a new ILP, you will need to give it a title and set
the start and finish dates. Click Create to finish.
3. To add new Skills and Goals simply click on the text in the relevant
column and start typing.
Note: You need to be assigned as a mentor in itslearning in order to
create Individual Learning Plans. If you aren’t a mentor already, please
ask your system administrator to make you a mentor.
Quick tip
The individual learning plans provide an excellent basis for
teacher-student-parent meetings. Monika asks her students
to lead the discussion, using the individual learning plan to
show their achievements and laying out their goals for the next
semester.
51
Advanced
Anita’s interactive
whiteboard notes at home
For Anita, one of the most important aspects of itslearning is that it
enables her to share what she’s done on the interactive whiteboard
with her students after class. She can simply add her whiteboard notes
and drawings to itslearning – which is a great revision tool for her
students – or add them to a test or assignment so her students can refer
to them when doing further work.
Here’s how you do it. Anita uses a SMART Board with SMART Notebook
11 software, but it should be possible to do the same with most
interactive whiteboards.
The recipe:
Serves: A full class
Preparation time: None
Execution time: About 10 minutes
Technical ability: High
You need: An interactive whiteboard with software
On the SMART Board
1. Write or draw on the whiteboard using your usual whiteboard
software.
2. In Notebook 11, click File and select Export. You can now save your
notes as either a PDF (.pdf) or a picture (.jpg). Choose the one you
prefer and click Save. (Note, this procedure may be different if you’re
using different interactive whiteboard software.)
Adding the file to itslearning
1. In the top menu, click ePortfolio and select My files.
2. Now click My web files and then click Upload file.
3. In the pop-up window, click Upload file and then Choose File (or
Browse). Find the file with your SMART Board notes, click Open and
then click Upload file.
4. The file will now be saved inside itslearning in My web files. You can
use the file in a number of ways. Here’s how you add the file to your
course tree menu as a Link.
Adding the file to a Link so your students can see it
1. In the course tree menu, click Add and select Add link. Give the link a
title and click Web area.
2. In the pop-up box, find the file you want from the list of files and click
it. The file will be added to the Link.
3. Click Save. Your students will be able to see the Link in the tree menu.
When they click the Link, they will see your notes exactly as they
appeared on the whiteboard.
53
How to re-use the materials you
create
If you’ve created a new resource, you may want to re-use it again
with another group of students.
Re-using materials in different courses
1. Let’s say you’re planning to re-use a test with a different group of
students. Go to the course where you originally created the test and
click the top folder in the tree menu (it will probably have the same
name as the course).
2. Tick the box next to the test you want to re-use. At the bottom of
the page, click Choose operation and select Copy to. Now select the
course and folder where you’d like to use the test.
3. Click Ok and the test will appear in the other course.
55
Read more recipes online at:
www.itslearning.eu/recipes
Helping teachers
inspire students to
greater heights
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used by millions of people around the world.
It can be found at all levels of education,
from primary schools to universities, helping
teachers make education more inspiring and
valuable for today’s students.
We provide a full range of services, from simple
training sessions to full-scale implementation
projects. Established in 1999, we have our
headquarters in Bergen, Norway, and have
offices in London, Birmingham, Berlin, Paris,
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Head office
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