Following on from the excellent success of the 1st ever teachmeent in Blackpool as organised by @mister_jim and myself, together we have taken on the challenge of setting up the next one in June 2010.
We’re hoping for an even better response than what we had in the 1st meeting.
“I would encourage heads to use it as CPD for all staff as, in my 12th year of headship, nothing has had impact for T&L in my school like the meeting you ran last half term. We are now reaping the rewards and our learners are more engaged in the learning process and this has had an impact on engaging the parents too.” stated Frances Wygladala Head Teacher St. Kentigans Blackpool
With both the support of the LA ICT strategy team and the continued passion to develop @mister_jim and I aim to meet a wider audience to include some local secondary schools, as few were represented in January.
Tonight my LA hosted it’s 1st Games Based Learning meeting – aimed at all the schools that they have given a set of DSs’ too. We all shared our experiences and they are planning to hold/host a DS challenge in the summer term aimed at all the child who have been part of the pilot project.
This has got me thinking – how to use the advancements in technology within the classroom – it seems I am running behind a few pioneers who constantly thrive to push it within the classroom, so I have taken the plunge…….
I am going to take my own (Wii) into my class and allow the children (& myself) discover the learning possibilities linked to Wii sports initially. I am going to keep asking and watching my PLN through twitter to see what other games could have an impact on learning – many thanks already to @dawnhallybone, @icklekid, @tombarrett and @primarypete_ for their inspiration……
We were introduced to reporting abuse and the suggestion to use the report abuse button to be linked to school websites so that children have an easy access point.
After such an informative and useful session – I’m eager to get into school and share with both the children and the staff making sure they are all aware of the potential pitfalls about being on line……..
Although it maybe the Summer holidays a teacher work is never done……
In September, I start at my new school, staying in Blackpool. I will be in Yr6, leading ICT. One thing I want to do is enhance the children’s learning experience. The school is supported by LA and has access to a number of days at the local CLC. I want to incorporate ICT into the classroom, develop a creative curriculum (including digital media), improve usage of VLE and provide opportunities for the children to experience something different from the traditional …….
Ideas so far :-
1) using Skype to contact other schools working on a collaborative project
2) developing writing using online games – Samarost / Anikas Odyssey (thanks to @simonhaughton & @porchester)
3) developing my use of VLE / Edmodo
To name a few, I will be blogging about anything else I find/ use within my first term along with my experiences from CLC. Maybe at TeachmetNW in October I will be also able to share my findings along with gaining some ideas from those who will be present.
This the 6th Year my LA (Blackpool) has staged the Digital Media Awards, hosted by the local Odeon Cinema. In that time the awards has developed into an annual event showcasing the high quality ICT and its practises that are taking place within the Authority. This year my school created a number of entries (particularly for the Podcasting category) 3 of which made it through to the event. Over 80 entries for the 8 categories were put forward to the audience vote (using Active voting system)
Every school that had an entry should be really proud of what they achieved and although as as school we didn’t win, the winners were the children who had been given the opportunity to be creative within the classroom setting, plus it just makes you want to try harder for next year……..
Does your LA have such an event to showcase the excellent range of ICT that takes place both within your setting and locally?
Today I got the children to create a postcard using Openoffice and then email it as an attachment. This may not sound much but to all my children using email to send something was relatively new, only a couple had every tried it themselves. The task was to create a postcard, splitting a page in two, writing about Paris on one side them adding the school address (where to send it) on the other. I then asked them to find their own pictures of Paris to stick on another page to make it look like a postcard. I had a few issues with Openoffice initially but we managed to overcome them. Towards the end of the lesson I got the children to search for gmail and then log in using an account and password that I had set up. They then composed an email – sending it to another account that I had set up, but had it already open on the IWB for them to see their email arriving.
Having got all this in place I plan to send each group a reply back tonight so that the children have an email to open up and then start to build up their skills in relation to using it safely and sensibly.
Today I started my topic En Vacances! with my class (Yr6) as the other class in Yr6 did the same activity but on paper. I wanted to see if technology assisted/supported children in producing higher quality work. I used Wallwisher and set up a page for the children to do prior to the lesson.
Within Edmodo all the children in my class will be given an access code to a new area – within that area I have created a word document (guide) for what I would like them to do (in pairs) over the next 3 weeks – all work is to be uploaded back to Edmodo, by turning it in. I will track what they produce but my main aim is to be a facilitator and allow the children to get and be creative with what they produce…….
Within the next few days I am aiming to produce a Voicethread to be shared with @kvnmcland his class of a guided tour of Paris – I will supply the pictures the children will provide the voice overs and comments.
Following a twitter convertation started by @icklekid who was ‘looking at VLE’s at the moment have you any experience of website/blog combinations’ it got me thinking. Currently my school has a website, access to the LA VLE (Fronter) and doesn’t Blog or post Wiki’s. However, when I move schools in September, I and my new head would like this to change…….
As the conversation developed @porchester, @HGJohn, @andyfield joined in. @andyfield has an excellent site that incorporates VLE, blogging and Google Apps incorporated.
So on Monday (8th June) I will be speaking to my new head and seeing what we can do – I so hope it involves a little bit of everything ……will have to wait and see!
Due to various reasons the event has had to be moved forward a week to allow us to us the venue – hopefully this will not affect the number of people who are interested in attending the event. We could still do with some people to put their names forward to present at the event ……… fancy having a go ??
“The idea of SIMPLE SCIENCE is to have informative music video presentations for use in the primary school classroom.
They are designed to be used as part of a lesson to reinforce learning objectives and scientific concepts and also as a useful
revision tool for the SAT exams. They work particularly well on a large whiteboard but can also be viewed on the computer screen and TV.
There is a DVD for each year group which contains all the information videos and video songs for each unit of study of the UK National Science Curriculum. They also have fun karaoke and subtitled versions of the songs on each disc.”
I ordered the complete set for the school (in particular for my year 6, to help with their revision) The children asked if they could have then to take home. We discussed this (ie did they want a disc with them on or some other format) The overall majority wanted to have it on their phones and ipods. So I contacted one of the creators, Owen Jamerson, and asked if i could convert the files. He was more than happy for this to happen as I had purchased the complete set of videos. So with the help of my school network manager, we set about converting every video clip. The children then uploaded them/ installed them to their chosen device.
Hopefully, this years SAT’s results can prove the impact this has had on the children. I can claim to have heard a select few singing out the songs for particular topics in order to answer some of this year questions!!
Here is an example of just one video – see how long it takes before you too are singing along!
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Following on from the excellent success of the 1st ever teachmeent in Blackpool as organised by @mister_jim and myself, together we have taken on the challenge of setting up the next one in June 2010.
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