2nd – 6th July at Magna Rotherham

Yes that’s right – free, which is why there’s not much time get book your places. This is a national event with schools from all over the country taking part but as it’s in Rotherham, we’d like to make sure that YHGfL schools make the most of this fantastic opportunity. Sign up for as much or as little as you want. Take your pupils or just go yourself, it’s all free and runs over 5 days so loads to choose from:

• 5 days of hands-on interactive and inspiring workshops and lectures from leading figures in education and industry.
• Fully inclusive workshop schedule – from Key Stage 1 to Key Stage 5.
• A fully engaged curriculum – Coding/Programmer/Computer Science, Art, Maths, Physics, English, Drama.
• 750+ workshop places and 2000+ activity places – applications encouraged from schools across the country.
• 250 CPD opportunities for teachers and educators to develop existing and new digital skills taking game creation back into the classroom.
• Industry-lead careers surgeries, vital advice and guidance for schools and young people.

For every you need to get the most out of this event, visit the website or download the Planning Your Visit document. They’ve even done your visit risk assessment for you!

http://www.gamesbritannia.com/2012/assets/planningyourvisit.pdf

http://www.gamesbritannia.com/2012/index.php

Tickets for workshops, talks and for entry into the REPLAYED arena are now available to Games Britannia registrants on a first-come-first-served basis.

Additions To The Schedule

Games Brittania are delighted to announce that Alex Warren will be delivering two Creative Writing/Literacy/Puzzle Solving workshops using Quest his free Text Adventure creation tool, and Bruce Grove, the General Manager of OnLive UK will be talking about the future of gaming – specifically cloud based systems that are set to revoluntionise how we play videogames at home and on the move.

Star Wars videogame writer comes to Sheffield

A Sheffield Hallam University graduate who now lives in Austin, Texas, is returning to the city to pass on her experiences of working on one of the world’s largest multiplayer online video games.

Jo Berry, who studied a master’s in creative writing at Sheffield Hallam, is a writer on Star WarsTM: The Old RepublicTM, a ‘massively multiplayer online role-playing game’ based in the Star Wars universe.

For more information and to book your free places:

http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/org/1178088293?s=7706373

Are you starting to hear things about Kodu? Interested in finding out more? The Microsoft Schools UK blog has some case studies, stories from teachers and links to the free download.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ukschools/archive/2011/05/11/kodu-bringing-fun-to-learning-in-the-classroom.aspx

If you’re a YHGfL member don’t forget you can request a free online training session to get you started on Kodu. Simply email us and we’ll make all the necessary arrangements.

contact@yhgfl.net

UK’s founding father of interactive entertainment to open videogame festival

The co-author of the Livingstone-Hope Next Gen report in 2011, which prompted the government to address ICT in schools, will officially open the Games Britannia videogames education and careers festival in July.

Ian Livingstone OBE, co-creator of the Fighting Fantasy series of interactive adventure books, has given the festival organisers the go-ahead to run a Fighting Fantasy themed workshop. The session, which Ian will help facilitate, will show children how interactive fiction can bring the art of story-telling to videogames.

Ian said: “Interactive fiction is becoming more prevalent in games as players look for deeper, more engaging story-telling and increased scope for decision-making.

“The Games Britannia festival will give children a real look at how videogames involve writing skills and story-telling to create interactive fiction. I hope the Fighting Fantasy workshops will promote a passion for literature and encourage sometimes reluctant readers and writers to …read and write!”

The Fighting Fantasy series of workshops will showcase a new interactive fiction tool, created with writers and schools in mind and completely free of charge, by new creative start-up company inkle

Created by a pair of former videogame developers, Jon Ingold and Joseph Humfrey, inklewriter requires no set-up, no programming and no drawing diagrams – and it enables young people to write and share interactive literature.

Co-creator Jon Ingold said: “Before founding inkle, Joe and I both worked in the videogame industry and we know first-hand the importance of events like Games Britannia, to get kids thinking about how games work and how they’re made.

“It’s a real treat for us to be involved, especially in collaboration with Ian and Fighting Fantasy. We can’t wait to see what the students make with our inklewriter tool!”

Ian Livingstone will also be showcasing his brand new Fighting Fantasy title at the festival, called Blood of the Zombies.

The videogames education and careers festival will take place from 2 to 8 July at the MAGNA Science Adventure Centre, and will celebrate the strength of the UK industry and inspire the next generation of British videogame talent. The festival includes Games Britannia: REPLAYED, which opens the Games Britannia doors to the public for a weekend of games-based learning and entertainment.

Games Britannia, incorporating Games Britannia: REPLAYED, is organised by a partnership including Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council, Sheffield Hallam University, Brinsworth Comprehensive School Academy Trust, Replay Events and UK Interactive Entertainment, and is backed by industry companies including Sony Computer Entertainment Europe.

To find out more about the festival, visit  www.gamesbritannia.com/2012/

Simple yet highly effective art and craft techniques that non specialist teachers can feel confident at trying in the classroom.

The Art Skills for Teachers resource is a website that has been created by the Ben Uri Gallery to support the teaching of art and design. It is targeted at the non specialist. It aims to offer simple, yet highly effective, ideas and techniques that both teachers, children can feel confident at trying both at school and at home.

The ideas and techniques can be used to create artworks in response to the  Ben Uri Teaching Resources produced by the London Grid for Learning, A Sense of Place, Relationships and Movement – however their application can occur across many and varied contexts in the primary and secondary classroom.

A video case study filmed at Richard Cobden school In Camden shows the impact of using the Ben Uri Art resources and explains how the resources can be used in a range of Key Stages.

• The resource features an image viewer that is designed to allow teachers to move an image around freely on an interactive whiteboard display.
• All the resources are available for .pdf download.
• All pages in the online book interface have unique web addresses so that links from other resources (such as the London MLE) can be created.

Links:

www.artskills.lgfl.net

Richard Cobden LGfL Ben Uri Video case study:

http://media.lgfl.org.uk/files/content/benuri/benurifilm.wmv

NOTE: You must be located in school to view the website as this resource can only be accessed from a National Education Network connection.

Download High resolution scans of the featured artwork from the Exhibition

The Royal Collections

LGfL, working on behalf of the National Education Network is delighted to be working partnership with the Royal Collections.

Britain’s Royal Collection is one of the most important art collections in the world. It contains paintings and drawings by many of the greatest artists of Western Art, including Leonardo da Vinci, Holbein, Rembrandt, Van Dyck and Vermeer, as well as superb examples of works of art from all over the world – furniture, ceramics, silver and gold, sculpture, books and armour. Items from the Royal Collection can be seen at royal residences across Britain and at The Queen’s Galleries in London and Edinburgh.

Royal Collection Learning is responsible for the development and delivery of learning resources and programmes for schools, families and adults visiting Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and the Palace of Holyroodhouse.

Our shared aim is to inspire groups to engage with, enjoy and learn about the Royal Collection.

Dutch Landscapes Exhibition (15 April – 9 October)

This new partnership  features high resolution scans and learning resources from the current ‘Dutch Landscapes’ exhibition showing at ‘The Queens Gallery’ at Buckingham Palace.

The exhibition brings together forty two remarkable landscapes from the ‘Golden Age’ of Dutch painting, including works by Ruisdael, Cuyp and Hobbema. The Dutch Republic, which gained independence from the Spanish-ruled Southern Netherlands in 1648, was physically expanding, with large areas being reclaimed from the sea and with it the population was growing too. Landscape paintings seem to celebrate this expansion and prosperity.

Discover

• Original drawings highlighting artists’ techniques and approach to composition.

• The changing environment and landscape of Dutch people’s lives in the seventeenth century.

• Insight into the life of European people of the period; including how they travelled, farmed and the hobbies they enjoyed.

Links:

For further information : www.dutchlandscapes.lgfl.net

Working on behalf of the National Education Network, LGfL is delighted to launch an all new art resources developed in close partnership with the Ben Uri Gallery.

There are three resource websites that are mapped to the art curriculum:

• Sense of Place
• Movement
• Relationships

Art Skills for Teachers

The fourth website features a range of art techniques in action in a school context to help inspire teachers and children to try out and achieve the creation of artwork beyond their own expectation. The resource is full of unusual and easily accessible techniques to make art a truly inclusive activity for all members of your school community.

The resources have been previously used in an off line format extensively in schools both in and outside of London – however the new online interface makes the resources easier to navigate, explore and demonstrate.

High resolution photographs

All the art works featured in the resources are from the Ben Uri Gallery and are available from the NEN Gallery as high resolution photographs. This allows teachers to be able to print and crop and images in high quality.

The resources were produced by the Learning team at the Ben Uri Gallery. The team is currently lead by Alix Smith  – who also teaches art part time at a London Primary school and is a practising visual artist.

Alix said, ‘It is Ben Uri’s mission to make ‘art for everyone’. We believe that the resource will enable teachers and pupils to access the visual arts with confidence and ease. The resource explores the Ben Uri collection of over 1000 rich and diverse works which are an inspirational starting point for a multitude of art projects , and simultaneously provides ideas and useful practical advice for the creation of pupils own art in the classroom. We are very pleased to have been given the opportunity to work with members of the NEN community on the development of this project and are thrilled that so many schools are now able to access the resource as a result of the partnership.  We are looking forward to hearing about all of the fantastic art work that is created!

Bob Usher – LGfL Content Manager said’ We are delighted to be able to offer these inspiration materials to LGfL connected schools and hope that they have a significant impact on what teachers feel they can undertake with their children; we hope the children will be inspired to produce artwork that truly releases their inner creativity’.

Links:

www.benuri.lgfl.net

http://www.benuri.org.uk/

http://gallery.nen.gov.uk/gallery-e2bn.html

This week the ever creative team at Google have launched Art Project. Working in partnership with 17 of the world’s top galleries, Google have combined Street view technology to allow you to virtually visit places like the National Gallery or the Van Gogh Museum.  This amazing project allows you to get up close with some of the major artworks from around the world. Due to copyright laws, some pieces of art will appear a bit blurry when students zoom in, however each gallery has one special image that can be zoomed in to an incredible level of detail.

Users with a Google account can also create their own collection by saving the complete image or a selection from a painting. Comments can be added and then via a unique url the collection can then be shared with others.

How can I use Google Art Project to enhance teaching and learning?

• Virtually visit some of the world’s top galleries on your IWB, for added fun ask pairs of students to work together as the tour guide- they could research the galleries in advance.
• Create a virtual collection highlighting key elements of portraiture from across the different galleries.
• Create a class gallery of favourite images including comments about why the person has chosen that piece of art.
• Ask students to consider how they would design an art gallery- could it be improved?

The quality of freely available drawing tools on the web never fails to astound me and Odosketch is no exception. The site offers users the chance to create a sketch using watercolour like pencils on a simulated sketchbook background.
Once started you will be provided with a set of brushes that vary in thickness and colour, simply select one you like and start drawing. As with real watercolour the colour gets darker as you add more strokes. If you have registered to use the site you can then save your image and share it with others. The image is then played back to you from start to finish. Each piece of work comes with an embed code, this means you can put the video of your work being produced on a website or blog.
How can I use Odosketch to enhance teaching and learning?
Browsing the art created on Odosketch is a great way to introduce your pupils to discussion around digital art. Ask your pupils to find their favourite image and then share it with the rest of the class. Replay some images and discuss how the artist has built up the sketch. Why not set pupils the task of comparing with other online graphics tools and commercial packages to compare and contrast. You could also use this tool to create quick animationsto tell a story.

Slimber is simple online flash based drawing tool and gallery.  Once users have completed their drawing it can be played back from start to finish- a useful way of seeing how the images on the site are created. The site also hosts a gallery of work which you can view and play back. Have a look at this amazing image of 3 candles and then watch how it was created –a great way to begin discussion on shading, blending and the use of colour.

http://slimber.com/index.php?ln=en&r=2&show=1&id=4021&title=Lights

How can I use Slimber to enhance teaching and learning?

Unlike with many drawing packages Slimber has a very limited toolset and yet when you look at the gallery this does not prevent users from creating some stunning artwork. It’s a fantastic way of opening discussion about art in general and a comparison of the skills required in relation to digital art compared with traditional techniques. Images are also a great way to stimulate writing and this site has a huge user gallery. Why not ask your pupils to find their favourite image and then share it with the rest of the class or try to recreate an image using traditional paint materials? The site can also be used to look at feedback and the role that it can have as users can leave comments and rate images.

The only downside to this site is that it does have advertising and it doesn’t appear to be moderated.

http://slimber.com/index.php?ln=en&r=0