Primary Bits and Bytes

(Posted by Fiona)

Meltham CE have had success with their birdbox – it’s a case of third time lucky! The birdbox with webcam has been in the school grounds for two years and remained empty, relocating it seems to have done the trick. A pair of coal tits have nested and the chicks hatched three days ago. You can view the live webcam on the SEGfL birdbox project portal.

The portal has a large number of school birdbox webcams, mostly from the south of England.

(Posted by Fiona)

I had a meeting with Philip Armstrong from the fantastic 2Simple yesterday to look at the latest version of their online apps, Purple Mash. It launched online yesterday, you can have a look at http://www.purplemash.com/ . The good news is there is a free section called ‘aptivities’, as well as the online applications which are available by subscription. The aptivities are from a selection of 2Simple applications such as 2Design and Make, 2Publish and Simple City. They cover a range of curriculum areas and can be completed online, then saved to the school computer or network.

The online applications are available on subscription, which costs £500 for 1 year, less if you can subscribe for 2 or 3 years. You can have a short try for free. 2Simple are aiming to constantly develop Purple Mash, so new content will be added all the time. They are on the look out for ‘Mashmakers’, enthusiastic teachers willing to create and upload content. Get in touch if you’re interested!

2Simple have also released an iPhone app, and set up a YouTube channel.

(Posted by Fiona)

I had good intentions of  posting about the latest ICT network meeting the day after it happened, but I blinked and suddenly it’s 2 weeks later! It was an enjoyable meeting with several presenters. Victoria Parsons from YHGfL demonstrated free resources available from YHGfL and the National Education Network (NEN). She showed the NEN Grid for searching the free resources by subject and key stage. Here are a few of the best freebies:

Audio Network – a huge bank of high quality copyright free music

NEN Gallery – free high quality images, sounds and video clips

e2bn Myths and Legends – includes a myth creator

The Birdbox Project – a selection of live birdbox webcams

Simon Briggs and Elliott Moores from Smarter Solutions demonstrated the Fizzbook Spin working with SmartSync software. The software allows documents, web addresses and video clips to be sent straight to each child’s  computer over the nerwork. It also has useful classroom management tools such as being able to send messages or freeze screens when it’s time to listen. For more details see their website.

I introduced a new CPD publication from Becta called 21st Century Teacher, which can be used to raise teacher awareness of how they could make use of ICT. It also includes a questionnaire which teachers can use to identify areas for development. The toolkit can be dowloaded from the Becta website (publications section).

The next meeting will take place on Wednesday 23rd June at the Deighton Centre.

(Posted by Dughall)

Friday 26th March, 6.00 – 9.30 pm Doncaster South CLC

I’ve mentioned Teachmeet in this blog before (here, here and here). So what is it? Well, boiled to its bones, it is good quality, free CPD.

I first encountered a Teachmeet at the BETT show in January 2009 and was an instant fan. Teachers (and others with a direct involvement in education) took to the stage and spoke enthusiastically about things they were doing in classrooms. They were short, punchy, informative presentations of ideas and resources that you were left feeling you could probably use in your classroom the following day.

Hearing first hand from practitioners about things they have tried, things that have worked and problems encountered and solved is very powerful.

One of the nice things about Teachmeets is that although they are increasingly happening all over the place, technology allows anyone to attend via the internet. This ‘virtual’ attendance can be entirely passive or might involve a degree of participation from ‘afar’. These distance contributions might be actual presentations (via web-conferencing) or may be texted questions or comments.

I have now attended a number of Teachmeets in person and virtually and I have also given presentations in situ and virtually. In the spirit of Teachmeet, I have shared examples of my own practice in the classrooms of Kirklees.

Last year, I went to Manchester for a Teachmeet with some Kirklees teachers (one of whom spoke enthusiastically about the use of the DBPrimary Learning Platform with her Foundation Stage children). We shared a lift and on the return journey we were buzzing with the ideas that had been shared. We also decided that there was a need for something like this to happen closer to home. This was a seed sown.

Since then, plans have taken shape, cogs have slotted together and wheels have turned and Teachmeet Yorkshire & Humberside will be taking place later this month (26^th March).

One of the considerations for this event was to make the venue as accessible as possible for people to attend from a wide area – this is why we decided upon Doncaster – with its access to A1/M62 and other major roads. Doncaster South CLC is a fantastic, modern, flexible venue where attendees can come and know that they can attend in comfort, borrow a laptop or connect their own (if they wish). Credit must also be given to Damian Ward (Curriculum Manager at the CLC) for his work in helping this to get off the ground and for his excellent publicity materials. (Poster) (Flier).

So here’s where you come in.

• Please head over to Website and read a bit more about the event.
• Please consider whether you might be able to come along for some or all of the evening.
• If you can’t come, please consider checking in via the internet (a link with details will appear on the Teachmeet Y&H page closer to the date).
• Print off the poster and display it in the staff room, notice board(s), corridor(s) etc
• Print off the flier(s) and distribute accordingly.
• I know that you are doing or have done something with your pupils worth sharing with others – please consider sharing your practice with others on the night by signing up for a presentation.

I sincerely hope to see you there.

By all means contact me directly if you would like to know anything more about it or if you have any questions. dughall.mccormick@kirklees.gov.uk

(Posted by Dughall)

Here are some more things worthy of consideration:

• This page that includes some pictures from the Hubble telecope lets us know, in jaw-dropping fashion, just how small and insignificant we are. Here are some stunning shots of the Space shuttle’s final servicing mission to Hubble.
• This resource, posted to the TES website by marthamonkey looks to be useful for anyone planning on teaching a unit on spreadsheets/Excel.
• Autocollage is a Microsoft application that is now free for ‘education purposes’ and looks to be a useful tool for sorting/displaying large numbers of photos quickly and easily. You know, when you return from that school trip.
• While we’re on with photos, I was planning on using Photostory 3 with a group of kids in a few weeks time, but I’ll also look into Photopeach, Animoto and Capzles before making a final decision. The latter three have the advantage of being online applications. Oh, and there’s Photovisi, too
• See the bigger picture with Block Posters. You can take a small photo and blow it up to huge proportions for printing. I haven’t tried it, but know of schools that have. I gather that there is a degree of ‘pixcelation’ that will either add/detract from the effect depending on your taste.
• The only way I can think to describe Deepleap is ‘Scrabble on Redbull!’
• This great online presentation by Mark Warner (Teaching Ideas) is called ’16 Ideas for ICT in the Early Years’. It does what it says on the tin.
• This is little more than a distraction but if you like sprinkling sand…
• If you want to add a little something to those VLE/web pages (or ‘Pimp your Page’ as they put it) then you might want to look at Cool Text. There are some nice templates for zazzy logos, animated text etc.
• Free, downloadable resources (or ‘Doodads’ as she calls them) can be accessed from Mrs Pancake. They are aimed mostly at KS1 & EYFS.
• I enjoyed reading this blog post by US teacher, Miss Cal.Q.L8. She has pulled together a number of those killer classroom management strategies (many that I wish I’d known in my first few years in the classroom). There are some gems in there.
• Back in February, I posted about virtual Lego and BlockCAD software. Well, here’s the genuine article from Lego themselves. It is their ‘Digital Designer’.
• Teacher Simon Haughton has produced this ‘Junior ICT Companion’. A great website detailing everything ICT in child-friendly chunks. Thanks, Simon.
• Some of you may already know about ‘Wordle’. It is a great tool for looking at a body of text in a new and different way by producing ‘…clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text.’ There is also ‘Wordsift’ that does a similar job.
• Here’s a page of games that you might like to diddle with.
• I love the way Google occasionally has a themed logo on certain days. Why not let the kids enter a competition – Doodle for Google - with the possible result that their logo might feature.