Kent ICT Blog

The following trainings are being provded free for Kent schools. Please email Mandy, to let her know if you or any of your staff will be attending.

2Simple Do It Yourself.  -  Led by 2Simple Trainer - Katherine Smith
Create your own interactive Flash resources, activities, games, puzzles, quizzes. With this software teachers and primary school children can create cross-curricular, personalised resources and use them on whiteboards, websites and even on Learning Platforms. There are plenty of opportunities for meaningful learning as children plan, design, create, publish and play.

18 March Woodlands Junior Tonbridge  9:30 - 12
18 March St John's Primary, Southborough, Tunbridge Wells 1:30 - 4pm

19 March Lamberhurst Primay, Cranbrook 9:30 - 12

Click here to see some interactive activities created using 2simple's Do It Yourself.

Myst Follow up sessions - Led by Mandy Barrow
3 March Pembury Primary School 1:30 - 4pm
11 March Hadlow Primary School 1:30 - 4pm

To book a place contact

The Who wnts 2 no? book has been created for and with input from children aged 8-12 to help promote internet safety. Complimentary copies of the book are available for schools and libraries while stocks last. To place your order, simply go to www.o2.com/TheCybernuts

(with thanks to Twitter friend tarannau20)

Images of England is a ‘point in time’ photographic library of England’s listed buildings, recorded at the turn of the 21st century.

You can view over 300,000 images of England’s built heritage from lamp posts to lavatories, phone boxes to toll booths, mile stones to gravestones, as well as thousands of bridges, historic houses and churches. Excellent for displaying on interactive whiteboards!

http://www.imagesofengland.org.uk/

We don’t yet know the full consequences for a generation that has grown up online, or the future implications of new types of search, for example social searches, which aggregate information from across a range of social networking sites by your name or email address, or of the development of facial-recognition search software."

I have been using Twitter since last Summer as part of my CPD and I can certainly say it has not disappointed me. I have made contact with, and built up a network of over 200 teachers around the world, and together we have shared many teaching and learning ideas, websites and resources.

Using Google Docs us 'Twitter Teachers', led by Tom Barrett have contributed to a variety of "Interesting Ways to ..." presentations. Over the months more presentations have been started by other teachers too, incuding Doug Belshaw, Joe Rowing and Mark Warner, and again ideas have been flooding in from 'Twitter Teachers' from around the world sharing their ideas.       

Now all these fantastic presentations have been gathered together by Mark, who has created a special website to host all the documents.

Visit www.ideastoinspire.co.uk  to see what teachers on Twitter have been sharing.

Kent Teachers on Twitter

Mandy Barrow http://twitter.com/mbarrow

James Barrett http://twitter.com/wigglemyears 

Mark Warner http://twitter.com/markw29

Jason Dilling http://twitter.com/jasondilling

Chris Thomas http://twitter.com/cthomas18

Marianna Sterecka  http://twitter.com/StMaz 

Matt  http://twitter.com/psycho65

Janine Lambourne http://twitter.com/JLambourne

Kent e-safety http://twitter.com/esafety_officer

Any more out there??

Are you a Twitter teacher? Please feel free to leave a comment below telling us your Twitter name and where you teach.

Kent schools can order more copies of Myst 3 and Myst 4 via Tim Rylands, who will be coming down to Ashford next week.

Please contact

Myst Follow up Sessions

These sessions have now started taking place in a number of Partnerships from 1:30-4pm. They give teachers the opportunity to get together to share ideas, as well as learning how to publish work on the Kent Myst microsite and to create multimodal interactive powerpoints. More resources are available for teaching with Myst and these are available during the sessions.

If your school would like to host a session for your Partnership, please contact Mandy

Super Action Comic Maker

www.artisancam.org.uk

Super Action Comic Maker is part of the Artisan Cam website.

Using a range of backgrounds and characters, each with a different pose, pupils can create an A4 action hero comic book page.

On the same theme

The Hero Factory is great activity for creating your own Superhero which can then be downloaded as a .jpg or printed directly from the site. Ideal to support character/story writing. Cool!

www.cpbintegrated.com/theherofactory/

Here are some useful documents and websites I have come across on Twitter. 

1. Tom Barrett has put together  "interesting ways to use..."

• Google Docs in the Classroom
• Your Interactive Whiteboard in the Classroom
• Google Earth in the Classroom
• Twitter in the Classroom
• Pocket Video Camera in the Classroom

http://njtechteacher.wikispaces.com/interesting

2. Looking at Life After Word 2003  by The University of Iowa ITS 
A handy guide to help staff with school-wide upgrade to 2007. http://is.gd/iZlJ

3. Online Research, Communication, Publishing and E-Safety -  London Grid for Learning
 Online skills and e-safety progression scheme (draft version) published here:
http://tinyurl.com/detsww

4. PicLits -
Great for creative writing, visual literacy and idea building
http://www.piclits.com/compose_dragdrop.aspx 

Mandy :)

How do you get your pupils into Art, Science, Religious Education and Citizenship, with just one classroom tool?

Teacher, Nadeem Qureshi, from Chevening C.E. Primary School in Kent wanted to engage his pupils in a cross-curricular exercise that brought together all of these subjects under one project - a class photography competition.

Read more on the Promethean Planet website

With thanks to Mark Warner for suggesting the following website:

The Hero Factory
Pupils will have fun creating their own Superhero.  Their creations can be downloaded as a jpeg (image file) or printed.  http://www.cpbintegrated.com/theherofactory/

Mandy

Pick and mix from the English Heritage's images and resources to create your own learning experience!http://www.heritageexplorer.org.uk/

 Teaching Resources 
http://www.heritageexplorer.org.uk/web/he/teachingactivities.aspx

 Interactive whiteboard resources
http://www.heritageexplorer.org.uk/web/he/interactivewhiteboards.aspx

Dig IT is a joint project involving The Advisory Service Kent and English Heritage (EH.) An opportunity for Key Stage 2 pupil’s to become history detectives and discover who has lived and settled in Kent over the past 2000 years.
http://www.kented.org.uk/ngfl/projects/digit/

Mandy :)

Science Comics - Adventures with Selenia

www.sciencecomics.uwe.ac.uk

An exciting new digital comic called, Selenia, has been created by Emma Weitkamp of the Science Communication Unit at the University of the West of England to help primary school children learn about scientific enquiry and changing materials. The comic, which is in digital format can be used on a whiteboard in the classroom. The comic and resources are all free.

In the stories, Selenia, the schoolgirl heroine travels from her alien planet to Earth where she makes two friends. Through her adventures, children develop an understanding of the properties of materials – such as the difference between gases, solids and liquids. The teaching resources, which accompany the comics, are designed to build children's understanding of scientific processes.

The stories are full of action, magic and fun and are designed to give children the opportunity to explore science in unconventional ways.

The comic can be downloaded free from: www.sciencecomics.uwe.ac.uk

Visit our website http://www.kented.org.uk/ngfl/

Dig IT is a joint project involving The Advisory Service Kent and English Heritage (EH.) An opportunity for Key Stage 2 pupil’s to become history detectives and discover who has lived and settled in Kent over the past 2000 years.

Dig IT! Project Launch - Tuesday 17th March 2009  Only 30 places available!
The Priory Aylesford from 09:00 – 16:00

During late May and early June 2009 schools taking part in the project will attend an “Activity Day” at one of the sites listed below led by Ian Coulson (ASK History Advisor.)

• Old Bayham Abbey near Lamberhurst
• Richborough Castle near Deal
• Lullingstone Roman Villa near Dartford

Following the day all pupils will use ICT to web conference and interview Ian and the EH staff about the visit before publishing and sharing their work at the end of the topic on the project website.

Dig IT is an exciting opportunity for your pupils to use ICT to:

• E-mail pupils in other project schools
• Interview local historians
• Record and share their learning using audio, images and video
• Publish their work on the Internet

Interested in taking part and seeing History come alive for young learners!
We look forward to meeting you at The Project Launch.

Click here to download booking form and flier

Becta have recently launched a new Emerging Technology section to their website.

"The Emerging Technologies for learning area draws together news, research, analysis and views around technology developments and trends relevant to education. It aims to provide an environment for debate on technology futures within the education community and those serving it, encouraging dialogue and building shared understandings about the future."

http://emergingtechnologies.becta.org.uk/

Mandy :)

With thanks to Andy Goodman for telling us about this resource:

To help promote European Safer Internet day next Tuesday (10th Feb), North West Learning Grid have created some e-safety games . They are free to use for anyone that wishes to do so and available at:

www.nwlg.org/esafetygames/

Mandy :)

Did you 'myst' being part of Myst? You still have chance to attend a training day with Tim and also watch him deliver 3 lessons with classes of children.

Tim Rylands, who recently spent two weeks in West Kent, will be visiting St. Teresa’s Catholic Primary School on Thursday 5th March and Friday 6th March. The format for his visit will be much the same as it was in West Kent. See http://www.kented.org.uk/myst/ 

The two days are free to all schools in ARC or ASOne  and there could also be a few places for teachers in other partnerships too.

Thursday 5 March
Three demo sessions giving teachers a glimpse of how to use Myst in the classroom as an aid to inspire writing. These lessons are aimed at class teachers and teachng assistants.

A comment from one of the teachers who attended a demo session in West Kent: 

"I particularly enjoyed Mr Rylands' use of a great personality to enthuse a mixed group of writers. Lovely to see how ICT can be used unobtrusively to support writing!" Caroline

Friday 6 March
Whole Day Workshop for Literacy coordinators or any interested teacher.
This day will gve teachers a more in depth view of how Myst and other visual literacy tools can meet the needs of the 21 century learner. There will be an opportunity for delegates to explore the game of Myst 3 Exile. Copies of the game may be purchased on the day for £5.

A comment from one of the teachers who attended the workshop day in West Kent:

 "What a totally amazing and inspiring day, so many ideas, activities, tips, clues and resources that my mind is racing with knowing where to start ! Thank you Tim, Sarah and the Kent team for such a motivating and energizing day, which I know will get not only my Year 5 class but the whole school buzzing with excitement and creativity.
Thank you." Marc

For other comments visit
http://www.kented.org.uk/myst/launch.html

Schools interested in taking part should contact Allison Esson Project Officer ASOne. Details are on the flyers below.

Click below to download the flyers

5th Demo Sessions
6th Workshop day

Stretton Handley Primary School, inspired by photographs they saw of winter scenes, used PhotoStory to create winter poems. Click here to read their poems  (Windows Media Player 10 or above needed)

Microsoft's free PhotoStory has been around for sometime now. It  enables the user to produce creative and informative presentations using still images as the starting point. As the software is simple to use pupils are motivated and able to produce excellent pieces of work to support their learning right across the curriculum. It is also great fun!
Click here to go to the Microsoft page where you can download PhotoStory

Kent ICT help sheet for pupils  using PhotoStory.

Please let us know how you are using PhotoStory and links to any published work.

We would be interested to know if you are using PhotoStory, so please tell us by leaving a comment below. You may also like to leave a link to presentations your pupils have created.

Mandy :)

NGfL Cymru

www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk

The National Grid for Learning (NGfL) Cymru’s website is full of lots of great lessons that are perfect for use on an interactive whiteboard. They have created lots of new resources which are a must to see inclusing a manthly calendar containing very cleverly made powerpoints.

Register for free
A special feature is the “My NGfL Cymru” section. Through registering users can create a personal area on the website which enables users to place their favourite resources in a list in order get quick access to them time after time. Through this medium NGfL Cymru can alert users to any new resources which might be of interest to them.
Click here to register (It's free!)

Mandy :)

As mentioned in the recent e-bulletin, Kent TV are running an animation competition which has a series of videos to guide you. http://www.kenttv.com/animate/ This is aimed at Kent Primary and Secondary pupils, and the two videos I watched were really good.

They even have a place for completed videos to be uploaded for sharing.

Following a meeting two weeks ago with the Army Schools ICT Advisor (Bill Collar) we have received a request for two/three Kent primary schools to take part in a Flashmeeting project with army schools in Germany or possibly Cyprus. The proposed focus would be to compare and contrast locations. The Army Schools want to develop the use of web and video conferencing. This opportunity until recently has been thwarted by firewall arrangements.

Links with Army Schools outside the UK
 
"Where we live"
 
Army primary schools in Germany (and possibly Cypress) are interested in establishing web conferencing  links (FlashMeeting) with primary schools in Kent. Interested schools will be expected to provide regular opportunities for their pupils to conference and share information about where they live.
 
Interested in taking part?
 
Contact:
 
Phil Bracegirdle - ASK ICT Hands on Support Consultant (Primary)
E-mail: philip.bracegirdle@kent.gov.uk  
 
Closing date for replies: Friday 13th February 2009

Mandy :)