Welcome to Nikkidev

Just want to welcome Nikkidev, who has joined our team to help publish more regularly to this blog. As some of you will know, this blog was started up as an experiment to see how effective blogs can be to share ideas between ICT leaders/co-ordinators within Derbyshire. I have to confess that at times I've found it hard to find the time to post, and many of our teachers who had their arms twisted to join in at the start have faded away. This has helped me to understand that blogging is a very personal thing, my own views - great for people to read, but not always the best tool for collaborating, which might be better with a discussion or a wiki. So that is exactly what this is, my own views (and now that of Nikki too), as two professionals who work as leaders of ICT in Derbyshire schools (myself at LA level, and Nikki at the chalkface/[IWB-face?])... and are not necessarily the views of Derbyshire County Council ;-)

Story Creator 2 - online application

I've been using Story Creator 2 with our Year 2, 3 & 4 children. Although this online application is part of E2BN's Myths and Legends web site, it can be used to create many types of stories. Using the backgrounds, characters and object clipart provided, children can build stories from a few pages long to real epics with many chapters. They are able to add speech and thought bubbles, narrative text as well as using sound to really bring their stories to life.

So what do the children think of it - they love it!

One of the most exciting outcomes of using this online application has been that the majority of those children who have home Internet access, have used it to continue their stories at home or even create new ones (by using the accounts created for them at school). It also appears to have become a family affair, with several children reporting that their parents and siblings also enjoy using it!

It's really worth persevering with this tool, the children eventually do get past trying to make too much happen on each page and start to adjust their stories using the storyboard to add and delete scenes.

Google gadgets

Not sure if anyone ever scrolls down to the bottom of this blog, but have a go at the Brain Trainer gadget that we have. Feel free to comment with your best time! My tip is to use the tab key to move between sums, I also use the number pad for speed. A nice gadget to add to your school blog, website, or page on your Learning Platform - so that your pupils can compete against themselves or each other!

Resizing images!

Whilst I've used a few Microsoft Powertoys before, I hadn't tried this one until recently. It is such a simple easy feature, I'm surprised more people don't know about it. Most Derbyshire schools use Irfanview to manipulate images, but for simple resizing you now need resizer.exe!

It is a little plug-in that installs quickly, and adds a right click option over images. Click here to go to the Microsoft site, scroll down to near the bottom on the right hand side. Run the installer and then when you right click over an image you see the new option 'Resize Pictures' - easy! Try it!

Web 2.0 is great

Briefly, this Becta report shows that web2.0 tools can really make a difference to teaching and learning, with 11-16 yr olds - but teachers need more time to encourage pupils (and teachers) to utilise their personal use into learning scenarios.
Click here for article.

How wide spread is home access?

As we start another phase of training/implementation of Kaleidos, schools are clearly concerned about how widely available home access is. Nationally it appears that although homes many have computers, only two thirds have broadband access. I wonder how many schools have actually canvessed their schools to see what level of access is available. I know many Derbyshire schools have tried a questionnaire to get that (and other) answers. But how has that information transformed into a different approach to lessons, homework, implementation of Kaleidos, availability of resources...? There is no doubt that lack of home access doesn't help, but it is frustrating that some schools give that as an excuse for not being ready for an LP - without thinking imaginatively about other options for their learners (and teachers), or even how useful it could be with the 'confines' of school!
Thankfully the news below should remove this excuse! All rolled out by 2011... just in time for primary school deadline of 2012 for full integration of an LP ;-)

Becta news on home access HERE

YouTube vids

Ictopus is a great service, but with time restraints, I don't read them often enough. This entry is worth checking out though, for two ways of getting those useful youtube videos into your lessons at school - without filtering worries!
http://www.ictopus.org.uk/index.php?sec=1&sub=8

Core 'free' software

I've delibrately not been writing recently, because I didn't want my last entry about briefings to archive away from visitors immediate view - so you can read that here.

I was in a school last week where I saw Google Earth being explored on the whiteboard by two pupils, independently and with ease, with the rest of the class engrossed in their own tasks on Egyptians - and two things struck me. Firstly, a few years ago, when IWBs were still a fascination to some, how some teachers wouldn't hand over the IWB to the pupils, because it distracted the class... thank goodness we have moved on! And secondly, the quantity of great software out there for free.

I was also recently involved in an ICT audit of a school, and we created a software audit summary broken into these parts - Curriculum Software (site licenced), Curriculum Software (user licenced), Office/Admin software, and Free Software/Utilities.

Therefore, this post might be an opportunity to remind some readers of the good 'free' stuff, and it would be great if you commented and added to the list.

Google Earth
Irfanview
Photostory3
Audacity
iPlayer ;-)
Sebran
Crocodile Clips 3 (now Yenka)

Not curriculum based, but I wouldn't be without a pdf creator/printer driver like pdf995 or similar - and then there are all the usual web plug ins and media players, which are necessary, but I won't list.

Please add...

Autumn Briefings

Of course, these are available on the Derbyshire Extranet, but here they are for you anyway!

Note, that the Chapel-en-le-Frith briefing is in the morning for this term only (9.30 to 11.45). All other briefings are in the afternoon as normal: 1.30 to 3.45pm.

Hill Top Inf-29th Sept
Cavendish Jun and Findern Primary-30th Sept
Bamford Primary and Scargill Primary-1st Oct
Cloudside Primary and Kirkstead Jun-2nd Oct

Immaculate Conception-6th Oct
Chapel-en-le-Frith Primary (AM) and Darley Dale Primary-7th Oct
Eureka Primary and New Bolsover Primary-8th Oct
Belper St John's Primary and St Mary's Primary, Glossop-9th Oct

Book as normal, through our administrator, Linda Cater on 01629 585 582 or email her at linda.cater@derbyshire.gov.uk

DV congratuations!

I really enjoyed the Derbyshire Digital Video Celebration event at County Hall yesterday. Around 140 teachers, pupils, parents and grandparents attended, to celebrate pupil's achievements in using Digital Video within the Curriculum.
Alan Charles presented prizes (donated from hardware and software suppliers who had attended our roadshow), along side my colleague Julie Parker, who stepped in at the last minute. Schools were presented with a certificate, prize, and the overall winners also received a solid gold Oscar!
And the winners were:

Foundation Stage: Holbrook CE Voluntary Controlled Primary School

Key Stage 1: Elmsleigh Infant and Nursery School

Lower Key Stage 2: Eureka Primary School

Upper Key Stage 2: Town End Junior School

Other prize winners (including commended entries) were:

Speedwell Infants, Parklands Infant and Nursery, Immaculate Conception Primary, Cotmanhay Infant and Nursery, Walton-on Trent Primary, Holbrook CE VC Primary (three in total), Parkside Junior, Norbriggs Primary, Arkwright Primary, Melbourne Junior, Creswell Junior, Eureka Primary (two in total) and Coppice Primary.

Entries will be shared on the Extranet soon.

How to present better? (death by Powerpoint?)

Ewan blogged on this yesterday. 10 points to get you thinking!

http://edu.blogs.com/edublogs/2008/06/why-would-you-u.html

Enjoy!

ICT suites

I've recently had the pleasure of helping a couple of schools redesign their ICT suite. These have been based on teacher's frustrations at ease of use of current equipment/layout.

If you have a suite, and would like to share things that work well (or things you find annoying, that don't work well), including tips for other readers, please comment below.

Becta have guidance for designing ICT suites, although often compromises are required.

If you want to discuss updating your suite, feel free to call our team 01629 585582 and ask for Dean or John (phone advice is free, although we do offer design/consultancy as a traded service)

IE7

As part of the early adopter training we were asked to upgrade to IE 7 (Internet Explorer version 7 - thought I'd better tell you that because I decided pretending I knew what IE meant for such a long time at the training was counter-productive). Anyone using EDVOL (online risk assessments for trips and visits) were told last year that IE 7 conflicted with the EDVOL system and we must not upgrade. The new advice is UPGRADE to IE 7; no worries. The only thing you won't be able to do is edit users. So if you want to edit an existing user, add a new one or remove a user you will need to eamil EDVOL team directly on:
David.Wheal2@Derbyshire.gov.uk
In fact here's the email from David Wheal:

Morning!
You’re right to ask about this as there has been a few problems with EdVol and IE7. However, I wouldn’t worry too much about it as the problems are easily remedied. The only problem you will see is that using IE7 you won’t be able to access the staff database to add/remove staff members from EdVol, but I’m guessing that your staff turnover isn’t too high!! If you do need any changes done you can email me and I’ll do them for you.

Also, it looks like we’re finally in a position to start the move over to that new system that I came over and demo’d to you in February and that works better with IE7 anyway.

So in other words, ‘Go for it!’

Hope you’re well (and yes it is sunny down here too!)

Dave Wheal

Reviewing ICT scheme

Is there anyone out there who is actually reviewing their ICT scheme at the moment?
Lots of people talk to us about the fact that the QCA interpretation of the NC is dated, and our children are more skilled than 9 years ago. However for many, it's a valuable starting point to ensure that the NC is being delivered.
If you are changing your scheme, or wish to in the very near future, comment below, or email me (john.legood@Derbyshire.gov.uk). I'd like to do some collaborative work on this, hopefully sharing some ideas/plans between schools.

ICT roadshow 2008

Yesterday was our Derbyshire ICT roadshow, at Swanwick. Lots of chances to chat to colleagues (for free!), meeting schools involved in ICT projects, as well as scouring software (and hardware too, this year) for good deals and new products. The turn out was quite good, and on the whole people who came were purposeful with money to spend, or specific items to review. This pleased many suppliers... one unnamed one delighted with a very large sale from the last person through the door at 5.45pm who spend a couple of thousand pounds!
I'm sure all delegates filled in the evaluation form, but feel free to leave comments below on good/bad points, areas for improvement.

RM LP training

Well, I'm quite excited. Next week is the first batch of training for the new RM learning platform (Kaleidos).
The 'early adopter' schools are being trained first, then it's roll out time for all other schools across the county (over the next six terms).
By now headteachers will have have informed Brian Richards of which of the 6 terms will best suit their school.
The LP isn't a finished product, by nature of being webbased, it will evolve as new developments come along, and suitable feedback is given by users. I'm looking forward to having my say, but first impressions are good.

News (round)

A number of people of spoken to me recently about Newsround, on the CBBC site. I thought it was time I reminded you about it! Whilst cached content providers give schools a fabulous array of curriculum based video, image and text -based articles, Newsround has a lot to offer, for free.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews
Have a look, and let me know what your children think. If you already use it, please share your experiences by commenting.
I know it would have a place in my classroom - much more interesting and appropriate than the Monday morning newspaper I used to scour, to pull out suitable news on a range of subjects!

eSafety: resource pack

Further to our briefings, where we discussed esafety, and watched the excellent 'Let's fight it together' video from the Digizen site, the resource is now available from Prolog:

Quote from DCSF email to Local Authorities:
We have released the ‘Let’s Fight It Together’ resource in DVD format for schools, to help prevent and respond to bullying that occurs via internet and mobile services. This resource is available through Prolog on 01623-724071 quoting reference 00239-2008PCK-EN.

Weblinks for Digizen, Thinkuknow, Byron review etc are available at: http://del.icio.us/DerbyshireICT/esafety where we will continue to add relevant links for you.

Blog for ICT leaders

Well, the ICT briefings are well under way. Covering issues of esafety, ICT projects, technical support, blogging and birdboxes to name a few. Your feedback on these events is always most welcome, as are ideas for future briefings.

Hopefully you are viewing this blog, after going to one of our briefings, we are hoping that it will be a useful way for us to communicate with you more regularly - a warm up to using similar tools in our new RM learning platform, as it is rolled out to schools.

Please interact in one of these three ways:

1) Just read - no need to log in or register

2) Make comments on articles, asking questions, or providing answers - you will need a google/blogger account to do this

3) Post your own articles/questions/interesting news/weblinks - email me, and you can become an administrator. (john.legood@derbyshire.gov.uk)

Enjoy!

R U Blogging?

If your school is trying blogging in any form, be it with a specific club or class, or a whole school effort - please let me know, and I'll add it to our del.icio.us account, so that other interested parties can read, get ideas, and potentially feedback comments to give your children a wider audience for their work.
Either comment below, or email: john.legood@derbyshire.gov.uk
You can view the links at: http://del.icio.us/DerbyshireICT/blogs

ICT briefings

Briefings for ICT co-ordinators/subject leaders are upon us again. See the extranet for dates, but are running from 28th April to 8th May, 2008. Hope to see you at one of them.

Computer Animation Competition and more

The University of Manchester is running a Computer Animation Competition for UK school Children using Alice, a free downloadable computer animation system. http://www.cs.manchester.ac.uk/Digital60 The competition closes on 1 May but I would recommend looking at the programme anyway. I've used Storytelling Alice and love it. I could see it being used not just for ICT but also in literacy - it certainly got my class of year 5's involved in storytelling - they did not want to go out for break on the first sunny day of the year!! It sparked loads of discussion about plot, dialogue, characterisation, etc you can even go into camera angles and lighting. I'm also thinking about using it for an introduction to control.

Dr John mentioned Buzz Webz. I'm currently involved in the trial. It's great in that it's easy to publish the children's work and allows them to collaborate on projects but I have to say that feed back from my pupil's is that it's a bit limited - they feel they have more options in Textease. It depends what your objectives are. It would be at it's best I think if you wanted an easy way for children to collaborate and publish work. I personally don't think it would stretch pupils aiming to develop ICT skills. I'm more excited to get going on the VLE - if it's as good as it looks it could revolutionise the way we work.

Pete - not just your class I was so tired watching the early morning news yesterday that it did not occur strange that penguins could fly!! and I'm currently..... (abducted by aliens?)

Flying Penguins

Terry Jones reports on a new BBC programme, 'Miracles of Evolution'...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/page/item/epeng001.shtml?src=ip_potpw

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/01/npenguin101.xml

and how they made the April Fool's film......!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/page/item/epeng002.shtml?src=ip_potpw

Well, my class fell for it big time...!

Photos of Derby and Derbyshire

http://www.derbyphotos.co.uk/
Old and new images.

Byron Review - Safer Children in a Digital World

http://edu.blogs.com/edublogs/2008/03/early-reaction.html

From ictopus... "Ewan McIntosh has come out up front commenting on the dilemma of allowing children to take risks without them actually being exposed to any. We have over the last thirty or so years gradually reduced the area of risk taking for our young people until, frightened by the paranoia into not playing out they now seek to risk take in virtual worlds ... if we stop this where will they go next to grow up?"

Children making websites

I've seen BuzzWebz when Indigo were creating it (creators of Dazzle). Here is a project where they are giving a 5 user licence free of charge, when schools join project, use in a class/club, enter a national competition and obviously write some short feedback. More details at the wiki below. Worth a look if you want easy to use website creation software, and even better if the children are doing it! I think they are after another 10 schools. 3 derbyshire schools already in on it, details also given on link below.

http://ictwiki.dnsalias.net/index.php/BuzzWebz

What do you think?

Fujitsu to Synetrix

Well, I've just gone to the old Community Gateway site (https://login.embc.org.uk/) and followed the instructions to migrate my account to the new site. I've successfully accessed my email, and sent and received one too. I gather many schools are having issues though. Feel free to share them here! If the FAQs on the new site don't help, give x7777 a ring, and keep them busy! Always make sure you get a job number off them, so that they are committed to resolving your issue.

USB mic

Lots of requests about spec and cost of the mic I was using at the latest briefing, so here is one I found, so I've bookmarked it:

http://del.icio.us/DerbyshireICT/peripherals

I've found schools quite like using the combo headsets and mics as they do the job, and are very cheap. However the quality isn't great, so a couple of decent ones like this might be better for podcasting, voiceovers on your DV films for the Derbyshire DVcompetition, or making teacher resources etc.
Obviously you would need to use an approved supplier, or get three quotes, so I've used Amazon purely for indication of looks and cost.
*Edit* I've just added another combo headset that I tried last week, from Softease, although it was a Labtec one. I just used it for podcasting and was crystal clear sound!

Blogging with pupils

Blogging (and other web2.0 ideas) are having a mixed response so far at our brieifings. Most consider them an exciting new tool to explore, hoping to tap into children's eagerness to use ICT, and sometimes to tap into our own passion for learning too! However others have considered it 'another thing to fit in' or 'ICT for the sake of it' - I don't see it like that, but feel the need to collect your ideas on how best to start blogging with a class. Perhaps if I start with some initial thoughts, and you could help throw in suggestions:

1. Rules. Get all the relevant permissions from senior management, parents, and alter ICT policies if required. Discuss/agree rules with the pupils involved.

2. Plan ahead. Have an idea of what you might post, say weekly over a two month period, so that the pupils have fresh things to read or do each time they visit.

3. Integrate. Fit these activities, questions, quizzes into the context of learning in your class.

4. Involve. Encourage parents to visit and give feedback to pupils comments/work/answers - make this another home/school/community link.

What do you think? It would probably help if I (or should I say, the County Council) created some sample policy statements, suggestions for class blogging rules, and activity ideas...?

A big list of activity ideas would be useful, so get replying!
I'll start with two:
1. Homework specific research question - give the children a website you've vetted, and pose a quick couple of questions for them - the first three correct answers posted back get some kind of class reward/team point.
2. Post a photo of their pet (pet topic), evening meal (healthy eating), something magnetic/something that uses electricity (science topic) - be sure to have reinforced guidance on a 'safe' photo to post!
...

Audacity

Having attended the ICT Breifing on Thursday and being reminded about Audacity I decided to give it a go with my class. I already had it planned in but was going to do it in Textease so just made a slight alteration. My year 4 class picked it up really easily and it was a good tool for getting them to speak clearly and use the wave patterns to help control their voices.

I am going to try and post the results on our blog so they can show their parents.

Traffic Survey - Try This!

If you work in a school in rural Derbyshire and you have to do a traffic survey knowing full well all you are going to see is Fred's tractor and a sheep on the run this is for you! I have used this at a rural school and at a school where we did a local traffic survey and then did this activity so we could compare the road outside our school with a road in busy London.

You can use this on an IWB with the pupils sat around it or on pc's with two or three pupils in a group, usually a couple of spotters and one to record the results on a tally sheet. Do it for two or three minutes and then swap over. This is no more than a five to ten minute activity, the novelty soon wears off! The website is http://www.abbeyroad.co.uk/virtual_visit/webcam. Change the setting to fast, which is a new picture every two or three seconds which is fast enough for the younger children.

Create a pictogram with the results, and have a chat about it. If you want to compare two traffic surveys you can talk about vehicles that you may see in rural Derbyshire that you will not see in London, ie tractor and vice versa, ie black cabs!

Have fun!

Voting systems

Promethean ActivExpression - tried it at BETT, first in a wave of improved voting systems that also have ability to text in responses. Comes with separate software so not tied to Promethean IWBs - although a new release of ActivPrimary/Studio software in the near future will incorporate this.
I've tagged the link into our delicious account, so that I can add more voting system links when I get the chance:
http://del.icio.us/DerbyshireICT/voting

P.S. Ages since I've posted, thanks for being so proactive and sharing your thoughts, ideas etc.

Technical Support

Can anyone recommend a firm/individual to supply technical support? We need to buy a new server and I need someone to install and set up.

OFSTED!

Finally, I've found time to blog again! What with OFSTED last week the first few weeks back this term have been hectic! I had planned to have a go at some film animation using the digiblues in Literacy which I haven't taught before and the pupils have never done before either. That was before I knew OFSTED were arriving! So I decided to be brave and continue with my plans. The Lead Inspector and my Head came to watch the lesson. I was really pleased with how it went. All the children were on task and we have all learnt a lot these past couple of weeks. It's great learning with the children and to see their enthusiasm when it works and they are proud of what they've achieved. However it did help borrowing some digiblues from another school so each group could have one. So definitely another thing to purchase are some more digiblues.

We are actually going to spend longer on it than I planned because the pupils want to finish their films and get them to a good standard. I had showed them one of the films on the embc website as inspiration and a film from the British Film Institute. We are going to show our final films in achievement assembly this Friday. Got to borrow a projector from Springwell because all of ours are attached to the ceiling! Note to self: get another projector!

Also spoke to another inspector about ICT. She wanted to know how I monitored the subject, what programs we had in place for special needs children, if pupils had targets and knew which levels they were working at. She asked about staff competence!!!! I said 'variable!' She suggested pupils having an ICTbook in which they write down points to remember about certainpieces of software, particular keys to press/shortcuts etc and she suggested displaying ICT levels in the suite so children can see where they are and it might encourage and familiarise staff with the levels as well. So taking her ideas and going to put into practice.

Did feel that althoug I'd done a lot everything she asked I had to just say 'Its on my development plan, butI haven't reached it yet', which was a bit disheartening.

But I've learnt a lot using the digiblues and am now going to try and get all staff using them.

AWOL...

Well - I've now returned to my original terrapin after refurbishment, and a variety of other little niggles including a broken fibre link! Still - all up and running again... I still have an IWB to move into a new classroom before the condemmed terrapin comes down and a solution to fixing my projector to the very thin ceiling of my room.

I've managed to get licences for my RM IWBs to run the Smart software. (Thanks John)

My Class Diary Blog now has 222 posts, of various standards of speelings and content. And to add to the success, a pupil who moved to the Channel Isles has just joined and is keeping in touch with her old classmates.

(And arranging holidays between themselves - but not for ex-teachers!)

I'm experimenting with some Amateur Radio too and have a digital Satellite system in the classroom, with radio and aerial (APRS). The program I use shows radio amateurs with GPS systems connected to radios in their cars moving around local maps. If I can connect it to one of the servers through the EMBC filters, I shall be able to have a wide range of Geography opportunities with maps and places to discover. Who do I talk to about that, John?

Follow some Live APRS

Nettie, would it be possible to see your questionaire questions? Thanks..

asus Eee pc

My mini pc arrived today!!! So far I'm impressed. Am writing this blog on it now. Keyboard a little small for me - interesting to see if the children find it easier. It was simple and quick to configure for our wireless network and printer. Also to find resources on the server. Internet loads instantly. Screen a bit on the small side for 40+ eyesight!!! The built in web cam and voice recorder are an added bonus. More applications on it than I expected. Anyone coming to St John's Belper for ICT briefing will be able to have a play. I've got a few teachers who say they would prefer this to a laptop because of the size.

ICT Survey

I have been conducting an ICT survey throughout the juniors over the past few weeks. I used Junior Viewpoint so it also tied in with our ICT curriculum and it was a format familiar to the children. I have done this because I was interested to find out what the childrens perceptions of ICT in school were, also to find out what they were up to at home with a view to thinking about where we were going in the future. Some of the results have come as a bit of a surprise to me - mostly because they do not seem to be leaving us behind. It is obvious that the children are more inclined to be motivated to try at home what they have learnt at school - I had feared that I would discover they were frustrated at school not to be able to do what they could do at home. (well in one respect they were but I've had google unblocked so that should cure that!!)

In summary:
Haven't had everyones comments yet but so far I've surveyed 169 children - 87 boys 82 girls. They all enjoy using ICT and feel it helps them learn with the exception of one boy who doesn't enjoy ICT because we don't play games all the time and doesn't feel it helps him learn because he "already knows it all"!! They seem to generally feel ICT helps them learn because they have access to a wider variety of information and they can present there work quickly, neatly and with a spell checker (I teach touch typing from year 2 to year 6 so some of them are already quite fast). 140 children have computers at home, 110 have the internet, suprisingly only 112 have a games console. Unsurprisingly at home they mostly use the computer for playing games with about a quarter downloading music and sending instant messages. Sadly (but not surprisingly) none of them think they get to choose when to use ICT in school but most would like to. They were asked to consider what they would like to use the computers in school for - most wanted to play games (despite being directed to make sensible choices for a school situation!!) , but a great number wanted greater access to the internet for research and to use the computer for presenting their work - wordprocessed, powerpoint and through creating web sites and 1 wanted to be able to use his PSP to access the internet in school.

Sorry I've gone on a bit but I guess if you're not interested you don't need to read this!! I would be interested to know if anyone else has surveyed their school in some way and to know the results.

EeePC

I've been thinking for sometime now that the days of needing pcs with ever increasing hard drives are numbered. Most of the work I do now days is web based and when I install new pcs at school I load a basic suite of applications on. So I was very interested to read about the Eee Pc - a mini laptop - small and light with built in wi-fi and web cam. The battery life isn't great at 3 hours but the price is very attractive £187. I'm not thinking this would replace the computer suite or computers in the classroom but it would enable large groups to work on projects in class. I've ordered a couple of laptops on evaluation and am hoping they arrive before we host the ICT meeting at the end of month. Has anyone already seen the product or have any views on it? Another product we've had a look is the Bunja. We've got a demonstration model. It's probably too expensive at £19.99 each (I can see them having to reduce this price). "Bunja is a new interactive audio toy designed for children aged 6-11 to help improve maths skills with an exciting interactive adventure story. " www.bunja.com I would be interested to see this product a little further down the line - perhaps when the price has come down and the questions have been further developed.

My turn to host the blog

In response to Mel's question about school websites. The school secretary maintains the "grown-up" side of our website. The "kids" section is written by pupils who come to our computer club. We bought a product called "pip-online" which allows the children to create and edit pages without needing to know a thing about HTML. It's a few years old now but I'm sure there are plenty of similiar products. We don't aim to be another Woodlands (I believe they had a member of staff who was given time specifically to maintain the website). Personally I think it's much better to give the children ownership of the site.

Learning Platform from Extranet!!1

Dear colleague
Learning Platform - preferred supplier
I am pleased to inform you that the preferred supplier of the Learning Platform which will be made available to all Derbyshire schools is RM, subject to finalisation of contract. I am sure that this partnership, with one of the leading companies in the field, will help secure the success of this important initiative.
The decision has been taken following a rigorous procurement process. I would like to thank the large number of school staff who gave a significant amount of time to supporting the procurement process. We feel that one of the strengths of the process has been the major role played by school staff at all stages.
We have our first meeting with RM on 22 January 2008 and shortly after that I hope to be able to give more detailed information about the learning platform and the proposed implementation plan.
The initial set up costs of the platform will be met in full by the local authority and we will also be offering fully funded training opportunities to all schools. Further information will be provided soon about the school contribution to the annual charges for the learning platform.
If you have any initial queries about the platform please do not hesitate to contact me. In the meantime, we will be running short introductory briefings for headteachers across the county as soon as possible.
Yours sincerely
Brian RichardsSenior adviser for school improvement

Learning Platforms

John,

Is there any word on the Learning Platform yet??

I don't know if you are aware but my school is moving to a new building at February half term and I am currently trying ot organise all the new Suite and software. It is a good time to make a new start. There is going to be a really big push on ICT when we move in and it would be great to be able to introduce this at the same time.

As I said on the last thread I am also keen to update our website with the new school details but am holding off for the Learning platform as a basis for this.

ICT Inset

Had a great Inset day with Jon and a lady from Espresso
We looked mainly at Textease and Espresso to inspire writers!!!!
We also looked at Rapid Reading resources- but as ever we seem to be having technical problems with the mic!!!
Really pleased as already seen a teacher using some of the skills we all learnt yesterday.
Wonder if any one has any tips on being Head and ICT ?
I feel it has some good points - I don't need to go cap in hand for money !!
But the down side is time - I haven't got enough!
We also currently have a school website that a Dad does for us but really don't know how much use it is - would welcome other peoples thought's on school websites???
I don't think we will ever be Woodlands or Ambleside!!!!
Are there any other school sites worth looking at ????

Stay safe

E-Safety is a key area of concern and something that everyone has been working hard on over the last year, to ensure the safer use of the Internet in schools.

Panorama is highlighting the problems our society faces with using the Internet and how it is being misused to groom children through social networking sites.

Thus highlighting the need to ensure that children are taught how to use the Internet safely.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/7107918.stm

Also some useful resources here

http://www.kented.org.uk/ngfl/ict/safety.htm


Pagebull is a search engine that teachers may find useful to quickly find a good website to show to the class. When you enter a search term, the results that come back are not text, instead visual images of the website are shown on the screen.
This makes identifying favourite sites already visited easy to spot.

http://www.pagebull.com/

Also just subscribed to
ictopus;-)Ictopus (ICT online primary user support) is a free support service for primary education which was launched on 1st September 2007. Each week registered members of the service have access to a six page printable magazine (Sharing Good Practice) and a set of activity suggestions (lessons2go). There are also frequent news postings and a variety of other resources and projects. All the resources are available from the web archive and members can also opt to receive alerts offering a one-click download service for each item.Ictopus builds on the highly successful Becta Direct2U service and also the legacy of MAPE (Micros and Primary Education).Register now to be a part of this exciting venture. Registration is free.Please join us now – be part of ictopus.
www.ictopus.org.uk .

New Year

No my new years resolution is nothing to do with little donkeys- we had enough of those in December !!!!! But they are cute.
Somehow I got talked into Blogging for the next week !!
We are having an Inset day at our school on Monday on ICT - so .....
I hopefully will have something to report to you all at the end of the day.
Happy New Year to you all and may you at least keep your resolutions till the end of the week!!!