Monday, 13 October 2008

Handheld Learning 2008

I was lucky enough this week to be asked to speak by Andy Black of Becta at the Handheld Learning Conference.

I was one of 7 people who spoke about Next Generation Learning - Right Here, Right Now.

I spoke about the Robosapien project I ran last year. This project is still running in Redbridge, keep track of it here.

A overview of the me and the other speakers is here http://ubiquitousthoughts.wordpress.com/2008/10/13/handheld-learning-day-1-next-generation-learning-session/

I'll be posting my thoughts later.

Below is my presentation and the videos I showed.

Robots in KS2


View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: robots robosapiens)









Tuesday, 15 July 2008

Guitar Hero in Year 5

Inspired by the work by LTS in Scotland with their work using Guitar Hero in class, rewrote one of the Year 5 DT units and decided to design and create controllers for Guitar Hero.

The outcome where amazing. Check out the video below.



What next for next year? Well though the Guitar Hero angle is a good way into the topic, i'd open it up to allow design of a game controller and the game that it goes with - watch this space for that....

Wednesday, 9 July 2008

Animation in Chadwell Primary



Links to examples work across the borough and useful resources.
Below are some examples of the work that the teachers achieved in the 1 hour INSET. Well Done!!







Thursday, 3 July 2008

VC in Nightingale Primary School



This week my class took part in a Video Conference event with the National Space Centre. This project ran all week with 9 schools across Redbridge, it was organised by Mina Patel from LGFL

The event itself was a self contained e-mission, where the children had the task of designing, launching and crewing a space station. A topic that can fit into KS2 science.

The mission was a success and the children all worked hard and enjoyed themselves. There where some issues, but this was mainly with some of the content and resources provided. This was a new mission for the space centre and our feedback was collected and will be fed back to them.

The main issue I had was the need for it to be accessible to all children either though differentiated worksheets and challenges for the more able.

But its is a great event, brilliant for team work, and one that I would do again in a heart beat.

Sunday, 15 June 2008

tutpup - online learning


Stumbled across this excellent site after reading an article about it on Ewan McIntosh's Blog.

Basically it is a game site that asks children mental maths questions and how to spell words.

What I like is the competitive nature of the site, since you don't play by yourself you compete with other children on the site. The children score points based on how well they do, what is great is that you can play children from all over the world, basically anyone who is logged in.

The site is very secure the only information you see is the login that the children use. The site itself collects only a very small amount of information about the child, date of birth and country. If you create a school account the children will need that as well or they just put in their parents email address and within 7 days their parents must respond or the account is frozen.

The school account allows you to track those in your class and see what games they have been playing and how they are doing.

This is a very interesting alternative to using DS's and Doctor Kawashima's Brain Training. Next year I will be looking into this in more detail.

Check it out.

Tuesday, 3 June 2008

Roding 4th June - Notes and Links

Windows Movie Maker





Search on youtube for movie maker and you will get loads more.

Where does the Literacy Frameworks make expicit refernce to video and audio use...
In Year 5


Narrative


Unit 2 - Myths and Legends
Record the groups' retelling of the legend using microphones, digital sound recorders or video cameras so that they can be reviewed and evaluated.

Unit 6 - Dramic Conventions
Establish the form of presentation, for example a performance of the script to be recorded using a form of ICT (consider use of a recording format that would allow children to save their own and others' presentations onto portable music players).
Children present their scripts either in performance or through a recording and evaluate their own performance and that of others.

Non-fiction

Unit 2 - Reports
Demonstrate or model the use of note-taking in interviews to prepare the teams. Emphasise the distinction between quotations and reported speech (refer to earlier activities). Consider the use of digital sound recorders to assist children in carrying out their interviews.

The presentation can be a newspaper report, radio report, TV report, for example using video cameras with simple digital editing programs, magazine article, e-report or web page (consider hyperlinking from or to the school website). Possibly compile group recounts into a class newspaper, TV-style news programme, etc.

Poetry

Unit 2 - Narrative Poems
Give children time to rehearse and polish their freeze-frames, recording them digitally for later use.

Allow the groups time to explore the poem and select stanzas for performance. It may be appropriate to place children's dramatic images into presentation software to support children's decision-making process. Allow children to practise, record and listen to their oral performances in order to evaluate and improve them.

Unit 3 - Perfomance Poems
A simple digital video camera, which itself can be operated by children, provides an excellent way of recording and reviewing children's own live performances, and ICT media, such as pod casting, can provide a wider audience for such performances.


There are other places where it is not explicit but can we worked in.
Narrative - Unit 5 Film Narrative - Create photo slideshows or even movies
Non-Fiction - Unit 3 - Persuasion - Create your own adverts

Links
http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/trailermaker/ -Make your own Dr Who Trailers
http://mashup.starwars.com/ - Make your own Star Wars Trailers
http://www.cueprompter.com/
http://catchvideo.net/ - Choose windows format - mpg
ICT applications - Primary Frameworks
http://youtube.com/
Easi-Speak Microphone
http://www.jumpcut.com/ - edit videos online
http://splashup.com - Edit pictutres online.
http://www.go2web20.net/ - list of web 2.0 sites.

SEE Sidebar for ICT applications guide and Teachers guide to ICT skills needed in Literacy.

Thursday, 29 May 2008

Updates and Reflecting

It was a busy week last week with the Redbridge ICT Conference and Teachmeet East London.

Keep your rss readers tuned to the Redbridge Subject Leaders Blog as soon there will be video and/or audio downloads of the Keynote Speakers Ewan McIntosh and Karl Hopwood.

Speaking of Ewan - here is his blog post about teachmeet and guess what I'm on it. Cool. :o) I'm in the picture with the white robot. http://edu.blogs.com/edublogs/2008/05/teachmeet08-nor.html

If you missed Teachmeet and what to see what the fuss was - you can rewatch it on Flashmeeting.

Hopefully there will be as well some videos of the primary and secondary schools who showcased their work.

Thoughs...

How do we encourage teachers to communicate and share there good practice?
We need to have a go with these new(ish) tools and technology and be prepared to fail.

"Don't Think. Try."

Are we doing all we can to promote and educate children about e-safety issues?
How do we get a uniform appropach?