Thunder

As some of you may be aware I am in ’sunny’ Torquay at the NAACE conference, yesterday I delivered by session on web2.0 in the classroom (you can find most of the sites referred to here).

It has been great to have so much positive feedback and a little constructive negative feedback. This has left me thinking about how to improve and where I believe we should start to go next. What I believe is that it is good to see the practical uses of web2.0 in the classroom whether they be the best use or not, from the primary school blog to the geography tectonics podcast, my use of del.icio.us to the gallery of student work. Where I believe I need to take this next is to start to look in more detail about the effects on teaching and learning from using these technologies, to me it is obvious but that is not the case for everyone.

I think in Shropshire we could be at a tipping point, we have spent the last 18 months or so piloting and developing our use of these technologies but can we start to exploit them even further, using blogs to support boys writing, podcasts to support speaking and listening, del.icio.us to support research etc

I am keen to hear other peoples opinions and set up some collaborations to develop materials to support the use of these technologies in the classroom. Has anyone already developed teaching units, that don’t necessarily teach the technologies but exploit their use.

I have been working with Lea and Ollie at Thomas Adams school in Wem today, they are both geography teachers.

The purpose of the afternoon was to start to produce year 11 revision podcasts, here are there first attempts.

Tectonics.m4a and Settlements.m4a (needs iTunes or Quicktime to play)

There was lots of discussion about the following:

• Length of the podcast - how long should a podcast be, what the guys thought would be a 2 minute podcast rapidly became 4 minutes. At first they were thinking about 10 minute episodes, but in the end we believed that would be too long and we should go for short sharp shows.
• Speed of voice - a couple of times Ollie got into full stride and was rattling through his notes, at some points they speech might have been too fast. We wondered what the students would do with the podcast, if they were going to take notes then we really would need to speak at a slow pace so they could keep up.
• Images - how many images should be used? Should the track have no images at points? We didn’t really come to a consensus on this, I personally like there to be lots of images to try and keep up the pace of the show.
• Hyperlinks - it is worth adding hyperlinks from the enhanced podcast to point to written notes to support the audio. We felt that this would be the next step in out journey, for now we would just put up the podcast.
• Student podcasts - after certain topics of work this year they will get students to produce a podcast as an assessment activity - these podcasts could start to form a set of revision notes for other students.

It would be nice to hear other peoples thoughts on the discussion points above. If you have time it would be great if you could leave a note about their podcasts on their Geograhy blog at http://adamsgeog.ethink.org.uk

UPDATE: Lea has now reproduced his Tectonics podcast and has uploaded it to his blog (http://adamsgeog.ethink.org.uk) - I think he has a talent for it, what do you reckon?

Formed in 1970, SAGSET is a voluntary professional society dedicated to improving the effectiveness and quality of learning through the use of interactive learning, role-play, simulation and gaming - in all aspects of education and training, from Primary School to University - and in all levels of adult, lifelong learning from the shop floor to the board room.

Our 37th Annual Conference will be held in Manchester in July 2007 (16th - 18th) and contributions are invited from:

• Teachers in Primary, Secondary & Adult Education
• Teachers specialising in supporting pupils with learning disabilities
• College & University Lecturers
• Employers & Trainers interested in interactive methods of developing the skills of employees in Business & Industry
• Business Management Training Organisations
• Voluntary Organisations
• Teams designing simulations for the Emergency Services
• Designers of other games & simulations

Why not use this opportunity to spread your message among a variety of like-minded groups - and pick up new ideas from them in turn!

Papers (to last 40 minutes including questions) or Workshops (85 minutes) will be particularly welcome with a deadline for Full Paper Submission of 20th April 2007. For more information please visit: http://www.simulations.co.uk/sagset/sagset2.htm

Conference Fees (All prices include VAT)

Early Bird Full Residential Conference Fee (Must be booked by Saturday June 16th 2007 - higher fees apply thereafter): includes en-suite accommodation in the conference centre for the nights of 16th - 17th July, all conference facilities on 16th - 18th July, meals & conference report, and a year’s membership of SAGSET: £295.0 (or $US 580.0)

Day Delegate Rate: (Does not include supper, but does include lunch & SAGSET membership): £70.0 or $137.0

To book your place, and for a full set of details about the conference, please contact the Conference Organiser:

Paddy Griffith, 41 Burlington Road, Manchester M20 4QA

Tel: 0044 (0)161 434 2551 e-mail: paddygriffith@tiscali.co.uk

Today I have been working with a group of year 7, 8 & 9 students from Sundorne school. The group planned/scripted their podcast for the first hour of the day and then went off to interview staff and students, they used the internal mics on the apple laptops, irivers and a usb mic. After recording the necessary audio they edited the clips within Garageband and obtained appropriate images to enhance the podcast.

• What have you learnt today?
• Was it an enjoyable experience, would you do it again?
• How could a podcast be used by the school?
• What would you like to be on the schools monthly podcast?

Becta’s ICT Excellence Awards are now open for entries!

Entering its second year, the ICT Excellence Awards aims to identify and reward whole school excellence in ICT.  They look for schools across the whole of the UK approaching ICT in outstanding and innovative ways.

Winning schools will receive prize money of up to £6000, as well as opportunities to share their excellent practice with others.

The categories, open to both primary and secondary sectors, are Assessment, Curriculum, Extending Learning Opportunities, Inclusion, Leadership and Management, Learning and Teaching and Best Whole School.  In addition to the schools categories and new to this year is the Support for Schools category for organisations supporting school improvement with ICT.  All categories are closely aligned with elements of Becta’s Self-Review Framework and the ICT Mark.

To find out more about the ICT Excellence Awards and to enter online, go to www.becta.org.uk/excellenceawards/.

Don’t miss the deadline of 23 March 2007!

It is official, the KS3 on-screen test for ICT will not be statutory.

The Department for Education and Skills is now working with the QCA to evolve the exam into a “formative test for ongoing assessment”, rather than a statutory test.

I think this is good news for schools but I am very concerned about the implications the test has had to date on schools.  It would be great news if they are able to tinker with the present test to make it a formative tool.

QCA will be recommending that the on-screen test for ICT at the end of KS3 will NOT be compulsary, deciding it will be an uneccesary burden for schools.

Mr Gee recommended to the QCA that the test should be used “as an integral and standardised tool for informing teacher assessment”.

We now have to wait for the DfES to make a decision on whether or not the test will be compulsary.

Personally I hope that the DfES take QCA’s advice and do not make the test compulsary. Over the last year or two when I have been working with schools in Shropshire preparing for the test the most obvious effect of the test was to reduce creativity in the classroom. Schools have been adapting their schemes of work for year 9, spending a great deal of time preparing students for the test and removing the opportunities for the students to use cool ICT tools, as the test only really covered office applications (that looked nothing like the office environment that the pupils were used to).

It will be interesting to see the future of the test, I think there is a place for it but we shouldn’t be using it to drive the curriculum we are teaching in the classroom. Maybe it will be used for the functional skills test, to give a rough benchmark on transfer or to guage a teachers basic ICT/office skills. I can’t see the test just disappearing as the DfES have invested so much money in it, I guess we just have to wait and see.

So what do you think? Is this a positive step, or has the idea of a compulsary test at the end of KS3 led to more support for the ICT department from the Headteacher and SMT, had the thought of the test on the horizon lead to more curriculum time and specialist teachers, if so will it be a negative step?

The BBC news article can be found here.

HAGames was created by the same crew who dreamt up the Hidden Agenda Contest back in 2003.  We’re Liemandts and Reimanns, which sounds like two different tribes of a new medieval quest game but is actually two families that want to make a difference in this world by furthering education through technology. Our family nonprofit organization, the Liemandt Foundation, funds the Hidden Agenda program and the HAGames site with the help of a fabulous cast of advisors and partners. The Liemandt Foundation is dedicated to facilitating, testing, and promoting “stealth education” video games so that they can make learning fun for kids who might enjoy playing games more than listening to teachers.

Don’t get us wrong – we love teachers! And parents! In fact, we hope they’ll check out these HAGames and show them to all of their favorite kids!  We have a feeling everyone will appreciate this new way to help middle schoolers learn tough subjects that may not “stick” as well through memorization or by reading a textbook.  Especially since we are committed to offering these games to kids for free, forever.

Tim Curtis from Shrewsbury High School has just created a wiki over at wetpaint where he would like teachers to upload any alternative versions to the SNS KS3 ICT STU’s (too many acronyms). Taken from the site:

Why this site?

To share the knowledge, expertise and creativity of ICT teachers.

Who can contribute?

Anyone. You don’t have to sign up to wetpaint to contribute but it would be great if you did (it will be easier to see who deserves the credit for great ideas).

How does it work?

At KS3, the units are based on the DfES STUs.

If you tweak a lesson, add a comment to that page
If you have rewritten a lesson, add it as an alternative lesson sub-page
If you have rewritten a unit, add it as an alternative unit sub-page
(I’ve tried to set up a typical structure for unit 8.2 - please feel free to add others!)

Get the credit

Add your alternatives with your school in the title of the page. E.g.
Alternative Unit 7.5 from Shrewsbury High School

Other Key Stages and General Stuff

Feel free to develop the structure as necessary. KS4 and KS5 will be set up by qualification and then board.

If you would like to contribute then visit the site (http://teachict.wetpaint.com/)

Open2.net is the online learning portal from the Open University and the BBC. Within the portal you can get hold of free interactive learning resources.