Thursday 22 October 2009

Its Subject Leaders Soon –yeah!

church

Subject leaders Meeting

Friday 6th November 08:45 – 16:00

So, are you coming to this exciting and rewarding day at the Redbridge Teachers Centre?

No

Well that's Sad your miss out on excellent CPD, networking and staying in touch with current primary ICT local and national scene. Oh and supply cover is paid for, so what’s the problem?

Yes

Well done, what an excellent choice I can’t think of a better way of spending Friday the 6th November.

However you will need to bring these things

1. A charged laptop, which you have admin rights to allow you to install software. If you can install Scratch before you come. http://bit.ly/scratchpro

2. Annotated samples of work from your APP trials. (This could be anything from 1 up to 6 pupils in your class.)

3. Email your overview grid/long term plan for ICT to Anthony, by the 3rd November. (anthony.evans@redbridge.gov.uk) We need to know how you cover the curriculum and where (and which) each units are done. This will form part of an activity on the day – all plans will be made anonymous.

Book now on Redbridge PDC and sign up on http://www.facebook.com/RedbridgePICT

Agenda

 

9.00 – 9.10 Welcome and Updates

9.10 – 9.20 - Fronter Updates – Rob Spriddle

9.20 – 9.30 – Video Central - Mina Patel

9.35 – 10.15 Assessment / ICT App – Nicholas Hughes

Including a review of 2assess – Jane Rolf

and

Where next with APP

10.15 – Coffee

10.30 – CPD for your NQTS – Dan Lea

11.00 - Planning Matters – Anthony Evans

11.30 – Do Be – Louise Dobe and Del Singh

12.00 - Education City what else does it do?

12.30 – Lunch

1.10 – Support Requests – Alex Rees

1.25 – Outline sessions – Split up.

1.30 – Scratch – Hall - KS1 inspiration – S4

3.15 – Coffee – Feedback from sessions - Hall

3.35 – The Future of Primary ICT – Alex Rees

4.00 Close – Fish fingers, peas and chips – available from the canteen

 

Friday 16 October 2009

October Update

kim pic

This month we started our six day course for TAS, looking at the role of how they can use ICT to support pupils and teachers. They learned essential skills such as how to upload, save and print digital images. They also looked at how images can be combined by cropping, cutting and pasting. The image above began like this:

charlie

They then used MS Paint to cut  cut out Charlie and then pasted him on a range of backgrounds in PowerPoint ( this works well in 2Paint a Picture too). By adding text- boxes and speech bubbles they made some engaging writing frames. If you like this idea we have a help sheet on this, which explains how to paste in the cropped image while avoiding all the extra fuzzy bits, email me if you’d like this.

More on Images

Last month I began working on a shared Google Presentation on the many ways a digital image can be used. Using the power of Google Docs, I was able to enlist the help of a ICT  teachers, advisers and geeks from across the net. The presentation started with just 3 ideas, but has now grown to over 25. Click on the link below and be inspired.

25 things

Have you got another idea, or something that we’ve missed?- If so add you idea by following this link, this will open a Google doc – just like PowerPoint – simple add your idea, web link  and give yourself credit

For more Inspiring presentations and ideas got to Mark Warner’s excellent – Ideas to Inspire Website – click on the link below:

shopping list on i 2 i

Anithings Launch

 

Simple animation from Stripey Design on Vimeo.

Last night Steve Taylor, the creator of Anithings came to Redbridge to launch the Redbridge Animation Competition. There were over 20 schools represented at Parkhill Infants and there was a real buzz of excitement in the air about this dynamic new package. If you missed it, don’t worry I videoed (as best I could), and have embedded it below. If you are Redbridge school you should find all the details of the competition on the website, though you’ll need to email me for a license code to download the software. If you are not a Redbridge school, then you can get hold of this application by visiting the TAG learning site – here.

 

 

 

Tuesday 6 October 2009

Free Software shown to Primary Headteachers

Here are the slides and links from last weeks Heads and deputies forum talk. If you have any queries or comments, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

During the talk I mentioned the following:

The Redbridge Animation Competition, featuring £250 worth of free software and utilising the brilliant Anithings Software:

Telling your story from Stripey Design on Vimeo.

We then looked at some free software that could be downloaded and used in the classroom in discrete or cross-curricular ICT. These are:

Google Sketchup, a 3D modelling tool, suitable for Key Stage 2. Use this application to design buildings and add them to Google Earth.

 

The Next Application was SCRATCH, this is a free alterantive to Control Technology as pupils have to programme the software to create anything from a simple animation to a car chase game. Nicholas and I have written activities for this and intend to train Subject leaders at our next event in November.

Scratch: overview from andresmh on Vimeo.

Next we looked briefly at two free applications available to any teacher that has joined the Microsoft Innovative Teachers Network. Once a member you can get your hands on:

Auto-collage- a tool that lets you mash a mix of photos together in a sort of Photoshop style collage. This could be great to share a number of ideas on a theme or topic.

Here I am showcasing this tool on my SMART Board

 

And finally, SongSmith, also available on the Innovative Teachers Network. Watch the video below as it will give you the full breakdown on what this great new tool will do:

 

If you have any queries about the content in this blog post or anything you remember me mentioning during the talk, please comment or send me an email.