Bett,Primary Review,News, Begin the year with a Blog

Max Wainwright from 2Simple shows 2DIY for the first time


Welcome back and happy 2 oh 9. Its going to be another exciting year for Primary ICT, with even more innovative gadgets and software filling the shelves of this weeks BETT show. And as always Redbridge ICT people will be carrying on the innovation and consolidation of good ICT Tech and Teaching

In this weeks issue:


Diary Dates
Primary Review Initial thoughts
Begin the year with a blog
Redbridge Primary ICT @ BETT
In the News

Diary Dates

The following dates are on RedbridgePDC , but they may have passed you by:

• 04 February 2009 - London MLE Show and Tell 14:00 - 1600 find out how the MLE / Fronter is being is used in London schools. Also that day for your technicians there is a MLE: Administrators' Workshop from 10:00 until 13:00 -further details and for queries please email Alex Rees



• 11 February 2009 - Teaching the Control Element of KS2 ICT - a course lead by Gary Stevens of 147 group pm Logo, Lego and Control - a very popular, stretching and worthy course- places till available



• 12Th March 2008 - Primary ICT Subject Leaders Meeting - Supply cover paid - an excellent, high quality day of input and hands-on learning from Nicholas, Anthony and Doug Dickinson - be there or miss out- more details and agenda to follow soon - so far we have taken 22 bookings - roughly 50% of our schools - is that you and if its not why not - why are you missing out on supply cover paid networking, cpd and up to the minute news and ICT inspiration

• 18Th March 2009 ICT and Renewed Frameworks in Literacy lead by Rebecca Stainsby and Anthony Evans - places still available

The Primary Curriculum Review - Initial Thoughts

(note there should be a video from the Telgraph under here- be patient)




Last December saw the publication of the interim report of the Primary review, headed up by Jim Rose. This is very exciting and important for ICT as the report recognised that ICT needed to take a greater part in children's learning. In terms of ICT the report raised this and other key points,mainly:

• The curriculum and teaching and learning has not always kept pace with children's passion for and agility with ICT



• Many of the topics for ICT @ KS3 could move into KS2



• There still needs to be a good balance of both discrete and cross-curricular teaching

Currently we are waiting to see what the new guidelines for ICT @ primary will look like, but by September 2011, we will be teaching a revised and a more fit for audience Primary ICT curriculum. This is surely well overdue, when you consider the publication of the QCA schemes of work for ICT was 1st of January 1998! It is interesting to note that the whole issue of 21st Century skill has been given a lot of debate around the blogosphere of late. While Rose has published his review a US document was published in 2007, that tries to categorise the skills needed for 21st Century learners. This was been put togther by Education Authorities and organisations such as Cisco, Adobe and Miscrosoft. Have a look at 21stcenturyskills.org

We will of course keep you posted with developments..


Begin the year with a blog

Many Redbridge Primary schools are dispensing with a reliance on the static polished website and choosing blogging as a means of quick publishing of news and events. This is in line with the advice that both Redbridge Primary ICT and Mina Patel from the LGFL give. We recognise that the Digital Brain Platform can be difficult and cumbersome to use as a platform to publish regular weekly class or whole school news, and therefore one model is to have a website as a sort of E prospectus, alongside a school blog, for weekly and even daily updates.

Some schools have taken this even further and are experimenting with blogging as a way to engage children with writing through commenting on each others ICT or Literacy work.

Look at the examples below and consider whether your school would benefit from having a blog, speaking as a regular borough and personal blogger I find it a far easier and quicker way of publishing news than a conventional website.

Examples

The definitive Redbridge school blog is run by Fairlop Primary, where every class has a blog linked to the main school blog. Parents at the school look forward to the regular news updates. The school news comes in the form of either images, videos, text or links to the school podcasts. Through embedded widgets in this website they are able to track their readers from across the globe.

Have a look at Fairlop blogs here

A new blog on the block comes from John Bramston Primary, which started last term. It is a packed site, with regular updates, which include both images,text and video. Alongside the main page of whole school news, there is also a individual class pages, which cover such topics as 'Star of the Week' and a description of the Literacy that has been covered.





See the example below, where the class combined science and literacy to look at changing materials through recipe instruction writing.

I am sure you'll agree the blog is a great way of creating better home school links, as children now have an easier way to answer the question, 'What did you do @ school?' - now they can guide their parents/carers mouse to the answer.

There are other schools worth looking at as an example of what your blog may look like, these are:

Oakdale Junior

Parkhill Junior

Gearies Infants

Ripple Junior in Barking and Dagenham was shown to us at a recent Consultant meet- Gillian from B and D showed us a Blog that wasn't just about news sharing but used the commenting function to promote writing and editing. Have a look at the sidebar guidance for children on how the teacher would like the pupils to write using standard English.

Have we forgotten you ?

Give me your blog address, name and school, and we'll include you in our next issue:

Cleveland Blogs Buzz

By far one of the most exciting schools blogs to come to my attention recently has been the Cleveland Junior school blogs. Here the children are really participating by using the comment function and judging each others entries in online animation competitions. The school is also facilitating it's own safe online chat room, which is proving a very popular online hang out and place where children can share tips and ideas for animation. What's more children are using this as a place for friend sourcing and those that might not find talking to others in school very easy, are instead finding the online room a safer and easier place to talk. I recently visited the school and used my Flip to record Anjum and Simon (network manager) describing how they have been using both the blogs and the chat room and how the children have responded.

Fancy making your own blog click here

Redbridge P ICT @ BETT

This week we will be at Bett, Nicholas and I are there on Friday, and you may also see me on a certain stand on Saturday. We have a rough itinerary as follows:

• Visit the RM stand and the Steljes stand to see an Interactive Table- The RM stand will have real children using the Microsoft Surface There will also be other gadgets and tools and we want to talk to the children, not the sales reps about their value - stand D60
• 
  We will of course visit the Fronter stand to talk about how schools are using the London MLE stand K9

• Each of the main IWB platforms deserve a visit and I am keen to see the Activ Expression from Promethean in action - stand B30

• The Net book is the device to have at the moment, but which is the best model for a primary school and should one buy Linux or Windows, Fizzbook or Asus- the Microsoft stand features a giant wall of Netbooks and other suppliers like Tag learning will be showcasing robust netbook, designed for the classroom. We'd like to see as many as we can in order to be better informed. see the Microsoft stand at D40

• The 2Simple Stand will showcase new French Software and 2DIY - games and electronic drag and drop making software. see my film of 2Diy on my blog here and visit the stand on F59

One of the high points of Bett will be Teachmeet - last year this event inspired us to run our own successful event at Redbridge and begun our exciting work with Asus devices and games consoles. It was here that Nicholas and I heard Derek Robinson talk about his work in Scotland with the Nintendo and Brain Training.

Who knows what we'll learn form the mini and nano presentations and in the networking with great ICT minds.

Redbridge ICT in the News

This week Redbridge Primary schools have appeared in the Wanstead and Woodford Guardian for their work with Nicholas Hughes on Video Conferencing - read more here... Nicholas's work builds on the long established tradition of Video Conferenicing in the borough pioneered by Alison Seagrave at Parkhill and others. Long may it carry on.

Other media stars of the moment include our very own Lynn Bailey from Redbridge Primary in the December edition of 'Sharing Good Practice', the weekly ICT magazine. (Heat magazine for Geeks)

Lynn wrote about a mini digital USB microscope and how she and others had used it across the school.

Read the article below and if you haven't already, then sign up to receive the weekly edition of Sharing Good practice.

SGP52

Publish at Scribd or explore others:

Happy Christmas ICT is not over

It has been a great year for Nicholas and I in Primary ICT, and we look forward to more of the same in 2009. Thank you to everyone who has been supportive of our work and inspiring in their own. We have really enjoyed sharing ideas and good work together at Subject Leaders and in your schools.

Please keep on sharing and engaging with Redbridge Primary ICT, so that we can learn from each other and promote good quality ICT Teaching for our children.


For all your hard work and support we have put together a little film, featuring 2 men and a BeeBot!

Enjoy and have a great Christmas Holiday!

Video Conferencing in Redbridge Schools.

Starting today Nightingale Primary School, Oakdale Junior School and Wanstead Church all started working on a science themed Video Conference project. Click here to find out more.

Hatton and Gearies Infants have already been meeting up though VC - Click here to see what has happened so far.

Keep an eye on both blogs to see what is happening in our schools.

Assembly pictures

>

Many of you have requestedf info on the thorny issue of pictures of children @ Christmas productions. Last week the ICO - Information Commioner's Office, published the following press release, which emphasised common sense.

Any further queries email me or phone their help line: 01625 545745

Press Release
For immediate release
8 December 2008

ICO says festive photos are fine

This Christmas the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) is encouraging a common sense approach to photographs taken by family and friends at school concerts and plays and is reminding parents that the Data Protection Act does not prevent them from capturing those priceless moments.

David Smith, Deputy Commissioner at the ICO, says: "All too often we hear of cases where parents have been prevented by schools from taking pictures of their children and friends because of data protection. We recognise that parents want to capture significant moments on camera and would advise a common sense approach. Photographs taken for the family photo album are exempt from the Act. Citing the Data Protection Act in order to prevent parents taking photos is a data protection duck out and can undermine the important role the Act plays in the protection of our personal information."

The ICO has produced guidance to dispel any confusion and explain parents’ rights under the Act. The guidance also provides advice for local education authorities and those working within schools, explaining that the Data Protection Act is unlikely to apply in most situations where photographs are taken by parents in schools.

The Act does apply when photographs of children are taken for official use by a school or college such as for issuing identification passes. In the other small number of instances where the Data Protection Act does apply, if the photographer obtains permission from the parent or individual to take a photograph, then this will usually be enough to ensure compliance.
The full copy of the guidance can be viewed here http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/library/data_protection/practical_application/taking_photos_v3.0_final.pdf
ENDS
If you need more information, please visit the website at: http://www.ico.gov.uk/
Notes to Readers

1. The Information Commissioner promotes public access to official information and protects personal information. The ICO is an independent body with specific responsibilities set out in the Data Protection Act 1998, the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and other legislation.
2. For more information about the Information Commissioner’s Office, subscribe to our e-newsletter at www.ico.gov.uk
3. Anyone who processes personal information must comply with the eight principles which make
sure that personal information is:
• Fairly and lawfully processed
• Processed for limited purposes
• Adequate, relevant and not excessive
• Accurate and up to date
• Not kept for longer than is necessary
• Processed in line with your rights
• Secure
• Not transferred to other countries without adequate protection

Animation,Christmas,Tech Support Guidance, Bad Powerpoint

Welcome to another update from Redbridge Primary ICT. I hope your classrooms look as festive as our office!.

(see poor quality cameraphone image below- can you spot the festive Dalek?)

I know many of you will be using ICT to in your Christmas lessons, there are great opportunities here in everything from making cards to wrapping paper designs to animations of the nativity and spreadsheets for Christmas Gifts. If you do any of this, then please share with me and I'll post it on this blog.

In this Issue:

Woodland Infants Year 2 Animations

Christmas Resources

Guidance on Technical Support Document

Bad Powerpoint - a message for all those Inset Session Leaders

Last minute links

________________________________________________________________
Woodlands Infants - Year 2 Animations

A Year 2 class in Woodlands Infants recently created short animations in groups of two - three, based on the story, 'Thad gets to the Moon'. I was pleased with the outcomes and the children greatly enjoyed working on the project, which lasted two mornings.

The key to the success of this work was the dedication and hard work of the teacher, Mrs Yee, who was very prepared and had prepped the children well too! :

• Each group had created 4 background for each part of the story




• Each group was provided with an A4 size photocopy box, with a cut away front




• Children all brought in a selection of action figures, which would be used to play the part of Thad or the Aliens




• Children created the backgrounds and the Space Rocket in their art lessons

During Morning 1, children spent some time getting to know the how to use Digi- Blue software and camera. They created their own mini films of action figures walking about in space or encountering aliens.

By Morning 2, the class were familiar enough with animation techniques, to be able to begin creating the films. Here the class:

• Were restricted to around 75 frames per scene- this equates to approximately 5 seconds per scene and meant each group created a film that lasted around 30 seconds




• Worked together and many children developed and honed their skills of collaboration and supporting of each other. Some children acted as mentors to other children if they had finished early and this means that everyone got finished by Lunchtime.

What was needed:

On this occasion children used laptops and worked in groups of upto 3, one child operated the computer while another was a director, leaving the crucial job of altering the position of the props to the other group member. It is worth noting that the use of commercial action figures rather than plasticene considerably cut down on disruption to the animating process. Each group used a Digi-Blue Version 2.

Want to learn more?

Last year Nicholas and I put together a wiki site as an electronic handout for our animation course - see it here

You could also take a look at this help sheet for Digital Blue work from Sheffield CLC here

___________________________________________________________________

Christmas Resources

As you know, all good things come from Wales, and these resources for your Whiteboard are no exception. The NGFL, which is the Welsh equivalent of the London Grid has a large store house of resources for all Primary subjects, many of which work well on the Whiteboard to introduce or consolidate work/topics.

They describe their Christmas resources as:

Interactive activities for whiteboard or computer on the Nativity story and how Christians celebrate Christmas today. Activities are differentiated at various levels. They include an electronic version of the Nativity story, discussion topics on the meaning of Christmas, matching and sequencing activities, multiple choice question games, creating nativity pictures, matching pairs games and jigsaws.

Find these resources via the NGFL (English Version) or click here

IBoard also provide a number of Christmas activities and can be found in the content grid of LGFL, however these resources are also free to everyone thanks to Steve's generosity -click here for a link to their free free forever activities. These include templates for letters to Santa, a Christmas card designer,

SMART Board Advent Calendar

I love this SMART Board resource from Oxfordshire LA, click on the image below to download. It gives a new Christmas fact each day . There is of course the Doctor Who Advent calendar too, but that is not so educational, though your class will love it!

If you are an Activ Primary School, then of course you can customise your board and create a myriad of IWB resources using the themes and resource packs. These are free and can be downloaded from Promethean Planet. The picture below shows the Winter Holidays pack, this covers Diwali, Christmas and others too.

__________________________________________________________________

Guidance on Technical Support

In response to some queries and requests from Headteachers, we have complied the attached document. It is based on the model of having an oust side provider for network support, who take care of most of the big server stuff, while the in-house technician looks after the day to day running of systems. This is a model that works in most of our schools, though the technician's job descriptions from BECTA, could do with some fleshing out. This is what Alex, Gary, Nicholas and myself have attempted to do in these notes. Please note these are entirely voluntary and may not suit your school situation, though equally you may find they help you move towards a more proactive way of working.

Here is the PDF version - if you require the original Word Version, do email me. As you can see, I have also used Scribd to embed the document below. If you are a blogging school, then this is surely a tool worth looking at, as it allows the embedding of documents, it may even work with Fronter?!

As usual thoughts in the comment box or emailed to me at the usual address

Technicians Suggested Regular Tasks

Publish at Scribd or explore others:

___________________________________________________________________

Last Minute Links

The Rose Review - here is a link to the interim report - more on this later on my own blog - at present the highlighter pens are out while I look at it in more detail, but for now lets all be pleased that ICT is mentioned very strongly. You may want to read the chair of NAACE, Gareth Davies's response on his blog, 'Never Mind the Technology,Wheres the Learning?'

Simple Science

This site has a number of excellent video clips of Science Songs that literally sing the content of the Key Stage 2 QCA Units. These make great revision aids and could be embedded within blogs and (possibly) your MLE.

Enjoy this song about Unit 3A -Teeth













3A Teeth Song from Simple Science on Vimeo.

___________________________________________________________________


Bad Powerpoint

Last week I took part in a number of online discussions around the bad use of Powerpoint. I enclose two resources to get you thinking on this and some further reading.

The first is a quite famous video that illustrates, in a quite humorous way, just what are the features of Powerpoint missuse Look like, once you have seen that, then scroll down to the online presentation, which should give you some pointers for improving your presentation formatting skills.

Thanks to my fellow educational blogger for their thoughts and links

Dougbelshaw and

John Sutton

Death by PowerPoint

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: tips powerpoint)

What schools need? How they do it in Havering, Safer Internet Day, Edcity

Hello and welcome to another week of ICT Updates for Primary from Anthony Evans and Nicholas Hughes.

And to begin with here's a thought provoking video from Robin Hood School and NCSL, enjoy...

This text will be replaced

In this weeks issue:

• Anthony and Nicholas go to Havering Subject Leaders Meeting


• Education City - Where now?


• Safer Internet Day


• What every school needs?

This week we attended the Havering ICT Subject Leaders Meeting.

We came away with a few gems to share with our Redbridge Subject Leaders. It was also interesting to compare and contrast the provision for subject leaders in each of our authorities.

Here are some thoughts and observations.

• Fronter - over 22 Havering primaries have taken the London MLE, this is almost 50% of the borough. Some exciting practice is already emerging.


• The Havering Blogging Network - schools are encouraged to use edublogs for blogging and we where told of one school where a group of children acted as a news team for the school blog. This is a good way to facilitate blogging from children. It also take the pressure of teachers.


• Like Redbridge Havering promotes the use of Video Conferencing and during the meet we linked up with the National Archives and also the rest of the ICT subject leaders at another school.


• Interestingly this session was a 90 minute twilight session, unlike Redbridge which is a day, with free lunch and supply cover paid. (Now you know how lucky you are!)


• We looked again at a range of mini-laptops including the Fizzbook and the RM Asus Minibook (windows version) A reminder from Nic - Remember if you want to network your mini-laptops they must have Windows XP Pro installed NOT XP Home. Most new mini-laptops come with XP Home. Remember to ask at Bett.


• We also saw the Veho USB Microscope - Click the link for a review.
  
  

  It's is a nifty little microscope as the name suggests. It seemed to have really go picture quality. I have one on order and a fuller review will follow soon.

However Nic's arrived yesterday and it seems great. It is very intuitive and easy to use.










What every school needs? - By Nic

In my work I am lucky enough to visit many schools and talk to many ICT Subject Leaders.

On a recent visit to a school with new subject leaders, we got into a discussion about what is essential for ICT to be successful and embedded throughout the school.

These are the 5 things that we felt needed to be in place.

1. Hardware – need to be working and well supported – The ideal is a on site person and external support.


2. There needs a range of good software in school to support discrete and cross curricular ICT


3. Teachers need have confidence through....
   - Having a positive attitude.
   - Training and INSET based on identified needs based on audits.


4. The Network/Server needs to be clearly organised.


5. There needs to be good levels of communication.

What do you think?

Do you agree is there something that has been omitted?

Safer Internet Day - 10th February 2009

To mark European Safer Internet Day, your school can download a pack of resources including new KS2 and 3 assemblies. CEOP will be creating and signposting you to all the resources you need for SID 2009. We would also like to hear your plans for the week.Get it in your school diary NOW! February 2009.

This is the perfect opportunity to introduce Internet safety to students or to consolidate the teaching you have already implemented.

CEOP's Thinkuknow programme will be producing a pack of resources available for download.
Click here to register and CEOP will keep you up-to-date with developments. You will be able to download the resource pack early February 2009.

Education City - Where now?

School leaders and ICT Subject Leaders, should now have had the detail about our Education City offer. If for some reason You have not seen this letter from Alex Rees, then read on:

Education City licensing arrangement
The London Borough of Redbridge currently holds a licence for all primary schools to have access to the Education City online content. The licence is due to expire at the end of November 2008 and the borough cannot fund a renewal of this licence.
We are aware that several schools make extensive use of this product and are confident that it is making a significant difference to the educational experiences they are providing for their students. Education City content covers Literacy, Maths, Science and French and has material designed specifically for Foundation, Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 students. At the normal listed prices subscription for Education City is £860 for 1 year or £1634 for 2 years.

Further information about the product is available at http://www.educationcity.com/.

We have been in negotiation with Education City to ensure we support our schools currently using this product, and enabling other schools not yet using the product to explore its potential. Education City have agreed that if Redbridge schools purchase together then you will be offered a discount price of £817 for a 2-year licence extension. This extension will only be applied to schools who opt in to this arrangement. This reduced price will be available up until the end of November.

If you wish to find out more about this product then three Redbridge schools have already agreed with Education City to be ‘Champion Schools’. You may wish to contact them to discuss whether the product may be useful for you. They are:

• Churchfields Infants School



• Clore Tikva Primary School



• Gearies Infants School

Should you wish to take part in this offer then please contact Gary Jelks , immediately with a purchase order number for the licence. If you are using email please include the code ‘EC-renew’ in the subject line. This information must be with Gary by the 1st December 2008. He will ensure that your licence is then extended until the end of November 2010.

It is not the London Borough of Redbridge’s policy to promote individual ICT products. However an educational demand has clearly been demonstrated for this product and the Borough has therefore negotiated an arrangement to the benefit of the schools.
Yours sincerely,
Alex Rees

Last minute links

http://www.computeractive.co.uk/computeractive/video/2230140/zoostorm-fizzbook-video-review - A video review of the Fizzbook

http://www.jurassicpunk.com/ - a site containing lots of videos and movie trailer. Idea for film work within the Renewed Literacy Framework.

http://www.slamnet.org.uk/smart/defaultmaths.htm - a selection of help sheets for Smart Notebook 9.

ICT Update - IWB Science, Display Pictures, Childnet CDS for Parents

Repeating Patterns Work from Y3/4 @ Fullwood Primary- Well Done Class 6

Welcome to this weeks ICT update.

This began as a shorter than usual update, but once again I have found the world of ICT is rarely dull and never stands still and so here is another bumper pack of news,links and resources.

In this issue:

• Science and the Whiteboard


• CD ROMS for Parents - get them while you can!


• Next Generation Learning


• Christmas Activities


• ICT Week @ Churchfields Infants


• Anything to Share

Science Clips for the Whiteboard



Teachers TV, have recently added Science Clips to their stock of video shorts that already exist for both Literacy and Numeracy. These short clips provide a hook/ way in for lesson on themes such as 'Solids,Liquids and Gases', Sound and Habitats. The clips can be streamed directly from Teachers TV or downloaded, provided you have a Teachers TV account!


And..

If your school blogs, or uses a web authoring package like Dreamweaver, you might also consider encouraging teachers to embed Bytesize resources from the BBC into their pages. This is very easily done, and I know that Christchurch Primary did this in Year Six last year as a way of assissting children in their revision. All that is needed is to copy the embed code underneath the activity and paste it into the website or blog, when in 'Edit html' view

CD Roms for parents - get them while you can


During some of my recent ESafety events for schools, I have given out copies of the very informative 'Know it All for Parents' from Childnet. This resource explains in plain english how parents can help their children to use the internet and stay safe online, and includes technical tips like how to check internet history. 'Know it All' has recently been updated and is available free for schools, if they require.....sorry I can not bulk order for everyone, I did try.

In a recent post on Safetynet, Stephen Carrick Davies had this to say:

I am delighted to announce that with the support from BECTA and the DCSFa further half a million copies of 'KNOW IT ALL FOR PARENTS' CD Roms have been duplicated and are ready for schools to order free of charge from today.

See news announcement at http://www.childnet.com/news/articles/091008.html The new version includes updated sections on Cyberbullying, SocialNetworking and a short overview on 'Where to Report'. As with the earlier version, all the content is presented in video format with links to wider resources and pdf leaflets which parents and teachers can download from the disc.

We have also added Welsh to the translations of the overview section (now in 10 languages) The SMART content aimed atprimary school aged children is also now in British Sign Language. All this content has also been updated on the Childnet.com website see http://www.childnet.com/kia/parents/cd/


If you have any questions about ordering please email the Childnet team at info at childnet.com

Next Generation Learning



Officially launched last week is BECTAs Next Geneartion Learning campaign and its associated website. It is fantastic looking site, which will give simple explanations of school technologies, while pointing out the benefits of using and embedding this stuff in your school. It could prove a great resource for parents, heads and ICT coordinators.

My favourite area is the benefits section ,here we are reminded that:

• Schools that use technology well across the curriculum and wider school life have reduced absence rates and achieve a higher percentage of A*-C grades at GCSE.


• Pupils studying Key Stage 2 Maths, Science and English in schools which make the best use of ICT, improve at twice the rate of the national average.


• When young people use technology to support their learning at home they do better in national tests.

I am slightly ambivalent about the front page -'Take the Test' area- here teachers or parents can input their postcode, or their schools postcode and find out whether their 'child’s school is geared up for Next Generation Learning?'. This allows you to find out whether your school has achieved ICT Mark status. I inputted my postcode and found that my local school was not 'geared up for Next Geneartion Learning'. I got thie message:

Unfortunately, there are no schools within the post code area IG3 that have achieved the ICT mark accreditation

Christmas Activities

Iboard resources for Christmas can be accessed via the LGFL content grid, but for speed and for those outside London, click on the link below

http://www.iboard.co.uk/christmas/

ICT Week @ Churchfields Infants

Before Half Term Churchfields Infants held a very successful and creative ICT week. I was lucky enought to be in the school after the event and nab a few pictures and discuss with the teachers what had gone on.




Pictured above are just some of the resources that the school uses to teach ICT in Foundation and above, proving once again that ICT is not just about computers.





Beebot jacket - pupils in Nursery made jackets for their Beebots. This is a great activity and far cheaper than buying the customised Beebot skins from TTs. If you want to make your own, or rather make them with the children, then see the templates on the Kent resource page on Beebots, here

Children also worked in groups to create their own adventure mats for the little yellow fellow to negotiate.


Finally the images below where taken in the school hall, where you can clearly see the progression in ICT from Reception to Year 2.




Anything to Share

It is great to post national updates on this page, but I am sure the most inspiring element of this blog is seeing work from local schools and hearing about what is going on across the borough. It needn't be wow and wizzy, it could be just ordinary ICT objectives - but done well. Whatever it is email me an image or 7 alongside a brief paragraph. Following a small edit from me, we will then post your school ICT experience here in order that others can share and be inspired.

Follow Up - How to remove the Navbar in Blogger

Many of you asked about how we remove the 'next blog' button in Blogger, or is it sometimes called the NAV bar. Here is a short video explaining how this is done.