Anthonys Farewell

This week isn't quite Anthony's last week, but a few of the ICT coordinators met up to see him off at the lovely Red Cow pub in Ilford last night.

Below is a video of him accepting his leaving gift.



Thanks to everyone who contributed.

Nic

Fronter Network Meeting (South)

Fronter Network Meeting (South) – Thursday 26^th November 2009

4:00 to 5:00

Host: Rob Spriddle ICT Subject Leader at Redbridge Primary School / Associate MLE Consultant

Venue: Redbridge Primary School, College Gardens, Redbridge IG4 5HW

This is the inaugural network meeting for the South of the Borough. We’ll be:

• Sharing good practise
• Useful Websites for Building Pages / Rooms
• Useful Clipart
• Introducing Sandbox (An Example School from Redbridge ICT)
• Training Opportunities
• Top tips to embed Fronter usage into school life where appropriate
• Interesting projects (reporting back and initiating new ones)

The following schools are in the Southern part of Redbridge and therefore are invited to attend this meeting: Grove Primary, Highlands Primary, South Park Primary, Mayespark Primary, St Bedes Catholic Primary, Aldersbrook Primary, Goodmayes Primary, St Aidans Catholic Primary

Teach IT

During Subject Leaders last week we showed you TEACH IT, a folder of bang up to date teaching materials that encompass many of the tools and innovations we’ve been showcasing over the last 18 months in Redbridge.

Louise from DOBE education gave an illuminating presentation on ICT Excellence and Eduvation. We have included her presentation below, along with some information on how you can get hold of the materials.

Who are DO-BE

We are a company based in Fife, Scotland with a passion for helping students and staff to do and be the best they can. 

We are working in 500 schools in the UK and have recently worked with Anthony Evans at Redbridge council to provide 5 schools in the authority with our latest product Teach-It.

The Teach-It is a new classroom resource which is packed with innovative ideas for applying new technologies, websites and applications to different learning contexts to support cross-curricular learning and promote/enhance enterprising learning and teaching. 

The lesson ideas are jargon free, fun and inspirational, and have been designed in such a way that they can be followed step-by-step by teachers (even complete technophobes!) and learners. 

Lessons Ideas cover:

Google Earth

Digital Imaging

MP3/4 Technology

Podcasting and Video

Games Based Learning

The Internet

If you liked what you saw last week you can contact Louise at the DO-BE offices or on  01383 829969

There’ll be Fireworks this week

Many of you will be looking at the story of Guy Fawkes this week and drilling children on the firework code. Those good people at Brainpop UK have come up with a great movie to help children get to grips with the origins of ‘The Fifth of November’ and all that.

Click on the link below to watch and then use the video and accompanying quiz

I am sure many of you will also be creating Firework pictures too. things have come along way since the time I was taught to cover paper with coloured and then black crayons, before scratching out firework patterns with a compass. Tools like 2Paint a Picture and others allow children to try out, undo, redo and save a wide variety of tools and possibilities.

I thought it would be fun to have a just for fun (and a small prize) competition between now and subject leaders on Friday to see who can come up with the best Firework picture, using 2Paint a Picture. It could be all your own work, or even better that of a child in your class, email your efforts to me and I’ll post them up somewhere for some online voting action.

 

Here was my effort last year

And these have just been twittered to me by Bev Evans who runs the excellent Communication for All Website. Here class made these today:

Catherine Wheel

Can you do any better?

Email, Facebook or Twitter me your examples

At the LGFL Conference

 

I attended the LGFL primary conference today and it was good to see several Redbridge  schools there too. Notably Lynn from Redbridge Primary presented on the podcasting work that the school had done and Alison and Lesley from Parkhill Junior picked up an award for all their video conferencing greatness.  Schools from across London shared models of implementation of the London MLE.

I visited several seminars and was particularly inspired by Anson Primary School from Brent and their work on Esafety and Betsy Bee the school's ICT Mascot.  They shared a guest logon for their school MLE building for us to share with schools.  (Fronter.com/Brent Username apsvisitor Password anson).  

 

Dan lea from Gearies infants is the Next Generation Learning award winner for the whole of the UK. If you have not met him, then you will this Friday at Subject Leaders. You might like to read my blog entry about him and why he deserves the award.

See you on Friday or on Facebook before then

Fronter Training Dates

We have finally published our catalogue for Fronter Training – please read through the catalogue carefully and take account of the content and cost. You can download the catalogue from here

Redbridge_LondonMLE_Training1

Its Subject Leaders Soon –yeah!

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 6^th 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 3^rd 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

 

October Update

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:

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.

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:

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.

 

 

 

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.

Heads Forum

View more presentations from anthony evans.

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.

Technical Forum and Fronter Network Meetings

 

Just a short entry to pass on details of our Technical Forum and The Fronter Users Network.

A message from Alex Rees about the Redbridge Technical forum

(or to put it another way coordinators meeting for technicians)

 

 

 

Redbridge Technical Forum

 

“Switched on and networked for learning.”

This conference is the first in a series of events set up for technical staff supporting and administrating the computer systems within Redbridge primary and secondary schools. The programme is designed to ensure that whatever previous experience you have – whether as an expert systems engineer or as someone completely new to the role – you will find the RTF of real value with relevant information and fresh ideas you can apply easily within your own school.

Friday 16^th October 2009
Redbridge Teachers’ Centre

Morning

9am Welcome & Coffee

1. Hardware trouble-shooting
Some practical help with some real issues that are being encountered daily within our schools.

2. LA news
An update as to the ways the LA is currently supporting the work in schools.

3. Best practice
Using the current best practice guidance mixed with practical experience-driven common sense to give you a clear idea of how to replicate best practice in your school.

Lunch

Afternoon

4. New technologies
A series of short presentations on the latest technologies schools in Redbridge are implementing and the issues surrounding them.

5. In my school…
A case study of experiences from a colleague’s school. The obstacles, the solutions, the bit where everyone is smiling in the end!

6. Did you know?
Some ‘free’ or ‘almost free’ resources that you could use in your own school.

3:45pm

Close with Q & A

Booking Information

Redbridge Technical Forum is a no-cost event run by LBR but to ensure catering is planned for you do need to register your intention to attend. Booking can be completed online at www.redbridgepdc.org.uk or by emailing tina.pennells@redbridge.gov.uk.

 

Booking Information

Redbridge Technical Forum is a no-cost event run by LBR but to ensure catering is planned for you do need to register your intention to attend. Booking can be completed online at www.redbridgepdc.org.uk or by emailing tina.pennells@redbridge.gov.uk.

 

Fronter Users Network (North Group)

 

 

Rob Spriddle, our associate consultant for Primary MLE/ICT Subject Leader at Redbridge Primary School , writes the following about the Fronter Users Network:

There is a Fronter Network Meeting (North) –

Thursday 8th October 2009

4:00pm – 5:00pm

Venue:

Redbridge Primary School, College Gardens, Redbridge IG4 5HW

This is the inaugural network meeting for the new school year. We’ll be:

• Sharing good practise
• Top tips to embed Fronter usage into school life where appropriate
• Interesting projects (reporting back and initiating new ones)

The following schools are in the Northern part of Redbridge and therefore are invited to attend this meeting:

• Oakdale Juniors
• Nightingale Primary
• Redbridge Primary
• Parkhill Juniors
• Churchfield Infants
• John Bramston Primary
• Gearies Infants
• Gearies Junior
• Fullwood Primary
• Fairlop Primary

There will be a Network Meeting for schools in the South of the borough during the second half term.

Many thanks,

Rob