Why code in school (and how to get involved)...

Last night was the first Computing At Schools Hub meeting of 2013 in Redbridge with colleagues from Primary and Secondary schools hosted by Ilford County High School.

A very powerful video entitled “What most schools don't teach” was screened and if you are currently talking to year 9 students about their options (or indeed senior management teams about the 2013-14 timetable allocation) this video could be a very good thing to show.  Please take 5 minutes now to watch it if you can.

The app-store for Fronter?

Following the recent presentation at the Primary ICT Subject leaders event, the Resource Gateway, from Pearson, is now available for our Fronter schools.

The Resource Gateway provides a straightforward new tool to access and use digital resources within our Fronter platform. There is the opportunity to work with free resources and a useful preview of hundreds of other assets to support teaching and learning across the curriculum. Think of it as the app-store of the Fronter world - your school can add professionally made resources and share them with staff and students to access from home and school. If you already have licences for some of the resources in CD-ROM format, Pearson will give you access to the online versions for no extra cost.

To find out more, please open the Fronter e-newsletter: http://www.fronter.info/uk/news/UK_Resource_Gateway2.html

Podcasting an excellent context

This year the Guardian newspaper are running their Newsday competition. The journalistic simulation day could involve the creation of either a website, a newspaper or a Podcast. Schools must register and use any day between the 28 Jan-1 Feb and 10-14 March, further details, including a very detailed support pack can be found on the Newsday website.

The event is sponsored by Podium and will therefore mean that anyone taking part can get themselves a free 30 day download of the software (or a hard copy if they prefer).
Visit Podium for more details.

ICT Room Posters

Is your ICT suite looking a bit drab?
Do you need to badger your teachers into putting their coffees away and collecting their pile of print outs?

Yes !
Then visit http://www.teach-ict.com for a large range of posters for the ICT room