Welcome to the new home of the Redbridge Primary ICT community. I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible @ tomorrows Subject leaders event. If you haven't booked yet, remember you can do so online @ Redbridge PDC. If there are other courses that you want to book consider then the revised course booklet can be downloaded from the widget in the sidebar.
I hope that I wont be the only author of this blog and I am therefore inviting contributions form as many of you as possible. See you soon
This half term we considered Internet Literacy in the light of Alan November's talk @ June's conference. If you missed Alan's talk you can download and listen to parts 1 and 2 here:
We were privileged to be joined by Fraser from Kartouche, he gave us a hands-on session on creating a Kartouche animation. He also provided all those in attendance with a free copy of single user software.
Trial Feedback Val Barker gave a feedback on her recent use of the TTStuffcam.
The Tuffcam uses USB to download, and will just download onto computer . You can copy/paste where you would like a file to be kept, file format uses windows media player.
Advantages:- easier to use at home, store, save and share. XP finds the driver and installs. Tuffcam had the advantage over the digital blue software as on occasion’s software does not run properly.
Children's views
Munnaan – likes the tuffcam because it has a screen,
Yasmin – recording button was easier to hold in but she felt the tuffcam did not like her because she could not turn the camera on and off.
Ameerah – says she would stay with using digital blue – because when she managed to turn the tuffcam on she could not turn it off..
Sana – finds digital blue easier to turn on and off and it stays on until you want it to turn off.
Hiccups – When recording tuffcam screen goes black and freezes giving the impression that the battery life has finished, but hen removing batteries and testing they were still full of life.
Overall – We clearly had a problem with the on and off switch and recording. These problems then over spilled into our literacy lesson and therefore taking away the children focus on the lesson in hand. If these problems could be rectified then I am sure they would be a big hit, as the children clearly did like the additional features and being able to manager the recording switch with much ease. Compiled by Val Barker @ Gearies Infants
Other News:
We have established a blogging and Podcasting Network, this involves Manford, Fairlop and Redbridge. These schools will be feeding back their findings in next years RedbridgeICT Conference. Similarly a further 3 schools are collaborating on a video conferencing project with 3 matched schools in Havering. These have yet to confirm, but more on this when we get it!
Promthean have loaned us two class sets of voting systems. If you would like to borrow one of these for a term then please email Anthony, who will arrange this with Chris Barlow form Promethean. If you are a Promethean user,then don't forget to register with Promethean Planet, as this website offers and amazing array of resources!
There are a number of courses available online- see RedbridgePDC for a reliable list of what is happening when. One such successful course was the recent Animation day, which will be repeated next year. To see what happens when Mossford and Nightingale get together and animate click on the video below:
del.icio.us- link sharing- This new web 2.0 tool allows us as a community to share what we find and find out what others in the community deem worth looking at or using in the classroom. In order to use this effectively users need to sign up for a del.ico.us account and tag websites of interest as they come across them in their surfing. We decided on using the tag redbridgeit, that way we can all subscribe to anything on del.ico.us that has that tag and we will know that it has come from a Primary ICT Coordinator in Redbridge. You can see the latest tagged sites in the side bar RSS feed. If you need help in signing up and using the service, then there is a simple instruction booklet in the sidebar too!
Scratch -A versatile hybrid of Control and animation, from MIT. This application is free and could be an ideal tool to explore in computer clubs or/ and with gifted ICT users in Key Stage 2. You can download it free from the MIT site today. But beware it is just a bit addictive!
Google Sketchup- This tool from Google is also free and allows user to create 3D graphic models which can then be imported into Google earth. See it in action below:
What we do well and what could be better.
It was valuable to use the last 20 minutes of this session to consider the achievements and success of the Redbridge Primary ICT community, while also considering what we could do to improve upon what we offer.
Many of the comments centred around how good it has been to work together in Subject Leaders and other Networks. People wanted more of this and more in-school support. More on this in our first meeting of the new academic year.
For all those of you who are viewing this blog in school, you may have difficuly viewing the flickr embedded pictures in the sidebar. Therefore I have posted some below:
Friday, 15 June 2007
At the end of a very busy but very stimulating day I asked you: What will you take away with you from today's conference? Here are a selection of comments:
14 June 2007 16:29 sandra said... Alan was truly fantastic. So many ideas to take away. I have known for a while that we needed to teach children to critically evaluate the content that they use. But the question for me has always been how? Now I have several ideas which I can apply straight to the classroom. Practical ways to make my children think about where the information that they use comes from. Some of the issues raised today were quite scary, such as the upcoming software able to search face and voice patterns as well as the privacy issues which we open ourselves up for when we upload content. We feel in control of personal pages and can edit and delete them as we see fit. With archive.org that power is no longer ours. Overall a wonderful morning, which left me with many answers and yet so many more questions. Thank you for arranging for Alan to speak at the conference
Anonymous said... A fantastic day!! I came away inspired by both speakers. Alan has left my brain spinning in a positive way. I have learnt important things about the Internet that previously I had not been aware of, when reflecting on the day some of the information he shared appear obvious, how old is the site? who published it? although I had no idea of how to find this information out, his comparison with a library and the stone age really helped me realise the implications for our teaching and learning in the future. "The right tools for the job in hand" springs to mind, I have to ensure the children gain a good understanding of the importance of this sentence and can use appropriate critical thinking skills when using the technology. I have already put a "searching the net" display up with many though provoking questions for the children to think about. 21 June 2007 14:48
Nic Hughes writes I could do a very long blog on the whole session... and I will but on my own blog :) http://nicholashughes.blogspot.com/2007/06/redbridge-ict-conference-2007-part-1.html Check it out. Alan truly inspired me. I bought his book and today I set up a Poem Blog for my English set, and today in class they where posting their poems. http://5nh.typepad.co.uk/5nh_poems/ Check it out and leave my kids some comments. Lets use "anonymity for good." Nic Hughes - Nightingale Primary School
Alan November Part 2
