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Showing posts from 2013

Make Things Do Stuff

Well, it's not too often I get excited about websites but this particular one has certainly got the creative juices flowing yesterday! According to their website,  Make Things Do Stuff " aims to mobilise the next generation of digital makers " and will enable people to " make sense of all the resources that are available to them and will help them to navigate a path that will take them from being a digital consumer, to being a digital maker. " The site seems to have the support of Nesta , Nominet Trust and Mozilla . Users can easily find projects around creating animations, building apps, games, physical computing, remixing and mash ups and websites. I was particularly drawn to the website section which took me through html coding, Mozilla X-Ray Goggles which is a Firefox plugin that lets the user easily change html on any webpage and finally the Mozilla Popcorn Maker were you can mash up videos with other digital resources such as photos, text and even

Samsung Chromebook and Google Apps for Education

After having a trial of some earlier in the term, Rhws Primary School have now purchased a number of Samsung Series 3 Chromebooks to use with their pupils. I've been kindly lent one by the school over the summer break to 'try out'. They are very light-weight, have a good 11.5" screen, full sized keyboard, headphone socket, built in mic and web cam, along with two usb ports, a HDMI out and a SD card slot. Impressively it boots up from off in under 10 seconds, no frustrating time spent waiting while Windows loads up. They appear to be excellent value for money, the school paying under £200 for each Chromebook and £19 extra per device for the Chromebook management licenses. The licenses enable the school to manage the Chromebooks from the Google Apps for Education administration panel. This allows them to assign apps and profiles to different groups or individuals. A pupil or teacher from the school logs into the Chromebook using their school Google Apps for Edu username

The Impact of ICT on Pupils' Learning in Primary Schools - Estyn Report

The report shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who has been involved with ICT school improvement. Estyn have held up the mirror and confirmed what we already very much knew. It was quite a coincidence that I blogged about the need for a robust, reliable and resilient infrastructure within schools last Thursday evening, and then woke to a BBC Wales breakfast news report saying that this was the main finding of Estyn's report - spooky! For me, the other main highlight of their findings concerns the lack of ICT vision in most schools. Again, this is something that we have been finding in our recent discussions with schools. Even in schools who budget well and sustainably for ICT there is often a lack of vision around what they want ICT to achieve in their school, and very rarely (if ever) the impact it has on standards. Here are my interpretations of the Estyn main findings. A primary school who uses ICT well would be one where: Standards - Pupils develop a full

Rhws Primary Online - Google Apps for Education Pt4

As discussed in previous posts, much of first year of using Google Apps for Education at Rhws Primary School, has been focussed on the teachers use of the platform and helping them to gain the skills and confidence in working in this particular way. Therefore the school wanted to gather some information from them to find out what had worked well, what not so well, future CPD needs and general thoughts about its use. The questions were devised and then easily built using Google Forms which was shared with the teachers. The web form was submitted online and the results automatically populated into a Google Spreadsheet for analysis. A summary of responses is also automatically created, some of which you can see at the end of this blog. A couple of questions from the online questionnaire The results from the questionnaire have proved to be very positive from the teaching staff and will give the senior leadership team ideas on how to further develop the platform and support the sta

The Future is in the Cloud - as long as you have the infrastructure

I've been thinking about the cloud in education for some time, hence my posts about  Google Apps for Edu  or  Microsoft 365 . So it was with interest that I read  this blog post by Matt Britland titled "What is the future of technology in education?" In the post Matt proposes that the future of technology in education "is in the cloud" . I tend to agree with nearly all that he says in the post. Freely available core tools available from any device, anytime, anywhere. Alongside online storage in the form of Google Drive or Skydrive. As Matt says, schools "will not need software installed, servers or local file storage." I'm sure certain large cost savings can be made by schools, along with removing the stress many of them feel in trying to maintain and upgrade a traditional server network. If a school also looks at the option of subscribing to some online content or tools providers that support specific areas of the curriculum, filling in any gap

Rhws Primary Online - Google Apps for Education Pt3

In Pt2 I talked about how Rhws Primary School introduced Google Apps for Education into the organisational processes of the school. How the staff uploaded their planning documents to Rhws Teachers Online, had easy access to essential school documents, shared meeting minutes and recently collaborated with several members of staff on their end of year pupil reports. As I previously explained, the aim was to get staff used to using the platform for their everyday work, to help them gain some confidence and skills in using the platform before engaging the pupils in learning and teaching activities. However, it wasn't long before a couple of teachers and a learning support assistant wanted to get the pupils online and try out some of the various tools that were available to them. Yr5 and Yr6 pupils were given user names and passwords which allows them access to many of the tools that their teachers have. Like the staff, the pupils were directed into ' Rhwsters Online ' via the

Embedding and Sharing Pupils' Work

During my conversations with teachers I often ask, "What do you do with the digital work that your pupils produce?" In many instances however, the good work that pupils produce is often stuck on a school network somewhere, never seeing the light of day again. Which sometimes begs the question, what was the reason and context for doing the activity in the first place? I do try to get schools to think about how they go about celebrating and sharing that work with a wider audience. Think about ways in which you can use your school website or learning platform to share that work. Use a class blog or even a YouTube channel as a mechanism for wider sharing. This morning I've been playing around with 2Simple's Purple Mash , a product that we actively encouraged schools to use in Newport when I was previously working there. In fact, it was built into the skills ladders that many of the schools used there. It's been a little while since I've been back in and today I&#

MindMup - Free Mind Mapping Software

For a while I've been looking for a free piece of mind mapping software for schools, and so got quite excited when I stumbled across MindMup this evening. What I particularly liked was the fact that you are able to store public mind maps on their own servers, however private mind maps are stored in your Google Drive. There's no need to register or remember accounts, once connected just go to your Google Drive and create your mind map which is then saved back to your drive. Open Mind Map directly from your Google Drive According to their blog, MindMup is "free, opensource, without any marketing, ads or spam" - what more can a school ask for? ;-) It goes on to say that the u ser interface automatically adjusts to touch displays or desktops/laptops systems, and that on desktops, all map operations have  keyboard shortcuts . On mobile devices, toolbars convert to touch menus and buttons become larger.  I've had a play around with it and it is easy to use and t

ICT @ Mount Pleasant 2013 - Presentation

Andy Rothwell, deputy head teacher at Mount Pleasant Primary School, has very kindly allowed me to share the presentation (Prezi) he gave to ICT co-ordinators earlier this week. Here's the direct link -  http://prezi.com/gsxreb-jsqsn/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

ICT Reviews and Coordinator Meetings Re-Launch

Had a very busy couple of days arranging and having meetings with head teachers and ICT co-ordinators, and it's going to continue in this way almost until the end of term and beyond. Our team is currently working with a group of schools, providing each with a review of how ICT is currently being used across the whole school. It's been a fantastic opportunity for us to visit schools and colleagues across SE Wales that we haven't yet had a chance to meet and to discuss the current postion of ICT in their schools and to get an understanding for their future needs.We really are looking forward to working with them and eventually getting around all 266 of them! On Wednesday and Thursday we also ran ICT co-ordinator's meetings at two venues. One in Nant Celyn Primary School in Torfaen and the other in Mount Pleasant Primary School, Newport. Presentations came from Chris Price, Leader of Technology in Nant Celyn who showed colleagues how he used various ICT tools to support

Rhws Primary Online - Google Apps for Education Pt2

In Pt1 I briefly explained how I began shaping my ideas of how Google Apps for Education could be used in a primary school. After explaining my thoughts and showing her 'models' I'd created, my wife who is currently acting head teacher at Rhws Primary School wondered whether these tools and services delivered by Google, could help to improve communication between the staff in her school? But it was clear when we started to discuss this further that it wasn't just communication between staff that we were trying to improve, it was many of the administrative practices that teachers had to carry out that could be improved too. I think it's important to bare in mind here that the school began this process before the Hwb+ national platform arrived for schools in Wales. However, I believe that most of the approaches that I'll describe below are as relevant to all Welsh primary schools about to launch with Hwb+ or any other learning platform. For instance the new ver

Rhws Primary Online - Google Apps for Education Pt1

For many years I have been a user of a variety of Google apps, everything from email account, calendar and contacts, to saving and sharing documents in Google Drive and creating websites with Google Sites. So it should come as no surprise that I started thinking about how a school could effectively use these tools. About 18 months ago I started experimenting by building 'mock' school websites, modelling what could possibly be done with the tools I had available. These sites were constructed using my own personal Google account, but aware that what was really needed was access to the freely available to schools  Google Apps for Education in order to get a full understanding of what it could offer a school. I browsed through case studies about how schools have implemented Google Apps for Education into their schools, and also read the 'techy' stuff showing how you can set it up for your school . All I now needed was a school willing to go with the vision I was dev

Thinkquest - The End Of An Era

Over the weekend I received an email from Oracle informing me that they are finally "sunsetting the Thinkquest program" in June. For my colleagues and I this is certainly an end of an era. For over 6 years Think.com, as it was formally known, was an integral part of our online elearning strategy in Newport alongside Moodle. It gave our primary schools the ability to extend opportunities for learning for pupils away from the classroom. Pupils and schools could communicate and collaborate together on their own projects, sharing ideas and thoughts. For two years we had one school working with a school in Belgium comparing and contrasting their localities. It was truly a worldwide tool allowing all schools in the Thinkquest community (which was huge) to contact one another and work together. I've yet to find another platform that does this so simply as Thinkquest did. I don't think Oracle really understood what they had and with a little bit of updating it could have bee

Google Play for Education and Nexus Tablets

It was only a matter of time but it's nice to see Google about to enter the Apple iPad dominated handheld education market with its own offering. Have a read here and register your interest...

Primary School Computer Science - 'Struggleware'

I thought you might like to read this blog from Anthony Evans titled Coding, Computer Science and iPads - My Current View . It's quite an interesting and useful article that touches on many of the current issues surrounding the enthusiasm for computer science and coding in the classroom. He touches upon he frustration of the lack of apps to help to teach children to code, but then goes on to give the reader lots of examples of apps and PC based programs to help develop this area in the primary school. I was also interested in the opening paragraph which talks about the iPad: "If a school invests wholesale in a set of iPads  then the ICT curriculum for these children can be based largely around internet research, movie making and a collection of multimedia authoring apps. And though I love my iPads and iPad lessons the aspect of struggle or challenge for children using these devices is not always apparent or indeed talked about." I like the idea of 'struggle' a

I'm Just A Muggle

Lots of discussion about computer science at the moment and it playing a far greater part in education, so have a look at this video made by http://code.org Just love the bit about programmers being the "wizards of the future." With my poor or non existent programming skills, this must make me a 'muggle', or 'squib' at least!