Bromley ICT Forum Blog

The massively popular Rock Idol- now renamed Rock IT! is underway again, giving school based bands nationwide the chance to strut their stuff, with the winners receiving music kit for their schools worth £1500 from Roland.

The final will be staged early in December 2007, in Birmingham, from where performances will be relayed around the nation via video conference, as well as on BBC Big screens in numerous city centres.

Hosted by the West Midlands Grid for Learning, the project involves all 10 regional Grids for Learning in England, plus Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland which  provide broadband connection and a wealth of resources for use over broadband to schools and colleges.

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As you are no doubt aware, Digitalbrain have implemented site release version 1.4 which has the following new features

• New Icon View
• New Account search functions
• New Text Editor for Learning Module pages
• New folder Listing design.

For further information, visit http://updates.digitalbrain.com

Digitalbrain are also developing new features that will allow schools to build social networking tools within their sites such as blogs, eportfolios and podcasts.  More ifomrsation about these elements will be released soon.

MathsRap (for KS 2)

This new content for KS2 Numeracy includes 22 online rap videos covering basic rules for KS2 Numeracy in Match and Calculations, Shape and Space and solving Problems. Find them in the KS2 Maths menu or directly at http://www.mathsraps.lgfl.net/ (Please note that you will need your lgfl name and password to access the site)

MFL News- Vamos from Espresso

A second new piece of content is Module 1 of Espresso’s resource for KS2 Spanish, covering Greetings, In school, the Alphabet , Numbers, Days of the Week, Festivals and the Weather. Lots of video of native speakers, support activities . Find it at KS2 MFL Menu or at http://www.vamos.lgfl.net/

Weather Stations online

With six weather stations across London, schools can track weather systems across the regions contrasting inner and outer city conditions. Yorkshire and Humberside Grid for Learning have just insatlled their first weather stations ta Scunthorpe, so now all schools can contrast North, South, CIty and Coast.

Find this at www.weather.lgfl.net

Big Day Out

The South West Grid for Learning is working with iBoard to develop a resource for KS1 Modelling and Control. Its called Big Day Out and users can ‘visit’ any of the 15 LAs in the SWGfL, complete an activity realted to that LA and ’send’ a postcard back to themselves to resord their activity. See it at http://bdo.swgfl.org.uk

For the last five months,  selected schools from the Bromley Learning Alliance have been engaged in a project to see if the use of eportfolios made an effective contribution to student learning.

Thanks to a partnership with Spider Networks , a standalone eportfolio module was provided for each of the participating schools (enough for one class of thirty students  per school). The enclosed report indicated that the project had a major positive effect especially in the Key Stage 2 area of the curriculum. It also highlighted some issues that schools need to take on board if they want to exploit the potential of eportfolios.

Special thanks to Hayes Primary School, Royston Primary School, Princes Plain, St Mary’s Catholic School and Langley Park School for Girls for their participation in the trial.

Design the Official logo for a mission into space!

Spacedate: October 2007 A rocket is launched to the edge of space frmo Australia’s remotest outback.

The Mission: to conduct scientific experiments that will find out if bees can pollinate in space and so help humans grow food to survive the long journey to Mars

The Task: Bees in Space needs a mission ‘patch’ to be used on this planet and beyond. ‘Space Qualified’, the mission controllers and the LGFL offer Key Stage 1-4 students the opportunity to design the official ‘Bees in Space’ Logo.

The winning design will become the official patch for the mission. It will be placed on the rocket that carries the bees into space and be used on all communications on this planet. All the entered designs will be recorded onto a disc, placed ina  special module and released into space to wander the galaxy for the rest of time.

How to take part: The competition rules, support images, teacher and classroom resources can be found at www.beesinspace.lgfl.net

Mission Deadline: To be in with a chance of being launched into space, all entries must be received by mission control by the 21st September 2007