Bromley ICT Forum Blog

OCR is hosting the above free conference (see conference program) to showcase the ICT Nationals to interested schools/colleges that are not delivering this qualification at the moment. For more information about this exciting conference please see the attached invitation, which has been sent to many schools/colleges in the South East. We are inviting you (the local ICT consultants and advisors) to this confierence and we would be grateful if you would:

- Make your local schools/colleges aware of this conference via email and/or in person.
- Ask interested centres to book onto the conference by the end of term.
- Feedback to me anything else you think we should be doing as part of this conference.

To book your place at the conference please contact Melissa Hasprey, using the details below:

- By email - melissa.hasprey@ocr.org.uk
- By telephone - 02476 856 163
- By fax - 02476 851 604

12,00 high quality music files are available from the LGFL web site.

These files have been created from a cooperative of professional British composers. This is a ’paid for’ resource provided by the NEN RBC’s , saving schools up to £95 every time they download a clip for use in teachers adn pupils work.

The Audio Network Licence has been extended for another three years with lots of additional files to download. Great for podcasting

(from Neil Adams NAACE)

Climate change is very much in the minds of many young people, but how do we know that the dire predictions are true? It’s all about the application of silicon chips rather than crystal balls and gives ICT teachers a route into discussing models, at least with brighter students or as a summary of the principles that have already been taught.

Models are based on variables and rules designed to represent a real world situation, whether of the travel of a roller coaster, the flight of a moon rocket or changes to the environment. The variables represent known quantities like the global temperature and levels of carbon dioxide, whereas rules are mathematical statements of the assumed linkages between the parts of the system. A simple rule may state that if the level of carbon dioxide doubles the global temperature will rise by 2C. Of course it is not so simple, since a further doubling of carbon dioxide would be expected to raise the temperature rather more.

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Reprinted from the NAACE Newsletter

There are two objectives for this article: describing the podcasting project we have established in Halton and inviting your participation. This principle of participation and collaboration lies at the heart of the project.

We decided that any project aimed at producing teaching and learning outcomes through podcasting needed to acknowledge the following key factors

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Since Bob Usher’s  course in January, many of our schools are now beginning to incoporate Podcasting as a strategy in the delivery of engaging curriculum activities.

We have  examples of teachers using podcasts as a strategy for supporting children with their homework such as teacher,  Karen Easterling’s ‘Division using Chunking’ podcast at Farnborough Primary School. We can also see examples of  students recreating and processing their learning in the form of their own podcasts such as the Year 6 Flashback at Darrick Wood  Junior Primary School. Churchfields Primary School (Christmas in Argentina ) and Warren Road Primary School  have also been very active in using podcasts to supplement their curriculum program.

Podcasts are not hard to do and they can offer  great value to the school’s curriculum program. They can be used successfully from Reception to Key Stage 4.

The LGFL offer a site for hosting podcasts produced by teachers and children. Schools can set up their accounts and load their podcasts to be shared with other schoools. The site also has some great suggestions for incorporating podcasts into currioculum planning along with tools to help you get started (and most of those tools are free). Visit Podcast Central for more information. (Use your LGFL login and password to get cracking…).

If you are interested in having your class participate in a podcast ICT Project Adventure please email me. If any other Bromley Schools (or from any other borough for that matter) are using podcasting, please share your thoughts with us on the blogsite. I would be really keen to hear from your, especially any secondary schools)

New Voices, Old Vic

Under Kevin Spacey’s direction, the Old Vic Education section has employed professional directors, writers and actors to work with pupils and students from South London schools on a variety of projects to encourage them to think about the creative use of drama in other subjects. The first project was a joint collaboration with the Imperial War Museum around the theme of the first day of the battle of the Somme in 1916.

LGfL has agreed to host this and subsequent OVNV projects to make them available permanently as an anytime, anywhere resource for the National Education Network. Each project comes with full lesson plans and videos to help teachers and students create their own version of the project in their school.

Find this in the KS3/4 English and History menus or directly at www.ovnv.lgfl.net

We have received this invitation from our colleagues in iEARN Pangea (Spain) to participate in their public art project - this uses photography, environmental considerations and ICT to promote the consideration of the public spaces around us. Further information is contained in the invitation:-

Dear friends in iEARN,

We would like you to remember that the enrollment in the Public Art Project is open.
This project is designed to promote the respect for the urban environment and to encourage relationships between students in Europe countries.

*Deadline for subscription is near!!!*

It is a didactic proposal that applies the use of ICT in several curricular areas and promotes the attainmentof several basic competences.

We have thought the project for 10-18 years students, the participation is with every country language as well as English. The schedule of participation run from February 4-
April 30, 2008.

For more information see our web site: http://www.iearn.cat/publicart

Repurpose, Create and Share 

Becta and the National Education Network are inviting your school to submit a proposal to create engaging and innovative projects that exploit online digital resources for effective learning. Any materials created by participating schools will be then made available nationally for sharing with other schools.

This is a great opportunity for your school to

• Exploit online digital resources
• Create new materials to support learning and teaching for secondary aged students using these resources
• Work with the LGFL and the LA in the production and dissemination of these materials across the NEN

Becta and the NEN will provide up to £25,000 to support the development of these school projects .

The deadlines for these bids is 12 noon on Friday 22 February 2008Enclosed is a copy of the Call for bids paper with further information.

If you are interested and would like assistance in preparing a bid please let me know

• Using games technology and methodology to improve training & education [Weds 17th Oct, London, ETSA]

• 4th EduGeek.net conference [Weds 24th Oct, E. Mids]

• South West Grid for Learning (SWGfL) E-Safety [8/11, 20/11, 21/11, SW England]

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For those of you out there interested in generating surveys and analysing responses, there is a great online tool called Surveymonkey.

Surveymonkey will create online surveys for you. You can choose between multiple choice reponses, rating scales or open ended text. The basic package is free but you are limited to 10 questions and a 100 responses per survey. The survey is published as a web page with a specific address that can either be included on a web site or added as an email.

I have already enrolled and have used the survey to gather information from schools and I certainly recommend the program.

You can access Survey Monkey at the following website http://www.surveymonkey.com