City Learning Centre - Media Blog

Mission Maker - Setting up questions with outcomes (Pt1)

2008-11-27T16:00:00.006Z

How to set up questions, answer questions and give he answer an outcome.

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HTML an introduction

2008-11-13T16:48:00.000Z

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Creative Day (C-Day) at the City Learning Centres

2008-11-10T14:55:00.006Z

Jenny Hulme

Presented Bubbl.us.

A simple and free web application that lets you brainstorm online. You can create colourful mind maps online with your kids or colleagues, share and work with friends, embed your mind map in your blog or website, email and print your mind map and export your mind map as an image. graphically very pleasing and simple to use.

http://www.bubbl.us

Les Leese

Brought mindomo.com to our attention.
mindomo is a more in depth mind mapper that can be embedded into HTML or used as a webpart on your learning Platform. The ability to add hyperlinks to it is one of its more attractive features.

http://www.mindomo.com/

Mark Bunyan

Mark showed us dabble board.

Dabbleboard is a powerful online whiteboard that's actually easy and fun to
use. With a revolutionary new interface, Dabbleboard gets out of your way
and just lets you draw.

Draw with flexible tools. Reuse previously-made drawings. Share and
collaborate in real-time. All as naturally as using a marker or a pencil.

This tool makes it easy for us all to collaborate on the same
whiteboard.

http://www.dabbleboard.com/

Dave Bloor

Dave brought Revision 3 website to our attention as a good example of how to share online video content that we create within the classroom environment. It was however, pointed out that we are currently already using the wildern.tv website to upload multimedia content within a safe environment.

http://revision3.com/ http://www.wildern.tv

Phil Gregory

Phil presented the Firefox browser.

Firefox is a very handy web browser. instead of just using Internet explorer take a look at the alternatives, you may find them more to your liking. Firefox can be extended. there is a massive library of addons for firefox making it do anything from syncing bookmarks across computers.

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

Mission Maker -Tutorial 1 - Adding doors

2008-09-17T13:51:00.004+01:00

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Using WildernTV to showcase your Digital Media

2008-07-03T09:56:00.003+01:00

On July 1st 2008, Longton CLC worked with Staffordshire Partnership to deliver an exciting course called school TV. The course sows teachers how to to get their digital media, such as movies, music and image galleries online in a safe environment.

The course went well with 20 teachers in attendance. Phil explained how the City Learning Centre has created an account for them to use on the day.

After a brief overview of "iMovie" and "I can animate" the teachers all set about making their own short films.

After Lunch, the films were uploaded to the LongtonTV interface. The films were then approved for viewing by the moderator. This all took just a few minutes to complete.

Brilliant animations online, free of charge, in minutes and no danger of unsuitable material being viewed by the students.

Teachers are constantly faced with the problem of where to display the great examples of students work to a wider audience, and how to do it safely.

Developed as a "YouTube" workaround. Tim Dalton, ICT Development Manager at Wildern School Southampton used "TrilbyTV to begin a pilot scheme last year.

The Wildern TV interface uses a special filter that allows teachers to become moderators. This gives them the ability to decide who should be able to view their work.

Materials created by yr 10 students may not be suitable for students in KS1-2. This ability to filter is very useful for teachers.

If you are interested in learning how to create your own School TV channel, contact the Longton High City Learning Centre.

Find out more aboout WildernTV

OLD but Good

2008-06-17T12:41:00.000+01:00

| View | Upload your own

Updating your website. (Part 1)

2008-04-21T10:55:00.006+01:00

Teachers often ask me a number of questions about school websites, and the best way to go about getting one. In this article I'm going to present some information about why Schools might want to make the shift from a static website to a dynamic website

Keeping your website upto date is a task. However, it is an important task that someone should be doing every week, maybe even daily.

Keeping your website updated is a massive task. It's usually something no one wants to do. However, keeping your audience up to date with all your recent developments is incredibly important if you want to engage with them.

For years now many schools have had a static website, that is to say that someone designed and built it uploaded it to the server and then it just sat there. Every time the school wants an update, some external person has to be phoned to add new photos or stories.

More recently though, database driven (Dynamic) websites that allow teachers the ability to log in and write their own articles, add photos and events have come along. Blogs or weblogs where the whole website management is taken care of by a 3rd party company are also popular and you don't have to worry about costs or technical issues.

So, which is the best solution? No option is absolutely foolproof unless you have a member of staff who is specifically dedicated to maintaining the website.

What are the pro's and cons of blogs and Dynamic sites?

If faced with the choice of a static and a dynamic website, the dynamic one would win hands down every time for me. The reason is mostly workload based. With static pages each and every new article written for the page needs a new page creating. It needs naming properly and linking to from all the other pages. A dynamic site on the other hand whilst being more complex and time consuming to put together, creates multiple pages without users needing any knowledge of computer programing. You can add pages easily by simply logging into the site and entering data into a series of text fields. Images and files can be uploaded easily to accompany the articles.

Providing you back up your server regularly, every article ever written fro the website is retrievable for other purposes, making it an excellent repository of your successful work.

Downsides of dynamic websites are that they cost more to develop and you need the full participation of your staff to make them work effectively. A dynamic website that is never updated will lose visitors unvisited and can then become as impotent as a static website that is never updated.

Blogs and dynamic websites are essentially the same thing. However, a blog tends to me more of a diary site, with snippets of useful information as opposed to a full blown corporate website. One of the main benefits of using a blog is the use of RSS feeds. RSS feeds are really just a text file which is updated each time new articles are added to a website. Users can subscribe to a websites content via the RSS feed. Whenever new content is added to the website users can see this via the feed and are often emailed a notification as well. RSS feeds are also great for improving your search engine rankings

The downsides of using blogs are that you are reliant on third party servers. If the server goes down , so does your site and if you use a free blogging service, you cannot complain. There are paid services out there though, but this is where you will need technical help as you will need access to a server to host the site, and some knowledge of programming to get your site up and running.

In Part 2 of this article we will examine some of the popular blogging platforms and how to choose the type of site you want.

An Introduction to Photoshop

2007-12-20T14:36:00.000Z

PDF Document introducing Teachers to Adobe Photoshop CS3. Includes a short exercise.An_Introduction_to_Photoshop_CS3.pdf

CLC Events WEEK COMMENCING 17th DECEMBER

2007-12-17T12:41:00.000Z

MONDAY
Cluster Development Managers CLC 7 9.00-12.00. Tea, Coffee and Biscuits

Staff Reviews VCR 9.00-1.00

Music Lesson P5 Yr 9 CLC 7 Mr Field

TUESDAY
CSBM Assessment Day 2 CLC 6 / TV Studio 8.00-4.00. Tea, Coffee and Biscuits

Music Lesson P2 Yr 9 CLC 7 Mr Field

WEDNESDAY
Photoshop Elements Yr 11 LHS Students CLC 7 9.00-3.00
Media Documentary by Yr11 LHS Students Media Area 11.15-3.00

Ian Large meeting with Rolls Royce CLC 6 2.00-4.00

Exciting Science Days blast off!

2007-12-05T13:46:00.000Z

October Saw Secondary Science advisor Nick Hackett bring his Exciting Science days back to the CLC's.

Sandon High came in on 2 days to take part in a number of experiments.

Magic Planet
Visualiser
Quizdom Vote Pads
Photostory
Blogging

Pupils evidently enjoy interactive teaching approaches and the quiz was an outright favorite in this respect. Interacting with PCs and carrying out experiments also feature highly.

After adjusting the delivery of the Magic Planet session following the evaluation of the first session it’s popularity improved measurably.

The blogging session, where the students recorded the activities they took part in did encounter some problems again however the students did manage to record their experiments successfully.

Exciting Science Day -blog
ExcITingScience.pdf

del.icio.us - Share your bookmarks

2007-12-01T16:11:00.000Z

del.icio.us is a collection of favorites - yours and everyone else's. You can use del.icio.us to:

* Keep links to your favorite articles, blogs, music, reviews, recipes, and more, and access them from any computer on the web.
* Share favorites with friends, family, coworkers, and the del.icio.us community.
* Discover new things. Everything on del.icio.us is someone's favorite -- they've already done the work of finding it. So del.icio.us is full of bookmarks about technology, entertainment, useful information, and more. Explore and enjoy.

del.icio.us is a social bookmarking website -- the primary use of del.icio.us is to store your bookmarks online, which allows you to access the same bookmarks from any computer and add bookmarks from anywhere, too. On del.icio.us, you can use tags to organize and remember your bookmarks, which is a much more flexible system than folders.

You can also use del.icio.us to see the interesting links that your friends and other people bookmark, and share links with them in return. You can even browse and search del.icio.us to discover the cool and useful bookmarks that everyone else has saved -- which is made easy with tags.

All you need is a browser and an internet connection.

Look in the right hand column of the blog here. You will see a tag cloud of links.
Click on any link that interests you. You will be taken to a page presenting stories of interest with that topic title.

Exciting 3D resources for your lessons

2007-04-18T13:53:00.000+01:00

Longton High City Learning Centre have produced some 3D resources for use in the Classroom. Images can be tailor made to suit your project.

Whether you need historical or contemporary images, we can create characters and scenes to suit your needs and enhance your learning resources.

Examples of content are:
Romans
Ancient Greeks
Vikings
Bullying
Shakespear
Dickens
Fantasy/Mythological
Sci/Fi
Sports
PSHE

Using 3d Software we can create either still images or short animations to enhance your resources.

You could use the images to make posters, comics, slideshows, or simply as standalone images in documents or on websites.

If you are interested in using 3D content.

Contact Phil Gregory on
01782 591041 to discuss your needs.

Getting Started with Edublogs - A Teachers Guide

2007-03-26T17:06:00.000+01:00

If you have been reading recent posts you will know that we have been looking for a suitable blogging platform so that classes can keep a blog that is moderated by teachers.

Although we liked blogger for its style and features we recognised that not all teachers have the technical know how to set up a blog on their own server. If you dont host your blog on your own server then blogger blogs link to other blogs on the network, some of those may contain material unsuitable for minors.

So we found Edublogs a much safer option. Edublogs however, proved rather tricky to get started with. I have created this tutorial to guide you through the set up process. Although it is a little tricky to get started, once the job is done you will have a brilliant and flourishing blog that provided a safe environment for teacher and students to interact.

Tutorial
You will need Flash Player 9 or higher installed to view this tutorial

Video Tutorial - How to Get started with Edublogs
Video Tutorial - Getting Started with Edublogs

Some Fun things... You can make at the CLC

2007-03-22T22:24:00.000Z

If you wondered where all the fun had gone from lessons? Here are a couple of things I made this week in my spare time. Part of the fun of learning is playing.

1. Photobooth slideshow.

This just shows some of the grotesque characters you can create in Photobooth. Not everyone is as ugly as me, but you can use these images to create slideshows or characters for your movies, comics and photostories.

8.01 mb Monster.mov

2. 3D tours

A couple of years ago we employed eyerevolution from London to come and create some 3d virtual tours for us. Now with the aid of some niftylittle tools such as "Pleinpot" and "Cubic Converter" we have joined the tours up, See our cut down version before the main one appears on the website.

7.38 mb connected.mov

If you are interested in using technology to raise attainment in your classroom, or even for a bit of fun, get in touch with us at either Longton or Haywood City Learning Centres.

Teaching blogging can be tough

2007-03-15T14:12:00.000Z

Any teacher who trys to teach 20+ students how to register a blog, deserves a medal. Trying to find a blogging solution is proving difficult.

Thankfully the kids at LHS are brilliant at I.T and picked it up no problem!!!

Longton High City Learning Centre - Exciting Science Day

2007-03-15T09:40:00.000Z

Here is the agenda for Todays Exciting Science Day.

Word
Stoke_CLCs_exciting_Science_day.doc

PDF
Stoke_CLCs_exciting_Science_day.pdf
You will need Adobe Acrobat to read this document.

-----------------------------

You will be able to access all the images you need from the My documents folder.
Log into your SGFL email. You will have received an invite to join the CLC blog. Accept it.
You may have to sign up for a google account. If so follow the instructions.
Once you have accepted the invitation you will be able to log on to the blog and create posts.

Transformational Technologies - Blogging Over Document

2007-02-26T17:34:00.000Z

During our "Transformational Technologies" day on February the 9th. Our Media Technologist - Phil Gregory,spoke about the uses of weblogs in the class room.

Demonstrating the Blogger Interface, Phil guided the teachers of Sandon High School through the interface, pointing out such features as uploading images, text formating and RSS feeds.

During the session teachers were also shown how to customise their Goggle search pages to include multiple RSS feeds, and informed about the potential of using standards compliant browsers such as Firefox or Mozilla.

Blogs and Blogging Document: PDF Format

Blogging - Transformational Technologies day

2007-02-08T15:08:00.000Z

Phil Gregory will be holding three, one hour workshops as part of the CLC's Transformational Technologies workshop on Friday 9th February.

If you are taking part, you will have been sent an email to requiring you to activate your account which we have created for you. Click the activation link in the email.

Once you have activated your learner blog, log on using the link here

Learner blogs login page

The Learner blogs Website is

http://learnerblogs.org/

Useful Links

Word Press Introduction to blogging

Notice

At 4pm Thursday 08th February the learner blogs activation was down. Due to these unforeseen circumstances we may be using alternative methods for the demonstration.

Community Learning School Blog

2007-01-23T15:24:00.000Z

The Community Learning school from Longton High, have been attending the CLC every Wednesday evening. They have been using technology to improve their communication skills, as well as tell the stories of their members.

The students are drawn from many nationalities and the CLS helps them come together and overcome their differences.

Now we have set up a blog for them to record their projects.

The Blog is located here

Image Editor for the needy

2006-11-27T13:00:00.000Z

Do you need a photo/Image editor but cant afford the high end stuff Like Photoshop?

Don't have Photoshop elements or Paintshop Pro but you need to edit a batch of photographs quickly?

Fear not, Paint.Net might suit your needs. An open source program, that includes many advanced features that yuou might expect to find in high end professional applications.

have wnow tried this software and it's really useful. I enjoy sharing the knowledge with you. Why not try it? I'd be keen to hear your impressions.

Link to Software

Virtual Keyboard

2006-11-26T22:14:00.000Z

Shortage of Keyboards in your classroom?

With this cool little app you can fill the gaps. A basic range of effects will help your students compose simple scores.

Link: Virtual Keyboard

DIDA D201 - Support

2006-09-21T12:49:00.000+01:00

The City Learning Centres can now offer Teachers in Stoke on Trent support with the DiDA Modules D201, D202 and D203.

P Gregory will assist teachers in demonstrating the software to be used, as well as explaning fundamental web design principles.

This post is designed to provide handouts and tutorials given during the course. Pupils and Staff are free to comment and ask any questions reagrding the use of the software to meet the qualification criteria.

-----------------------------------
Tutorials

- You will need Flash Player, and sound installed to watch these Tutorials.

1. How to set up your site in Dreamweaver 8

This is a video tute of how to get your site set up in DW8. Any problems, let me know.

2. Create a new Page in DreamWeaver 8

Flash Tutorial

3. Customise your Toolset in Dreamweaver 8

Customise your Toolset in Dreamweaver 8

Teacher Link: Edexcel Homepage -DiDA

Battery Recalls

2006-08-24T20:01:00.000+01:00

If you have any Dell or Apple laptops, you may need to send their batteries off to the respective company for a free replacement...

Sony, the company that manufactures the batteries for these, and many other computer OEMs, has informed computer companies that batteries supplied for products shipped roughly between April 2004 and July 2006 had a manufacturing defect, and were contaminated with metal fragments that could potentially cause over-heating or even fire. Therefore Dell and Apple have decided to recall 4.1 and 1.8 million batteries each, and more recalls from other companies are likely to follow.

Two high profile fires have actually already been reported in Dell batteries, and the companies laptop computers have even been banned from use via battery on certain airlines. It is therefore potentially a real safety issue, and if you or your orginisation have any of the following laptop models, you should think about returning the batteries as soon as possible:

DELL:
Latitude: D410, D500, D505, D510, D520, D600, D610, D620, D800, D810
Inspiron: 500M, 510M, 600M, 700M, 710M, 6000, 6400, 8500, 8600, 9100, 9200, 9300, 9400, E1505, E1705
Precision: M20, M60, M70, M90
XPS: XPS, XPS Gen2, XPS M170, XPS M1710

More information on Dell's recall is available here

APPLE:
Computer model name - Battery model number - Battery serial numbers
12-inch iBook G4 - A1061 - ZZ338 through ZZ427, 3K429 through 3K611, 6C510 through 6C626
12-inch PowerBook G4 - A1079 - ZZ411 through ZZ427, 3K428 through 3K611
15-inch PowerBook G4 - A1078 and A1148 - 3K425 through 3K601, 6N530 through 6N551, 6N601

More information on Apple's recall is available here

Like Tech? You need Geek News

2006-08-11T09:12:00.000+01:00

Do you like using Technology? Are you interested in tech but want to know a little more? Then Geek News Central is the Website for you.

I first discovered the website when I was looking to learn more about Podcasting. After searching Amazon.co.uk for Podcasting books, I came across the "Podcasting Do it yourself guide" by Todd Cochrane which, at the time looked like the best buy due to excellent reviews I had read.

I decided to take a chance and buy the book, I wasn't disappointed. The book covered all aspects of podcasting, such as the history of podcasting, concepts, equipment needed and planning and preparation for shows. Todd even explained how he puts his own show together. After reading the book from cover to cover and feeling confident that I had a good idea of how to get started, I went to check the "Geek News Central Podcast".

Now, if you're anything like me, the word "Geek" can be a little offputting. I was a skeptical that the content would really appeal to me as I don't think of myself as a stereotypical geek.

Being curious as to how I was stereotyping "Geeks" I did a quick search for the meaning of the word. For me, the most accurate description was this:-
A person who is interested in technology, especially computing and new media. Comparable with the classic definition of hacker. (Late 20th century and early 21st century.)

So, having gotten over my predjudice I decided to give the show a listen and see if I could learn anything without being baffled by Technobabble.

As soon as the show started, I was confronted with a somewhat "whiney" American voice that grated on my nerves at first. However, The Friendly and personalble nature of the presenter "Todd Cochrane" was what made me keep listening, . Todd has this amazing way to make you feel as though you have known him all your life, it's as though he's right there with you.

When talking technology Todd always tries to give the listeners a little background on each topic so that you can get upto speed on issues that might have otherwise passed you by.
Throughout the Show Todd Gives his listeners lots of Tech news to follow up on as well as a good share of opinion, which listeners are free to comment on. As well as the News he presents loats of useful links for listeners to check up on. He posts all the podcast topics on the Geek News Central Podcasts weblog, so you can go over the topics at your own pace later, which is something many other podcasters consistently fail to do.

Cochrane has received some criticism from listeners about his presentational style. This is mostly because as well as "Talking Tech" he tells us about his family and home life too.

It seems though his detractors only want technology talk. I personally commend Todd for speaking about his family on the show, like many professional radio presenters he gives you a more rounded picture of who he really is. This approach allows the listener to become more connected to both presenter and show. For those of us who have spouses and children of our own, you can draw parallels and empathic with a good guy who enjoys juggling technology and family life.

So, if you are interested in technology and would like to learn more from a friendly and informative host, then I fully recommend you get over to geeknewscentral.com , read the blog posts and comments, download the podcast and become part of the family.

The PC is 25 years old

2006-08-08T09:53:00.000+01:00

Just the other Day, I was talking with my colleagues about how I had been using the NET for 10 years and how many changes had taken place in that time. Then today, I noticed that the BBC was promoting 25 years of the PC and 15 years of the Web. I thought I'd share some of the links with you.

25 years of the PC Link:

The links are small video clips that cover topics like rise of the PC and hint at its possible demise as we move to digital, handheld communications era. Then there is a poets take of the history of the web, reasonably amusing for those of us who can remember a world without the web.

Poem and analysis link: