SELB ICT Blog

Qualifications reform can bring opportunity for educators and learners

noreply@blogger.com (cmccrumlish) — Mon, 09 Nov 2015 14:58:00 +0000

Fri, 06/11/2015 - 11:51

In his address to the 2015 ASCL Northern Ireland conference CCEA Chief Executive Justin Edwards sets out why he believes qualifications reform presents opportunities for education professionals and learners alike.

"We plan to move away from ICT qualifications and introduce a range of reformed qualifications called 'Digital Technology'. We will be retaining the Software Systems Development qualification and creating a GCSE that provides a pathway to support progression to the GCE SSD qualification"
Download full speech

noreply@blogger.com (cmccrumlish) — Wed, 29 Jul 2015 10:49:00 +0000

Don't forget to register now to receive the BBC's micro:bit computers. Available free for Year 8 pupils in N. Ireland schools. Click on the link below to complete the application:
https://bbcmicrobitschoolregistrationform.co.uk/english.html

The BBC has unveiled the BBC micro:bit, a pocket-sized codeable computer with motion detection, a built-in compass and Bluetooth technology, which is to be given free to every child in year 7 or equivalent across the UK.

Find out more about this project by clicking on the link below:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/mediapacks/microbit

Appathon UK

noreply@blogger.com (cmccrumlish) — Wed, 24 Sep 2014 14:30:00 +0000

Founders4Schools, one of the organisers of Appathon UK, have been in touch with Generation Innovation to say they are really keen to hear from Northern Ireland schools for this annual competition, which invites young people to think of an idea for an app that they would like to use in their daily lives.

School students need to upload brief video pitches of their ideas to the Appathon UK website by Thursday October 9 2014, where the general public will be encouraged to vote for the best ideas.

In mid-October, university students will select an app idea from these video pitch submissions, and work to build a prototype during an ‘appathon’ weekend. These apps will be judged in the national Appathon UK competition, and finalists will be invited to celebrate their achievements at an awards ceremony at the House of Commons during Global Entrepreneurship Week.

Both school and university students who participate will be eligible to win prizes from Appathon UK partners and prize sponsors.

There will be over three million new jobs to be created by the app economy alone in the next five years. Appathon UK hopes to inspire students to create their own solutions to challenges they see around them. The goal of the competition is to encourage students to be creators, not just consumers, of technology - and help to prepare them for the jobs of the future.

Michael Acton Smith, CEO of Mind Candy and a supporter of the competition, said of the Appathon, “This is a wonderful initiative that will tap into the creativity of students throughout the country. We can't wait to see what they create and hope we get a chance to work with the creators at Mind Candy."

For more information, click to visit the Appathon UK website.

noreply@blogger.com (cmccrumlish) — Thu, 28 Nov 2013 10:01:00 +0000

What can teachers learn from PISA?
International assessments do much more than rank nations; they provide valuable information about what teachers can do in their classrooms to improve student achievement, as Sue Thomson explains. - See more at:
http://rd.acer.edu.au/article/what-can-teachers-learn-from-pisa

Code Combat HTML Game

noreply@blogger.com (cmccrumlish) — Thu, 31 Oct 2013 10:41:00 +0000

Learn programming with a multiplayer live coding strategy game. You're a wizard, and your spells are JavaScript. Free HTML5 game! Check it out at this web address: http://codecombat.com/play

iPads in the Classroom - Kathy Schrock's Guide

noreply@blogger.com (cmccrumlish) — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 11:30:00 +0000

iPads in the Classroom -- Kathy Schrock's Guide to Everything. Check out her website for some ideas on using iPads in the classroom. This site contains her own presentations about iPad use for teaching and learning and also includes links to other iPad information pages.
http://www.schrockguide.net/ipads-in-the-classroom.html

Microsoft Partners in Learning

noreply@blogger.com (cmccrumlish) — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 11:07:00 +0000

Check out the Microsoft Partners in Learning website to see some examples of schools working on their program.
"To help you visualise what a learning activity that builds 21st century skills looks and feels like, check out these great learning activities that have high codes on these 21st century skills. Use these examples to spark ideas for your own learning activities".
http://www.pil-network.com/PD/21CLD/Examples/

Allstate Announce 650 new jobs

noreply@blogger.com (cmccrumlish) — Wed, 22 May 2013 14:29:00 +0000

Robinson and McGuinness announce the creation of up to 650 new jobs at Allstate

First Minister Rt. Hon. Peter D Robinson MLA and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness MLA, have announced that technology company Allstate Northern Ireland is to create up to 650 high quality jobs in Belfast, Londonderry and Strabane.

http://www.allstate.com/about/northern-ireland/News/robinson-and-mcginness-creation-of-jobs.aspx

OCR - GCSE Computing

noreply@blogger.com (cmccrumlish) — Wed, 22 May 2013 14:25:00 +0000

Tuesday 21 May 2013

At OCR, we’re leading the way with our exciting, modern Computing qualifications – we’re the only awarding body to offer Entry Level, GCSE and A Level qualifications in this area. Find out more.

Our qualifications are also backed up by the kind of resources and training that make teaching them more enjoyable.

Here’s a brief overview of the support we offer:

Support Material
Our support material is designed to save you time while you prepare for and teach our specifications. Our essential FREE support includes all this and more:

· Specimen assessment materials and mark schemes

· Past papers and mark schemes

· Exemplar candidate work

· Teacher’s Handbook

· Sample schemes of work and lesson plans

Access all our support here by selecting the qualification you require.

New! GCSE Computing Unofficial Teacher’s Guide
Check out this guide to OCR GCSE Computing from a practising teacher who’s also a member of Computing At School (CAS). He shares some highly practical thoughts on how to deliver the content, approach the teaching, and engage students. There are ideas for some useful and fun activities, and tips about tackling more challenging topics. Download it here

Sign up to teach
Please let us know that you’ll be teaching our Computing qualifications. Sign up to teach in order to receive the latest information on support materials and resources to help you plan and teach these qualifications: Simply complete the online form here .

noreply@blogger.com (cmccrumlish) — Mon, 13 May 2013 09:07:00 +0000

'Earn as you Learn' scheme. Belfast based Kainos a thriving Technology company are offering high performing A Level students an opportunity to earn a living and develop real-world expertise and experience, as trainee software engineers, while simultaneously studying part-time for a degree which Kainos will also fund.
Find out more on the Kainos News & Events page

Review of the ICT curriculum in England & Wales

noreply@blogger.com (cmccrumlish) — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 15:04:00 +0000

On the 7th January 2013 the DfE published the draft National Curriculum for England & Wales. A useful draft grid PoS for computing has been produced by eLIM (Somerset County Council) and is worth a look for an indication of where ICT/Computer Science might be heading in the N. Ireland curriculum. Use this for reference if you are planning to review your descrete ICT programme at KS3.

eLIM Draft Grid

Check out Peter T's bliki at the URL below for full details:

http://edfutures.net/PeterT%27s_bliki#12-Feb-2013_Digital_literacy_does_not_compute

TeachMeet

noreply@blogger.com (cmccrumlish) — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 14:04:00 +0000

Check out this video from the last TeachMeet conference held in Stranmillis College, Belfast. TeachMeet is an informal gathering of teachers including student teachers, who are prepared to share their good practice and ideas. Check out the conference video at the site below:

http://tmbelfast.wikispaces.com/

Check out some recommendations from our friend Damian Watson.

At 1min and 10 seconds approximately Daithi Murray on a Flipped Classroom

At 15min and 22 seconds approximately Damian Watson on Using Data Effectively in the Classroom

At 22min and 17 Seconds approx Barry Corrigan – Life of Pi

At 27min and 40 seconds Damien McHugh – Using Voice Thread

At 37min and 12 seconds Tim Manson – 3 Characteristics of an effective teacher

At 45 min and 8 seconds Simon McLean – Digital Storytelling.

Valuing Education Campaign

noreply@blogger.com (cmccrumlish) — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 11:44:00 +0000

The Minister of Education for N. Ireland has launched the Departments new three year campaign aimed at raising standards. The campaign is designed to support the raising standards agenda (and particularly the efforts to tackle underachievement) by securing public understanding, engagement and support for the work of schools. It aims to raise awareness of and promote the value of a good education whilst encouraging parents to aspire to a better education and future for their children. The key theme of the campaign is "Get Involved Because Education Works".
The Department has developed a website which provided parents with useful tips on how to play, talk, read and count with their children. Check out the website at the address below:
http://www.nidirect.gov.uk/education-works

10 top tools for teaching ICT in Primary School

noreply@blogger.com (cmccrumlish) — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 11:21:00 +0000

Whether you want to make music, edit photos or create a game, ICT guru and author Ian Addison recommends his favourite online tools for getting creative in class.

Guardian Teacher Network

The power of TED

noreply@blogger.com (AM) — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 11:24:00 +0000

Good quality,relevant and attractive resources for young people can sometimes be hard to find on the internet, nevermind accessing them in a format where you can tailor them to fit the needs of your face to face classroom. However TED of TED talks fame have solved all that with their new bespoke website for education - ed.ted.com - "lessons worth sharing". Over 90 videos are currently available - these are either taken directly from the TED talks site or they are animations of talks given by other experts. Each video is supported by a quiz, questions to get students thinking and then some even deeper questions to provoke further thought and discussion - remember Bloom's Taxonomy! However TED-Ed takes it all one step further by allowing you to "flip" the material - you can edit it to suit exactly what you are teaching. You can even go one step further and use the website to take any useful video from YouTube, add quizzes and extended questions and once you have saved it to your personalised account you can keep track of which students have used the material.

Open Education for a Global Economy

noreply@blogger.com (cmccrumlish) — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 09:56:00 +0000

If you or your kids have taken an online lesson at the Khan Academy (3,200 video lessons, 168 million views), been enlightened by a TED Talk (1,300 talks, 800 million views), watched a videotaped academic lecture (Academic Earth, Open Courseware Consortium, Open Culture), enrolled in a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course, now being offered by companies like Udacity and a growing list of universities, including M.I.T., Harvard and Stanford), or simply learned to play guitar, paint a landscape or make a soufflé via YouTube — then you know that the distribution channels of education have changed — and that the future of learning is free and open.(Article by David Bornstein)
Read More

Cookstown High School 'Eco Smart'

noreply@blogger.com (cmccrumlish) — Fri, 25 May 2012 10:02:00 +0000


Daniel Brown, Joel Glendinning, Anona Weir and Rachel Woodward, members of the 'Outside the Box' team who designed the winning app, Eco Smart at the Universty of Ulster's 'App Camp'.

An innovative outreach project by the University of Ulster to promote STEM subjects (Science Technology Engineering and Maths) to secondary schools has helped pupils from Cookstown High School think ‘outside the box’ to come up with a novel solution to recycling.

Around 80 Year 11 and 12 pupils from 10 different schools across Northern Ireland took part in the University’s first ever WiCADET camp (Widening Access through Computing Apps Development Training. During the 10 week ‘app camp’, teams each had to design a new market ready computer app.

Cookstown High School’s team, ‘Outside the Box’, made up of team members Daniel Brown, Joel Glendinning, Anona Weir and Rachel Woodward and their mentor, Jennifer Gillespie, came up trumps with their recycling app, ‘Eco Smart’ to lift the coveted App Camp 2012 top prize award.

Their award winning app ‘Eco Smart’ has already generated interest among local councils keen to promote recycling. PhD student, Jennifer Gillespie, who mentored the winning Outside the Box team, explains that the aim of the app was to create greater awareness among the general public about the importance of recycling.

“We did some initial research to get a better understanding as to why some people do not recycle and took this into account when developing the app.

“The app includes an information page explaining what items of rubbish to place in the different coloured bins; a video showing the importance of recycling; and a ‘drag and drop’ game to aid understanding. It also includes links to other local councils, recycling websites and Google maps to indicate the nearest recycling points.”Outside the Box’s award winning app, Eco Smart is a free app which can now be downloaded from the Android http://tinyurl.com/ecosmart12

Online Learning Graduation for Northern Ireland

noreply@blogger.com (cmccrumlish) — Wed, 09 May 2012 11:42:00 +0000

Left to right back row: Francis McVeigh OLTE Graduate, Lismore Comprehensive School, Craigavon, Mr Oliver Mooney, Principal, St Paul’s High School, Bessbrook, Geraldine Pettigrew, Principal, Our Lady’s Grammar School, Newry, Joe Corrigan, Principal, Lismore Comprehensive School, Mr Ciaran McCrumlish, OLTE Tutor, Assistant Advisory Officer for eLearning and ICT, SELB.

left to right front row: Ciara McCoy, OLTE Graduate, St Paul’s High School, Bessbrook,Alanna Patterson, OLTE Graduate, Lurgan Junior School, Lurgan.

On the 22nd March 2012, the Regional Training Unit (RTU) for N Ireland, celebrated its final graduation for the Online Learning and Teaching for Educators (OLTE) Programme in the Craigantlet Room, Stranmillis University College Belfast. This year seventy six post-primary teachers from across Northern Ireland schools successfully completed the RTU’s Online Learning and Teaching for Educators (OLTE) Programme. The keynote speaker at this year’s ceremony was Mr John Anderson, Managing Inspector ETI. Mr Anderson paid tribute to the success and quality OLTE has achieved over the years, in particular he said, "One of OLTE’s strategic gains has been to disseminate OLTE graduates’ e-learning knowledge and skills and consequently widen curriculum choice and foster collaboration across schools. And in that it has been most successful BECAUSE OF OLTE, WE ARE SET UP FOR ONLINE AND DIGITAL SUCCESS ". A highlight of the ceremony was Ms Alanna Patterson, teacher and OLTE Graduate from Lurgan Junior High School, who gave a presentation on her experience of delivering her online GCSE Music course to students.
The Regional Training Unit (RTU) developed the OLTE programme in 2003 to meet the Department of Education’s (DE) requirement for a continuous professional development (CPD) programme that would help address the overarching goal of the Education Technology Strategy “That all young people should be learning, with, through and about the use of digital and online technologies”. The OLTE programme, which focuses on the development of online tutors skills, is accredited at Level 4 by the National Open College Network. The participants complete 3 progressively challenging units: Unit 1- Introduction to Online Tutor Skills, Unit 2 - Design, implement and tutor an online lesson and Unit 3 - Design, implement and tutor an online programme. To date the final number of OLTE graduates is 154 teachers from 95 post primary schools. They have provided more than 2000 participants with first-hand experience of learning in an online environment. From 2007/08 the Department of Education funded post-primary teachers’ places on the OLTE programme. Teachers were able to avail of a CPD programme which requires them to reflect on their practice, develop resources, plan for delivery, teach and assess their pupils in an online environment. This valuable CPD opportunity allows teachers to revisit many of the GTC Professional Competences and can be used towards Performance Review and Staff Development (PRSD) requirements. The current OLTE Graduates developed and delivered a variety of online courses to pupils from across a range of post-primary schools including, for example, aspects of GCSE Music, GCSE Geography, GCSE Irish, and AS Psychology. The Online Learning and Teaching for Educators (OLTE) Programme has now come to an end but there is a significant pool of qualified teachers within the education sector who are in a position to continue developing online courses for schools. This is evidenced by the OLTE Graduates who have gone on to develop online courses in AS Product Design, AS French, GCSE Irish, AS History and BTec Engineering for blended-course delivery.

Cookstown P7 Wiki Awesome Giants

noreply@blogger.com (cmccrumlish) — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 14:52:00 +0000

The pupils from Cookstown Primary School are developing their latest collaborative wiki project based on the theme of Awesome Giants. The students of P7 research, plan and develop their preparation for an animated digital video production using the wiki platform. Check out their work using the link below.
Awesome Giants

iPhone App Development

noreply@blogger.com (cmccrumlish) — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 14:39:00 +0000

Check out the latest new free course available on the Alison online learning resource. The course is pitched at Level 3 and should take 10 - 15 hours to complete for the average learner. iPhone App Development Course

Raspberry Pi Computer

noreply@blogger.com (cmccrumlish) — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 15:35:00 +0000

The Pi is a small computer based on a single motherboard. It is not immensely powerful – hardly a surprise at about £25 a unit.
http://www.raspberrypi.org/

Read the story here: http://www.itpro.co.uk/639292/raspberry-pi-a-bbc-micro-for-todays-generation

TeachMeet Belfast 2012

noreply@blogger.com (cmccrumlish) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 12:40:00 +0000

TeachMeet is an un-conference ‘for teachers, organised by teachers’, and this year for the first time it is being held in N. Ireland. Come along to the CELIL building in Stranmillis College on Friday 2nd March at 18.00 - 20.30 where the organisers are hoping to welcome as many interested (and interesting) teachers as possible to the event where they will have the opportunity to either present something that they’d like to share with their fellow professionals, or simply enjoy the evening and take home some great ideas.

To find out more check out the wiki:
http://tmbelfast.wikispaces.com/

or contact Dáithí Murray from St. Paul's High School Bessbrook by email or twitter:
dmurray742@c2kni.net
@dmurray742

Northgate Named As Preferred Supplier For Education Network NI Contract

noreply@blogger.com (cmccrumlish) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:33:00 +0000

Newtownabbey based Northgate Managed Services (Northgate) has further cemented its reputation as one of the UK’s leading providers of ICT services by being named as Classroom 2000’s (C2k) preferred supplier for the new ‘Education Network Northern Ireland’ (ENNI) contract. The news was announced today at BETT 2012, Europe’s largest education ICT event in London

Read full story here

Wallace High School

noreply@blogger.com (cmccrumlish) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 14:35:00 +0000

On the 15th December 2011 Wallace High School, Lisburn held an information seminar to update ASCL members on the progress made with their one-to-one iPad learning solution. All KS3 students have leased an iPad2 and the school staff has been trained to support the integration of the iPad into teaching and learning. Monitoring the outcomes and evaluation of the project is being carried out by the University of Ulster. So far the school report the following interim outcomes:

• improved engagement in lessons

• improved social cohesion and collaboration between KS3 students

• Increase in programming activity using apps

• Faster sharing of information

• Board of Governors using iPad technology

• Less paper being used

• Narrowing of the gap between parent understanding and pupils use of the technology

A group of students demonstrated their work in a variety of subjects including, Music, Science, Maths & Geography. Core productivity apps that are widely used across all departments include Keynote, Pages and Numbers. Garageband, iMovie and some freeware apps have also been used by a number of departments. Check out the ShowMe app for free. This turns your iPad into a whiteboard and makes it easy to record and share text, images and movies.

ShowMe app for iPad

noreply@blogger.com (cmccrumlish) — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 14:12:00 +0000

Check out the ICTmagic wiki site for a comprehensive list of free software to help put a little bit of magic into your lessons. Use the links in the left menu to navigate different categories of resources. Teachers can follow this site using Twitter, Facebook or email.
http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/
http://www.scoop.it/t/ictmagic/