• The Umbrellas by Renoir, as part of the ‘Take One Picture‘ project.
• Victorians, focusing on History.
• Geography, where each year group chose a different country to study.
• ‘Out of this World’, linked to space and the solar system, with a focus on Maths, Science and ICT skills.

Our theme for Term 5 will be ‘Myst’ which I am very excited about. Having used the games Myst III and Myst IV in Year 5 last year (mainly to support work in Literacy), it will be really interesting to see how they are used across all ages at our school and in other subjects too.

In order to support my colleagues at school (many of whom are not as familiar with the game), I have set up some Primary Pads as a place to gather ideas for ways to use the game in the classroom. These can be found at the following addresses:

• Introduction and background – http://thedowns.primarypad.com/myst
• Myst 3 Ideas – http://thedowns.primarypad.com/myst3
• Myst 4 Ideas – http://thedowns.primarypad.com/myst4
• Myst 5 Ideas – http://thedowns.primarypad.com/myst5
• General Tips and Ideas – http://thedowns.primarypad.com/tips

Lynn Bourne, Carol and Kevin McLaughlin (and others) kindly added some ideas when I first set these up. If you’ve used Myst yourself, I would be really grateful if you would be able to add any suggestions to the pads too. They will be really useful for the staff at my school and, of course, other schools are welcome to use any of the ideas when using these games in their own classrooms.

Remember that these are not a set of plans showing how Myst SHOULD be used… they’re simply a collection of ways that the games COULD be used in the classroom. I hope that they’re useful.

To recap, the site is called TheDowns.ME and it’s intended to be a place for children to start their explorations online. It has links to:

• Four subscription sites that children can use with their individual usernames / passwords. These are Superclubs Plus, Online Tools, Interactive Resources and Education City.
• Other free sites that are popular with the children.
• A ’safe’ search facility allowing children to search for information (using Primary Safe Search) and images (using Picsearch).
• Downloadable software that they can install on their home computers (with their parents’ permission).

I’m spending two sessions with each class, where possible:

TheDowns.ME – Session 1

In the first session, I’ve been showing the children how TheDowns.ME worked, giving them their MEcards (containing their usernames / passwords) and letting them use 2Simple’s Online Tools. All of our children are already familiar with Superclubs Plus, so I thought that it would be a good idea to show them how to use the exciting creative tools offered by the 2Simple subscription service.

The children have absolutely loved playing with the new tools… and that’s what I told them to do – play. I showed them how to log in and try a few of the tools, but I didn’t give them any specific instructions about what I expected them to achieve by the end of the lesson. By giving them the freedom to explore the tools, I wanted them to work together to find out what the programs were capable of. They were all familiar with the basic layout of the programs and were all confident to click on the buttons to see what happened. The children then shared their achievements at the end of the session, teaching each other how they did certain things with the tools and asking questions of each other.

The most popular tools so far seem to be:

• 2Design & Make – Children are really enjoying the opportunity to design their own vehicles and buildings. The boys seem to particularly enjoy making sports cars, adjusting the shapes of the cars and adapting the spoilers to make them look more realistic!
• 2Animate – This is an incredibly simple animation tool, but it is also incredibly popular. I have showed it to children of all ages and all of them have loved it. We have had animated cars driving around screen, mini wrestling matches involving stick men and horses running across the animation frames.
• 2Publish – I’ve been pleased to see that lots of the children are also choosing to use 2Publish in their free time, completing additional Literacy work of their own free will. I have been impressed at the quality and quantity of what they have made… in some cases, it’s more than they produce in a lesson at school!

I have made a classroom display (shown here) using some of my Year 3 children’s creations in Online Tools. They were really pleased to see some of the creative things that they had made at home, on the walls of our classroom.

Setting up the children with the Online Tools was extremely easy using the provided 2Lasso system. I created a spreadsheet with the usernames and passwords that I wanted for each child and uploaded it to the site. We used the children’s existing Superclubs Plus usernames with Online Tools, so they didn’t have an additional username to remember. 2Lasso also allows you to look at the work that children are creating, which is a brilliant addition for teachers.

I have a few suggestions for the service (which I’ve submitted to 2Simple):

• Change to the log in screen – Some pupils have been complaining that they can’t log in to the site using their home computers. It seems that their screen resolutions are set quite small and the log in fields get cut off their screen (and they can’t scroll down to get to them!).
• Embedding of children’s work – It would be really nice to have a gallery of our children’s Online Tools work embedded on our school site.
• Statistics – It would also be helpful to be able to see data showing who is using the tools and how regularly they are accessing it.
• Additional templates for 2Design&Make – New templates are being added all the time, but a rocket one would be really handy for us right now as the whole school is learning about space.
• 2Connect – This is one of my favourite 2Simple programs and I would love to see it added to the Online Tools one day.

2Simple seem to be expanding the service regularly. Quite often, children will show me something that I didn’t realise was available because it had been added since my last lesson using the tools!

TheDowns.ME – Session 2

In the second session, I have been showing the children Education City. We already use this as part of some of our lessons but children have never had access to the site at home before (unless their parents have paid for a home subscription). When using the site in their free time, children can explore any of the subject areas that we pay for, in any age group. So, they could do some additional Literacy / Maths / Science work of their choosing.

One popular feature so far has been the ‘Live’ Maths games. These let children compete online against each other, by answering mental Maths questions as quickly as possible (in a similar way to Tutpup). The site generates weekly / overall leaderboards showing children who have answered lots of questions correctly. The boys, in particular, have loved this competitive aspect to the site.

We’re also using Education City as a way of setting homework online occasionally. So, another of the aims of my second session with each class is to show them how to access and complete the homework activities that can be set by the teachers. It is extremely easy to set homework in Education City and you can differentiate work easily too. To access their homework, children simply click on the ‘Homework’ button when they are logged in. For those children without Internet access at home, we will be running lunchtime clubs where the children can complete the homework in school.

I have been extremely impressed with the quantity and quality of assessment data generated by Education City. So far, almost 50 hours of additional learning has taken place through the site, in only two weeks of use. You can monitor homework returns, look at class results, identify individual results (and see strengths / weaknesses of those pupils) and more. We have been so impressed with Education City that we have just expanded the homework option to children in both key stages (having only opted for KS2 originally).

After two weeks of use…

The biggest tasks have been setting up the site itself and registering the pupils (and staff) with each of the online services. This second task wasn’t as difficult as I had originally expected it to be for a few reasons:

• Registering the children has mainly involved uploading spreadsheets to the various services, who then add the pupils quickly themselves.
• The usernames and passwords that were sent back were then collated into an Excel spreadsheet. I then created the MEcards with Microsoft Word, using Mail Merge to generate each individual card with the correct details. Each child has two MEcards… one to take home and one to keep in the classroom. Managing 4 different sets of log-in details for over 400 pupils in 14 classes initially seemed like a huge challenge, but Word and Excel have been brilliant at organising everything.

I am extremely pleased with the results of our efforts so far. We don’t have a VLE, but we do have an engaging starting point for our children’s work online. They are all keen to use the service, and (looking at our Google Analytics data) it seems that the site is in regular use outside of school too.

I have had some lovely feedback from pupils, parents and teachers. It’s really nice to see the children’s work developing in Superclubs Plus and Online Tools, and watching their scores develop in Education City too. As expected, the subscription services are very popular at the moment. I am sure that the children’s interest in these will inevitably dip a little as time goes by, so we need to continue to encourage the children to use them. I’m planning to build up the links on TheDowns.ME as time goes by, but this won’t be for a while yet!

Apps I use (almost) every day:

• Tweetie – A Twitter client. This is one of the apps that I use the most on my iPhone (along with Mail and Byline).
• Countdown – A simple application which counts down to particular dates and events, or counts up past them. This is really handy for finding out how long it is until Christmas or a relative’s birthday, or for seeing how long it has been since something has happened. I use it to count how long I’ve been married and surprise my wife with little gifts on special anniversaries!
• 1Password – This syncs with the Mac version of 1Password, giving me access to the passwords that I use for various online services.
• Byline – A client for accessing Google Reader. This also caches Starred Items so that they can be accessed offline. I use this multiple times per day.
• Instapaper – When I’m using my computers and I come across an interesting web page which I don’t have time to read, I hit the ‘Read Later’ bookmarklet in my browser. This then saves a copy of the page which I can access via the Instapaper app on my iPhone when I have more time.
• WeatherPro – An easy way to quickly access weather information for different areas.
• Memiary – Lets me view and update my Memiary account.
• WunderRadio – I use this to listen to different radio stations online. It’s very useful for listening to the radio while I’m out walking the dog!
• Evernote – My note taking application of choice. This syncs with the Mac, Windows and online versions of Evernote so that all of my notes are available anywhere I go.
• Radio Times – This is useful for checking what’s on TV… although I seem to be watching less and less TV nowadays.
• OmniFocus – OmniFocus syncs with the Mac version of the software to show me the different school / website / personal tasks that I have to complete. This is in regular use throughout my day.

Web / Work Apps:

• Teaching Ideas – This isn’t an app, but it’s a link to my Teaching Ideas website. To make icons for your own site, make a 57×57 PNG file, save it as ‘apple-touch-icon.png’ and then add the following code to the <head> of the pages on your site.

• TeachingUK – This is an application which gives information from my Teaching Websites. I made it using AppMakr but I’d love to be able to code my own one day!
• Analytics – A fantastic tool for accessing Google Analytics web statistics for my websites.
• Ego – A simple little app which shows you the number of Twitter followers you have, along with subscribers to any Feedburner RSS feeds, as well as some simple Google Analytics data.
• Voice Memos – I use this regularly to record notes to myself, particularly when it’s easier to record audibly than type on the iPhone’s keyboard.
• AppBox Pro – An app which contains lots of apps… including some very useful ones.
• Remote (Keynote) – Turns your iPhone into a remote when you’re giving Keynote presentations. This is useful for staff meetings or assemblies.
• Remote (iTunes) – A remote for iTunes… this is fantastic for controlling the AppleTV.
• RemoteTap – A tool to control my entire Mac over a network. This has screen sharing, so I can see what it happening on my Mac’s screen via my iPhone.

Games and Fun Stuff:

• Tap Tap Revenge 3 – My favourite game… you simply have to tap along to the tunes being played. If I ever get time to play a game, this is the one I usually choose.
• Riddim Ribbon – A relatively new game, from the makers of Tap Tap Revenge. Tilt your iPhone to keep the song playing at the right speed and try to hit the bonuses.
• Minigore – Another of my favourite games, this one involves running around a dark forest, shooting ‘furries’. Very addictive.
• Words with Friends – Play Scrabble online with friends. You can play up to 50 games at once, dipping in and out of the game, adding new words when you get time.
• Pocket God – A fun tool where you interact (aka torture) the cute islanders (who you can name after your friends and family!)
• Koi Pond – A relaxing app where you can splash the water and feed the fish. This is an old app now, but I still find myself using it now and again.
• Gudeballs – I used to play this on my Amiga (when the game was called Logical). Sort the coloured balls and use them to blow up the spinning discs. Great fun.
• ColorSplash – Edit digital photos (taken when the iPhone’s camera) by changing particular areas to colour / black and white. This lets you create some interesting images.
• Spawn – Another relaxing app where you control the coloured lines that fly around the screen. It’s a really pretty application which isn’t very useful, but this is another one that I find myself using now and again.
• Comic Touch – An iPhone version of Comic Life, which lets you add speech / thought bubbles to digital photos.
• Cube Runner – An relatively old game which involves guiding a craft through a field of cubes by tilting the iPhone. The graphics are very simple, but this can be quite addictive too.
• Trism – This is one of the first games that I bought for the iPhone, but I still use it regularly. Move the lines of coloured triangles and try to match up the colours.

Other Apps:

• Backgrounds – Lets you find iPhone-friendly images for the home screen background. When will Apple give us a more useful home screen, which shows events / tasks for the day?!
• Announcer – One of the many ’sound board’ type of applications available which play different sounds on command. This is made by the X-Factor voiceover man and could be useful in the classroom.
• LOVEFiLM – I’ve been a subscriber of LoveFilm for many years and this new application lets you add items to your account. Very useful.
• vouchercloud – This lets you find discount vouchers for shops and online services. Great for when you’re out and about doing some shopping – get discounts just by using this app!
• Avatar Creator 2 – Lets you create a wide range of avatars.
• Shazam – An amazing app which finds the name of any song just by listening to it. It’s a shame that I always seem to want to use this app when I’m driving and listening to the radio.
• RedLaser – Scan a barcode and this application tells you the item’s price at a selection of retailers. It’s great for comparing prices when you’re shopping.
• Ambiance – This application lets you find and play different background sounds… from dogs barking to seaside sounds to helicopters. This can be useful for finding relaxing audio, or for use as background audio when you’re doing drama / role play work in the classroom.
• Amazon UK – I often find myself using this application to check prices of things on Amazon. It’s far too easy to buy things directly from the app though – far too tempting!
• eBay – Useful for when you’re buying / selling things with the online auction site.
• aNote – A wonderful note-taking application. I don’t use this much now that I’m using Evernote more, but I can’t quite face deleting it yet.
• Boxcar – This sends push notifications for Twitter and is invaluable.

What are your favourite iPhone applications?

Daily Essentials:

• Launchbar – An amazing timesaver which lets you open applications, copy and paste, perform operations, search online, find contact information and much more… all using the keyboard. Also has a multiple clipboard feature, so it will remember the last 20 things you have copied and let you repaste them over and over again. I’ve been using this for years and would struggle without it!
• Path Finder – I’m currently in my 30 day trial with this software. It makes file management much easier and is just how the standard Mac Finder should be.
• OmniFocus – As well as teaching, I also run a number of different websites. This productivity software helps me to keep track of all of the different tasks that I need to complete in different aspects of my life. It also syncs with the iPhone version so I can manage my ‘to-dos’ on the move.
• Skitch – A wonderful piece of free software for taking and editing screenshots. Also uploads images to an online server with a single click. Read more here.
• 1Password – This stores the different passwords that I use for online services (shopping sites / social networking etc.). It integrates with your web browser and also has an iPhone version so you can check passwords when you’re not at your main computer.
• Tweetie – My Twitter application of choice, always running in the background.
• iCal – Unlike every other teacher at my school, my diary is kept digitally. iCal isn’t the best calendar tool out there I’m sure, but the iPhone syncing via MobileMe makes life much easier.
• Dropbox – Allows the storage of files which can be shared between Windows / Mac machines and the iPhone. As essential tool which every teacher should use.
• Evernote – My second brain which is used on a daily basis. I use Evernote to save anything that I want to remember (e.g. examples of web coding), notes for school (stored as photographs on which Evernote can identify the text) and more.
• Reader Notifier – A simple menubar application which shows the number of unread items in my Google Reader account.

Web / Creative Tools:

• Dreamweaver – This is an old version but I regularly use this to make / edit web pages.
• Fireworks – A REALLY old version of the image editing software. I really ought to upgrade, but this seems to do everything I need at the moment.
• Coda – Coda is great for editing HTML / CSS really quickly.
• Feeder – Used for updating RSS feeds for various sites that I have. Publishes the feeds online too.
• Transmit – FTP software which lets me upload files to various servers. Great for updating my websites and downloading files.
• Art Text – This generates WordArt-style text but with a much wider range of options and at a much higher quality. Very useful.
• Comic Life – Every teacher should be familiar with Comic Life… it lets students make comics with their digital photos. I mostly use it to create fancy text and logos using the wonderful fonts and styles available.
• Shape Collage – Creates beautiful photo collages using your digital photos (see example here).
• BackupSites – This is an app that I made using Automator (free with every Mac). Automator is a really useful (and incredibly powerful) tool which can carry out repetitive tasks quickly. Once you’ve set up your procedures (using the drag and drop options), Automator then creates a program for you. This program runs backup scripts on my various websites, saving me having to load different scripts / websites individually. A huge timesaver.

Other Useful Apps:

• AppZapper – Deletes applications if you no longer want / need them. Also gets rid of any stray files that might otherwise be left behind.
• I Can Animate – We use this at school to make stop-motion animations. Great fun.
• Moneydance – I use Moneydance to record my bank statements. It lets you download statements from online banks, categorise transations and generate reports.
• Garagesale – Garagesale lets you list items on eBay really easily and using eye-catching themes.
• Handbrake – For backing up / storing the contents of DVDs on your Mac. Great for transferring films on to my AppleTV and iPhone.
• Cocktail – A Mac utility which runs lots of maintenance scripts. Macs don’t seem to need the regular updates and cleaning programs that Windows machines use, but I do use this occasionally to keep things running smoothly.
• Superduper – Generates a bootable backup of my computers onto an external hard drive.
• Email Backup Pro – Backs up my rather large collection email (in Apple’s Mail software) automatically.
• JungleDisk – Backs up my important documents to an online service (Amazon S3), so that I always have an off-site backup of my files. Can you tell that I like keeping backups
• Pages, Numbers and Keynote – Apple’s word processing / publishing, spreadsheet and presentation software. Just as useful as Microsoft Office but much prettier and easier to use!
• Notebook – Smart Notebook, which I use regularly with our Smartboards at school.
• TypeIt4Me - This isn’t an application, but a System Preference pane. It is a fantastic timesaver, as it stores huge amounts of text which you type by entering a particular keystroke. For example, if I type ‘bw’ (in any application), TypeIt4Me replaces that text with my email signature (Best wishes, Mark… followed by links to my websites). I use it to quickly update RSS feeds and enter large amounts of HTML code with short keystrokes. Very useful.

I discovered lots of these applications via Maczot or MacUpdate promotions, at ScreencastsOnline or via Twitter.

What are your favourite Mac applications? Have you seen my favourite iPhone applications?

I’ve done lots of research online, spoken to colleagues in Kent and further afield and chatted to different providers at exhibitions like BETT but I’m still confused about what they do and what schools are expected to have in place for their teachers, parents and pupils. This video is a helpful starting point:

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’ve always liked to explore new technologies at school. We won a BECTA award for our school website. We were one of first schools to try live school radio and podcasting… but when it comes to setting up a VLE, I’ve been putting off signing up for one. Why?

From what I’ve seen, they seem to require a huge investment of time and money. But are the benefits large enough to make all of the hard work worthwhile? Do teachers want to be interacting with pupils outside of regular ‘teaching hours’? Should they be expected to be marking electronic homework online? Doesn’t everyone deserve a break? Don’t we already bring enough planning and marking home with us? Finally, do they offer anything in addition to what we are already providing, or that which is available online for free already?

Although we need to think about online reporting to parents, initially I wanted to think about how a VLE will be of use to pupils… it is called a virtual LEARNING environment after all.

Here’s an outline of what we’re already providing for our pupils.

• Our School website – This is the main place where we share and celebrate our children’s work. Photographs, examples of school work, podcasts and more are posted online where comments can be added, giving valuable feedback to our pupils. The children can have usernames / passwords to add their own work – although this isn’t set up yet, I’m keen to start this soon. By posting work on the school site, it is visible to the public. If that same work were posted on a VLE, it would probably be hidden away in a private area only accessible to those with the right username and password. Isn’t the greatest benefit of putting work online the fact that anyone can see and celebrate the achievement? If it’s only visible to those in the school community within the VLE, it may just as well go on a display board in a school corridor somewhere. The school site is also a place for parents (and others) to find out important information about the school.

• Superclubs Plus – Our Key Stage 2 pupils have been using Superclubs since 2004. As my previous post explains, the site provides safe, moderated email for children… their own web pages (where they can learn simple HTML coding if appropriate)… school web pages which they can contribute to… moderated forums to chat and discuss hobbies with other children… competitions… development of new ICT skills with instant rewards in the form of stars and badges… access to Encyclopedia Britannica online and more. Although Superclubs isn’t officially a VLE / Learning Platform, they are planning to add extra features which will give schools ‘learning platform functionality’ this year.

• Of course, we’re also using lots of free online services to support our children’s learning online at school and at home (e.g. Tutpup, Edmodo, Voicethread…).

Here are the VLEs that I’ve seen and heard a little about already… along with some personal opinions:

• Our LEA are promoting KLZ, a ‘portal’ based on Sharepoint which, again, isn’t officially a VLE. From what I’ve seen it’s more of a tool for staff and parents to use. I certainly can’t see primary children using it in it’s current state (and I don’t know of any schools who are using it in this way).
• DBPrimary – This has a really simple interface for primary children. It seems to give a few additional features compared to what we are already providing with Superclubs Plus. However, on first impressions it seems quite basic, so will it end up being restrictive, limiting what we can actually do with it?
• Frog – I had a look at Frog at BETT and it has lots of fantastic features, however, it is extremely expensive and I’m sure that kind of money could be better spent elsewhere in school.
• Studywiz – I wanted to look at what Studywiz were providing when I went to BETT, but their stand had mysteriously disappeared from the show.
• Fronter – I have heard lots of negative comments about Fronter from schools in my local area and also on Twitter. When I looked at a demo, it seemed to make the simplest of steps a five click process. Teachers don’t want / need (or have the time for) that kind of complexity when they should be able to do something relatively simply and easily.

So, what do we do? Is there ONE virtual learning environment which:

• Is going to help our pupils to learn online, both at school and home, providing more than we already do?
• Is going to be easy to set up and manage… initially by the ICT co-ordinator (me!) and in the long term by teachers who already have a long list of jobs?
• Is going to fulfil all of the requirements that we have to meet?
• Is good value for money?

So far in this post, I’ve asked lots of questions, used lots of bullet points and generally been quite negative about things! To move things forward in my school, I’ve been looking at the work of Porchester Junior School and Parkfield Primary School. I particularly admire the way they use their websites as a springboard to help their children find safe online tools. I’ve tried to do this in sections on our school site, but the pages sometimes get buried in amongst the other content.

So, I’ve set a new ‘online learning portal’ (at least that’s what I’m calling it) for our pupils. I’m hoping that this will be a useful springboard to some exciting online tools which our children can use at school and at home to extend their learning in different areas of the curriculum. It is a very new development for us, but here is my plan so far.

The new site is… TheDowns.ME

www.thedowns.me

With the help of my wonderful wife (who drew the pictures), I’ve set up a simple and colourful site which can give our pupils a fun, educational and safe starting point whenever they go online. The site is divided into four sections:

• Our Favourites – This area has links to Superclubs Plus (providing the services mentioned previously) and three other online services which we have recently subscribed to. These are 2Simple Online Tools (giving children access to lots of creative ICT tools and online storage so they can start work at school and continue it at home, and vice versa), Interactive Resources (where they can ‘play’ lots of Maths games and practice the activities that we already use in the classroom) and Education City (where children can develop their Literacy / Maths / Science skills and to complete any homework that their teacher might set for them).
• Other Sites – Links to some other safe educational sites that the children might enjoy. If anyone has any more suggestions for links to add to this area, I would love to hear them.
• Search Safely – Two search boxes, allowing children to search the web (using Primary School Safe Search) and search for images (using Picsearch). Whilst no search tool is 100% safe, these are much more appropriate for our primary pupils and they will reinforce the e-safety messages that we share regularly at school.
• Great Downloads – Providing links to some free software which children can download and use to learn at home.

I hope to be able to go around the different classes over the next few terms and introduce the children to the site. I also need to spend some time showing teachers (and parents) around, explaining what the site, and the different sites that it links to, provide for the pupils.

My one concern with the site is the management of usernames and passwords for the sites listed in the ‘Our Favourites’ section. Children have different log-in details for the four sites which could be difficult to manage. Unfortunately, the sites have different registration systems and I do not have the technical skills to set up a ’single sign-on’ system which would log the pupils into the other tools automatically with one username / password. To ease these problems, I’ve set up spreadsheets for each class with log-in details for each pupil. This information will then be printed using mail merge onto an individual ‘MEcard’ for the children to take home. Teachers will also have lists of the registration details if any children forget their usernames / passwords during lessons.

After writing this post and setting up our own ‘portal’, I’m still not quite sure how much of the requirements we are fulfilling. However, I am sure that children will use the new site and the additional services that we are providing. Superclubs Plus has become an integral part of our children’s ICT work, so I hope that the other tools will do the same.

What are your thoughts about VLEs?  Has you school set one up? Are pupils using it? Do you have any suggestions for TheDowns.ME?

Am I the only one who is still confused? I would love to hear your comments…

As a person who has always lived in Kent, I’m not particularly aware of the regional words that people in other parts of the country might use. My wife is from Lichfield and is always using words I’ve never heard of… she says they’re real words, but I don’t always believe her!

Anyway, I struggled to find a useful list of regional words anywhere online, so I decided to ask my friends and followers on Twitter. I sent out a single tweet when planning the assembly, saying:

‘UK teachers: Please tweet your school postcode / a local/regional word that my Kent kids won’t know / the meaning? Please reply and RT. Tx‘

What followed was an amazing hour in which my iPhone’s Twitter push notifications went into overdrive! I had a huge number of responses which I collected together in Evernote. It was really interesting reading the different words which were sent back… most of them I had never heard of before! I then put the words, their meanings and the postcodes into a Keynote presentation which I could use in assembly. The presentation is embedded here and you are welcome to download it and use it as a resource if you would like to:

During my assembly, I asked four children to sit at the front of the hall. When I revealed each regional word, they had to write down what they thought it meant on a small whiteboard. While they were doing this, I used Google Earth to highlight the place where the word came from.

Everyone really seemed to enjoy the assembly. The inclusion of real words which were contributed by real people (rather than simple borrowed from a list somewhere), combined with an actual place where that might have been used was extremely powerful.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to send a reply to my tweet.

I have plans for lots of new blog posts about VLEs, useful software / online tools and about some things I’ve been trying at school recently. Stay tuned!

Teachmeet Takeover

Each day, a selection of exhibitors had allowed teachers to ‘take over’ their stands and share ideas. This was a wonderful idea as teachers could share real ideas that they had tried in their own classrooms using free resources. I only saw a few of these Takeover sessions and I’m really disappointed that I wasn’t able to see more of them. It sounded like the others were a great success and I hope that they continue to run (and expand) next year… maybe I might sign up for a session?

Teachmeet Evening

On the Friday evening, there was a Teachmeet. For those who aren’t sure what a Teachmeet actually is, watch this video:

So, for me, the most important part of BETT is now the Teachmeet events… allowing those who are working in the classrooms the chance to share what they’re doing with others. I am sure that everybody who attended a Teachmeet event discovered something new and that is what makes them such a valuable event… even more so than BETT itself.

Well done and many thanks to Tom Barrett, Stuart Ridout and everyone else who played a part in these events.

Having been eight or nine times before, my usual BETT routine is something like this:

• Visit the show without a plan or anything in particular that I want to see.
• Arrive and receive a carrier bag already full of paperwork.
• Wander around the show, browsing the stands and collecting every flyer / freebie possible.
• Leave the show (missing out on any seminars / presentations) with multiple bags full of paper, most of which I then end up recycling because it’s of no interest!

As a result, I usually discover a few new and interesting things, but in the end it all felt like a nice day out, which hadn’t really been very productive.

This year, things were different and I had the most enjoyable BETT visit ever. The success of my visit this year was due to a number of reasons:

1. I had some money – My headteacher had said to me earlier this week that I had a small amount of ICT money that I could spend, so it was nice to be able to go to BETT with that in my mind. If I saw anything useful, I could go back to school and order it. Walking around BETT, looking at lots of exciting gadgets, can be a bit depressing if you only ever think ‘well I can’t buy that for school’ or ‘we can’t afford that’!
2. I had a plan – Before the show, I used Evernote to create a list of things that I wanted to see and people I wanted to talk to. This was synced to my iPhone and accessible wherever I was. Very handy!
3. I made notes – BETT can be extremely overwhelming. There are two large halls with lower and upper levels, as well as extra areas hidden around Olympia. It’s noisy and crowded and there are thousands of things which try to catch your attention. As a result, it can be very easy to forget some of what you see. This year, I took regular breaks and posted some reminders to myself via email. These were then posted to a Posterous blog and my Twitter account. This allowed others to read what I had posted and I have had some nice comments thanking me for posting these online.
4. Teachmeet – After watching last year’s Teachmeet online from home, I really wanted to be there in person this year. The event was incredible with hundreds of teachers sharing their ideas and experiences. Teachmeet deserves a post of its own, so this will be published soon!
5. The community – During past BETT visits, I have never really know many (if any) of the people there. I sometimes bumped into sales people who have visited us at school, but I rarely knew any other teachers up at the show. This year that situation was completely different… because of one thing – Twitter. Over the past year, I have become (almost!) addicted to Twitter, using it to communicate with teachers and other education professionals. The Twitter community was fully active up at BETT and it was so nice to be able to meet some of the people who I talk to regularly via Twitter but have never actually met.

I’ll write more about Teachmeet and the teaching community up at BETT in another post, but here are some of my highlights from the show floor itself:

• Anithings – A ‘creativity tool’ which lets children create animations by simply dragging objects around on screen. We regularly make stop-motion animations at school, so I’d love to give the children a chance to play with Anithings. It costs £250 for a site licence, but there is a 10% discount during January.
• e4education – e4education designed our school website last year, so it was really nice to see them showing it off to others at the show! I love adding children’s work to it, so it will be really nice to tell them that so many people were looking at it up in London last week!
• Interactive Resources – We have all of the software from Interactive Resources, including the (extremely useful) Maths Packs, Teaching materials and Primary Games. During BETT, I was given a quick tour of the new online version of their site, allowing teachers (and pupils) to access the resources online at home and school. By talking directly to the companies at these events, it’s also possible to get discounts, which Interactive Resources were kind enough to offer!
• Smart – It was nice to hear about the release of Smart Notebook 10.6 (available now) which brings compatibility with Windows 7 and Snow Leopard on the Mac. It also has a ‘transparent’ tool which makes the Smart Notebook interface disappear, as well as a number of new Maths tools.
• Story Stage – I watched a demo of this software from Scholastic and was really impressed at the ability to connect multiple mice to the same computer, allowing children to work collaboratively. Children at our school regularly have to share laptops so sharing mice can sometimes be an issue. Why doesn’t all software allow multiple users like Story Stage?
• 2Simple – I managed to get a final copy of 2Create a SuperStory, as well as trials of 2Assess ICT and the Online Tools. I’m really impressed with the potential of the online tools, allowing children to use creative software at home and school and save their work to an online storage area. Anthony Evans showed me 2Design&Make (built into the online tools) to make some fantastic 3D models. I’m going to be taking full advantage of our free trial to see what my pupils think of it!

So BETT 2010 was definitely my favourite BETT visit so far. I discovered lots of new ideas and resources which I now need to explore in more detail, met some wonderful people and came away from the show buzzing with excitement.

Carry on reading… Part Two.

I’m a big fan of 2Simple’s software… this week alone, my Year 3 pupils have used:

• 2Connect to make mind maps showing their existing knowledge of Italy at the start of the topic.
• 2Paint a Picture to design logos for an Italian restaurant business that they have been challenged to create for their ICT work (with “Dragon’s Den” style presentations at the end of the unit!).
• 2DIY to make snow-themed computer games (read more in this post).

Another of my favourite 2Simple programs is 2Create a Story which I’ve used with children from Year 2 up to Year 6. It lets you make stories / books which can include text, pictures, animation and audio. This version of ‘George and the Dragon’ by Ashia in Year 2 gives you an idea of what can be achieved in a very short space of time.

All of the children I have used it with have really enjoyed the tasks set. However, some of the older children wanted to try things that the software wasn’t capable of, e.g. moving individual characters within an image or having sequences of actions taking place.

2Simple has taken this kind of feedback into account and have developed ‘2Create a Super Story’ which has improved upon the previous version of the software considerably. I have been lucky enough to try out the software before the release and I’m really impressed by its potential. Lots of new options have been added to the main menu allowing children (and teachers) to make different types of books… and that’s an important thing to remember. This software isn’t limited to making stories – you can create a wide range of interactive texts covering all types of genres.

Within each of these options, the familiar 2Simple creative tools are available. You can switch between the simple pens (shown below left) and the more advanced drawing tools (show below right), to adapt the software for the age and ability of your pupils.

When you begin building your ’story’, there are spaces to enter text (with options to change the font and text size) and spaces for drawings. Within these drawing areas, you can:

• Draw your own pictures as a background image.
• Import / Paste images from other sources (e.g. your own photos, pictures from a web cam, and images found online).
• Create objects, which can play a more active role within the text. The picture below shows the different types of template that are available for these objects (on the left). Within each of these sections, there are a range of templates, e.g. in the animal section, there are templates for a dog / cat / four legged creature, birds, fish, snakes and dinosaurs! When you choose one of these, a basic outline is given, which children then have to add colour and detail to.

You now have much more control over each of these objects. You can set them to move from one place to another, hide from view, change size, rotate… and much more. These actions can occur at particular points within a timeline, or you can make the user click the mouse button to make the object ‘act’ (giving the potential for much more interactive ’stories’).

Sadly I haven’t been able to give any children the chance to use the software (yet). However, after spending time using it myself, I’m starting to see it as a fantastic resource-creation tool for teachers. I know that 2Create a SuperStory is designed with children in mind, but adults can easily make interactive texts for children in their class by using the program. Upon saving, SWF files are automatically created which can be embedded onto a school website or a VLE to support the children’s learning both in the classroom and at home.

The current topic in my class is ‘Italy’, so I created some resources which I know that I can (and will) be using with my own pupils. Here’s an example of a non-fiction text that I created using the ‘Reference’ option. Browse through the pages slowly to see the different interactive features that have been set:

I love the way that you can add these interactive elements to make children engage with the content more actively. Here’s another example… a story that was created using the ‘Aged’ setting:

I could play this story full-screen on our interactive whiteboard, showing the photos (taken during my honeymoon last year!) and discussing the places shown. Alternatively, this could be posted on our school site and I could set related tasks as part of a homework activity. Brilliant!

There are lots more options within the software that I haven’t had time to explore yet. There’s an ‘Augmented Reality’ feature which I’m keen to try out too. For a preview of how this (or something similar might work), watch this Youtube video:

After playing for only a few hours, I can see huge potential in ‘2Create a SuperStory’ and I would love to be able to install it throughout our school network for the children (and the teachers) to use!