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School blogging is a massive step closer!
I had a meeting with John Sutton of www.creativeict.co.uk fame. We have signed up for a whole school blogging site to be set up over the Christmas break. My staff at school are very excited about it and I predict that the school will hit the ground running from Reception to Year 6. As soon as I have details of the domain name, I will post it here so you can keep an eye on developments. During the meeting we looked at sites like:
www.springwoodheath.net
www.southwarkprimary.net
http://creativeblogs.net
http://esafety.stjamesgorton.net
http://www.greenparkschool.org.uk
www.hurstheadjunior.net
http://m3.creativeblogs.net
http://www.chorltonpark.manchester.sch.uk/
And a few more!! I was REALLY impressed with what I saw on the above blogs and just want to say thank you to all you guys that have worked hard on them! You have inspired me to go down the blogging route with school.
Like I said, I will keep you posted! I have no doubt that with John Sutton heading the setup of this project it will be a very good move for the school.
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How to secure your Uniservity VLE even further!
As many ICT Co-ordinators know, teachers are not the best at changing passwords from the original they are given when their account for their School’s VLE or email when it has been set up. With this in mind, I wonder how many accounts are left with password as the password? It would be very easy for someone to look through the public section of a school’s VLE and find the names of some staff in the ‘Meet the Staff’ section. Head on over to the log in box and enter the login and try password!! Especially children who know the login pattern to Uniservity!
My advice for all ICT Co-ordinators or teachers that are leading VLE development is to issue guidance to all staff to change their password IMMEDIATELY from the original one supplied. Sounds a little far fetched but there will be people out there right now trying get access !
Wallwisher.com
I picked up a website from the Innovative Teachers Forum called www.Wallwisher.com. It is an online notice board maker and can be adapted really well to be used in the classroom. Today I set up a quick Wallwisher as we are starting our narrative unit in Literacy on Monday. I tweeted the details out to my Twitter contacts so posts have been made already. I told the children about it and placed a link on the Year 6 page so I am expecting them to start posting their thoughts and opinions on narrative/fiction. The link to the actual wall is here:
http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/narrative
Please feel free to take a look and post something or just lurk with interest. I will update my blog after the discussions on Monday with my class.
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Tagged blog, classroom ideas, literacy ideas, notice board, post, wallwisher, Year 6
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Sensational day at the Innovative Teachers’ Forum
Well, I’ve had nearly a week to recover from the Innovative Teachers’ Forum and I have read many people’s thoughts and views on the day. I plan not to narrate my day but just share with you some little nuggets of links and ideas for you to look at in your own time. Here goes…
www.mindmeister.com
www.Ning.com
www.wallwisher.com
www.doink.com
www.photopeach.com
www.animoto.com
www.visibletweets.com
We also had a look at some Miscrosoft Research software, deepzooming, Autocollage, Plex for Powerpoint and Songsmith.
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Tagged Birmingham, Innovative Teachers' Forum, ITF09, Teaching ideas, Web 2
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Voice Threading project just beginning!
After reading, listening and watching what Jack Sloan had done at Chorlton Park I have embarked on a Voice Threading project. I will be uploading details as soon as I have anything to report! Watch this space!
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New Webshop to help raise funds!
I have used a company called www.buy.at to create a webshop that is linked to our school site. The school gets anything up to 12% of what people spend through the webshop which directs people to over 150 retailers. Knowing how the system works from using it at another school I found that momentum was very important to remind people to keep shopping through our site.
As a result, I pitched this to the ‘Friends’ of the school (like Dragons Den but much worse!) and they agreed to take the project on and advertise it and hassle people on a weekly basis! If you fancy raising some extra money, in my opinion this project is an easy option for not too much work. I shall keep you posted on how much money we are pulling in! To view my school’s shop to get a feel for it please visit here.
School launches Twitter for parents.
Since September 2009 my school has been focussing on how we communicate to parents. In this short time, we have revamped our school VLE to give us more of a web presence. We have introduced texting service to parents. Not only is the texting service used for general announcements, but it is used to pass on positive comments about the pupil’s behaviour and achievements.
More recently, we have created a school Twitter account that we tweet updates to the parents. We have had quite a slow uptake to begin with but more and more parents are coming onboard. I have just completed a ‘how to’ guide that will be going home tonight with the children. This outlines a step by step guide on registering, finding the school and sending a ‘request’ to follow the school updates. I will let you know if the uptake moves forward due to this letter! If you would like to do something similar and want a copy of the letter, please leave a comment indicating this and I will email you a copy.
One idea we area preparing at present is to tweet updates ‘live’ from one of our school football matches. This will enable a few of our parents (who can not get out of work that day) to receive live updates with names of scorers etc. When this happens, I will stream the tweets live onto this blog for you to follow.
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Tagged Communication, Engaging, Parents, Primary, school, Twitter
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My Little Year 6 ICT Survey
After listening to Prof. Stephen Heppell back in July 09, I tried this survey to find out what kind of ICT profile I had in my Year 6 class. The survey was carried out with children’s heads down on desks. When children were asked a question they had to raise their hand so only I could see it. Not extremely scientific but made them feel comfortable enough to be honest! Some interesting results!!
The number of children surveyed was 30.
29 children have a computer at home.
9 children use the computer about once a week.
13 children use the computer each day.
Pupil computer usage:
1-30 mins = 9 children,
31-60mins = 12 children,
1-2hours = 4 children,
2-4hours = 3 children.
21 children use social networking and 4 children’s parents help setup their account.
9 children have a computer in their bedroom and 6 of which have webcams on them.
18 children know that their parents check their internet history.
28 children know how to delete their internet history.
18 children have buddies in MSN.
5 children have buddies they have never met or they don’t know who they are.
15 children have admitted to seeing things on the internet they know they shouldn’t have seen.
Before posting the next two results, I would just like to say that our toilets in school are quite good compared to many others I have seen!
22 children avoid going to the toilet whilst at school.
15 children drink less water on purpose to make sure they don’t need to go to the toilet.
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Tagged e-Safety, habits, ICT, Internet Usage, Survey, Year 6, Year Six
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