Every 3rd Friday we have a 3 minute nano presentation on tips for using technology. This week it's how to search and get the things we need from a Google search and missing out in the top ten results.
The image below is adapted for our staff from a Teach Thought image over here.
There are now several Video help pages, and more to be added, for Gmail and the suite of apps we use in school. The children from year 2 (soon to be year 3) will have their portfolios for sharing and displaying work they have done via ICT.
All Video help is available here:
Gmail first time log in (only really apporopriate for our school although you could use it if you downloand and edit yourselves).
The Year 5 Children have been following up on their work we began at the beginning of the year in our Image Manipulation strand. The children loosely follow the lessons set out by the Newham ICT scheme and the art work done by Patrick Caulfield. The images are good and have a clear use in the learning of layering. I suppose you could do this in regular MS Paint, Tux or MS Word but Paint.Net is our Favourite.
The Children followed my lesson introductions (a two Parter that culminated in them adding Gausian Blurs and Skewing the images to suit their experimentation) and then added their own finishing touches to their layers.
The classes were split into 3 levels with 3 separate set of images. Each image contains or requires more layers and layer management. You will notice from the video in the middle group below that I have deliberatley cut and paste the goblet from the 'Background' with the solid white still attached. The reason for this is to force the children to discuss the use of the Magic Wand tool before they can fill with colour.
Top Group
Middle Group
Lower Group
The follow-up to this lesson is to 'Mash' the final product with another aplication. We always require the older children in KS2 to take their work into another program if they can. This can be a somehting as simple as inserting into a Word Document and adding a Word Art Title and decorative border or as you can see here SketchUp and Google Earth.
SketchUp offers Photo textures and the possibility to make materials out of images found via Google Search or ones that we have made ourselves.
N.B. Play around with this yourself first as the breaking of the apsect ratios isn't always as straight forward as it should be.
So, onto the mashing. The chidlren followed my lead with the video above (I anotated with the IWB) and they made their own materials. While they were doing this I assigned two lead children to apply the Art Work to the gallery I had prepared uing the 'make new material' skills in this session. The final piece looks like this:
B5CM Added theirs first. This is the result:
Then B5MF added theirs.
B5LW are yet to add their work and will be posted here once they have completed it.
The next task is to add to Google Earth correctly and share the KMZ file.
On November the 8th we invited over Ewan McIntosh and Tom Barrett two of the leading specialists in ICT in education from the company NoTosh. They were here to work with all staff in Primary and Nursery plus a few from our Bi Lingual section too. They were here for 3 days and were structured so that year groups could work together in their teams and produce new and exciting resources to teach with. They also learned new methods to try and be more experimental with the ICT equipment we have in school.
The days began with our staff learning to use the Google suite of applications that mostly come with a Gmail account. Many people do not realise the potential that these applications have for education. Tom, who specialises in this field was the first teacher in the UK to become a certified Google Educator and leads the way in its use with his ideas called "Interesting Ways". If you should do a Google search for this you will see the variety of uses that have been put together from teachers all over the world.
Ewan, who has a media background working for Channel 4 in the UK, compliments this use of online tools by introducing teachers to new possibilities in story telling. His workshops teach us to how to add video, mobile devices, online games and digital stills to enhance the language children produce in their stories. This approach will lead us to become more creative in our approach to teaching with these devices. It also allows our students to take more control of their learning and to lead their own learning via collaboration - a key part that links both Ewan and Tom's ethos of Design Thinking.
Design Thinking was the focus for our final day on the Friday. Both Tom and Ewan introduced the idea to us that 'letting go of the reins' and allowing students to take more control of their learning is fundamental to success in the modern classroom. So the key to us as teachers is to adapt and change and lead through use of the tools we have been introduced to this week; collaborate with our students and teach them with the creative opportunities these technologies provide.
This week has been great fun for me and I hope it has been too for all involved - Tom and Ewan were fabulous speakers and really encouraged those of us who, in light of change, can be nervous for the unexpected journey ahead. But, the teachers who attended this is just the beginning as we will have to share our creative ideas with them as part of our pledge to send the outcome to them in 4 - 6 months!
Twitter for Teachers Today is the start of our 3 day long training workshop on Google Tools, Storytelling, social networks and essentially becoming a little more creative in ICT.
Below is the presentation I will be using for teachers to follow on using Twitter. If you want editing rights then please mail to ask!
Thursday, October 31, 2013 at 5:14PM 
