Million Futures

Try this one for developing visions for ICT in your school!!

 

http://www.millionfutures.org.uk/

 

Click on the all questions option to see related questions.

 

Would be great for getting people started thinking about ICT in the future.

 

Dan

John Cleese provides a ten-minute insight into his ideas on creativity:

• We do not know where we get our ideas from (but we do know we don't get them from our laptops).
• Sleeping on an idea can help make its reappearance later so much better.
  Ticking things off and keeping all the balls in the air means you will not have any creative ideas.
• In our frenzied connected world we need to make some time to make some mood for creativity: a tortoise cocoon from which we can check it's safe to come out into a self-created oasis in our lives.
• We need to set aside time and place where interruptions are not allowed - we need to create boundaries of space with a starting time and a finish time, separate from ordinary life, and only then creating a space and place where we can play.
• The problem with some teachers is that they may not know that they are not very creative, and therefore they may not value creativity even if they can recognise it.
  If those in charge are egotistical and wish to claim credit for the work of others, then they shall directly or indirectly discourage others from being creative.

Is he right? What do you think?

FW: LGfL Content Videos

Here’s an easy way to flag up new content the LGfL has made available to schools recently:

 

http://cms.lgfl.net/c/journal/view_article_content?groupId=86041&articleId=611948

 

Ideal for 5 minutes during a briefing meeting or at the beginning of a staff meeting.

 

Dan

My first 2DIY game...age...37

The folks at 2Simple have really surpassed themselves with 2DIY. A wonderful collection of tools that allow anyone to create interactive activity that can be played online.

Haringey ICT Co-ordinators' Meeting

ICT Co-ordinators Meeting at the PDC. We discussed interesting discoveries at BETT, the new arrangements for Email,the London MLE and finished with presentations on Podcasting using EasiSpeak by Kamal Butt and on creating radio programmes by Michael Hodges.

Amara's Law - What do we want our MLEs to do?

Have just been reading an interesting piece on the NAACE website called "Do We Still Need e-Learning?" by Theo Kuechel. It questions what we mean by e-learning and what this might mean re. using learning platforms in the future. Here are a couple of quotes from the article to get you thinking:

"... it is very easy to dress up the old paradigms of learning in a VLE, call it e-learning and assume that it will be transformational just because we can mark, test and manage students online. I suspect that this is the aspect of VLEs that will be find favour with those in education who find it difficult to change their pedagogy to encompass the potential of the new technologies."

"The Internet itself is generating new technologies that are mutating so quickly research needs to be focused not on the tools but on how users interact and relate to that technology."

"Whilst researching for this short article, I conducted a Creative Commons search for images using e-learning as the keyword. This returned thousands of of images of people presenting to audiences; I saw 'suits', projectors and whiteboards, the colours were beige and muted except for white glare of the projected presentations. I repeated the exercise but this time without the e from the learning and the results were startlingly different, pictures of children, fun, engagement activity colours landscapes - indeed I found many inspirational images."

The term 'Amara's Law' comes from Roy Amara who was a past president of The Institute of The Future: that "we tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run." So over to you, what do you think about 'e-learning'? How do you think we should use Managed Learning Environments or learning platforms? How can we enhance pupils' interaction and relationships with fast-moving technologies?
June x

Hole in the wall project

A teacher that can be replaced by a machine should be!!?

This facinating talk by Sugata Mitra explains the impact of providing access to 'hole in the wall' computers in villages in India. If you want to skip straight to the trials forward through to about 8 minutes.

Should generate some very interesting discussions about how much we need to teach children technical skills.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves.html

Dan

ED-E the RM Robot

For those who missed the ED-E robot at BETT (mentioned by Dan below) here's a video of him throwing some shapes on the dance floor! June x

BETT feedback

Hi,

 

Following on from BETT here is my round up of a few of the interesting things encountered. There will be a chance to find out a bit more about them at the subject leaders meeting during the afternoon of 27th January.

 

EEE Top -all in one PC with touch screen

Picturacy -film literacy activity CDROM for KS1

Pixton for Schools -allows children to create cartoons online

Brainpop -used to be a US only resource now adapted for UK curriculum and with new voiceovers

RM EDE -amazing fully flexible robot with computer interface -reminds us how far we have come since the days of the roamer

Mathletics -what it sounds like online athletics for maths, won a BETT award

Isis furniture -a fresh look at school furniture

Mini frame -allows you to run 6 computer terminals from one computer, drastically reducing the cost of re-equipping a computer suite

Timstar microscope -considerably better than DB microscope and still less than £100

 

Ideas were provided couresy of the teachmeet event.

John Davitt's slightly mad learning activity generator: http://www.newtools.org/showtxt.php?docid=737

Photoshop tennis http://www.flickr.com/groups/pstennis/ scroll to the bottom of the page to see the examples

Alphabet Animals http://bemboszoo.com/Bembo.swf

Pecha Kucha http://www.pcpro.co.uk/features/145950/the-end-of-death-by-powerpoint.html

 

Ever wondered what the top 10 most visited content on the LGfL is across London? Well here's your answer....

1. LGfL Weather Stations 900000

2. Audio Network 235000

3. Mult-e-Maths 180000

4. Us Online 80000

5. i-Board 78000

6. Espresso Primary/Secondary 33000

7. i-Board Maths 32000

8. Talking Stories 3 16000

9. Espresso Faiths 12000

10. PB Bear 7000

 

(number after each indicates the number of page visits)

 

It's all available via www.lgfl.net Of course all of the content is great but it's well worth having another look at the weather resources now that there are so many stations across London - a live source of real data. Us online now has an eSafety section that is worth exploring and was up for a BETT award.

 

I know it's all a bit random but despite best intentions that is often the nature of a trip to BETT!

 

Hope to see everyone at the PDC on 27th either for the afternoon session is 1.30-3.30 twilight session 4.00-5.15

Dan