Integrated, creative educational technology means learning to use technology as the joint driving force for the lesson or project in hand. This is the mantra and ethos behind all of the changes we're putting in place at our school. It's a tall order. We have a very mixed set of abilites from both students and teachers alike - new students when they arrive seem to be off the pace and, by contrast, new staff seem to be right on. You can see, then, it's also very difficult to manage training for such a large number of teachers that is both meaningful and has an end skill they can use in the classroom.
Read MoreDigital Displays - No More Backing Paper or (in future) IWBs
ICT display from South Wootton School, NorfolkOver the summer holidays the IT Dept. at our school have been super busy creating the new VLE platform for Admin and parents in readiness for classes to start adding the first snippets of links and letters for home use before the bigger online docs start appearing. Read More
Olympics QR Code Treasure Hunt with iPods and iPads
QR Codes, I have to say, are a marvellous method for discovery in school. Why? Because they offer up the 'unknown' to children and techers alike. The children, as you can see to the left, don't know what is behind the code until the image appears, like magic, before them. The game we played ensures good language and teamwork as they try to work out which image matches the code. Some children didn't know what the Olympics were and none of them had ver heard of Greco Roman wrestling or water polo - "What? They play handball in the water?" Well, yes, they sort of do.
Read MoreFoBISSEA Games 2012 in Beijing, China - Day 4 and 5
Day 4- Year 4 Football
Written by Jeni Wong over here.
The Football competition started on Day 4 and in the Year 4 competition this involved 5 teams playing 10 minute rounds to make it to the final. Year 4 Boys and Girls put up a tremendous fight in the soccer and both teams made it to the finals with the Year 4 boys winning one of their games by an impressive 6- nil. Both teams played the same respective boys and girls teams which were now becoming quite a regular fixture, for all of our FoBISSEA teams, DBIS- Discovery Bay International School, Hong Kong.
Read MoreFoBISSEA Games 2012 in Beijing, China - Day 3
The FoBISSEA Games Attendees, Beijing, China
The first day... What a BLUR!
After a 4.45am meet-up at the EPC the , bleary eyed 2012 FOBISSEA group representing TES were off. The spirits, despite the early hour, were high and everyone was super excited about what the day ahead was to deliver us. The airport check-in went extremely well and before we knew it we were touching down at Beijing Capital Airport, although we hardly realised we were there with the hazy skies closing in...
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FoBISSEA Games 2012 in Beijing, China.
The FoBISSEA Games Attendees, Beijing, China
The first day... What a BLUR!
After a 4.45am meet-up at the EPC the , bleary eyed 2012 FOBISSEA group representing TES were off. The spirits, despite the early hour, were high and everyone was super excited about what the day ahead was to deliver us. The airport check-in went extremely well and before we knew it we were touching down at Beijing Capital Airport, although we hardly realised we were there with the hazy skies closing in.
Read MoreGmail, Google Docs(Drive) and Google Sites Video Help for Students
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).
Google Docs, soon to be Google Drive.
Google Sites- online portfolios for children with personal pages too.
There will be a series for Google calendar as we will be arranging home work and other events the children need to subsribe to in Year 5 and 6.
Scratch Day 2012 - A Bug's Life
Francis the LadybugScratch Day is in its third year this time round and had the largest turn out globally. As you are probably aware I'm a big fan of Scratch and all the far-reaching elements into the curriculum it can enhance via ICT. With 175 events in 42 countries we were the only school to post to the Scratch Day site in Taiwan. Last year we collaborated with the American School to share the learning on both campuses via Skype and Ustream. This year we decided to go it alone.
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iPads in Education: Reception/ EYFS ICT Review 2011/ 2012
We are coming to the end of another Year at your school. The ICT dept. is gaining strength and is asiPad with Children's Book impermanent as ever: we are to become facilitators instead of discrete ICT teachers (albeit our new guy is 'front loading' skills for me to transfer in cross curricular lessons).
The problem we both face now is that the Reception children are demons on the iPads. They have been utterly sublime all the way to the Easter break. We have tackled some really tricky clusters of skills such as in-app camera work (MadPad and Puppet Pals) and other combinations such as animation using imports of various kinds via DoInk.
Read MoreMaking Art Galleries in SketchUp and Google Earth
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.
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