I’m in the final stages of proofreading the next issue of Computers in Classrooms, the free e-newsletter for people with a professional interest in education technology. Articles include conference reports, including a guest article by Susan Banister, websites to check out, news, stuff to think about and a book review. Oh yes, and two prize draws: for PIMS and for Xobni Pro.
If you don’t want to miss out, sign up now, and join thousands of others!
Tomorrow, Wednesday 30th March, at 9 pm British Summer Time, I’ll be running a prize draw for subscribers to Computers in Classrooms, the free e-newsletter for educational technology professionals. I will be picking 4 names out of the virtual hat, and those people will receive (if they want it), a free licence for the premium version of Xobni, which is an email manager which works with your email client, which in my case is Outlook.
I wrote about the application in an article called, appropriately enough, Xobni. The company has very kindly made these licences available for this prize draw. All you have to do to be eligible is subscribe to the newsletter!
I’m just putting the finishing touches to the latest issue of Computers in Classrooms, the free e-newsletter for anyone with an interest in educational ICT. Inn this edition you will find:
You can sign up for this esteemed publication by clicking Computers in Classrooms link and filling out the form. We use a double opt-in system, meaning that you’ll be sent an email asking you to confirm that you would like to subscribe. Join thousands of other like-minded people now!
The newsletter has now been published! Follow the link given in the main article to sign up for it.
eLearn: Feature Article - Man Up Your Leadership: The European management perspective
very in-depth analysis of leadership in general, not ICT-specific.
eLearn: Feature Article - What Makes a Good Learning Game?
interesting analysis, with useful references. see also the Computers in Classrooms games-based learning specials.
In these austere times, free is good, right? Here are three sources of professional development that you will, I’m sure, find useful.
In the very near future (read on) I will be running prize draws for the following:
Well, the new term -- indeed, school year -- has started or is about to start, so you may think it is somewhat premature to be thinking about Christmas already!
However, in my experience the autumn (Fall) term is the toughest of the lot, and the final few weeks can be purgatory.
Because of pressures of work, together with wanting to make sure that contributors' articles were read by as many people as possible, I decided to defer the special games-based learning issue and bring out a short newsletter to give people something to read quickly as they're winding down for the summer.
Unfortunately, one of the links given is incorrect. It worked for me, but that's because, I realise now, I was logged in to the website. The mobile phones article is here. Thanks to Jonathan Thomson of BLI Education for emailing me about the broken link.
Here is what was covered in this issue:
Marxio Out, TimeLeft In (Maybe)
Those links will take you to the individual articles, but if you wish to read the whole newsletter, you'll find it here. You can also subscribe, by going to the newsletter page -- it's free! -- where you will also find an archive of past issues.
Please feel free to pass on this information to your friends and colleagues. Thank you.
Thanks to the generosity of Immersion and SeriousGames, I am able to offer two wonderful prizes to subscribers of Computers in Classrooms. The prizes on offer are a copy of Immersion’s MissionMaker, the games authoring software, and a one year school license for SeriousGames Global Conflicts: portal. The two winners will be chosen in a random draw on Thursday 11pm UK time. For terms and conditions please see the newsletter page, where you can sign up too if you wish (it’s free!). In this case, each prize is available to non-UK residents as well as Brits!
More information on the contents of the games education special issue will be posted here as soon as I’ve finalised the list of articles that will be included.
I've also been offered two premium Xobni licences to give away, as a "thank you" for the review I wrote. I will pull two winners out of a digital hat for these as well.
Disclaimer: I was not expecting anything like this. The review was genuinely independent, and not wrtten for any reward from Xobni.
Win a year’s subscription to online resource bank
I’ve arranged several prize draws for subscribers to the Computers in Classrooms newsletter, starting with this one: Scholastic has kindly made available a one year subscription to their online resource bank for primary (elementary) children.
Once logged in, you can browse through the thousands of resources by clicking “Browse our resources”, on the right hand side of the page, underneath the orange “My folder” button.
The “My folder” button is where you can store all your favourite resources, features and news, allowing you to easily find what you particularly liked, for next time!
Alternatively you can search for resources using keywords. Type in for example “Role Play” into the search field on the main page, and select “Child Ed Plus” from the drop down ‘department’ list to show the resources available.
Being a subscriber to Child Education PLUS online resource also means that visitors have full access to all the back issues of the Child Education PLUS half-termly hard copy magazine, packed with lesson ideas, advice and news.
I’ll be running the prize draw at 10pm British Summer Time on 30th April 2010. For the rules that apply to our competitions and prize draws, please see http://www.ictineducation.org/newsletter/. For this one, all subscribers are eligible regardless of place of residency.
Thanks to Alison MacGregor and Carly Wonnacott of Mango Marketing for setting this up.
PIMS competition
One of the interesting things to arise from the increasing affordability of sound recorders, digital cameras and pocket video cameras is that these devices are increasingly being used in a ‘show and tell’ way. Rather than try to describe to parents, or even yourself, what the youngsters have learnt, capture it as it happens. See, for example, my account of my visit to Grays Infants School, and my review of the Flip Video – especially my interview with Elaine on how it might be used in the classroom, and the further possible uses we came up with.
Unfortunately, all too often the level descriptors and the digital evidence are stored separately. However, an application called PIMS brings the two together. Julian Barrell, the company’s Director, took us through the system: you upload the evidence right there and assign level descriptors to a child or group of children. In fact, the child could do it too.
You can have a go yourself by going to Http://www.simplyefficientsoftware.co.uk and playing around in the demo school. Use the school name pimsdemo, and the username and password demo.
Now there’s some great news if you look at the system, like it, and are a subscriber to Computers in Classrooms, because on 26th May 2010 one randomly-selected subscriber will be able to use the system with any two classes of approximately 30 children, for up to 6 years. All you have to do is (a) subscribe to Computers in Classrooms and (b) agree to write a brief article for the newsletter and website, on how you find it.
The price is £400 per class for up to 6 years and includes future upgrades, so with a free introduction INSET session by Julian this prize represents a potential £1000.
I’ll be running the prize draw at 10pm British Summer Time on 30th April 2010. For the rules that apply to our competitions and prize draws, please see http://www.ictineducation.org/newsletter/. For this one, all subscribers are eligible regardless of place of residency.
More to come
Look out for other prize draws, to be announced on the ICT in Education website. Still not a subscriber? What are you waiting for? It takes just a few minutes to sign up and confirm your subscription, and it's free.
Read all about it!This news bulletin contains items about a new e-safety initiative, a new Guardian website, the RM Strategic Forum conferences, and the Amazing Web 2.0 Projects Book and other important stuff.
A great new competitionChildnet is running a film competition for young people in the UK. An educational charity founded in 1995, its work involves discussing, amongst other topics, cyberbullying, online grooming and scams. As Lindsay Bower, Childnet's Education Officer, says:
Sadly some children are exposed to risk online that offline they simply wouldn’t come in to contact with.
In "Film Challenge 2010", Childnet is inviting all schools in the UK to enter.
Two separate projects are in place for primary and secondary aged children.
They are asking secondary pupils to consider the direction that they would take the internet in, were they to have complete control -- what is their idea of an internet utopia? How can we all look to be good digital citizens and use our online presence to grow and shape the world in a safe, creative way? Primary pupils will be asked to create a film about why they love the internet and how they stay smart online. This could be done through drama, music, dance, rap, animation, puppetry or poetry for example. All films must be no longer than 60 seconds!
Sounds to me like a great project for the Creative and Media, Social Health an Development, and IT Diplomas!
All shortlisted finalists will be invited to a private screening of their film, in a London cinema, with the judging panel. Here is some more information about it, and don't forget to check Childnet's website for updates and other info. Closing date for entries is 28th May 2010.
The Guardian will be launching a new ICT in education site at http://www.guardian.co.uk/classroom-innovation within the next couple of weeks. The idea is that whilst there are some useful websites in this area, there's nothing that brings them all together so to speak. So the idea of the new website, which is being sponsored by Asus for the first six months, is to collate the Twitter feeds of these websites, suitably filtered so that only items relating to educational technology are included. Sounds like a great idea, and I was delighted to be asked if I'd like this website to be included. So look out for that, bookmark it, blog about it and, erm, tweet about it too!
Terry as matinee idol circa 1982In the early 80s I was in an amateur dramatics society, in which I trod the boards (as we say in show biz) a few times a year. In the late 80s I was in a band, in which I played blues harp (as we bluesmen call the harmonica) and sang.
"I guess that's why they call it 'The Blues'."
Yet despite such displays of derring-do, when David and Carrie Grant announced that we would all be singing, I experienced a range of emotions, starting and ending with "OMG!". I had awful visions of being one of a hapless few selected to sing solo, and all the negative, stiff upper lip, we-didn't-do-this-in-my-day, what's-this-got-to-do-with-ICT-strategic-planning-anyway type of thoughts came flooding in.
Well needless to say, it was a great way of starting a day that was intended to be one in which we opened our minds to other possibilities and started to think differently. There were lessons to be learnt:
The activity was also a great way of loosening up and generating some energy.
With input from assorted luminaries, including Richard Gerver, Sir Ken Robinson, Ollie Bray, John Davitt and Sir Tim Brighouse, the talks and panel discussion were very good, and in some parts quite moving.
In the panel discussion David Grant did an excellent job of coming back at the panelists and saying "Yes, but what can we actually do right now or tomorrow?". Left to themselves, a lot of visionaries tend to lapse into a default position of, er, having visions 
. It's good to have someone nagging them to say something of practical value too! (And yes, I know I'm being slightly unfair, but you get the point I'm making, yes?)
It was slightly annoying that a couple of the panelists had somehow gained access to my brain and filched some of my ideas about what makes an expert teacher. I've been writing an article about that, in my head. For example, an expert teacher is not just someone who knows their stuff, but can get the students engaged. Although even there I have to say — but I'm getting ahead of myself: you'll have to wait for the article to make its way from my head to these pages.
The small group discussion was OK, and well-facilitated, but the acoustics were such that it was difficult to hear everyone. The walk around the learning spaces set up, which included lots of examples of some great technology, and in some cases some real live students using it, was excellent. I was impressed by how knowledgeable the staff were. Also, as happens every time I see anything like this, I wished I'd had this kind of kit when I was teaching.
The Smart Table
One thing that RM has done is to address head-on the problem always faced in new builds, which is that the architects wade in and the educational technology is incorporated into discussions as an after-thought — by which time it is too late. RM has teamed up with firms of architects so that their contribution is part of an overall educational approach.
Receiving an iPod Touch was great, but having it ready-loaded with useful files, and having to use it in the first session with the Grants, was a very well-thought out move.
If you have a chance to go to one of these events I would say do so: it's time and money well-spent. And no, I'm not being paid by RM to say this, in case you're wondering why I'm enthusing so much about this conference.
Amazing projects at an amazing priceThis fantastically useful and free book has now been downloaded 12,461 times, and that only tells part of the story. Others have made it available on their own websites, and I obviously cannot know how many downloads they've enjoyed. Also, some people have passed it on to many others.
Going by the poll I set up, the 35 people who have responded so far sent it out to an average of 81 people each, which if true of everyone would mean that over a million people have seen it so far. It's rather too small a sample to draw such conclusions though, and that mean figure hides a wide range. UNESCO, for example, has sent information about to to 5,000 people as well as placing a note about it on their website.
If you have downloaded and looked through the book, please complete the survey, which comprises three questions and involves hardly any typing!
If you like, you can access the contents of the book in two other ways, and even embed it on your own website. Firstly, there is a SlideShare option. The links are live, ie you can click on them and they work. Also, the subject-project list near the beginning of the book now contains hyperlinks to the projects cited. You’ll see the embed code near the top right-hand side of the screen.
Secondly, I have created a Myebook version. To obtain the embed code, you will need to open the book and then click on the Info tab. The advantage of this over the SlideShare version is that it looks and sounds like a real book, and you can zoom in to read it more clearly. Also, you can grab parts of the screen and email it to a friend. Unfortunately, though, the links don’t work, simply because I don’t have time to create them all manually - I’m waiting for a forthcoming automated version of the book builder to do that for me!
You can download it from the Free Stuff page on the ICT in Education website, where you will also be able to read a sample of the nice things people have been saying about it.
I’d like to try an experiment on my website, for which I need your help. I don’t want to go into detail now, so I’m asking you to trust me. What I need is a short article, on any aspect of educational ICT. When I say ‘short’, I mean maybe 500 words or so - in other words, just two or three paragraphs.
Have a look at the guidelines and terms and conditions, because if you were to send me an article I’ll assume you agree to them. The bottom line is that you keep the copyright in your article, and agree not to write anything that could land both of us in court!
If you’d like to take part in this experiment, and promote your own blog/website into the bargain, please send me an email suggesting a topic you’d like to write about and a sample of your writing or link to your blog. I’d need to receive the article by 3rd May so please get in touch as soon as possible.
I’ve started a group in Flickr. Called the ICT in Education group, the idea of it is to have a place where we can find photos depicting, er, ICT in education. There are other, similar, groups on Flickr, and I am not trying to outdo them in any way. I just wanted to try out the Group creation feature.
Flickr groups are quite useful, because as well as making it easy to find photos on a particular theme, you can also interact with those people who have similar photographic interests to yourself.
Setting the group up was very easy, and you are presented with several options in terms of how easily people can access it. I opted to make it open to all, subject to approval. So basically you have to apply for membership. The reason I have done this is that I get fed up with having to deal with spam and spammers all the time. I mentioned some time ago that I’d suspended the Ning communities I’d set up for that reason, and every day I have to delete spam comments from my blog (they never appear because all comments have to be approved). I didn’t want to give spammers yet one more opportunity to waste my time and that of other people.
The purpose of the group is to make it easy for people to find photos relating to educational technology that they can use to illustrate their blog posts. So I’m hoping that people will enter into the spirit of things and assign a Creative Commons licence to their pics that allows everyone to use them in that way.
If you’d like to join the group, so you can post photos there as well as your own Flickr area, go here: http://www.flickr.com/groups/1292018@N24/. There are only a few members so far, because I haven’t publicised it.
Yes, the title IS tongue-in-cheek!I've updated the e-book section of the ICT in Education website. It now includes the best-selling "Go on, bore e'm: how to make your ICT lessons excruciatingly dull", for the ridiculously low price of £1.99. It's available on Lulu too, where you can also buy a printed version for just £4.99.
Just in case you missed the most recent, incredibly stupendous, issue of this FREE resource (US President Richard Nixon was quoted as saying "A giant step for mankind", although he may have been referring to something else), here is what it contained:
Information about the Amazing Web 2.0 Projects Book, two prize draws, a forthcoming e-book application for schools, free web resources and more.
Believe it or not, Wordle isn't the only word cloud generator. Here we take an in-depth look at four such applications.
Maddi is a 15 year old girl from Australia who loves ICT. Find out why.
Ethan, a 17 year-old student from England, admits that phones can be used for no good in the classroom; but the opposite is also true, as he explains.
Peter Robinson strikes a slightly cynical -- but very well-informed -- tone about people's belief in the power of technology to transform.
Headteacher Jeff Smith discusses his love of technology, leadership in an age of change, using technology well and wisely in school, how the Self-Review Framework helped his school transform itself in its use of ICT, and the value of the Leading Learners Network.
I recently interviewed Melendy Lovett, President of Texas Instruments’ worldwide education technology business, about the state of STEM - Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics education.
Doug Woods considers how technology might be used to help youngsters ask questions.
The first two instalments of this series before it had been published! You can read the articles published so far in the series here.
If all that sounds good, join thousands of others by signing up now!
Read all about it!News, views and prize draws
It's a GOOD serviceAs people who travel in London will know, the section of Transport for London responsible for running the tube service feel the need to continually announce that they are running a good service. If an individual were to exhibit similar behaviour you would probably conclude that they were suffering from deep feelings of insecurity. Such a neat diagnosis would be shattered, however, upon hearing the announcement I heard a while ago:
We are running a good service, apart from the delays and cancellations.
Well, if it's good enough for TfL it's good enough for me! I'm running a good service here apart from the lateness of the latest issue of the newsletter, Computers in Classrooms, and an article on change management planned for today (I'm sure there's a bit of irony there).
The reason for the delay is that I was contacted on Friday and commissioned to do some work by today. That wouldn't have prevented the newsletter coming out this morning, were it not for the fact that as I was about to send off the completed work, I discovered that it had disappeared. I have no idea what happened, especially as I am assiduous in saving my work every few nanoseconds. I finally limped into bed at 01:40, having typed it all up again.
Handy hint: Never mind about the paperless office and going green: always print out your work when you've completed it. Not only is it easier to proofread, but you have something to copy from should a disaster similar to the one I've just related befall you. Fortunately, last night I had done just that, so all I had to do was copy rather than think: much easier when it's past midnight.
Getting back to the newsletter, the issue I'm working on features some great articles from wonderful guest contributors. You can read more about that, and sign up for this fantastic free resource, by looking at the announcement I made last week.
Another (good) reason for delaying the newsletter publication is that a few things cropped up towards the end of last week that I want to include, so I am still doing a bit of delving. That means, incidentally, that if you happen to know of any schools or teacher/groups that are managing to continue lessons using technology, to get around problems caused by the flying ban due to the volcanic cloud, I'd be delighted to hear from you.
(c) Terry Freedman All Rights Reserved