Free Futurelab Resouce

Futurelab has just published a new report on curriculum and teaching innovation that is intended to provide guidance for educators interested in exploring the potential of personalisation to transform curriculum design and teaching practices. It is aimed primarily at educational leaders involved in curriculum and teaching innovation including head teachers, curriculum managers, classroom teachers and local authorities. It should also be relevant to teacher training agencies and departments.

‘Curriculum and teaching innovation: transforming classroom practice and personalisation’ should be used for schools to devise aims and objectives for curriculum and teaching innovations, and to inform the decision-making process during long-term curriculum planning. The handbook is not a step-by-step guide to ‘doing’ innovation in school, nor a set of classroom resources.

To view the publication online and to request a FREE copy, please visit http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/publications-reports-articles/handbooks/Handbook1246

For futher information or if you wish to obtain multiple compies, please e-mail claire.denney@futurelab.org.uk

BETT 2009

January and the start of the New Year means that it’s time once again for BETT – the four day educational technology show held at Olympia in London. For anyone that has been will agree that is an overwhelming but dazzling spectacle of everything ICT. It is a great opportunity to see what is new on the market and to catch up with all the latest developments and trends.

Here are my three top picks from this year’s show:

Promethean: Their ActivPrimary software has been totally remodelled and revised. It is now called ActivSoftware Inspire Edition. It is a free upgrade. Users will need to register and then download the software from Promethan’s website. Apart from a new look interface, there are new tools and easier menus. The best new feature I feel is the ability to now recognise two or more pens on the board at the same time. This will allow multiple users at the board. All teachers will need to do is buy some more pens!

2Simple: Those busy people at 2Simple always have a new product to launch at BETT and this year they didn’t disappoint. 2Do It Yourself is a program that allows users to create their own interactive Flash resources – quizzes, puzzles, activities and games. It is for both pupil and teacher use and features 2Simple’s user-friendly tools and interface. Take a look at it at 2Simple’s site.

Table top interfaces: Ever since Microsoft revealed their revolutionary ‘Surface‘ technology, companies are working hard to make this the next big thing! Microsoft’s Surface is truly amazing to see and use. Not only is it so simple and intuitive to use, the applications that Microsoft are developing are useful and make superb use of this new interface. SMART have released their SMARTTable which is effectively a SMARTBoard mounted in a table. It allows multiple users at once and is a self contained unit for which users can download more content and update the table via a USB port. It’s pricey, but I can see this being a bit hit with younger children.

Finally for another overview of BETT 2009 take a look at the BBC’s report from the opening day.

Busbi Camera

To some Busby was the Post Office’s predecessor to BT’s Beattie, but here I’m talking about Busbi a new(ish) addition to the handheld video camera market.

I have to thank Louise at Swainswick for drawing my attention to this. I was raving about the Flip Camera, when she showed me this, which is less than half the price of a Flip – around £30 rather than £80. It can be purchased from Amazon as well as Argos.

From the reviews, it does seem you get what you pay for. Some say the quality is about as good as a webcam (about 320×240 for QVGA) but for a point and shoot video camera that’s easy to operate, has a good recording time and crucially will allow schools to afford several of them at once, I think it’s certainly worth looking at. Here’s a review from PC Advisor, plus there are customer reviews on the Amazon site. I would be interested to hear what people think of them. Louise is certainly pleased with hers!

Big Brother can be a good guy

No, not an article about reality TV shows that have outlived their welcome, but rather a quick thought that struck me recently. There have been several media storms in the last year or so about the collection of personal data. These storms are often triggered by the loss of some of this data on a train and we are right to be concerned about that. However, it is sometimes good to be reminded that in today’s technological age, all this data can lead to good things. Here is an article that shows how a mobile phone, a website and some quick thinking lead to a happy ending for one little girl.

Globe Hopping – Time Travelling

 Surfing the net can be a very time consuming business. One link leads to another and another where you spot something that you just have to click on. We’ve all been there. And before we know it, life’s passed you by!

Well, tonight’s clicking has lead to something that has definitely got that “WOW!” factor that more than makes up for previous fruitless clicking. After stumbling across Google’s channel on You Tube, I spotted this video. WARNING: after watching you will want to download!!

To take your time travelling trip to Ancient Rome, you’ll need to have the latest version of Google Earth installed (version 4.3)  Once installed, you can activate the layer by clicking on “Ancient Rome 3D” which is located within the “Gallery” folder in the left hand panel of the Google Earth interface.

Once you’ve clicked on the Ancient Rome layer, you’ll need to fly to Rome (you probably could have worked that bit out!).

Once there, zoom in to just above street level and then you’ll see lots of yellow buildings begin to load. Click on any of them to bring up information about that building.

Near the bottom of the information box that then appears there are three download links. One is for a terrain layer. Download this one first, which masks the present day Rome, and then choose from the second and third download link how many buildings you want to see.

Be warned. You will need a fast internet connection AND a fast processor on your computer. It can take a while for the downloads to start happening and even longer for the buildings to be rendered on your machine. They recommend a system minimum of Dual-Core 2.0GHz CPU + 3 GB RAM + High End GPU with 512 MB RAM, in case you were wondering. To get the best from your Roman tour, Google also recommends you turn off the “3D Buildings” layer, after which should should be able to glide gracefully around the city.

Nevertheless, this is an amazing project. Not only is it very clever, intuative and brings the past to life (well, almost), it is exciting in the way it is using different sources of data to create something new.

Subject Leaders’ Update

Once again it was time to gather together to explore all things ICT and restock the chocolate store at the first of this academic year’s Subject Leaders’ Update. As usual, there was a good turn out for these popular events and it was great to welcome some new faces. If you’re a new ICT Subject Leader could you make sure we have your details so we can include you in any emailshots?

We were joined by Keith Ansell, E-learning Consultant with the SWGfL who lead a workshop highlighting some of the fantastic ‘free’ resources available through the SWGfL. We had a wonderful time exploring our region with Big Day Out, created mulitmedia rich Myths and Legends, looked at the great resources available in the media gallery. It was also great to hear that the SWGfL are to retain the popular British Pathe service.

Keith also highlighted a great offer from iBoard just for BaNES ICT Subject Leaders. Email us for the link. He also spoke about the SWGfL Film Animation Competition to be held in the summer term. He explained that teachers can use film animation techniques to create films in any curriculum subject area. There is the possibility of some workshops to support teachers and an associated awards and presentation event. If think you might be interested in this, please could you email Wendy or Spencer so we can begin preliminary planning for the event?

We had an overview of where we are with Merlin and updated everyone on what information was now with headteachers. As promised, we’ve set up a Merlin page on this blog (see link above or click here) where we can update everyone on all things Merlin. We’ve also published links to resources to explain what Merlin is as well as a link to an example of how Merlin might be used in a teaching and learning context.

Finally, we had a quick look at some new technologies that we feel will have a positive impact. These include the easy to use Flip video camera, Easi-Speak microphones and the Asus mini-notebook. We also looked at the emerging technology of epaper. I believe that this will have a big impact in a few years time to the way we view information and where we view it. If you’re interested in the development of technology in education, take a look at Futurelab’s newsletter; it makes interesting reading!

We ended with a few dates for the diary:

• eSafety Conference, Bristol – 26th November 2008
• ICT Regional Conference – 1st July 2009 (provisional)
• Next ICT Subject Leaders’ Update – 10th June 2009

Also don’t forget to look at our Courses page for the other events happening this year.