ICT Tutor

Image editing, voicethread, and Year 6

Linda — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 10:20:03 +0000

See what Year 6 made to help them think about what World War 2 was really like in the East End.

They used an image editing programme like Photoshop and then put their results on a site called voicethread. This allows people to leave spoken comments. Feel free to leave them a comment on their great work!

Your thoughts? What’s good about this? What might be the problems?

Protected: Teaching Assistants ICT Week 4

Linda — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 12:05:03 +0000

Voice recorders – quick video

Linda — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 18:12:58 +0000

More ideas for using voice recorders in the classroom.

Protected: Teaching Assistants ICT Week 3

Linda — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:33:20 +0000

Take them outside

Linda — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:29:20 +0000

Technology and the outside world (for Rosemond)
This teacher had planned and resourced a week of work on Autumn Poetry, where children would extend their vocabularly to describe Autumn changes. To kick start this week, they wrapped up warm and went for a muddy walk along ‘Our Special Lane’. Take a look at what happened…

The children were so switched on to this problem they had discovered themselves and all they wanted to do was debate this issue. I had to swallow my pride, push all of my poetry planning and resources to one side, and let these young minds lead our learning. We used the class blog to explain the problem and another teacher suggested we should make posters. The blog gave my class a voice and a purpose to write. They wanted to learn about posters, but already had a lot of ideas anyway, including putting the school logo on the posters so that people would know they are from John Davies. The class displayed their work proudly on the school gates, then took their posters home to display in their bedroom windows.

Plan time outside – take your class for a walk or to a park

Click through to see the video slideshow they made and how technology helped them.

Protected: Teaching Assistants ICT – lesson 2

Linda — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 16:09:43 +0000

A taste of things to come

Linda — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 12:33:33 +0000

Dr Who and the Bee-Bots

Dorney School is under attack by giant Bee-bots. Dr Who saves the day. Filmed and animated by the children using digital blue cameras.

Bee-Bots are a thinking and problem solving tool
They can be used as part of the Foundation and Key Stage 1 ICT Curriculum
Link them to stories and children’s interests.

They can be customised and also linked to small world activities.
An on-screen version is available but the software has to be bought.

However the bee-bot is most effective as a physical thing the children can interact with.

Link their use to literacy, numeracy and knowledge and understanding of the world (EYFS)
Helps children to think beyond themselves – the robot is a tool for thinking, and for understanding predictable outcomes.
If you tell the robot to do x then x is exactly what it will do.

(Note to my face to face class – we have one of these on order!)

Image cc Skinnyboy Evans

Oh and now there’s an app too – you can get a bee-bot game for your phone, (android soon)

Protected: Resources for ICT Self Assessment

Linda — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:14:50 +0000

Protected: ICT for TAs – session 1

Linda — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:24:33 +0000

Weather and Traffic

admin — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 07:17:32 +0000

As I look out of the window it’s a brightish day, but cloudy so there could well be some more rain later. Talking about the weather is fine, and not at all boring. Weather patterns can be a fascinating subject, especially once you get into people’s reaction to the changing climes. For example people have built in expectations as to what each particular month ought to be like, and then they are disappointed if not outright angry when it doesn’t turn out that way. And yet we all know that weather is pretty much unpredictable and changeable. Every year a new record is broken at some point. If we had a year when the weather was exactly normal and didn’t break any records, why that would be a record in itself.

I’ve been puzzling lately over working out how I should calculate or rather decide the criteria by which I choose which niches I should be working on. In other words deliberating on the problem of prioritisation. So far I’ve come up with a few vague strategies, which might be worth considering. And I’ve been collecting some data on July statistics for each niche. I can see which ones make the most money, and which are failing even to break even. Now then, should I concentrate on the ones which are already working, in order to make them work better, or work on the trailing ones to bump them up above the break even line and thus justify their existence? One thing I never even thought of before now is the possibility of concentrating on the middle layer. Does that make any sense?

I formulated one plan which is to concentrate on both the top and the bottom. That would allow the possibility of leveraging success to go on to greater success, while also trying to keep a good spread, and destructive testing the potential losers. If they stay on the bottom after repeated attention, then they deserve to be ditched. The middle layer would then be left to float or sink, or maybe even stay in the middle which would mean they generate a good residual income without any effort. So that seems like a good plan.

Then there was another idea, which was to look at the overall markets and differentiate between the failing properties for new or unique niches, as opposed to failing subsidiary properties on more widely represented niches.

So if it’s a newly positioned blog in a market I don’t already have success in, then work it through to success or failure. That way we keep adding to the spread. If it’s a subsidiary blog that’s not doing so well, just leave it and concentrate on the best optimised for the main phrases. Makes some kind of sense, but also seems a bit clunky. I’m glad I’ve written this down though, because it can get a bit muddled up thinking about it.

Also, the mere collection of data is getting painful. I only do a bit at a time, and the spreadsheet is a pain to work with. Google adsense figures as a source of traffic data are easier but not by any means comprehensive.