April 2007 - Posts
Seeing is believing!
What will they think of next?
Technology is moving a a rapid pace. I thought Google Earth by itself was a fantastic tool but now someone has come up with away of interacting with the application whilst standing at the back of the class. Its time to put on your gloves and 'swim' with Google Earth! I am sure the pupils will love to have a go too.
All you need is Atlas gloves. Don't have any? Then you can make your own using a pingpong ball and a key fob torch. The site shows you how here
Watch a demo here
http://atlasgloves.org/demo (scroll down the page)
http://atlasgloves.org/
Please do let us know if you do try this out with your class. We would love love to do a feature on the Kent NGfL website on it being used.
Windows XP will stop being available on new PCs from the end of January 2008.
Microsoft has confirmed that from 31 January 2008 large PC makers, such as Dell, HP and Toshiba, will no longer be able to buy licenses for the software so they can install it on new machines. Windows XP is being retired to make way for Windows Vista, the consumer editions of which were launched in Europe on 30 January.
Interestingly, a poll released in early April suggests that Vista has yet to win over significant numbers of potential customers. PC maker Dell has restarted selling new PCs with Windows XP installed on them, the decision reversing a policy begun in January that meant Windows Vista was the only operating system available on almost all new home machines. The change came after Dell's feedback site was swamped with calls for the return of the venerable software.
BBC News item - XP to be retired
BBC News item - Dell restarts supplying XP
We would like to remind schools of Becta's advice not to buy Windows Vista just yet as it is not compatible with all curriculum software.
The following message is from Peter Banbury:
"One of the KCN services to primary schools that is sometimes invisible is RM EasyMail Plus. Every primary and special school and PRU has been purchased 40 RM EasyMail email accounts in a single KCN order. I can confirm that this has been extended from April 2007 for another year. This includes email IDs such as headteacher@....... etc.
As primary schools use class emails, we believe that 40 email accounts is enough for most schools (if not please tell contact Peter Banbury at the usual kent.gov email address).
A few schools provide an email for every pupil, in which case they need to order directly from RM.
Unfortunately organising a variable number of email IDs has proved too complicated!
Schools should not, therefore, order or renew RM EasyMail orders for 40 EasyMail accounts or fewer.
We expect the email provision from the Kent learning Zone to be considerably more sophisticated than EasyMail, and a transition is anticipated and will be planned for an appropriate and convenient time."
At a recent ITN meeting, I was asked about a larger class size for the Ready Register activity. You will need to download the 40-user version from our Early Years Games. I know of one secondary school teacher with a new IWB who is secretly using this to keep track of her Y8 class!!! Who said primary's have all the fun!
Carolyn Lewis
We are looking for comments about the new digital blue movie make camera (DMC3).
Have you bought one for your school? What do you think?
Is there a difference between the Educational version (blue camera) and the non educational (green)? Does the latter one come with the same software?
So far our tests are showing that :
- Image quality of videos on the DMC3 is better thant the older version (DMC2)
- Sound quality of the built in mic is worse. The DMC2 is records much louder.
- the zoom is 'clunky' and shots out of focus on close up.
- The software seems exactly the same
Please add your comments. We would love to know what you think
A primary school is considering putting Open Office on all their computers instead of Microsoft Office. The main reason is cost. Open Office is free. But will it be the right choice for them?
What is Open Office?
Open Office is a completely free open-source office suite, providing tools for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations and more.
What are the advantages of Open Office?
- It’s FREE; schools do not have to pay for it.
- Students are able to download the program for use on home computers. This provides a significant bridge between their schoolwork and what they can accomplish at home (especially for low-income families)
- Exposure to non-Microsoft software encourages students to increase their ability to work within unknown environments.
- Can save as PDF documents
- Fully compatible with current MS Office files ie can save and open Microsoft documents .
Is your school using Open Office?
Do you think Open Office is a good alternative to Microsoft Office for a Primary School?
(Free tutorials on Microscope Office and Open Office http://inpics.net/index.html )
Our discussion on dataprojectors and dust was read by thousands of people and many schools have commented on how useful it was. Through the discussion we found out that the life expectancy of a data projector is about three years.
"Projectors have a life expectancy, dependent on use of around 3 to 4 years."
"For desktop computers 4-5 years max (unless they are thin client), for smartboards look at 5 years (and hope for more!). It looks like we can add projectors to this at 3 years now. "
"Cost through Promethean is going to be £225 (clean) and £258.00 (bulb) total £483.00 ea. "
Many Kent schools have now had their projectors for 2 or more years. The bulbs are going and the light from the projector is becoming dim.
Should the bulbs be replaced or should a new projector be bought?
Is it worth spending £160 on a new bulb (bought on the internet) rather than forking out £500 or more on a projector?
Is your school facing a similar situation or maybe you have found a solution?
Please leave a comment here or contact one of the ICT team. We would love to hear from you.
There are many useful videos on the internet but not all are accessible at school because of the internet filtering software. To get round this you can download videos at home to use in schools.
TeacherTube
www.teachertube.com
You need to login in (registration is free) to download the videos. The link to download is on the right of every video.
YouTube
www.youtube.com
Videos can be downloaded by:
- Converting the video to AVI using a website such as vixy.net
Locate the video, paste the url into vixy, choose the format you would like the video in (AVI is the most common one), click start and then wait a couple of minutes for the conversion to take place. Download the file to your pc.
- Using the internet browser Firefox
Install Firefox, then the add on https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2390
Google Videos
video.google.co.uk
You can use a website such as keepvid.com/ to download google videos as an AVI file
As well as Jame's fantastic ictgames.com
Here are two more sites with games suitable for the early years:
http://www.little-g.com/shockwave/games.html
I particularly like the Secret Phonics Game - watch out for the American spelling of 'colour'
This is the new address for all the fab Early Years cames from Crick School - famous for the Lecky activities
http://www.crickweb.co.uk/Early-Years.html
Crick School interactive Games are an excellent resource for all primary years. They even have resources for the Promethean IWB.
Check out their website: http://www.crickweb.co.uk/
Children and young people from across Kent will be visiting the UK's dedicated centre for tackling child sex abuse on Tuesday 24 April 2007 to look at a range of new products presented by organisations such as the BBC, Microsoft and specialist charity, Childnet.
Click here to read the full article
"Since most of today's students can appropriately be labeled as "Digital Learners", why do so many teachers refuse to enter the digital age with their teaching practices"
Darren Draper, one of a team of edtech innovators transforming teaching through technology at Jordan School District in USA has uploaded an inspiring presentation on Teacher Tube (the educational version of You Tube). His presentation is loaded with facts and has several powerful messages. It’s 7:41 in length but worth watching.
Watch the presentation here
The Kent NGfL website is a popular teaching and learning website used by schools all over the world.
You can visit the website by clicking on the following link:
http://www.kented.org.uk/
Google Moon is an extension of Google Maps and Google Earth that, courtesy of NASA imagery, enables you to surf the Moon's surface and check out the exact spots that the Apollo astronauts made their landings.
The Google team have a great sense of humour. Be sure to check out the Moon surface at maximum magnification. I won’t spoil the suprise and I am sure your class will find it very amusing too.
Carrying on the theme of space another google site to have a look at is Google Mars. Pupils will have fun searching for its mountains and craters. I never realised Mars was so colourful!
If you are going to use Google maps you may like to check out our easy way of annotating the maps. Click here to find out or search under Geography on the links bar to the right of this page..
Tony Cassidy has created a fantastic powerpoint slide with multiple live streaming webcams. He has an example on his blog as well as instructions for making your own.
Image your students faces when they walk into the classroom to see this on the interactive whiteboard! Each picture is live. You can actually see people and traffic moving!
This resource has lots of uses including:
- comparing weather around the world
- life in other countries eg Egypt
- day and night around the world
Visit Tony's blog to download the powerpoint and instructions. pilotgcseradicalgeography.co.uk
We would be interested to know what you thought of Tony's great idea, so please leave a comment below and tell us how you used or will use this resource.
I use the print screen (PrtScr) on my keyboard quite a lot to capture screenshots. It takes a snapshot of my whole screen which I can then paste in to my image software or a document. ( Pressing ALT PrtScr will only take a snap shot of the current active window rather than the whole screen).
Another useful and free screen capture tool is ScreenHunter. I particularly like it because it is easy to use and I can select the part of my screen I want to capture. (For example: I used ScreenHunter for taking snapshots of icons on the toolbar for our Textease helpsheets.)
ScreenHunter can capture a rectangle area, an active window and full screen, including the mouse pointer. It automatically saves captures in BMP, JPEG, or GIF file format, so you don't have to stop each time and you can capture as many as you like. (I used it for capturing screen shots of the FlashMeeting training in Dartford.) ScreenHunter can also save to Clipboard to be copied to other programs, such as Word, Textease and Paint.
ScreenHunter is 'made' by Wisdom Software. The latest version can be downloaded from their website for free (or you can buy the pro version). However, I have found the earlier version (Version 4) less confusing to use.
Click here to download version 4
Click here to go to the Wisdom Software website to download the latest version.