Kent ICT Blog

We’re hearing a lot of talk about our eco-footprint these days but how do we know how big ours is?

zerofootprints.com enables children to calculate their carbon footprint.

By simply answering 25 fun interactive questions, pupils will easily discover how much water, carbon, land and trees they use in one year.

When they've finished working through the questions, pupils can compare their eco-footprint to the UK yearly average, or even find out what kids from other countries produce in the same time-span. The idea is to get them thinking about these choices while their own footprints are still small—and trust us, it works!

Every school has collected data for  "how we travel to school".  How about doing it silently different?

 http://www.zerofootprintkids.com/

Emails sent by concerned staff:

"I've just watched the TV and it is pretty damming on WiFi. I'm really concerned as our school is one of the 50% of Primarys using WiFi and the advice is to ask schools to stop using it from proven evidence.
As a school, we are concerned about parents responses tomorrow and were hoping that Kent would be able to come up with a statement and advice for schools."

"Obviously heard the news and saw the BBC Panorama programme this evening
about the possible harmful effects of using Wi-fi technology in schools.

Interested to know what the Kent party line is on the use of this technology."

Becta's WiFi statement
http://news.becta.org.uk/display.cfm?resID=33517

Panorama has already been criticised for its piece on wi-fi by the Guardian.
See Alan Day's post for more information on why  BBC Panorama's evidence has been criticised as "grossly unscientific" 
 "Wi-Fi Panorama / Melodrama - Wow that was really scientific!! ... Not! "

KCC has examined the evidence of the major reputable organisations, which all agree that the power levels used are so far below the guidelines that no danger exists.
Please see the KCC statement, the KCN report and the list of references. 

 Other links:

Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art -- and share your creations on the web.

Have a look the following video on the BBC site introducing this new online software: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6647011.stm

Scratch is developed by the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab, with financial support from the National Science Foundation, Intel Foundation, and MIT Media Lab research consortia.

It is free to download from: http://scratch.mit.edu/download
(It comes with help sheets.Click on help once the programme is loaded or visit the help section online
http://llk.media.mit.edu/projects/scratch/wanthelp/)

Message sent via email:

"I was wondering if you could help our school. We are currently thinking of buying a new server. We currently run an Rm Store Box and are thinking of updating to an RM Connect 3 system. We are only replacing our server as our Rm laptops and PC's are only 2 years old. However we are thinking of maybe getting out of the Rm loop, but don't know whether this is a good thing or not.

I know there are schools out there which are running non RM networks, is there anybody with a good one?  Is there anybody that would not recomend their make?

Or would we be better still going for RM as the laptops and PC's are Rm."

Please click on "Comments" to  add your views

This years ICT 2007 Exhibition & Conference will take place on 5 July at Ashford International Hotel.

The conference will start with a key note speaker from Becta. This will be followed by a variety of talks including the following:

• E-Twinning
• Focus of Film 
• Exploring useful websites for FS/KS1
• Podcasting
• Riverwatch

There is a charge of £75 to attend the conference, which includes refreshments and two course lunch.

The major ICT exhibition, with free entry, runs alongside the conference and will be open all day. 

To book a place please either click here to book online    or    click here to print a booking form.

We all look forward to seeing you all at the event!

Have fun creating music with:

‘Doo wop horses’ -  There are times when you just need this sort of thing as it is difficult not to smile! Click on the horses head to start your composition.

 Groove Blender 2 a free online music creator. It allows pupils to create tracks from 'blocks' of music, all time-matched in 4-beat. It's much like LEGO, with various blocks, standing for different basslines, guitar riffs, beats and effects, built into a long layered 'wall'.

It is very easy to use

- Drag sound blocks onto the canvas.
- Connect blocks to form chains. Chains play from left to right.
- Each individual chain will play independently of other chains.
- Click and drag to select a chain to perform edit functions such as muting or deleting.
- Hint: Pushing the Blendomatic button will help you compose a full-length song.
- Another hint - use the hint button!

Please note:

• You may need to download Flashplayer for this to work.
• There is an advert displayed before Groove Blender is displayed.

More Music websites:

Another great music creator is the BBC’s Onion Street World Music Mixers  which enables compositons in a number of cultural themes including Cuban, Celtic and African.

"I'd like to know if any schools have successfully abandoned photocopied newsletters and persuaded parents to view a website version - Benenden spends hours each week photocopying and collating, even though it goes on the website the same day, so It'd be good to hear if anyone has achieved my goal."

 Heather

Many Kent schools are now having ago at Podcasting.

The Downs CE Primary School,  in Walmer, have their very own radio station.
Downs FM is famous both here in Kent and now worldwide. Their DJs were at this Years ICT Conference in Maidstone interviewing many of the speakers. You can listen to the broadcast on their website.
http://www.downsfm.com/

Sussex Road Primary School, in Tonbridge,  have just started using Podium software to create Podcasts. Their pupils were also at the ICT Conference showing off their animations. They have put together a Podcast on their experiences at the conference.
The audio is here:
http://www.sussex-road.kent.sch.uk/media/mp3/ictconference2007.mp3 
The feed is here:
http://www.sussex-road.kent.sch.uk/podcasts/6JD040507154729/rss.xml 
Jason Dilling has created a video to explain to visitors how to subscribe to itunes:
http://www.sussex-road.kent.sch.uk/media/movies/itunespodcastsubsription.mov 

Morehall Primary School in Folkestone have also just started. They have named their Podcast 'Morehall Magic'.
The audio is here:
http://members.aol.com/hackerobe/Podcast/mmagic1.mp3
The feed is here:
http://members.aol.com/hackerobe/Podcast/mm1.rss

For ideas on how Podcasts are being used in primary schools visit:
http://www.learning2goblog.org/category/primary-podcast/

If your school is having a go at Podcasting please let us know by leaving a comment below 

The Digital Learning Community have a variety of video tutorials on their website. You will need Flash Player in order to view the tutorials.

Primary National Strategy Tutorials
Excellent for understanding how to use those Numeracy ITPs
 http://www.thedlc.org/pns_tutorial_1.shtml

Smart Board Turtorials
http://www.thedlc.org/tutorial_1.shtml 

WritingFix has interactive lessons for building stronger writing skills. It contains interactive writing games and prompts.
http://writingfix.com/forkids.htm 

You may also find the book page useful
http://writingfix.com/YA_Novels_and_Traits.htm