October 2009 - Posts
There’s never been a better time to get involved in The Great Plant Hunt and enjoy fun and free educational activities in the classroom, online and outdoors. There are plenty of things to see and do now or you can plan the project into your spring and summer term activities. The project is clearly linked to the national curriculum and can be used as a resource to link your teaching to the theme of ‘Earth’ for National Science and Engineering Week (12-21 March 2010) and the International Year of Biodiversity in 2010.
Treasure chests went to all UK state maintained primary schools in March and since then thousands of children have been plant hunting. It’s easy to get involved by accessing everything you need to take part on the website including all the teaching resources and extras such as films and interactive games – visit www.greatplanthunt.org
Childnet has worked with Clicker to present a simplified version of the animation featuring Captain Kara in an on-screen talking book format, covering the five chapters of the adventure and offering the opportunity for reinforcement of the key messages. Backing this up, Clicker's presentation of the SMART Rules focuses specifically on the five rules covered in the animation. Both resources are designed so that teachers can follow-up the story and the important e-safety messages within it.
Childnet has also teamed up with Widgit Software to produce a whole set of Widgit symbol materials presenting the SMART rules for use with those who use these communication tools.
Both of these resources reinforce the e-safety messages contained within Know IT All for Primary schools, and can be accessed at http://www.childnet.com/kia/sen/
Coming to a school near you?
Presently over 30 schools in Kent plan to install a Nestcam in their school grounds!
Listed below are the term 2 Kent Bird Watch 2010 Twilight meeting dates. An opportunity to learn more about the project and watch staff from Macam Limited set up in 15 minutes a Bird Box Nestcam.
Term 2 Twilight Meetings (All meetings start at 3.45 p.m.)
Tuesday 3rd November - Bredgar Primary School
Tuesday 10th November - Barming Primary
Friday 13th November - Whitfield Primary (1.30- 4.00 p.m.)
Wednesday 18th November - Woodlands Junior
Thursday 19th November - Horton Kirby Environmental Centre
Wednesday 25th November - St Mary's C.E Primary, Folkestone
What is "The Kent Bird Watch 2010" project about?
For more information view our project presentation click here or contact philip.bracegirdle@kent.gov.uk
With e-safety now focusing more prominately in the renewed Ofsted Framework (Safeguarding). Becta has created a self evaluation checklist that schools may find useful to check if all the e-safety elements are in place within their school. So why not open the attachment and start identifying areas that may need actioning within school. N.B If you can't see the attachment link, then click on the title and it should appear.
A new website to help parents understand more about their child's Internet use has been set up by Vodafone. http://parents.vodafone.com This has been developed in conjunction with Mumsnet.
The aim of the website is to help parents play an active and essential role in their children's digital world and to get to grips with their use of mobiles, Twitter and other online social media.The site explains the kinds of activities children will be undertaking online and offers some useful e-safety advice for parents to consider. A useful site to point parents to, particularly as schools find it hard to get parents to attend e-safety sessions. Why not add a link to your school website or mention it in the next newsletter.
On the 31st October this year there will be 1000 days left until the start of the London 2012 Olympic Games, and on the 3rd December there will be 1000 days until the start of the London 2012 Paralympic Games.
That means there are just 142 Mondays and 24 000 hours to go.
2012 Resources:
Get Set:
http://getset.london2012.com/
or for educator information:
http://getset.london2012.com/en/educators/get-set-and-the-get-set-network
Webcams of Olympic venues under construction:
Click on webcam to see a timeline. Drag on timeline markers (start/stop) to see construction over time.
www.london2012.com/plans/olympic-park/webcams/index.php
Kent 20 in 12:
www.kent20in12.org.uk/resources.php
London2012:
www.london2012.com/
James:)
ICT and the Outdoor Classroom
As from today schools will be able to order the popular and simple to use "I Got U Map" GPS datalogger from Commotion. The cost to schools will be £41.30 each. To late for inclusion in the new "hands on" catologue, interested parties should contact:
Joni Simington, Product Executive, Hands On Catalogues, part of the Commotion Group.
Email joni@commotiongroup.co.uk or call 01732 225800.
What is an I-Got-U-Map datalogger? Click here to visit the Mobile Action website
or e-mail: philip.bracegirdle@kent.gov.uk
Flashmeeting (video Conferencing) between your school and Horton Kirby Environmental Education Centre
Find out how nature is preparing for winter in this wonderful corner of North West Kent, five miles south of Dartford.
Equipment needed: webcam, microphone and speakers
Date: Friday 13 November 2009 (starting at 1.30pm).
Key Stages 1 and/or 2
Further details
Gary Cliffe, Centre Manager, will describe to pupils the range of plant and animal life on site, while Sarah Moy, Kent’s Eco-Schools Officer will promote her passion for sustainable schools. We hope pupils will tell us about their own school grounds so that we can compare sites.
For more information about this event, and other activities on offer, please visit www.kenttrustweb.org.uk/Policy/horton_term1-2-2009.cfm .
Technology offers many opportunities to creatively inspire and motivate teachers and learners, as well as providing a valuable media showcase for your school. The Digital Curriculum Team invite primary and secondary Headteachers and Senior Leaders to a free seminar and workshop to learn how your school can use technology to make an impact with a range of creative media.
For more details go to www.kenttrustweb.org.uk/advisory/ict_workshop2009.cfm
As a part of the restructuring of KCC web resources the KentNGfL web site will be moving. The majority of the content will stay the same. The web site address will be different. If you have links to any of the resources on your web site or have the KentNGfL as your homepage then these links will be redirected (or no longer work). If you have any resources listed in your favourites then these will also be redirected (or no longer work). Unfortunately the redirect will be to the new homepage. The move will not take effect until 1st December while the new site is being completed.
If you would like to preview/start using the new site, and perhaps give feedback on useful changes please try the link below:
The biggest difference that you might notice is a greater reliance on navigation on the left-hand side. Far more of the content is to be found by looking to the left.
If there is anything that you regularly use, but cannot find on the new site please do let us know and we'll move it across. Please be aware that all news and updated resources will only be added to the Kent ICT site in the lead up to January.
Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused whilst these changes are taking place.
Please direct suggestions to:
(We'll add a survey form soon).
Schools may already seen a flier sent by Tag Learning about buying the Sherston Mega Deal of 113 software (all site licences) for £1099. We would like to bring to your attention that if Kent Schools order before 23 October 2009, the costs drops to £799. (113 Sherston titles worth over £22k)
List of Titles
Order Form
http://www.taglearning.com/productdetails/Sherston+Resource+Pack.html
Schools interested need to contact me m.williams@blieducation.com 07894 412386 Orders must be placed before 23rd for the £799 price
Products highlighted on the Kent ICT blog and website are those recommended to us by schools and/or where suppliers have offered significant discounts to our schools. It is not our intention to tell schools what to buy and we acknowledge there are many other equally good products available. Schools should conduct their own evaluation of hardware / software prior to making decisions about purchasing.
Many teachers have asked where Dongle the Rabbit has gone. This popular e-safety activity has a new home on www.childnet.com/kia/parents .
Go to the Children and Young People section in the parent CD > 7-10s > Activity Centre.
or follow the link below to go straight to the Childre and Young People section and then > 7-10s > Activity Centre
http://www.childnet.com/kia/parents/CD/default.aspx?id=YPIntro
More Dongle resources can be found at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/help/web/staysafe
Quake Shakes shows you recent worldwide earthquake activity and displays them on a map with info on location, date, time and size. Earthquakes of various magnitudes are displayed with different coloured dots, giving you a dramatic visual record of the seismic activity during the past 24 hours or week. Data feeds come from the US Geological Survey website which is linked to a global network of seismic sensors, recording up-to-the-minute earthquake activity as they happen around the world.
This resource is made using Adobe AIR. AIR is a version of Adobe Flash which installs on your computer. This resource only works if installed on your computer. It is downloaded from the Adobe AIR marketplace. Quake Shakes gets its information from connecting online. There is a warning when installing that the resource may put your computer at risk as it connects to online information and the publisher is unknown. Having tried the resource I think the information that it shows is amazing.
Kent ICT is not responsible for the content on other web sites and accepts no liability for material downloaded from them. Please check with your ICT Subject Leader and ICT Technician before installing this program.
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/marketplace/index.cfm?event=marketplace.offering&offeringID=10242
James