Neil Lynch ICT - Recently Updated Pages

E Safety

txwebdesign — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:33:00 CST

Nice new esafety tools from Google
http://www.google.com/goodtoknow/

http://cybersmartcurriculum.org/- a full esafety curriculum available here for free-

A video created by Common Sense Media a great way to introduce kindergarten through Year 3 students to online safety.

http://www.childnet-int.org/kia/ a multi award-winning suite of education resources designed to help educate parents, teachers and young people about safe and positive use of the internet.
Currently there are 4 KIA resources for Parents and Carers, Secondary Schools, Primary Schools and Trainee Teachers and all four resources include content for young people.

Here is a Google doc presentation that Year 4 worked on collaboratively. Two classes worked on this it took about 2 hours- some children even added more content from home. It was a very productive exercise with 100% of the students fully engaged in the presentation . They were enthusiastic & loved being able to add their input without interrupting the presentation. It was a great success and something I am eager to repeat. The Presenation was then posted on their Google sites- an excellent way to collboratively work together and share classwork.

-peer to peer support and access to the shared knowledge and experience of the community -instant access to colleagues, some of who may have similar difficulties and concerns -access to help from other experienced practitioners and interested parties -up-to-date information
Below are some of the resources we used-

For Year 1&2 The UK based site http://www.thinkuknow.co.uk proved invaluable it used the character Hector to teach kids about sharing personal information in a nice way- makes the point without scaring them off using the internet. The only problem was being in an international school we could not access all the resources - the website is run by the UK police who are understandably very strict about who can access the site. I did however find a set of lesson plans for the Hector cartoons here

Hector the dolphin. an excellent way to teach esafety
to younger kids. Children love the music and it
sparked some great discussions about staying safe.
Just as important to teach young children about not
talking to strangers on-line as it is in the street.

Excellent set of resources available here from next generation learning- a one stop shop- with videos- parents info- lesson ideas resources it as it all.
http://www.nextgenerationlearning.org.uk/At-Home/Internet-safety/

E-safety games- nice set of flash games to reinforce classwork.
http://www.nwlg.org/esafetygames/
http://www.ikeepsafe.org/iksc_kids/
iKeepSafe provides families with all the tools, education, and resources they need to stay safe online and to implement an Internet safety strategy.

Brainpop also has a wonderful set of resources with a graded quiz at the end of each flash movie.
http://www.brainpop.com/technology/computersandinternet/onlinesafety/

A lot of quality links from the US. http://staysafeonline.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=67&item=56
Lesson plans (all ages) dealing with cyber bullying http://cybersmartcurriculum.org/cyberbullying/ncsa/lessons/
+ an abundance of materials on cyber bulling here.http://www.staysafeonline.org/content/cyber-ethics-materials
Lesson plans + materials (all ages) dealing with cyber safety http://www.staysafeonline.org/content/cyber-safety-materials
Lesson plans and materials dealing with cyber security http://www.staysafeonline.org/content/cyber-security-materials

CEOP (Child protection agency UK) also have a series of videos for older kids and parents. The two I found most useful are below- Some of the ones for older kids are quite hard hitting.. beware.
This video below is intended for a 8-10 assembly- We showed it to Year 5 & 6 .

This video for parents is excellent if not a bit hard hitting-

This video from the UK illustrates the dangers of cyber bullying and offers solutions to the problem.

Ryans story

ICT & Music

txwebdesign — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 21:47:19 CDT

AudioEditor from Creza http://www.creaza.com/audioeditor AudioEditor is designed to help you produce your own audio clips.
You can splice together your own version of a newscast, a radio commercial, or a radio interlude, play it back later, and compare it with the original.

Great lnkshttp://www.brightonline.org.uk/Music/index.html

http://www.rinki.net/pekka/monkey/#
Monkey Machine is a free online drum machine for creating drum loops and providing rhythmic accompaniment for musicians. Monkey Machine features are:

Over 20 high quality drum kits provided by Natural Studio and Hydrogen.
Extremely accurate timing.
Online drum beat database with over 10 000 downloadable drum beats.
Export drum beats as MIDI files.
Tap tempo.
Variable time signatures.

MP3myMP3- records whatever comes out of your computers speakers its freeware and does excactly what it says on the tin- by default, MP3MyMP3 tries to record from your microphone and not your sound card, so click on the Source button and choose Stereo Mix or Aux as the sound source. We uised it for recording compostion made on onion street music machine and the free version of Sony's superdooper music looper- (al;so try Freecorder - installs a toolbar)

http://www.oneswitch.org.uk/4/MUSIC/index-01.html- a range of free online and downloadable music programs.

Tink Tenori-on electronic instrument. Tink is free to download and can be interacted with in a variety of ways such as by head-tracker or one switch. To see a short demonstration, click on this YouTube video link. In essence Tink enables musicians to tinker with a 16 step sequencer that constantly plays and loops through the notes you place on a grid.
Download: Tink

Ten interacive music sites for primary kids here!
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-interactive-learning-websites-fun-games-music/

http://www.breakintheroad.com/ The perfect game for DJs, dance floor fanatics, or anybody who loves fresh beats. You play an aspiring DJ who gets the break of a lifetime - it's up to you to write a hot, new dance track for a huge party. Problem is, the party is tonight! So, hit the streets of London with your sampler and grab some "sounds of the street" to mix into a new song. Break in the Road features:

Easy to use mixing board
Creative animation and voice-overs
Email your mixes to friends

http://lab.andre-michelle.com/tonematrix a stunningly simple and beautiful thing. Year 3 music http://www.incredibox.fr/

http://www.audiotool.com/ make music right in your browser Y6 ICT music.

Learn about opera, explore chamber music with Brahms, and experience symphonic melody with Rimsky-Korsakov. Creative Kids Central offers several engaging online activities related to classical music, including games, activities and teaching resources.

www.kusc.org/kids/

Make music with fun online tool KissTunes. Simply choose an instrument and use the keyboard or mouse to play notes. You can record, edit and save tunes, and then share your masterpieces with others.
www.kisstunes.com

Audience Sounds is exactly that – a collection of fun and realisitic sounds that an audience could make: clapping, booing, ooohs and aaahs. It's easy to use. Just press the coloured button to hear the sound and download what you need.
www.audiencesounds.com

Its makers describe it as an experimental sound/vision musical instrument. Glitchscape is certainly a bit different. You make boxes and it turns them into music, which you can save and share.
www.glitchscape.com

http://www.rinki.net/pekka/monkey/
Monkey Machine is an online drum machine intented for music practice purposes.
Monkey Machine features:
High quality drum samples provided by Natural Studio.
Sample accurate timing.
Online beat database.
Tap tempo.
Variable time signatures.

or try http://www.drumbot.com/- An online drum machine for those who can’t find a real drummer to jam with.

Year 3 Music

One of the main tools we use is Drumsteps A great free piece of software developed by Department of Computer Science, Trinity College Dublin.

DrumSteps is a great way to compose music. You don't need to know notation, you just need an imagination and best of all it's FREE. it comes with tutorials and can also be found on the BBC website in a flash version.

Drumsteps

Games- try Mr Fastfinger- Zen guitar
http://www.guitarshredshow.com/main.html#home

Online Music Composer from
Jam Studio

I have just started using this in school with some great results. Jam Studio is an online music composing tool which can be used even by just about anyone to create some real good music. But a little tweaking and playing around with all the controls enabled some professional sounding tunes. For younger users getting some chords that work together can be a problem so we googled some Beatles songs and used the chords with surprising results.

Again the problem with the free version is saving ..the work can be saved online but to save work as an mp3 you may have to simply record from the playback through the speakers.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1497033- info on how to delay a radio feed

Paint & Play--

Sony's Super Dooper Music Looper
sadly we only have the free version at the moment but get round the inability to save music by recording student compositions through a mic to mp3. Kids love it.

Having alot of fun with this at the mo
the Tony b machine- more soon

http://www.tony-b.org/?tbm=2

ICT Tools

txwebdesign — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 21:47:51 CDT

http://www.imageloop.com-t is a web based service, meaning you don’t have to download anything to use the app. Basically the service they provide, is they give you a software in which you can create your own slideshows. But that is not everything that there is to Imageloop. There are a lot of other services they offer, such as unlimited free web storage, so you can host your images for free and add them easily to myspace, and other websites or blogs.(killer startups)

Make your own (or get the kids to make) a jeopardy quiz/ board game etc. http://www.superteachertools.com/

Enter the Group is a way to extend learning beyond the walls of your classroom. Use it to extend conversations, debates, and offer support through online discussion; help students (and parents) keep track of assignments and classroom events, keep track of and share files so students who are absent are never left behind, to collect shared resources and information (a kind of “digital textbook” that you create for/with your students); to expand on class topics with video; and to create a collaborative learning environment. Students can use Enter the Group to plan and organize projects that they are working on in groups, providing a virtual meeting space outside of the classroom to collaborate. Enter the Group is perfect for students who are out with an illness or to continue learning opportunities when pandemic illness or bad weather keeps us from the physical classroom (anyone had SNOW problems this year? Enter the Group provides a platform where students can continue learning and collaborating from any Internet-connected computer.(ilearntechnology)

http://simonhaughton.typepad.com/ict/2011/03/introducing-edmodo-my-first-experiences.html
Edmodo is probably most easily described as being a child-friendly version of Facebook designed specially for schools.
http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/ict/edmodo.htm
20 ideas for using Edmodo
7 interesting ideas
Great tips and tricks!
Simon haughtons blogs on Edmodo- highly recomended
Edmodo Explained
http://www.flickr.com//photos/simonhaughton/sets/72157626459660966/show/

SKYPE CLASSROOM DIRECORY
http://blogs.skype.com/classroom-pre-register/-"We're developing a free online directory to make it easy for teachers to connect with other teachers and resources from around the world. The directory will launch in December in English only".

http://langwitches.org/blog/2009/01/03/around-the-world-with-80-schools/
Around the World with 80 Schools started in January 2009 and is an ongoing project. The challenge is for an educator to connect with 80 schools from around the world via Skype (a free video conferencing tool).

FlashMeeting is an easy to use online meeting application, it allows a dispersed group of people to meet from anywhere in the world with an internet connection. Typically a meeting is pre-booked by a registered user and a url, containing a unique password for the meeting, is returned by the FlashMeeting server. The 'booker' passes this on to the people they wish to participate, who simply click on the link to enter into the meeting at the arranged time.
http://flashmeeting.e2bn.net/

https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTU4NTI3MDU5 keep all your files in one place accessible from anywhere - 2gb free.

http://www.teachingnews.co.uk/category/curriculum-areas/ict/

An anthropological introduction to YouTube

A social networking site that provides a private micro-blogging service specifically for schools and teachers.

2. Choose a default classroom name/code.
3. Add students to your network. A random password will be generated for each student. They login using your classroom code and their random password – which you also have the option to change, thus never entering personal details such as their name, age or email.
4. Start posting messages to your network.
5. There are some additional features you can use: • Share links in the ‘bookmarks’ section. • Change your avatar and bio in the avatar section.
6. Twiducate also has the ability for teachers to open and operate
multiple classes on the one account.

http://notaland.com
Nota has been used for educational purpose as an online collaboration tool that allows students and educators to instantly create and share virtually any kind of document -- presentations, notebooks, reports , artwork -- anything. Nota makes every kind of document and media work together -- easily, seamlessly and instantly. Users can integrate material from an almost endless and expanding list of sources:images, YouTube clips, clip art, text -- anything. There’s no software to purchase or install, and no limit to what you can express using Nota. And because Nota’s online, collaborative and real-time, student reactions, responses and ideas can be instantly integrated into the document.

Wallwisher

http://www.exploratree.org.uk/
Exploratree is a free web resource where teachers and students can access a library of ready-made interactive thinking guides, print them, edit them or make their own. Thinking guides can support independent and group research projects with frameworks for thinking, planning and enquiry. Exploratree has emerged out of our work on Enquiring Minds. (futurelabs) IPC mind mapping.

7 STEPS TO INITIATE A MOBILE LEARNING PILOT PROGRAM
STEP 1: Identify Potential Learning Objectives
To begin any mobile learning project, you need to first identify the learning objectives.

STEP 2: Shortlist Areas for Application for the Pilot
This step may have been identified along with your learning objectives in some cases. If not, it is a good idea to shortlist the potential areas of application you’d like to experiment on during your mobile learning pilot.

STEP 3: Define Success Criteria & Measurability
In order to measure whether your pilot has been a success or not, you need to put measurable goals in place. These will be your success criteria markers and will enable you to understand just how well your pilot performed based on your expectations when the project is over.

STEP 4: Evaluate Devices in Terms of Costs & Capabilities
There are various types of mobile devices in the market today. Based on your defined learning objective, you should be able to narrow down features to the top three to five critical requirements your device must have and make a selection that best suits your need.

STEP 5: Define a Budget for the Pilot Project
Your pilot project expenditures will include devices, wireless connectivity plans, training, and the technology support and solution. Talk to a few service provides and ask for proposals. This will help you figure out a realistic budget.

STEP 6: Identify Stakeholders and Champions
For your mobile learning project to be accepted and successful you need to have your teachers involved and on board. Identify a set of people who will facilitate mobile learning and those who will implement it.

STEP 7: Internal Discussion & Finalization
A few rounds of discussion with decision makers will be required to narrow down all the above points. Once finalized, you should have a document detailing your learning objectives, application subjects, success criteria and measurement, size of the project, length of the project, devices to be used, budget, list of stakeholders, plus a content outline and technology implementation plan.

http://bubbl.us/edit.php As with any mindmapping software, this tool provides a way of capturing discussions, planning sessions or ‘brainstorming’ activities in a mixture of multi-coloured diagrams – highlighting links between ideas or discussion points. The advantage of using the internet-based bubbl.us is that learners can collaborate on a document without being in the same place and that the intuitive application can be navigated without having to use a mouse. Mixing this with a voice tool (such as Skype, YackPack etc) could provide an even richer method of interacting around a shared document. Maps can then be saved, printed, e-mailed or shared more widely via the web.
Education scenario/possibility
Collaborating during idea generation activities, capturing discussion points, organising ideas, using mindmapping activities to share understanding of a particular topic or even mapping out the resources available to the learner for a particular project is possible with this software – but being able to create (for example) a mindmap of local historical events, could become much richer when collaborating between secondary and primary schools students, the local museum and parents and grandparents. Using this software can begin to extend the activities within the classroom to others outside and provide students with wider access to other experts and peers beyond their immediate environment. IPC mind mapping.

http://www.createascape.org.uk
A mediascape is composed of sounds, images and video placed outside in your local area. To see the images and video, and hear the sounds you need a handheld computer (PDA) and a pair of headphones. An optional GPS unit can automatically trigger the images, video and sounds in the right places.
To create a mediascape, you start with a digital map of your local area. Using special, free software, you can attach digital sounds, pictures and video to places that you choose on the map .
By going outside into the area the map covers, you can experience the mediascape. Using the handheld computer and headphones, you can hear the sounds and see the pictures and video in the places the author of the mediascape has put them. All sorts of exciting things can happen as you explore the mediascape. (futurelabs)- Ideal for the ICP topic Location.

http://www.go2web20.net/
A list of over 1000 web 2.0 tools

http://37signals.com/ - 30 day free trial
This is a collection of tools that make project management easier between different parties – and considering the number of different projects managed by teachers and learners, this may provide a useful suite. Basecamp provides tools for project management and collaboration; Campfire provides an instant messaging system designed for group interactions; Backpack provides information organising tools and calendars – all of which can be shared with remote collaborators.

From students managing their own projects, to accessing remote experts and resources, 37signals provides a wide range of tools from professional practice, presented in a way that is simple to use and to manage. By using web-based tools to organise learning activities, learners have greater flexibility in when they access them and when how they organise meetings, sharing resources and setting goals and assessments. Student controlled activities that involve collaboration and cooperation can be helped through the use of such tools.
(futurelabs)

Images

Always using google images & finding the results unsatisfactory? there are many ways to seach flickr
http://zoo-m.com/flickr-storm/ one of the many ways to seach flickr for quality images-
the others are listed here http://www.xmarks.com/site/www.zoo-m.com/flickr-storm/

http://www.picfindr.com/ The intention behind PicFindr is to simplify the process of finding stock photography, making PicFindr a kind of image search engine. In response to the search term you have entered, it accesses various image hosting websites. Importantly, it also lets you filter the resulting images according to how strict the Intellectual Property (IP) as ascribed per image - essentially finding images that you can reuse without cost or IP issues.
Education scenario/possibility PicFindr has many potential uses within the educational context. Although there are many image hosting websites, PicFindr is relatively unique as specifically a stock photography search engine - with a key benefit that it indicates how the images can be used (for example what publishing rights are linked to the image or how the image can be reused). It could be used as a general resource for teachers and learners when digital images are required. (futrurelabs)

http://picturesandbox.com- & http://www.taggalaxy.de/- are also great places to find quality images- students love using tag galaxy -Enter a keyword and Tag Galaxy will search Flickr for related images. You can either click the big ball of gas at the center of your screen to see some of the images, or you can check out one of the little related-tag planets orbiting the center of your tag galaxy, or solar system. Each planet is in motion, and you can navigate by dragging and dropping various parts of the screen. When you actually click on a tag to view the images, you can spin the ball around to find more images, and click an image to enlarge it. (Cnet)

http://www.bighugelabs.com/- BigHugelabs is a site that's home to over 40 tools that let you play with Flickr photos-yours and everyone else's. The tools do a wide variety of things to photos including adding text, adding a filter, creating a magazine cover, or making a motivational poster. Another feature is something called the Warholizer which allows the user turn a picture into Wharol-like poster art. (Cnet)

http://www.skrbl.com/132216840
http://www.svennerberg.com/2009/02/the-rise-of-zooming-interfaces/- zoom

powerbullet (swf)
Easily create slick Flash presentations for business, sales or educational uses. Simple drag and drop interface means no technical expertise required. Publish to the ubiquitous Flash format.
Easily create slick Flash presentations for business, sales or educational uses. Simple drag and drop interface means no technical expertise required. Publish to the ubiquitous Flash format. Drop in sounds (MP3 or WAV files), images (PNG, GIF, JPEG) or Flash files (SWF). Create animations on any element in the page. Create page transitions with the click of a button. Now with fullscreen playback, auto-advance, sound sync and executable creation.

ICT in the International Primary Curriculum (IPC)

txwebdesign — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 01:20:37 CDT

A wiki for pupils, teachers and parents in primary schools that use the International Primary Curriculum (IPC). This site is administered and promoted by a group of Year 5 & 6 school children. Anyone can add useful information. The idea is to create a 'one stop shop' of online resources that can be used to support all subjects and IPC topics. If you find something useful become a writer (click the sign up button) and upload the link and blurb to the appropriate page yourself. The idea is not to have endless pages of links but rather a collection of well described useful resources that we all can easily access. Ideally it would be great if every link added had the relevant IPC topic mentioned in the blurb to make searching the site very simple.

Digital story telling- using Photostory a Year 6 ICT project we have just finished. For most of the children English is not their first language- this proved to be a valuable language learning exercise which they all enjoyed- Many more here

A project created on the recent Japanese earthquake- The idea is for pupils to create a mini website using wikispaces on the recent earthquake in Japan.
http://sendai-earthquake.wikispaces.com/

IPC TOPIC_ "Money Makes the World Go Round"

Necessary tools:

-- a digital camera,

-- video editing software,

-- plenty of hard drive space to hold your photos and movie,

-- for longer movies, a place where you can record and leave the camera and set uninterrupted if you need a break,

-- optional: a tripod to keep the camera steady, adjustable lighting,

As you get started, please keep in mind the following tips:

Stop motion animation is fairly simple, but it's also time consuming. Don't expect to make a feature-length film, or even a 5-minute short, on your first attempt.
You'll want at least 10 photos for each second of film. Plan accordingly!
One of the more important rules of stop motion animation is that the camera cannot movie during shooting. Use a tripod or a solid surface where you can keep the camera stable.
Directions always say this, but read this step-by-step through once before getting started. That way, you'll avoid surprises later

A World Cup Ticket made in Paint.net by Year 4 using layers etc.

A great idea from http://www.what2learn.com/world_cup_2010/
There is a single resource needed to deliver this activity – the PowerPoint presentation ‘Ticket.ppt’ (see link)The first slide introduces the task and requires students to decide in pairs what the ticket should look like and what is should contain. This should lead to a class discussion on this topic.

The second slide provides the main task and clarifies the features the ticket needs to include. About halfway through their working time, students should be stopped and shown the final slide – a copy of an actual ticket for a match at the tournament. Following a class discussion on this students should return to and improve their own ticket designs.

We used Paint.net for the activity as we had just been using it to create Volcano & Star Wars posters see here

SCRATCH

To teach programming at primary there are a range of resources out there- so far I've used- roamer-beebots- logo- & now we have moved on to Scratch -

This is a simple Scratch program made for the IPC topic Chocolate- by a Year 3 student- As simple looking project that covered a lot of skills- including image/sound editing- internet research -importing sprites -file management- - the list goes on- It was fun to make!

Pop Art

PopArt by Year 2- made with Paint.net- ties in nicely with a number of IPC topics , Clothes (MP1) (We had t-shirts made), Visual Representations (MP2)- for a tutorial see http://www.designandtech.com/fotoshop/tutorials/julianopie/julian_opie_tutorial.htm its basically Julian Opie Style with a Twist. We used Paint.net for some of the effects.

PopArt by Year 2- made with Paint.net- ties in nicely with a number of IPC topics , Clothes (MP1)
(We had t-shirts made), Visual Representations (MP2)- for a tutorial see
http://www.designandtech.com/fotoshop/tutorials/julianopie/julian_opie_tutorial.htm its basically Julian Opie
Style with a Twist. We used Paint.net for some of the effects.

A Year 4 IPC topic Saving the World (Rainforests) / Habitats presentation done in Scrapblog. Scrapblog is an online mulitmedia scrapbook. it was ideally suited to our purposes as we needed to use a app that we could embed in the Student websites. Scrapblog now asks users to pay for certain images or 'stickers' as it calls them but we found a way round that by making our own png images (images with no visible background) in paint.net then uploading them to picassa.

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In class we built 3D farms using Google Sketchup to enhance the IPC topic ‘Food and Farming’.
Sketchup is a powerful, yet easy-to-learn, free computer-assisted design program (CAD) that allows for quick and easy 3D form creation. As you can see from the video, Y4 created some wonderfully detailed 3D farms in quite a short period of time. Also ties in with the IPC topics The Things People Do , Buildings (Structures) The Environment (Sustainability).

Imagine then we had a machine that could make the models we design- well its out there Reprap- RepRap is short for Replicating Rapid-prototype. It is the practical self-copying 3D printer introduced in the video below- a self-replicating
machine. This 3D printer builds the parts up in layers of plastic. This technology already exists, but the cheapest commercial machine would cost you about €30,000. And it isn't even designed so that it can make itself.

RepRap team are doing is to develop and to give away the designs for a much cheaper machine with the novel capability of being able to self-copy (material costs are about €350). That way it's accessible to small communities in the developing world as well as individuals in the developed world. Following the principles of the Free Software Movement they are distributing the RepRap machine at no cost to everyone under the GNU General Public Licence. So, if you have a RepRap machine, you can use it to make another and give that one to a friend... (RepRap) http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/apr/04/3d-printing-design

Year 4 mapping work - As part of the IPC topic explorers and adventurers we made collaborative interactive maps with customised icons in Google then inserted them into Google Earth. The maps both 2D and 3D were the embedded into our Google sites.google maps could also be used with other IPC topics such as Going for Gold (The Olympic Games), What does our World look like? (Big Geographical Picture) or even Black Gold (The Oil Industry)
Having problems embedding Google maps at the moment have a look in here instead http://sites.google.com/site/ipcexplorers/home

ICT / IPC PROJECT WORK
YEAR 6 WEB DESIGN (may take a minute to load- its worth the wait, promise)
British International School Vietnam
"Kids Guide To Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam"- created in just 10 hours by 4 girls aged 11 using drawings-photos-sounds-animations. The students really had fun making this website- the initial idea was that it should look as personal and original as possible- to achieve this they had to be convinced to draw their own navigation buttons and add as much of their own art- photos etc as possible. everything was uploaded onto www.wix.com and linked up and animated. This really was a valuable exercise combining a range of skills - eg photo editing- scanning uploading downloading, resizing adding effects, links not to mention the fantastic group work skills. Have a click around in the site its all here. Could be tied in with the IPC project Location.

Click on the about us page to find out more about the how the team worked together the and challenges that the team faced when building this site.

Click here to go to the next site

Twitter Guide-

http://www.stuartridout.com/post/531538889/tips-for-new-tweeters

Video in the Classroom

txwebdesign — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 22:40:12 CDT

http://clips.e2bn.org/

E2BN Clips: safe video and animation publishing for schools!
E2BN Clips is a very powerful learning tool that has great potential for involving young people in schools in a variety of curriculum areas; it helps to bring learning alive and give a real purpose to ICT.
Many children and young people will be familiar with the idea of producing a short video or animation and publishing it on video upload sites such as YouTube. However, because these sites are un-moderated many teachers are uncomfortable with directing learners to these sites as they may contain inappropriate content.
E2BN Clips proves learners with the opportunity to publish to a world-wide audience but gives teachers the security of knowing that all of materials have been check for ‘appropriateness’.
E2BN Clips allows learners to shape information and ideas and represent them to a worldwide audience and allows teachers to provide a real audience for learners’ videos without exposing them to inappropriate content.

http://techcrunch.com/2007/11/22/the-secret-strategies-behind-many-viral-videos/
An interesting article on how to get hits on Youtube- a few dirty tricks in there.

http://screenr.com/record-FREE quality online screencasting tool

Use Google docs to host your vids- https://sites.google.com/site/mistersill/docs_videotest

Making Movies
Planning to drop any tutorials I can find here -
Excellent seies of tutorial here for creating a 5 min short film & editing in Movie maker
http://bgsmoodle.com/bgsfilm/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogsection&id=5&Itemid=32
http://www.mediacollege.com/video/camera/tutorial/
7 steps
http://www.digitales.us/resources/seven_steps.php

MS- Digital storytelling pdf
Videomaker- YT channel http://www.youtube.com/user/videomaker
Shot Types

Google Tools

txwebdesign — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 20:54:22 CDT

Google Apps for Education (GAFE) Training& Resources
Google Apps' advanced collaboration and communication tools make it easy to help your students acquire the skills that will help them soar, in their education and out in the world. There's no hardware to maintain or software to install, no ads, and no cost for schools

Trying to convince your school to adopt GAFE? have a look here

Still not convinced why would you want to 'Go Google'?

Chad Kafka has put this presentation together which explains some of the benefits to schools -

The Singaporian Government must have been convinced as they have had made Google Apps avaiable to more than 30,000 teachers and staff members at over 350 schools

The Official Google guide to going Google

Decided that its a good thing? Then the next step is how to ........
Set up GAFE
from Ian Addison
here- ideas for use in the classroom- a series of tutorials, sharing pedagogical proccesses and products possible to create in the Google Apps for Ed suite of tools- from Daniel Rezac.

Google Certifed Teachers- full of resources and ideas- here here & here
+Official training from Google for Google apps- become a certifed Google Trainer
6 tests +course work all online to become a Google trainer = $90
GTA SYDNEY- CRAMMED WITH USEFUL GOODIES

Docs Community
This channel is a great resource for teachers to learn about Google Docs in more detail, learn from what other teach

ers are doing, and share your success stories for others to benefit from.

Google Tools For Teachers I&II

Self Grading Quizzes in Google Forms-Flubaroo

Grade online assignments in a single step!
Get reporting and analysis on student performance!
Email students their scores.
Designed by a teacher, for other teachers!

How long are your kids spending on websites/docs? https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/mokmnbikneoaenmckfmgjgjimphfojkd

Googledocs: On your Android, iPad or iPhone? Today you can start editing your Google Docs on the go. http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2010/11/editing-your-google-docs-on-go.html

http://20thingsilearned.com/- A great little Ebook by Google on the web and how it works.

BLOCKING GADGETS http://henrythiele.blogspot.com/2011/04/how-to-block-gadgets-from-sites-in.html

http://www.thegoogleclassroom.com/

Managed Learning Environment for Google Apps provides the ability to automatically synchronize your Google Apps student accounts and class groups with your Student Management System, to ensure that your students can use a single account and password to access all school resources (online and in-school), and that the classroom and student environment is consistent and set up automatically. Once students have their individual accounts created, the tools can configure each student’s environment to suit the classroom requirements. This can include set up of personal or shared folders, creation of personal Google Sites or access rights to the class site, etc.

Classroom activities - A brief overview of Google products and ideas for integrating them into classwork (all grades)
http://www.google.com/educators/all_grades.html

A comprehesive list of Google tools http://bit.ly/h6VHM1

http://googleapps.blogspot.com/- News tips and tricks for Google

Sketch Up & Google Earth- a class project by Year 5 British International school Vietnam
teachers guide
http://www.3dvinci.net/teacherguide/Teacher_Guide.htm

This Google Site has been set up by Dr. Helen Barrett to focus on the use of Google Apps to create ePortfolios. On this site, there are instructions on how to use the different elements of Google Apps to maintain e-portfolios.
http://sites.google.com/site/eportfolioapps/

https://docs.google.com/templates?pli=1

Using Magic Fill and Google Lookup in Google Spreadsheet- by kevin Mc Laughlin (now a distant relation of mine)

-----------------------------------------------------------
Sandbox for gtauk10- members only
www.gtauk2010.com

Action Plan Tracker- members only
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AuUXYrzjo7sYcEdseFRwSmJXTnN1QUpuV1JpQ1VNWWc&hl=en&pli=1#gid=21
https://docs.google.com/View?id=ddcnnpw7_35pf97j6fn

More Google Gear for the Classroom

http://sites.google.com/site/cuegli/events/2010-05-07/docs
http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Teacher-Center

How to search effectively presentations-
https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=ajkxsmd6j9bm_77f85x2qgz
https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=0AS5FXGY6G79lZGRzZDd6OWdfOTMyZjlzenduaGY&hl=en
http://www.google.com/educators/p_websearch.html

http://edte.ch/blog/interesting-ways/- the interesting ways series from Tom Barrett- many many great ways to use ICT in the classroom it really doesn't get much better than this hundreds of quality ideas all in one place - Why not listen to a nice tune while you browse............... a classic from Jamaica

Get to Know Your New Class
Use a Learning Platform in the Classroom
Support Spelling in the Classroom
Teach Reading Comprehension in the Classroom
Use Web Conferencing in the Classroom
Make Your Classroom a Sparkly Place to Learn
Use Audio in Your Classroom
Use Wallwisher in the Classroom
Support Writing in the Classroom
Use Google Wave in the Classroom
Use an iPod Touch in the Classroom
Nintendo Wii in the Classroom
Use a Wiki in the Classroom
Use a Visualizer in the Classroom
Use Twitter in the Classroom
Use Wordle in the Classroom
Use Your Pocket Video Camera in the Classroom
Use Google Docs in the Classroom
Use Google Earth in the Classroom
Use a Nintendo DS in the Classroom
Use Search Engines in the Classroom
Use Your Interactive Whiteboard in the Classroom
Prezi in the Classroom Use Voicethread in the Classroom
Use the iPad in the Classroom
Use Google Search in the Classroom
Use Google Maps in the Classroom

MAPS & G.Earth
Google Maps is a powerful, user-friendly mapping tool available on the internet and viewed in your web browser. In addition to driving directions and local business information, Google Maps also provides terrain maps, satellite imagery, and (in places) a 360 degree photographic “street view” of the real world. Using the “My Maps” feature students and teachers can also collaborate to create their own custom maps by adding new placemarkers that include text, images, and video. Custom Google Maps can be shared by copying a simple web link or embedding the map in a class website.
http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6020569&s_cid=16

Just out............a Google Earth Site for Educators (from the people at Google Earth)
http://sitescontent.google.com/google-earth-for-educators/

Google Earth Tips ansd trickshttp://sites.google.com/site/gtaukge/tips-tricks

Literacy and G Earth/maps-
http://www.googlelittrips.com/GoogleLit/Home.html

Good safe seach options

KidRex is a fun and safe search for kids, by kids! KidRex searches emphasize kid-related webpages from across the entire web and are powered by Google ...
http://www.kidrex.org/

Free highly recomended child browser.
The KIDO'Z Kid's Web Environment is the safe, easy and fun way for young kids to surf their favorite sites, watch videos, play games, send emails, ...
http ://kidoz.net/

Searching Google Top Tips
(http://blog.hubspot.com/blog)

Augmented Reality

txwebdesign — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 21:55:11 CDT

Augmented Reality in Schools

A project by a school in the Uk-
St Mary's in Norton-le-Moors was commended at the Learning Without Frontiers festival for use of 'augmented reality' lessons. Using so-called 'semacodes' on school visits, they accessed object-related information on a hand held console.

https://sites.google.com/site/zooburstsite/home
In my own school we recently created a series of adventure stories using ZooBurst, a digital storytelling tool that is designed to let anyone easily create their own customized 3D pop-up books. The books can be inspected from any angle from with a 3D space, and rotating around a book is as easy as dragging and dropping your mouse. In addition some characters "clickable," allowing you to learn more about individual characters within a story. You can choose to experience a ZooBurst book in a number of ways, including in Augmented Reality

"Email is that thing your Dad uses."

Lynx in London
.............An angel, generated using augmented reality technology, fell to earth and appeared to interact with the unsuspecting humans, creating a stir and a viral YouTube clip that has since been viewed more than 750,000 times.

Parental Involvement

txwebdesign — Tue, 31 May 2011 03:27:04 CDT

Why technology?

To game or not to game

Currently Year 2 are piloting the project. Recently we send home a Bee Bot- instruction booklet- and an acivity exercise book which the children can fill in with their parents.

Giving children foused tasks that they can integate with thier own toys at home to make it fun is the goal. for example building a maze from lego and programming the path etc. The children are very exceited about the project and are even naming the Bee Bots, giving them a new lease of life.

CPD

txwebdesign — Sun, 22 May 2011 21:04:22 CDT

180 free and simple 5 minute computer lessons that are emailed to you one day at a time
from September to June.

Inspiration from Hall Davison to use digital media in the classroom.- This video would be a great intro to http://www.ictcpd4free.co.uk/course/view.php?id=20- the ICTcpd4free- Exploring digital media course for teachers. http://www.learnitin5.com/

http://www.speedofcreativity.org/resources/videos-for-pd/
Free CPD videos on a range of subjects related to ICT

http://educationaltechnology.ca/couros/1480 90+ Videos for Tech. & Media Literacy by Alex Couros

ICT & ESL

txwebdesign — Thu, 19 May 2011 02:10:57 CDT

http://www.brainpopesl.com
BrainPOP ESL is an educational resource which features games, lesson plans, activities and animated movies. BrainPOP ESL is designed for all English Language Learners (ELL) including: students of English as a Foreign Language (EFL), English speakers of other languages (ESOL). It is a comprehensive tool for educators teaching English, covering all the skills such as reading, writing, vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation.
However...
Since it is a beta product, it is free of charge only during its beta phase.
It provides units for only level 1.(http://teachweb2.wikispaces.com)

An app that literally brings its users “talking pictures.” Essentially, Fotobabble attaches an audio caption to any image you can upload- great for use with younger learners. Just upload a photo, record your voice, and send or embed away. It is very simple to use and has really fun results! The only downside for use in education are: 1. on the home page of Fotobabble you can see other members creations, at the time of writing they are all clean but I would hate to send my kids here without knowing exactly what content they would run into; 2. To use Fotobabble as a student, you must first sign up. This requires an email address (http://ilearntechnology.com)

http://twist.channel4.com/words#- elementary/beginner make simple sentences

http://www.thenounproject.com/- nouns lots of nouns........

Storybird presents a free fun tool for families that let’s kids or adults to create picture books using a simple interface and clipart graphics. The site provides all the tools necessary and all you have to provide is the story. Two (or more) people create a Storybird in a round robin fashion by writing their own text and inserting pictures. They’re not all great, but the characters in the art gallery are cool enough to hold some interest.
They then have the option of sharing their Storybird privately or publicly on the network through a worldwide library.
You can’t print yet – but given how professionally done the site is that there will soon be an option to have a nice color book of your story professionally printed and sent to you for a fee

http://zimmertwins.com/movie/create
The Zimmer Twins is a neat site for introducing elementary school students to making simple animated video stories. On the Zimmer Twinssite students can create a story from scratch or complete one of the "cliff hanger" story starters. Students do not need to have any drawing skills in order to create a story as all elements are added to the video through a simple drag and drop interface. Students select settings, characters, character actions, emotions, and text styles then drag those elements into the storyboard. Students then arrange those elements and type words into the conversation bubbles where appropriate

Unlock the educational power of comics

More than just the funny pages

Teach a wide range of critical skills
Adapt lessons from any subject
Great for K-12, university students, ELL and children with autism

www.bitstrips.com

http://www.lyricstraining.com
Lyrics Training is an easy and fun method to learn and improve your foreign languages skills like english through the music and lyrics of the songs.

Pre School English

http://kindersay.com/
Kindersay is a free online video website designed to help preschool kids & English as Second Language (ESL) children learn English words.
Over 500 online activities are available in a special Word Show format.

Language Guide a fun visual tool to learn vocabulary

With over A THOUSAND educational games and activities for children aged up to ten years old! A safe place to play and learn.

http://www.uptoten.com/kids/uptoten-home.html
-
ToonDoo in EAL

Toon Doo is a great way to help children who are learning English, getting tkids excited about English and encouraging them to use it outside of school hours can at times be a challange. Here is an example of how we used it in school.
https://sites.google.com/site/toondooyear3/

http://www.22frames.com/
The web offers a world of quality videos for our enjoyment and enlightenment. Captioned and subtitled videos, in particular, can be especially helpful in different ways for a large population of Internet users. A problem, however, is that such videos are generally scattered and/or mixed with all other videos across the Internet. Up until now, there was no central place to easily and reliably search for and discover such videos across multiple video hosts.

A load of excellent primary school Language resources here- http://www.gameclassroom.com/language-arts-games From days-of-the-week questions for kindergarteners to geometry problems for sixth-graders, GAME CLASSROOM offers fun, informative ways to build on what kids are learning in school.The site's organization makes it easy to find age-appropriate activities. Parents will also find creative ideas about how to teach subjects to kids in the site's homework help sections

Primary Creative Writing

BBC English Resources for Primary aged kids. TONNES of Liteacy resources ages 4-11
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/websites/4_11/site/literacy.shtml

Writing Fun A MUST for teachers. This website motivated my students to enhance their writing skills.

Scholastic have some very nice primary aged materials here

Story starter- Myth creator etc. more here............ http://www.scholastic.com/kids/stacks/games/
younger kids ............http://www.scholastic.com/parents/play/games/

Inspire Creative writing - (see Literacy Section for lot's more ideas)
http://www.reasonablyclever.com/?page_id=29 your own lego person
http://www.ugo.com/games/superhero-generator-heromachine-2-5 your own superhero

Curriculumbits is the Web page that can help know-all-teacher and any other teacher who is looking for inspiration for their classes.
This online resource offers a great quantity of totally free interactive multimedia material.
Its online library contains games, quizzes, animations and videos in a variety of subjects that include Art & Design, Biology, Chemistry, English, French, Geography, German, Physics, Mathematics or Physical Education to mention some.
ESL here

Quizzes

http://quizicon.com/home- Great quizzes especially - The 100 most common words in English are? Tough question, isn't it? We present you today an amusing online game where you can practice and learn the 100 most used words of the language. there are loads of other decent quizzes thatcan be used for ESL activities. Other quizzes here sorted by level http://www.teflgames.com/games.html TEFL games has lots of other interactive acivities for the TEFL classroom.

http://www.sporcle.com/games/category/language- lots of great language quizzes here - eg 100 most common words/ idioms etc- all with atime limit- a great filler/warmer/plenary etc.

Have students make their own quizzes etc here free 30 day trial with http://www.quia.com/

http://www.piclits.com
A creative writing site that allows the user to pair pictures with words. Ideal to use with an interactive whiteboard.
“The object is to put the right words in the right place and the right order to capture the essence, story, and meaning of the picture.”
An interesting creative tool for your inner poet. It gives you a picture as inspiration and you can create an emotional response to the picture by dragging some keywords and punctuation onto the picture, or by typing directly on to it. Good for a short, creative activity for Language. There is a gallery of pictures to choose from, so your creations can go on and on. (http://www.educationtechnologyblog.com)

What it is: Grammaropolis is a fun find that helps students learn the parts of speech. In Grammaropolis, all of the characters are a different part of speech. Students will “meet” Adverb, Linking Verb, Pronoun, Adjective, Preposition, Slang, Noun, Conjunction, Interjection, and Action Verb. Each character is personified with personalities inspired by their grammatical roles in a sentence. The characters interact with each other the same way that parts of speech interact in a sentence, brilliant! Each character has a character card that tells a story about them. Students can watch short Grammaropolis videos starring the characters (parts of speech) that live there. Students can take Grammaropolis quizzes, complete word sorts, and color the characters of Grammaropolis in an online coloring book in the games section. Students will enjoy the fun Grammaropolis song featuring all of the characters of Grammaropolis. Coming soon, students will be able to read a book series starring the Grammaropolis characters. (http://ilearntechnology.com)

http://www.fotobabble.com/

A bit more fun is http://blabberize.com- the same as above but here you can make the mouth move.(30sec limit) or check out voki (below).

10/10
http://www.learnenglish.org.uk/ a portal that links to all British Council websites for teachers and learners of English - just one web address to remember. (ALL AGES)

http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/elt.html
All the videos deal with ELT/ESL and provide loads of great sites and extensive tips and videos on how to use them. HIGHLY RECOMENDED!

Yolango.com is a new way for English language learners from around the world to immerse themselves in a wide variety of authentic and interesting videos. What makes Yolango different from other sites, however, is that all of our videos have been carefully transcribed and captioned. What’s more, Yolango captions are clickable, enabling users to receive definitions, usage examples and world level translations in 13 different languages for words they don’t know or would like to study further. Every video at Yolango also offers several challenging interactive games that build users’ listening, vocabulary, spelling and comprehension skills. Users compete to earn points and rise to the top of the Scoreboard.

http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/ (OLDER STUDENTS) Excellent site loads of news articles transforemed into fantastic EAL activities clickthe link following this to learn how to use it http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/breakingNewsEnglish/index.html

http://www.teflclips.com/
58 telf video lesson plans- a site dedicated to the possibilities for YouTube and other video sharing sites in the classroom. Its by http://www.jamiekeddie.com/ who has lots of other ideas for EAL in his own site.

http://www.voki.com/ Talking avatars- Some ideas when using this in the classroom from Helen Otway-

Students can create avatars that are similar in looks or personalities and record a message that tells about themselves.
Students can exchange these avatars with e-pals either within their own setting or anywhere in the world.
Students can generate questions to ask their avatar e-pals.
ESL (English as a Second Language) students can use the speaking avatars to practice and listen to their speech. They may use the computerised voice first then record their own.

The following sites from Jenevr Schoor

English Central turns popular web videos into fun and effective language learning experiences. My students love the idea of listening to their pronunciation mistakes. It is a great website to learn different kinds of pronunciations through videos.

Lyrics training Have fun learning English and listening to your favourite song. Teenagers love this website.

Breaking news Lesson Plans and Podcasts for studying current events and news. Find really interesting news to improve students listening, reading, writing and speaking skills.

How to teach Phrasal verbs Learning phrasal verbs is finally interesting for my students.

10 days in Manchester Wonderful website to travel and learn English at the same time. Students learn how to check in at a hotel, ask for directions, phone their boss, register at a conference etc. TEENS +

Vocabulary exercise and word order Students learn new word and complete a mixed-up sentence exercise to put the parts in order to form a sentence.

Nonstop English practise English language skills with many interactive grammar and vocabulary tests to build vocabulary for fun. New exercises are added every week. These are my best website to motivate students. I really hope you enjoyed them. Now it´s your turn. Which websites do you use with your students?

ICT Early Years

txwebdesign — Thu, 12 May 2011 22:28:11 CDT

Phonics-a great place to start is www.mrthorne.com then follow up here http://www.familylearning.org.uk/phonics_games.html has a range of links below to the free phonics games. Have lots of fun while developing their phonic knowledge and skills.
http://www.letters-and-sounds.com http://www.funfonix.com/games/

an amazing, colourful and quirky online subscription service hosting all our software dedicated to Early Years and SEN pupils. Schools and nurseries can now, at the click of a button, access all the activities we have developed for the Early Years Foundation Stage.

Loads of online books to enjoy - 10/10

Interactive alphabetworks well with the ghost game +Inital sound http://www.kiddonet.com/gb/flash/phonics/Intro.html

Early literacy in 4 languages play and learn letters, numbers, colors, shapes and more.
It’s fun and easy

On the Woodlands Junior School's game site you will links to hundreds of games appropriate for use by elementary school students. The games are divided into three categories; maths, literacy, and science. Each category is further divided by topics specific to each subject
Nice early phonics games from Kent here

Hooked on phonics Youtube Channel

http://www.ziggityzoom.com/

Games: a collection of witty games including helping a baby elephant find his mummy or feed a monster. There are also printable games.

Colour Pictures: hundreds of pictures that can be painted online or printed off.

Interactive stories: hilarious stories in English with nice illustrations and a very attractive font style for the children. Some of the stories also include sounds that tell the story while moving the pages forward.

Activities: give a boost to the creativity of the children using different printables with which they’ll be able to do amazing arts and crafts.

Explore your World: printable material with different objects and the name of the object (in English) besides it. This is recommended for the learning of new vocabulary.

and much more!

http://ictearlyyears.e2bn.org/ Use the Planning area of this website to find out how you can plan for ICT so that it underpins each principle of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS).
The Resources area is full of training and support materials to help you develop effective uses of technology within your settings. This website has arisen out of development and practice of using technology in the Early Years at Homerton Children's Centre.

ECE
Learn colours by following the space adventures of Billy and Splodge in Our Colourful World. Players have to identify the colours of the planets they visit. Also from The British Council, try singing along to the I Can Sing A Rainbow song.
http://www.britishcouncil.org/kids-stories-colourful-world.htm and http://www.britishcouncil.org/kids-songs-rainbow.htm

Cyberstart is a fun and easy way to teach toddlers how to use a mouse using some basic shapes. It does not use the keyboard at all, and you do not need to be able to click the mouse. You simply move the cursor over the screen, matching up colors and shapes.
larryloveland.com

http://www.literacycenter.net/lessonview_en.php

This online site provides plenty of information and games for young children to improve their reading and writing skills. It includes a brief description of their mission and aims and the ways in which they serve lessons to millions of children all around the world. You will also find a list of the ten promises that they offer children who visit their site including educational responsible products, that they will be mindful of the language and cultural differences and plenty of others. There is a section that offers instruction for parents and teachers, where they will find lots of recommendations and useful advice.(killerstartups).

Planning for ICT in the Foundation Stage - Example lesson plans
http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6019525&s_cid=16

A wealth of early years resources here: again with a very useful looking planning area
http://www.kenttrustweb.org.uk/kentict/content/earlyict/

Worksheetlab.com, a database of free printable activities for pre-school and kindergarten children. Worksheets can be sorted by category, theme, level and activity type.
Most of the worksheets will help younger kids practice and learn skills -- such as counting and writing letters.
The site's activity-based worksheets can help make learning math and writing fun.
http://www.worksheetlab.com/

Fisher Price: Online Learning Games for Infants, Toddlers, and PreSchoolers. Site is geared more towards toddlers and infants.

Nick Jr: Find favorite Nick Jr Characters & Games here: Blues Clues, Dora, Diego, Backyardigans, Wonder Pets, and more!

Noggin: Interactive website where toddlers can play online with Noggin Characters – Wubzy, Pinky Dinky Doo, Little Bear, Little Bill, and more!
PBS Kids: Find all of the PBS Kids Characters on this site. Barney, Dragon Tales, Curious George, Clifford, Caillou, and more!

Playhouse Disney: Your child will have fun interacting with their Favorite Playhouse Disney Characters like: Pooh, Mickey, Little Einsteins, and more!

Sesame Street: No toddler "best of the best" list is complete without a mention of Sesame Street - the same goes for a top toddler websites list. Sesame Workshop is the online version of Sesame Street. In addition to games, stories, art, and music sections geared towards children, Sesame Workshop also features Elmo’s World online. Everyone’s favorite monster, Elmo, has his very own online world. Additionally, the Sesame Workshop site also has an information-rich parent’s section.

Kneebouncers: You and your toddler can go on an underwater adventure, play an instrument, go on a train ride, and even play peek-a-boo online. Kneebouncers was designed by parents with the purpose of combining fun with educational activities. The site is bright and vivid and it features a colorful cast of characters: Caesar, Sly Cat, Foo Foo, Freddy, and Horatio serve as your playmates at Kneebouncers.

Sprout Online: All of your child’s favorite Sprout Character related games and activities can be found here. Bob the Builder, Noddy, Angelina Balerina, Jay Jay, and more!

The Playground: The Australian Broadcasting Corporation characters and games for you child to play with. Bananas in Pajamas, Mixy, Shaun the Sheep, Daniel Cook, and more!

Additional Interactive and Educational for 3-5 Year olds

Dress Up Me: Requires some adult supervision & navigation. Dress up & makeup games for girls with hundreds of cute girls, dolls and princesses. Games with popular characters like Bratz, Hannah Montanna & more

Julia’s Rainbow Corner- Fun and Games: Kids can play all kinds of educational games and fun: Numbers, Fun for Brains, Alphabet, Animals, Create something fun, even learn about how to care for the earth!

KidsCom Jr.: Another website for kids and preschoolers that teaches internet safety, matching, identify what’s different, and more.

Science With Me: Science Website for Kids. Science with me is a free educational website for kids to learn science. Play fun science experiments & kids science projects for curious elementary school kids.

Scholastic.com: Check out Kids Games, enter contests and sweepstakes, test your skills and knowledge about books, try out a writing activity, join a club, and express your opinions. There’s always something fun for kids to do.

Starfall: Starfall is an educational alternative to other entertainment choices for children.

StoryPlace – The Children’s Digital Library: Spanish & English versions. Listen to interactive children’s stories, play with on-line activities, print out take-home activities, reading list and more. StoryPlace: the Children’s’ Digital Library

The Uptoten.com website is geared for children from birth through age 10. Boowa and Kwala serve as your guides for content designed for toddlers. Featuring over 500 games, more than 50 songs, and a variety of online stories, the Boowa and Kwala page is sure to provide you and your toddler with hours of fun. In addition to the fun and games, Uptoten.com also features ideas and advice for parents, an online toy store, and the Boowa and Kwala club.
kidspsych: I like this site because of the big bold playful style. The interface is good and works well for those little hands trying to navigate either with a trackpad or adult sized mouse- it allows mistakes. Games for toddlers and Key Stage 1 Children.

(thanks to www.docstoc.com for this list)

Follow the links below to the free phonics games. Your child will have lots of fun while developing their phonic knowledge and skills.

ICT & Geography

txwebdesign — Tue, 10 May 2011 20:21:41 CDT

Test your knowledge of cities
and countries.
Click as close as possible to locations
on the map. Speed counts!

WARNINGAddictive!

GEOCACHING is a real-world outdoor treasure hunting game. Players try to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, using GPS-enabled devices and then share their experiences online. (Guide to the Game)

http://www.othersideofworld.com/
fun, free interactive digging tool to discover the furthest
point on earth. Imagine the Earth as an orange. What happens if you dig straight down?
Where will you reappear?
Dig with Animole and find out!

Viewing outer space- aside from looking at space with google earth, this blog provides a very informative place to find some other ways to explore outer space on the web. Ideal for the IPC topic Mission to Mars (astronomy), IPC Our Place in Space (Astronomy).

INCREDIBLE site, We Choose the Moon. The site drops students right into history where they get to witness, and take part in the Apollo 11 launch and mission. Time travel might not exist yet, but I’m telling you, this site is the next best thing. Students actually hear all of the chatter from Mission Control, control the launch, view all 11 stages of the mission, read mission transmission, and follow the mission in “real-time”. I cannot say enough about how truly awesome this experience is for students. At each stage, students can explore more in-depth by looking through actual pictures from the mission, videos (including JFK’s We Choose the Moon speech), and a “map” of the stages Apollo 11 took to get to the moon. I wasn’t alive to witness this piece of history first hand, but I can tell you that this interactive gives me goosebumps, makes me appreciate the giant leap that our country took, and makes me swell with pride. Not something a textbook can deliver.(ilearntechnology)

http://www.childrensuniversity.manchester.ac.uk/interactives/science/earthandbeyond/

Extreme Planet Makeover is a simulation where students can design a custom planet. As they create their own custom planet, they will begin to notice what makes a planet habitable or not, and the unique features that must be in place for life. Extreme Planet Makeover can be used with the whole class using a projector-connected computer or interactive whiteboard. Invite each student to make an adjustment to the planet. With each adjustment, students can describe the ways that the planet has changed. The finished class planet can be used as the base for a creative writing prompt

The Earth and Beyond!
http://cdnpyp6.blogspot.com/

http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/themes/space/index.htm
A wide range of ideas and resources to help you when you are teaching children about Space.

If you'd like to know what it's like to be a Martian, here's your chance. Created by NASA, Be A Martian has games, photos, maps and other resources on the Red Planet to explore. Join up and become a citizen... or just have a look around.
http://beamartian.jpl.nasa.gov

Explore the fiery heart of our Solar System with The Sun in Motion. Observe phenomena such as solar flares and speculas, watch IMAX movie clips of various aspects of the sun, and learn about the chemistry behind the giant fireball – all from the safety of your classroom.
www.thesuninmotion.com

Use your maths skills to launch into space with Space Shuttle Launch! Select your 'mode of operation' – addition, subtraction, multiplication, etc. – then simply click on the correct number to launch the shuttle.
http://www.playkidsgames.com/games/shuttleLaunch/shuttleLaunch.htm

http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/en/kids/
NASA Space Place provides elementary school science teachers with a nice collection of hands-on projects that they can use in their classrooms. The projects could also provide good activities for parents and students to do together at home. The games section of NASA Space Place is a good resource to link to your classroom website for students to access at home.(freetech4 teachers) - IPC Our Place in Space (Astronomy)

Teaching Volcanoes, (IPC Active Planet) ?
Suppose you'll want a 3D cross section, revolving globe with active volcanoes marked on, perhaps you like to start your own eruption in an animation? But this site gives you all of the above. It's exactly the type resource we'd use all the way through any Volcanoes topic.(topicbox.org)

A volcano word cloud made in Tagxedo.com (right)

http://urbanext.illinois.edu/earth/index.cfm
Shake, Rattle and Slide explains the science behind earthquakes, volcanoes and glaciers. Information is both text and audio. The site includes many fun activities, like building your own volcano, testing the power of an earthquake, and making a mountain with a glacier.

http://www.whiteboardblog.co.uk/2010/04/icelandic-volcano-links/- links an info about the icelandic volcano .................including an Interactive Map of the Ash Cloud,
As an interesting discussion point, it’s worth considering the CO2 emitted normally by the Aviation industry compared to the CO2 emitted by the volcano. Add to that the Co2 saved by halting flights for several days. Interesting graphic here
Radar Image of Ashcloud,
Watch the volcanic eruption in Iceland via webcam from a safe distance :
Here you can see a live feed of photos from a camera located in Þórólfsfell, which has a view over the river Markarfljót and the glacier Eyjafjallajökull where the eruption is:

For information on what a volcano is and how it forms, here are some other links;
BBC’s animated Volcano page, and live update page

National Geographic – Inside a Volcano Video

Heinemann – How Volcanoes Form Video
Interactive Volcano Explorer from Discovery Channel – explore and build your own volcano

How Volcanoes Work –NASA SDSU
An interesting page is the Active Volcano Map – Using the Google API to explore current active volcanoes around the world.
all links above from (www.whiteboardblog.co.uk).

Great site to support teachers and upper KS2. Links to Volcano based sites from around the world. We like the Students section to the left where there are explanations and a useful and exhaustive glossary.
http://www.volcanoes.com/

A great map of Volcanoes and lots of data including names and dates of eruptions. There is a weekly / monthly report and lots of photos of the craters, cones and lava domes. The photos of underwater erruptions making new islands are really dazzling. (topicbox.org)
http://www.volcano.si.edu/

MAPS mashup-http://www.kinomap.com/ combining video, maps and more

http://www.scribblemaps.com/
Scribble Maps is a website that lets you scribble, draw, and annotate over Google maps. Scribble Maps even lets you print your maps, save them, embed them on your website,-(quick example below)- blog, or wiki or save them as jpeg images to your computer. Sweet, huh?! In addition to annotating over maps, you can also add place markers with titles and descriptions, and add images to the map. Maps can be viewed as regular maps, terrain maps, hybrid maps, or satellite maps making it pretty ideal for every classroom need. (http://ilearntechnology.com)

GoogleMaps..This is a map of the flight of Amy Johnson in 1930 it was made collaboratively in class but we had a few issues saving as the icon kept reverting back to Google icons. We edited, re sized and changed the image type to PNG in Paint.net then uploaded the images to our Google sites which gave us a url that we sould use to customise the icon. we then searched for images from the location circa 1930. This map can also be viewed in Google earth and the 3D map embedded in Google sites. For instructions see http://sites.google.com/site/ipcexplorers/making-icons

(Year 4) Embedding 3D Google Earth/ Maps into Google sites.

Instructions

Make a MapGo to Google Maps (UK version,US Version), chooseMy Maps, use theCreate a new maplink, add any place markers, lines or
areas you want to display, give it a title, make sure the map is public butdo not saveit yet.
Copy your Map's KML URLJust above the map on the Right right-click theView in Google Earthlink and copy the URL (Copy link location
in Firefox,Copy shortcutin Internet Explorer - other browsers provide similar wording). Save the map using theSavebutton.
Embed the KML Gadget on your Google SiteSign in to your site and edit the page you want the map to appear on. Use theInsertbutton followed
byMoreand use theAdd by URLlink. In the URL box add the following URLhttp://code.google.com/apis/kml/embed/embedkmlgadget.xmland
use theAddbutton.
Paste your Map's KML URLIn theKML or My Maps URLbox paste your map's KML URL you copied in step 2, choose2D (Google Maps)in
View Mode, set any other settings you want (e.g. height and width) and use theOKbutton.

You're done! Map embedded!

(thanks steegle) it doesn't work in wetpaint :(

A great example of ICT used to compliment the IPC topic 'Chocolate' using Google Maps --Where our food comes from & fair trade
(lesson from Google)

http://www.google.co.uk/schools/primary.html
also Google lessons on
Animal habitats
Settlements
Climate change
Visual Arts
Exploring your area
Development
The Romans in Britain
Chocolate and fair trade

Find choclate shops all over the world
http://chocomap.com/index.php

http://www.davidrumsey.com/view/google-earth-browser#world-globe-1790

The historical map collection has over 22,000 maps and images online. The collection focuses on rare 18th and 19th century North American and South American maps and other cartographic materials. Historic maps of the World, Europe, Asia, and Africa are also represented

Google Earth Gadget
This fun app lets you explore a 3D satellite view of the Earth. You need a fast data connection, however, and the interface can be sluggish on some phones.

Games in the Classroom

txwebdesign — Mon, 09 May 2011 03:39:09 CDT

http://www.primarygamesarena.com/wide.php
A collection of educational games categrised -from Fundio to Year 6

Nintendo DC in the classroom
http://itcboisestate.wordpress.com/2010/12/22/nintendods_classroom/

Animation in the DS

ICT & IPC

txwebdesign — Tue, 03 May 2011 20:06:45 CDT

I'm planning to drop in here any Google presenations made for stand alone ICT lessons and lessons that match up with IPC topics. Hopefully over the next year there should be a decent selection- started 17th March 2011. Please feel free to add any lessons that you have come up with yourself- (ideally in Google Presentation format).

Please be aware that some of the lessons are still in progress and are not as yet complete.-

BEST VIEWED IN GOOGLE CHROME

Year 1 IPC Buildings and structures

In this series of lessons Y1 children explore 3D buildings in Google Earth- design a 3D village - learn to take a screen shot and save it, and draw and write about various types of buildings and structures.

Design a T-Shirt- for the IPC Clothes Topic in Year 2

Children make a Julian Opie Style style self portrait using image editing software- a fun popular, and engaging excercise that promtes several key ICT skills including using - image editing tools, layers, and file management.

Year 2 Scratch (programming) lessons from Glenn Malcolm

http://edtechlounge.com- programming in scratch.

Year 3 IPC Topic Visual Representaions
Children make posters for a specfic holiday/ tourist destination using paint.net, they then move on to explore old and new maps and embed all their work in a wiki page that they will create t

Year 3 - Myths and Legends

Children create a 3D popup book of a myth in Zooburst- and discuss augmented reality- the more confident students wil make a screen cast of thier storybook.

Year 3 Programming in Scratch from Glenn Malcolm edtechlounge

http://edtechlounge.com- programming in scratch.

Year 4 IPC Topic Habitats-

Using Google sketchup Children design their dream home and embed it in Google earth

Year 4 Scratch Programming from Glenn Malcolm

http://edtechlounge.com- programming in scratch.

Year 5 ICT / IPC topic Making The News

A word processing unit in which children create a virtual class newspaper. (in progess)

Year 5 programming in Scratch from Glenn Malcolm edtechlounge

Year 6 ICT and Literacy- Digital Story Telling

A unit devised for Year 5/6 children to mindmap/ storyboard/ write/illustrate and record a fairytale for younger children.

ICT Schemes & Policy

txwebdesign — Mon, 02 May 2011 22:47:05 CDT

The purpose of these materials is to provide primary teachers with a long overdue and up-to-date structure for the teaching of ICT. This Progression will assist them in both understanding what ICT capability is and in further developing planned curriculum opportunities where that capability can be developed. The Progression will assist teachers in understanding standards in ICT and help them to raise children’s attainment within the context of a personalised curriculum.
http://www.hereford-edu.org.uk/ict/introduction.asp

http://www.school-portal.co.uk/GroupHomepage.asp?GroupId=142195
"Our schools have scrapped the QCA and has found these schemes easier to integrate and teach in a fun, rigourous, cross curricular way. Even some of our secondary schools have commented on the depth and breadth of knowledge and skill our pupils have."

An ICT Policy- Ian Addison

Also love his idea of "Digital Leaders"

ICT & Science

txwebdesign — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 02:41:29 CDT

10/10
http://www.moovl.co.uk/ A unique online tool that creatively embeds ICT across the curriculum. Both teachers and learners can use it to draw, animate and apply physical properties to objects, bringing pictures and words to life.
Delivered online and accompanied by lesson plans and pre-drawn screens, Moovl can be used flexibly across the curriculum.
Use Moovl to investigate concepts in science; children can explore gravity by creating a simulation of a man walking on the moon. Moovl also supports visual literacy; children can create their own animated storyboards and make words come to life. IPC topics-Energy, Force, Light and Sound (The Physical World), How does it Work? (Inventions and Machines)

Moovl supports the capabilities of A Curriculum for Excellence by engaging and motivating all learners,supporting the development of problem-solving and thinking skills in an open-ended environmenthelping learners to make meaningful links between subjects and enabling teachers to use ICT across the curriculum encouraging children to hypothesise and discuss what might happen, aiding the development of talking and listening skills and a collaborative approach to learning
suiting a range of learning styles: thereby supporting personalised learning giving children a unique means of communicating and developing their ideas.(futurelabs)

Wonderville an award winning, educational, child friendly, and safe website that teaches science in a relevant, meaningful, and fun manner. Set up as an online community, it builds on learning, encourages curiosity, and helps children discover the wonder of science.
There are Games and Activities
There are more than 30 Games and 4 Kelvin Adventure Games with different levels of play . The games are searchable by age and grade level – making it easy f to find the game that best supports appropriate learning. Many of the games are curriculum-related and can be used as extension activities to what is taught at school.
Printable Activities
There are many activities that help take learning one step further. These activity pages lay out how to conduct real science experiments at school or at home – encouraging children, parents, and teachers to really explore. Nurturing curiosity and developing critical thinking skills, children note their observations and then read on to find out the science behind the results.

Here students get to explore 3D environments where they discover common household and city items that have roots in space exploration. Students can click on various objects in the house or city to learn more about how space travel impacted the items creation or use. Each item has a brief description and a short video included.

http://www.algodoo.com/wiki/Education-

http://www.nourishinteractive.com/
Nourish Interactive is your free one stop resource for fun nutrition games for kids, interactive nutrition tools and tips for parents and health educators to use to promote healthy living for the whole family. Created by nutrition and health care professionals, Nourish Interactive's nutrition education website gives children and families the knowledge and skills they need to make healthy choices

IPC Topic inventions- http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/wallaceandgromit/
Wallace & Gromit are back with their World of Invention and they need help to put their inventions right. The Crackers pair are in trouble and need some inspiration to build their designs. Gromit just can’t get Wallace’s wake-up machine to work and has crashed their entire workshop! Could your pupils design a better machine?

Biology Sites

Physics Sites

Chemistry Sites

GetBodySmart is an animated, interactive
website that lets you explore human anatomy
and physiology. Click on various systems –
muscular, nervous, circulatory, etc. – to learn
about the body’s physiological interactions and
illustrate important anatomical features.

The Brain- Brainstorm IPC
From Manchester Uni
The Brain Drain Game (use both
sides of your brain)
Discover what the different parts
of the brain do here and here

Separated into three different age levels, Inside
the Human Body – The Respiratory System
explains how these organs work. The site provides
information and activities about lung health, and
related themes like air pollution and smoking.
There are also teaching resources and Mad Lab,
a selection of games.
lung.ca/children/index_kids.html

Learn about the four tissue types that make up
the human body with Tissues of Life. The site
uses games, comics, illustrations and magnified photographs to show how cells and tissues work together for correct functioning of organs and the body itself.
smm.org/tissues/

The Cell Visualization Project offers an animated guided tour of the internal structure of a human white blood cell. Using advanced computer imaging, it reconstructs cells in 3D. The five areas are: Anatomy
of a Cell; Walkabout; A Cell With a View; The Heart of the Matter; and Inside the Nucleus.
www.kenneth-eward.com/cvp/cvpindex.html

Fatworld is a videogame
about the politics of nutrition. It explores the relationships between
obesity,nutrition, and socioeconomicsin the contemporary U.S.. The game’s goal is not to tell people what to eat or how to
exercise, but to demonstrate the complex, interwoven relationships between nutrition and factors like budgets,the physical world, subsidies, and regulations.

In Fatworld, you create a world, design a character,and live outan accelerated life in that world. Time in Fatworld will run continuously, whether youplay or not. -
IPC topics We are what we Eat , Fit for Life,
Health and Fitness (Health and Fitness)

http://www.questacon.edu.au/

Biology is explored through
real-life scenarios and visitors
can learn about how the body's immune system protects it from disease. makes the immune system into easily identifiable superheros (the Immune Platoon) and bacteria and viruses into the evil villains.
All types of medical and lifestyle advice is given, along with information on related careers. 10/10 Excellent for the Year 5 fit for life/ food IPC topics -Brainstorm (How we Learn) (commonsensemedia)
http://www.bam.gov/
see also
http://kidshealth.org/kid/

Nutrition Café

There are 3 interactive activities to choose from, all of which look at nutrition in some way. Nutrition
Sleuth is particularly good fun.(science unleashed.ie) IPC topic food, fit for life.

Packed with information for kids on health, their bodies, and
diet and exercise.
Info blurbs on every page provide quick snippets of advice, like letting you know how many calories you burn walking for 20 minutes or why fat (when used sparingly)is an essential part of a healthy diet. Games focus on teaching kids about healthy choices in a challenging format. IPC topic food, fit for life.

http://www.visiblebody.com/a great educational tool for teaching about
anatomical systems and body parts. The content is appropriate for kids, but may be a bit challenging to those who haven't started learning biology. IPC topic food, fit for life.

BBC—Science and Nature
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/
BBC website dedicated to a huge range of science and nature topics. Contains genuinely interesting
feature stories about things like what killed the dinosaurs and tracing your DNA.
(scienceunleashed.ie)

The Virtual Body

Take a guided tour of the digestive tract, the heart, the brain and the skeleton in this animated site. Includes close-up diagrams of these organs and their parts, and an interactive skeleton activity.
(scienceunleashed.ie) IPC topic food, fit for life.

Microbe Magic
http://microbemagic.ucc.ie/
Meet GI Jake and see how he and his other bacteria buddies keep your guts healthy.
There are cartoons, gut facts and plenty more here.
(scienceunleashed.ie) IPC topic food, fit for life.

Virtual Frog Dissection -click on the demo

An interactive frog dissection where you cut and peel like a surgeon to see frog guts! It's really quite educational but also kind of cool.
(scienceunleashed.ie)

The Heart
Habits of the Heart + Lungs

See how blood moves around the body from the heart and air moves into the lungs in the clever and clear animations here.
(scienceunleashed.ie) IPC topic food, fit for life.

http://www.moovl.co.uk/ (above)

Launchball is a new physics-based puzzle game created the Science Museum in London
The object here is to use different type of blocks and place them on the grid so that when the ball is released, it will reach the “goal”. Each type of blocks has its own characteristics. To display them at the bottom of the game window, simply move your mouse over a block. The blocks available to complete each level are located in the bottom left corner of the game window. Click and drag them on the grid, and then click the test button to see the result.
Ho

	Nobel Prize e-Museum
	See how some ground-breaking discoveries in physics came about and play some great interactive games that help you understand these physics-related things.


	Physics Life
	Explore everyday places in this animated site and see how physics plays a role in lots and lots of ways.


	Destroy the Castle Game
	A trebuchet is a medieval catapult for hurling heavy stones. In this game, you have to use it to crush the wall. But you need to understand some basic physics to get it to work correctly. Have fun!


	How Everyday Things Are Made
	From airplanes to glass bottles, this site gets you thinking about how everyday things are made. Created by Stanford University in the US, the videos explain a range of different manufacturing techniques in a simple and accessible manner.


	Newton's Laws
	Comprehensive site with lots of animations that help explain some of the key principles of motion and speed.


	Pressure and Force
	Do an imaginary experiment to find out how pressure varies with force.


	The Physics of Skydiving
	This animation helps you to get to grips with the concepts of velocity and acceleration by thinking about what's happening to a skydiver as he falls.


	Balanced and Unbalanced Forces
	An online lesson with animations that looks at why an object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion. It uses the example of a book resting on a desk and the forces that are acting upon it. Lesson 2 discusses types of forces.


	G-Ball Game
	Have fun playing with gravity in this exciting gravity ball game. (Requires Flash)


	Wright Brothers First Flyer
	View designs of the Wright brothers very first airplane which was successfully built and flown in 1903.


	The Amazing Journey of a Sound Wave via AM Radio
	Interactive exercise that looks at how sound travels on radio waves to get from a transmitter to your receiver.


	Heat Activities
	Three simple experiments that explore heat and how it moves. Includes information on "what's going on here?" to help you understand your results.

Cookit is an innovative online resource, with a primary purpose of improving pupil's skills, understanding and enjoyment of healthy eating.
The site includes podcasts, recipes, images and activities. Visit Cookit and see its full potential. I like the cookit creator

(Below sites not links as yet)

Top Chemistry Projects for Bored Kids

Are you searching for something fun and educational to do that suitable for kids? Here are some great chemistry activities and projects to get you started. They are safe and use easy-to-find materials.

Top Chemistry Projects You Can Do at Home

Don't worry if you don't have a chemistry lab. These projects use materials you can find around the house.

Elementary School Science Fair Projects

Find science fair project ideas suitable for the kindergarten through fifth grade level. I've included projects for the preschool level also.

Middle School Science Fair Projects

Find ideas for middle school science fair projects. These are projects suitable for the 6-8 grade level.

High School Science Fair Projects

Get ideas for great high school science projects. These are projects targeted from the 9-12 grade educational level.

Printable Periodic Table of the Elements

Download or print these periodic tables to help work chemistry problems or to predict properties of the elements.

Periodic Table of the Elements for Kids

This table was made with kids and homework in mind. It includes element groups and periods, element symbols, atomic numbers, atomic weights, and links to detailed facts for each element.

Chemistry Activities for Kids - Free Weekly Newsletter

Are you ready for kid-friendly chemistry activities and games? Each newsletter features safe projects, games or quizzes, and links for additional learning. Learn about the elements, grow crystals, and more! When you sign up you'll get one newsletter a week until you've gotten them all.

Elementary School Physical Science Fair Project Ideas

Trying to find the topic for a science fair project can be almost as challenging as the project itself. Elementary school level projects should be not only informative but quick and fun. Great projects usually answer a question, rather than a general demonstration or display.

Baking Soda & Vinegar Chemical Volcano

Making a baking soda and vinegar volcano is safe and easy, plus it only requires a few inexpensive kitchen ingredients. Here are detailed instructions for making a volcano, plus a look at the chemical reactions involved.

Zoom into a Cell--Understanding Genetics
The “Zooming into DNA” feature contains amazing real images of cells, chromosomes and DNA at different magnifications.

.

Tons of resources here
http://learningscience.org/
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/educators/classroom_and_homework_resources.aspx

Launchball

does it Work? (Inventions and Machines)

The year Year 6 challange was to design the safest
"Devils Chair " using PHUN http://www.phunland.com/

Phunland- Have a look at the fairground rides for the IPC topic we - superb way to link physics, art, design technology and ICT. Students can use Phun to learn about principles of gravity, energy, force, velocity, etc. & enjoy having an environment to test out physics concepts and conceptualise experiments. Phun may have even more application for the physics classroom because it isn’t a puzzle to figure out, but a creative environment to explore and test. the Year 6's loved it!

Phun is free non-commercial use, since and an excellent way of promoting science and art through a constructionists learning paradigm.

It has been installed in over 350,000 schools around the world.
IPC-How does it Work? (Inventions and Machines) Force, Light and Sound (The Physical World)

http://www.mutr.co.uk/

)

ICT & Numeracy

txwebdesign — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 20:04:22 CDT

Learn about Money in fun real world situations with Minyanland- ideal for IPC topic money makes the world go round-
MinyanLand is a fun way for students to learn about and interact with economic and financial concepts. The economic system in MinyanLand can even take advantage of real-life pricing of general goods and services. Students are encouraged to charitably give within MinyanLand. The idea is to offer every child the opportunity and platform to be financially literate. MinyanLand is ideal for students in 3rd-5th grade but younger students would enjoy it as well.
(ilearntechnology)

http://realworldmath.org/Real_World_Math/Tutorials.html
This website is designed for educators who wish to extend the concepts of the math curriculum beyond the pages of the text. Google Earth is the dynamic tool that will be used to accomplish this. Google Earth provides startling clear satellite views of the globe in an interactive 3D environment. Beyond the visual, users can add placemarks, annotations, photos, and models, as well as measure distances and draw paths.

http://www.khanacademy.org/#browseA free world-class education for anyone anywhere. The Khan Academy is an organization on a mission. We're a not-for-profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education to anyone anywhere. All of the site's resources are available to anyone. It doesn't matter if you are a student, teacher, home-schooler, principal, adult returning to the classroom after 20 years, or a friendly alien just trying to get a leg up in earthly biology. The Khan Academy's materials and resources are available to you completely free of charge.

Teaching tools, tests, games and much more...

Need a pentagonal pyramid that’s six inches tall? Or a set of pattern blocks where all shapes have one-inch sides? Or grids, number lines and more? Try Dynamic Paper. Simply select the images you want, then export your creations as a PDF activity sheet or JPEG image.
http://illuminations.nctm.org/ActivityDetail.aspx?ID=205

The Symmetry Game helps students to learn basic information on 10 geometrical shapes, including the number of sides, corners, and lines of symmetry. A basic game tests their knowledge and understanding. There are other maths activities on the site as well, percentages, times tables, ratios, fractions, etc.
http://www.innovationslearning.co.uk/subjects/maths/activities/year3/symmetry/shape_game.asp

Teacher LED-This comprehensive site features resources to use with IWBs in Numeracy
(Algebra, Data Handling, Number Shape,Space & Measure & General Maths & Investigations) as well as Literacy, and geometry.
http://www.teacherled.com/all-interactive-whiteboard-resources/

Hundreds of interactive resources designed for whiteboards/data-projectors and independent learning. Covers most subjects at lower primary level.
I-Board resources cover Numeracy, Literacy, ICT, History, Geography, R.E and Science at lower primary and preschool level. Resources are primarily designed for use on an interactive whiteboard and aim to "enable teachers to direct their pupils learning and create a learning dialogue around the resource."
Designed by Steven Rawlins, an ex-teacher and Interactive Whiteboard trainer, I - Board has now been acquired by the Times Educational Supplement. Note* Site requires flash and is occasionally slow to load. (scoilnet.ie)

Super Maths World has some great interactive visual depictions of mathematics concepts. For example, the graphing section allows students to instantly see the effects of a change in the value of "x" on the slope of a line.
Super Maths World produces many games in which students can test their mathematics skills. The games appear to be flash based and have the feel of playing a "real" video game. Each game gives instant feedback and students can track their progress with the progress tracker. (freetech4tecahers)

Activities &Teaching Tools
Ambleside school involves children in all parts of the process of designing and creating content for our website. Many of the games have been designed by, or with children. .
http://www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/numeracy.htm

This site provides educational ICT activites linked to the English Primary Stragtegy. These games are generally targeted at infant school teachers and parents of infant age children.
http://www.ictgames.com/resources.html

The ultimate collection of free resources discovered on the Internet, which can be used
for teaching Maths in British Primary Schools..
http://www.mathszone.co.uk/

A really excellent set of resurces from Woodlands covering practically every aspect of the National Curriculum- ideal for IWB's
http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/maths/

BBC bitesize KS1&2
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/maths/
& for a rainy day- unbeatable point and click maths adventure.
www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/games/questionaut/pop.shtml

Maths problem solving-word problems.
http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/maths/contents02problems.htm
http://math.about.com/od/multiplicatio1/ig/Multiplication-Word-Problems/

ICT& History

txwebdesign — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 20:02:43 CDT

History Pin – A digital time machine that allows users to pin their own old photos onto modern Street

http://homepage.mac.com/larow2/Voyages/index.html-Google Earth
This site is dedicated to the explorers, voyages, events, and historical backgrounds of countries throughout the World. They'd like to hear about famous explorers who surveyed or traveled through your community long ago. Perhaps you'd like to tell them about historical events that shaped your locale or region. You may wish to report about a catastrophic event in your area. Or, you may want to tell how your community was founded, its historical background, early settlers.

http://museumbox.e2bn.org/index.php
This site provides the tools for you to build up an argument or description of an event, person or historical period by placing items in a virtual box. What items, for example, would you put in a box to describe your life; the life of a Victorian Servant or Roman soldier; or to show that slavery was wrong and unnecessary? You can display anything from a text file to a movie. IPC- Treasure (Archeology), Time Detectives (Finding Out about the Past)

http://www.magicstudio.com/- Ive dropped this in here because of the
timeline maker but it could be used for many different subjects- free and very useful-
for making your own resources -Drag 'n' Drops | Image Explorers | Presentations | Quizzes | Timelines

As well as Dipity (see the Literacy page) there are a number of
decent time line applications out there.

The following is an extensive list of tools that could be used in History from (Ilearntechnology)

Access to history has expanded, students today have learning opportunities that have never been possible before. Today students have the ability to view and read historical documents first hand, ‘interact’ with historical characters, and observe the events of the past through the eyes of the children who lived it. Thanks to technology, students can be truly engaged in the stories of history.

Primary resources are the actual documents, artifacts, and writings from history. These resources give students an up-close view of life in the past.

Primary Resources:
1. The World Digital Library is a collection of primary materials from around the world. Students can explore artifacts that will help them to better understand other cultures. This incredible collection of resources brings museums from around the world into your classroom for your students to explore.

2. Awesome Stories is a collection of primary source materials separated by category. Primary sources include images, videos, narration, slideshows, artifacts, manuscripts, and documents. Awesome Stories is essentially an interactive textbook. With the interactive textbook model, students are able to delve deeper into topics that interest them.

3. Picturing America takes hold of the notion that a picture is worth a thousand words and applies it to teaching American history. The National Endowment for the Humanities is providing classrooms and libraries with American art masterpieces. Bringing our Nation’s artistic heritage into the classroom provides students with unique insights into the character, ideals, and aspirations of our country. The program is free for schools and libraries, providing them with 40 high quality, poster-sized masterpieces, a teacher resource book, and the program website. Picturing America brings history into the classroom, helping students create authentic connections to the past.

4. Primary Access is a web-based tool that offers students and teachers simple access to digital images and materials that provides them the opportunity to create personal narratives. The idea behind the site is that if students are offered primary source documents, they develop better historical thinking skills. Students use Primary Access to create digital historical narrative movies that help add to meaningful learning experiences. The digital movie is 1-3 minutes in length and can contain images, text, movies, and student recorded narration. Students have a place to write, research, narrate, view, and search within Primary Access.

5. Library of Congress on Flickr is a photostream of historical images on Flickr. These incredible photographs will bring history to life for your students. Many of the photographs have no copyright restrictions which makes it a great place for students to find images for projects that they are working on. These are also great images to use in your classroom presentations, and as printouts for bulletin boards.
Videos have the unique ability to make students feel as if they are witnesses to history.
Historical Videos:

6. The History Channel has a wealth of resources to teach history in the classroom. From online historical videos, to a daily dose of history with “This Day in History”, the History Channel brings history to life.

7. American History in Video has more than 5,000 free, digital, on-demand videos in its collection. The videos allow students to analyze historical events, look at events over time through commercial and governmental newsreels, archival footage, public affairs footage, and important documentaries. These videos will make students feel as if they were a part of history.

8. Watch Know is another educational video site. All videos are offered digitally for free. Watch Know brings together the best education videos online into one convenient-to-search, safe site. Students can interact and think critically about the videos by rating them and leaving comments. There are more than 2,500 history related videos on Watch Know.
There are many websites that let students interact with history. Whether they are playing a game or exploring a virtual world, these websites help students understand history in new ways.
Interacting with History:

9. Secret Builders Students ages 6-14 can live and play among fictional and historical characters in this virtual world. Students interact with characters such as Shakespeare, Galileo, Motzart, Oliver Twist, Plato, Van Gough, and Amelia Earhart. Students take quests, publish artwork and writings, play games, enter contests, and participate in a virtual economy and social life. Students are given all the tools needed to build out the virtual world with their own ideas, activities and actions. This virtual world has the added benefit of allowing students to interact with historical figures in ways that are meaningful to them.

10. Scholastic has an email sign up where teachers and students can receive fictional emails from historical figures. These emails are written as letters from children who live in the past. Get email letters from a young girl traveling on the Mayflower and a young Native American boy. This is a fantastic way to give your class a glimpse of history through the eyes of two school-age children.

11. Scholastic’s “Our America” takes students on a journey through American history from the Colonial period to World War II. Students learn about major events in the American story by reading journal entries from the people who lived them. Students can complete their own journal entries about what they have learned. Activities accompany each time period such as arts and crafts from that time period or designing a period home interior.

12. The Oregon Trail game is one of the memories I should have listed above. I remember playing Oregon Trail in small groups on our classroom computer in fifth grade. Through the game we learned about the hardships of being a wagon leader, how to build a team, and purchase supplies that would help us make the journey from Independence, Missouri to Oregon by way of the covered wagon circa 1848. This role playing game helps students connect to events of the past through play.

13. BBC Primary History has an extensive collection of activities, short readings, and a kids point of view on the Ancient Greeks, Romans, Vikings, Anglo Saxons, World War II, and Victorian Britain. Students can explore interactive timelines, stories, primary source images, and much more. Students gain a sense of what life was like during each time period.

14. Picturing the Thirties is a virtual web activity from the Smithsonian. This virtual museum exhibit teaches students about the 1930’s through eight exhibitions. Students will get an up close look at the Great Depression, the New Deal, the country, industry, labor, city, leisure, and the American people in the 1930’s. The virtual museum is full of primary sources such as photographs, newsreels, and artist memorabilia. Virtual video museum guides explain each exhibit to students.

15. The Secret in the Cellar is an interactive web comic that is based on an actual forensic case of a 17th century person that was recently discovered. Through graphics, photos, and activities, students begin to unravel a mystery of historical and scientific importance. Students learn how to analyze artifacts, and examine the skeleton to determine a cause of death. As students act as historians, they will gain a wealth of information about Colonial life in America.

16. Kids Past is a history website created for kids that covers topics including: prehistoric humans, the rise of civilization, Middle Eastern civilization, the Ancient Greeks, Romans, African civilizations, civilizations of India, civilizations of China, Byzantine empire, the Slavs, Islam, medieval Europe, Asia in the middle ages, ancient Americans, the Renaissance, the Reformation, exploration and expansion, Asia following the middle ages, the American Revolution, and the French Revolution. All reading on Kids Past is kid friendly and age appropriate. There are several history games based on the reading. Students can also find historical quotes and songs about history that they can listen to online.

17. Historical Tweets- Students can follow history on Twitter. With Historical Tweets, history’s most amazing men and women can be more fully understood 140 characters at a time. These historical tweets can act as motivation for students to learn more about historical events. 140 characters is just enough to leave your students wanting to learn more.
Static timelines are a thing of the past, today’s timelines are interactive, informative, and fun to explore.
Interactive Timelines:

18. Franklin’s Interactive Timeline is an engaging look into the life of Benjamin Franklin. Students can play, listen, watch, observe, and have fun learning about Benjamin Franklin’s legacy. Students can explore Franklin’s life through themes such as Franklin’s character, Franklin as printer, at home, doing good, and on the world stage. This site breaks Franklin’s life down into manageable pieces for students and provides a well rounded view of Franklin.

19. Capzles is an interactive timeline creator. Students can add photos, video, audio and text to their timeline. Themes, colors, backgrounds, and background music can be added to the timeline making it unique and personalized. Capzles brings the timeline to life and allows students to add story to the dates.

20. Dipity makes it simple for your students to create and share interactive timelines. Students can embed YouTube videos, Twitter, RSS feeds, Blogger, Flickr, Picasa, Last FM, and more right into their timelines. Dipity makes timelines relevant and fun for students. Best of all, students are creating and viewing timelines in “their language” of Digital Native.

21. Time Tube is the perfect website for your YouTube addicted students. Students can type in a historical event and Time Tube will create a timeline of related videos. Students will be able to explore historical events through related videos.
Research papers leave much to be desired in the history classroom. There are ways for students to show what they know in history without the dreaded research report.
Creating with History:
22. Domonation is an animation website where students can create cartoon animations with characters, dialogue, props, music, and special effects. Instead of presenting knowledge about history through the traditional report, diorama, or poster, students can create a cartoon of an interview with a historical figure or an eye-witness account of a historical event.

23. Xtranormal is a site where students can create and direct their own animated movies. Students can recreate historical events, or create cartoons about a historical figure. Hold a historical movie day to showcase all of the animations that students have created.

24. The National Archives Experience: Digital Vaults is a site put together by the National Archives. Students can create their own digital content mashups using primary resources. Students are able to search photographs, documents, and other records collecting them to create a digital poster or movie. Students can also create a Pathway Challenge. In a challenge, students create a series of clues that show relationships between photographs, documents, and other records. Other students can attempt to solve these challenges. This is an incredible way for students to interact with history.

25. Creaza is a suite of web-based creativity tools. There are four tools in the Creaza toolbox that will help your students organize knowledge and tell stories in new creative ways. Students can arrange events in history with Mindomo the mind mapping tool. Using Cartoonist, students can create comic strips and digital narratives about historical events or characters. Movie Editor makes it possible for students to create movies with thematic universes, video, images, and sound clips. Movie Editor can import historical film clips, sound clips, and images to tell a story. Audio editor is the final tool in Creaza’s creative suite. Students can splice together their own newscasts or radio commercials that display their knowledge of any historical event.

26. Animoto for Education is a site where students can create compelling and impressive digital content quickly and easily. Teachers can use Animoto to teach complex concepts in history. Students can showcase their understanding of history through pictures, music, and text.

27. Blogging- Assign each of your students a historical character to play. They can research and learn about the time period, events, and people. Students can then blog as if they were the historical character. Other students can read and comment on the historical posts.

28. Museum Box is a website based on the work of Thomas Clarkson who collected items in a box to help him in his argument for the abolition of slavery. Students can use the Museum Box website to collect information and arguments in a virtual box of their own. They can collect items to provide a description or add to an argument of a historical event, place, or time period. Students can add images, text, sounds, videos, and external links to help them form their own virtual museum. The finished box can be shared with other students, saved, or printed. Students can view and comment on boxes created by other students. This is a fun medium for students to learn and collect information about a historical event, person, or time period.

ICT & Literacy

txwebdesign — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 03:55:08 CDT

in literacy

**** An GREAT idea from ilearntechnology!! using capzels as an online interactive hi tech reading record-
Capzles has the capability of adding audio, photos, and text, it would be the perfect place to record students reading throughout the year. As you assess student reading through reading records, record the students using a program such as Gabcast, Gcast,Audacity, or Garageband. Take a digital picture of the student reading. Throughout the year, you can make a Capzle for each student. This is an excellent motivator for students, especially your struggling readers. Students can see their growth throughout the year in pictures, and hear their reading progress made throughout the year. You can share the Capzle with parents (they will go crazy for this keepsake!) and with the students future teacher. How much would you love getting a timeline of your students from the previous year? You would have a jump-start on their struggles and strengths in reading as you quickly flip through their timelines.
** ideal for EAL/ESL children

BrainNook is an online virtual world that helps children develop Maths and English skills while interacting and competing with other kids. Students can travel to several locations within the virtual world that are based on real-life regions of the Earth Students learn about each region through trivia, question popups, and local artifacts. In each world students can play maths and English games with other players in the safe online environment.

Voki lets students create custom characters that they can personalize and make speak. These speaking avatars can be used in a variety of ways in the classroom, now that Voki Education includes the ability to “Voki Link” it is easier than ever for students to create and share. Students can make their characters speak by recording a voice via phone, text to speech, record by microphone, or upload a sound clip. Students can use Voki to create characters modeled after historical or literary characters. Students can bring those characters to life-a virtual wax museum of sorts! Those finished Voki’s can be embedded in a class website or blog, or shared by a Voki Link. In math, students can create Voki’s that speak a riddle or word problem. The Voki’s can be shared with other students in the class with a challenge to solve the problem. At the beginning of the school year, students can create Voki’s to introduce themselves to you (the teacher) and classmates. Are your students learning how to speak a second language? Voki’s are a fun way for your students to practice that second language. They can record by classroom phone or built-in microphone. Throughout the year students can add characters to their new language and hear the progress they have made. Voki’s make a great accompaniment for the beginning reader. Students can create a virtual character and record themselves reading. They can play back their Voki to listen to their fluency, pronunciation, and annunciation. Once again, these recordings can be collected throughout the year as a way for students to track and hear their progress. Students can use Voki characters to summarize any learning. (ilearntechnology)
LESSON PLANS http://www.voki.com/lesson_plans.php
** ideal for EAL/ESL children

Collborative writing using Google Docs

1. The Teacher wrote the first sentence to get things going.
2. Every student adds one sentence to the story.
3. Students were not allowed to change anything that someone else had written (with the exception of spelling)

In ICT i've used a variety of ways to make cross curricular links with ICT and Literacy- my favourites have been using Kerpoof Studios www.kerpoof.com , Story Creator www.myths.e2bn.org/ and of course www.goanimate.com (see animation page)

Year 2 The Story Creator site provides a multitude of tools and opportunities enabling pupils to submit their stories for the enjoyment of a world wide audience, with the prospect of receiving peer review and evaluation. As part of the IPC topic Myth and Legends, children created storyboards for their own legend in the Literacy Hour then brought their stories to life in ICT. I was surprised at how many children worked on their stories on line at home even editing and upload their own images, sound effects and narration. The great thing with this site that its 100% free and all the work can be downloaded as HTML files.

Writing about fantasy animals--look no further
http://www.switcheroozoo.com/zoo.htm

Amazing online Literacy tools published by ReadWriteThink.org. The site offers a collection of tools under the Student Materials Index that support literacy learning. They have even included lesson plans! Other online tools are Circle Story Plot Diagram, Comic Creator, Comparison and Contrast Guide, Persuasion Map,Timeline, and Venn Diagram. The above list just names a few of the wide variety available. (Kentblog)
http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/student-interactives/- for full description please see here-

Year 6 Timeline/Biographies

Dipity- Currently we are making interactive multimedia biographies in ICT using the work the children have done in Literacy- Its a fantastic tool- integrating- Geography ICT& Literacy

The finished work will then be embedded in their own Google websites that they have created- The thing that make it stand out it the ability to easily switch views from time line to slideshow to map, its simple to add videos images and text- and the kids love it. It really is making Literacy come alive. Below is an example of what is possible

WORDLE

I use Wordle when we start a topic-children individually gather all the words they can think of related to a topic into a Wordle. The process is repreated at the end of a topic and we compare the two.Here is a Google Doc which has many other uses for this wonderful tool.

Wordle is can also be used in a slightly different way, a starter for students to try and guess where we're going with the lesson and create their own learning outcomes. This is a great way of focusing
students minds and getting students to use higher order thinking skills.

I can see a lot of different applications for this simple tool the EAL (English as as an additional Language) are particularly interested and have come up with all sorts of ways it can be used.

It's just got better
www.tagxedo.com/ go on have a look if you like wordle you will love this.

http://www.zimmertwins.com/
The easiest way to start using Zimmer Twins in the classroom, is to use it as a story starter. Students can watch a “starter” video and finish the story however they would like. The first time you introduce the site, it might be fun to complete a video as a class. Then students can take over and create their own ending to a Zimmer Twins movie. These video clips make excellent story starters for journal writing even if you can’t take the time to make it into an actual video.

Online collaborative writing- (if you dont have Google Docs)
Collaborative writing with other people can be a very productive and fun way to produce/edit all forms or writing. Online document collaboration has changed the way how teachers and their students share and edit documents with more than one person being able to access and make changes to the same document, up until now this feature has been very popular in Google Docs. http://etherpad.com/ (kentblog)

MAKE BELIEFS COMIX

Enables teachers and students to create colourful original comic strips using a range of characters, simply by using the point and click interface. The characters have a range of different emotions to choose from, you can add your own dialogue using the speech bubbles or you can leave them blank for students to add their own.
http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/

You can then either email your finished cartoon strips to people or print them up for use in class
The Teachers Resources section has a great collection of ideas for how you can use the site with students and there is a wonderful collection of possible story ideas to get students creating their own stories

is designed to enhance the teaching and learning of reading comprehension strategies for primary students. The website focuses on eight strategies that proficient readers use: using prior knowledge, making connections, questioning, visualizing, inferring, summarizing, evaluating, and synthesizing. You can download posters, songs and worksheets from the Teacher's Area. The videos are ideal to show on the interactive whiteboard.
http://reading.ecb.org/

http://www.story-box.co.uk/storymaker/smenu.php
StoryMaker is a simple tool for creating digital stories. Using audio, pictures and text you can create storyboards, slideshows and much much more. To create your own StoryMaker file, just click on the ï¿½Create a new StoryMaker fileï¿½ button below and follow the instructions that follow. You will be asked to input some data and upload your audio file. You audio file can be anything from music to conversation and your images can be absolutely anything you want. Once you do this you are free to proceed to StoryMaker and let your imagination run wild! Your StoryMaker files can be created in one visit to StoryBox or can be saved and worked over several visits. Once you are happy with your work you can add your story to StoryBox to share with others.

World Book Day Activities
http://www.worldbookday.com/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=82
Ton's of Primary School Teachers Book Day Resources.
http://www.worldbookday.com/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=117

http://www.dvolver.com/live/moviemaker.html
• Dvolver is a VERY easy way to do digital storytelling in the classroom.
• Everything is very user friendly. Basically point and click!
• Students have choice when it comes to setting, characters and background music. They can choose how the characters interact on the “screen”.
• Students can also write whatever dialogue they want (see threats).
• The finished movie can be emailed and the creator receives an HTML code to paste into their website or blog.

ideas from http://teachweb2.wikispaces.com/Dvolver
• Digital Storytelling: Students could write a story, then use Dvolver moviemaker to animate it.
• Students can use the site to create a “get to know me” cartoon, then share them with the class. You could even do it without the child’s name and have the class try and guess who created the movie.
· Teachers can use the site to introduce to a new concept, chapter, story, etc.
· Students can summarize key points as a test review.

Year 3 Visual Audio Plays

An Idea I hope to explore later in the year

Take a short story : The children in small groups turn the Narrative into a short Play Script -
Look at examples on guidance on the Internet about writing play scripts.

Following rehearsals of the plays look at how the scripts & the role of a narrator could be improved / adapted to tell the story.
The finished scripts then recorded on digital audio recorders.
Record one scene at a time and looked at issues such as speaking into the microphone, speaking slowly and clearly, rustling of papers etc.The recordings were imported into Windows 'Movie Maker'.
Talk about how radio plays have sound effects and background music.
Add some appropriate sounds and suitable background music to go with the recordings.
In movie maker then add titles, text and credits plus some images.

thanks to hitcham for this idea

http://stripgenerator.com/strip/create/
http://www.web2review.com/onal posters, sports cards, photo cards, funny scenes, newspaper headlines, novelty stylists/413-Comic-Strip-Generator/summary/
Comic strip generator is a place where you can mash-up your digital photographs to make fake magazine covers, motivaties and much more (almost 1,000 template layouts).

ICT & Global Awareness

txwebdesign — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 03:31:18 CDT

Want to connect with classrooms around the world? try these options
http://skypeinschools.pbworks.com/w/page/11008318/FrontPage

http://cilc.org/c/community/collaboration_center.aspx

http://www.twice.cc/projects.html

http://globaleducation.ning.com/

The Rainforest Rescue Schools Challenge helps children to understand how the things we eat, buy and use everyday are linked to the rainforest and think about how we can help protect it. It’s a great way to get kids more excited about Green issues as the Challenge will allow them to explore the animals as well as the landscape of the Amazon and apply the things they learn to their own school environment. There is also the chance for the schools involved to win some great prizes for their pupils and to take the children’s ideas to key political decision makers so that they could have real impact. The Challenge, organised with Global Action Plan, is web based and interactive and will involve aspects of geography, citizenship, science, numeracy and PSHE. You can find more information on the challenge, how schools can get involved and the prizes available to the participating teams on the website at www.skyrainforestrescueschoolschallenge.org

http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/themes/savingtheplanet/index.htm
Here you will find a wide range of ideas and resources to help you when you are teaching children about the environment and recycling, as well as superheroes. If you have any relevant resources to share.

http://www.3rdworldfarmer.com/- 3rd World Farmer is a new kind of game. An experiment in the genre of Serious Games, it simulates some of the real-world mechanisms that cause and sustain poverty in 3rd World countries. In the game, the player gets to manage an African farm and is soon confronted with the difficult choices that poverty and conflict can cause.

IPC/ICT World Cup Topic- http://www.what2learn.com/world_cup_2010/- excellent MP3 level ideas for using the world cup to develop ICT skills
To view an advert for the World Cup made by
Year 5 using Prezi/ Screencast o matic and

movie maker.(see home page)

The FIFA World Cup archive
The Global Gateway, with information on partner-finding, International School Award and much more.
NUT/ACTSA Football and Freedom resource pack for 9-14 year olds.
1GOAL campaign
Wavin’ Flag – the World Cup 2010 anthem by K’naan and David Bisbal
100 facts about the World Cup
We are multicolored - design your own flag and discover the meanings of flags
Football Phonics
World Cup matchballs through time
Brilliant pupil-made ICT activities from Northwood School
MFL resources from LanguagesOnline
Teaching Themes - World Cup
National Literacy Trust World Cup Toolkit
World Cup resources from TES Connect
Resources for Primary MFL - from the Talkabout Primary MFL Wiki
World Cup inspired crisps - what flavours can your students invent?
A sporting chance - International soccer stars harnessing their wealth and fame to fight poverty
Going for goal - About the 1Goal campaign
Football crazy? - does football have the power to blow the whistle on conflict?
Soccerlingua - teaching foreign languages to young football fans
Fairtrade: Football Enterprise - a video and support materials from Teachers TV
Fairtrade: Football Manufacture - a video and support materials from Teachers TV
Le coin sport - Information about South Africa, history of the World Cup and posters from previous tournaments in French
Fussballportal - Information in German
Statistics on players from all over the world
The World Cup and ICT - Worksheets and games
Resources and links from GlobalDimension.org.uk
Dance your way to the World Cup !
Makarapa - make your World Cup fan helmet
How to say "World Cup" in 36 languages

http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/themes/worldcup/index.htm
a wide range of ideas and resources linked to Football and the World Cup.
(links from sunderlandschools.org)
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http://www.ecokids.ca/pub/index.cfm

Excellent Canadian Eco site -dealing with food chains - climate change etc.etc.

http://www.worldometers.info/

If you’re into stats, Worldometers is filled with them. The site, which is overseen by researchers, academics and volunteers, provides real-time statistics about health, economies, population, demographics, and energy. Statistics of the month are placed at the top of the page—this month they list the price of a bottle of beer in Zimbabwe: Z$ 3,344,562, an explanation follows if you click on the link. Other interesting stats include military expenditure by governments worldwide, book titles published this year, forest lost this year, and dollars spent on dieting in the USA this year alone. The numbers are thought provoking. Sources are carefully selected from the most prestigious institutions in the world.

IPC Topic Rainfores

http://www.persuasivegames.com/games/- 10/10, fits in with so many IPC topics- Persuasive Games has a diverse portfolio of successful videogames. These games are designed for advertisers, public policy makers, corporate trainers, educators, news organizations—as well as ordinary people.
They strive to push the envelope of traditional game design while demonstrating the power of games as a persuasive medium. The result is a powerful thought adventure leading to new ways of thinking. with games on topics such as wind energy, killer flu, the oil industry, nutrition they provide a new way for students to learn and think about topics that matter to us all. Ideal for the IPC topic "What Price Progress'

http://www.wmnet.org.uk/22.cfm- one stop shop site packed with Climate change resources ks1/2/3

Put together by CNN, Planet In Peril examines the environmental conflicts between the world's growing populations and natural resources. It has a number of reports, videos, slideshows and other interactive material to explore.
http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2009/planet.in.peril/

The Road To Refuge is an informative and impressive presentation by the BBC on the plight of refugees around the world. There are articles, discussions, photos, audio and video, and other resources on the site.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/world/2001/road_to_refuge/default.stm

Visual Geography lets you explore the world through images, flags, money, language, maps and other information. It has images and quizzes from about 85 countries, and a nifty feature that lets you compare demographic data on any two countries.
www.visualgeography.com

Get a snapshot of what's happening in global news with Ten By Ten. This is a great little program that every hour automatically displays thumbnail images of the top 100 news stories. Click a picture for a synopsis and link.
www.tenbyten.org

http://www.olliesworld.com/club/club.htm- Ollie’s World is a nice introduction for students learning about their ecological footprint. Starting out in info, students can read about the 4 R’s and how they apply to the 5 action issues. Students can watch videos and play games that reinforce the lessons they are learning. You can use the videos as discussion starters in your classroom. Download WebEasy to your classroom computers where students can build a webpage about their new learning. (ilearntechnology)

http://www.forgefx.com/casestudies/heifer/heifer-village/
An interactive 3D game that teaches students about hunger and poverty in a virtual world. Through Heifer International: Game for Change, students will learn about real world conditions of poverty and how communities can create sustainable solutions. Through game play, students will learn about sustainable options for help. In the game, students take on the role of a 12 year old Nepalese girl in a village that struggles with poverty and hunger. There are four tasks/missions that students must complete in the current (beta) version of the game. Each task offers an activity that teaches a core principle. One example is a task where students learn about deforestation that makes it more difficult to collect firewood used to cook dinner. The lessons in the game mirror real-life happenings in Nepal with Heifer International’s partners. The game is currently in Beta version and the creators are asking for suggestions here. (http://ilearntechnology.com)

http://www.arkive.org/ Planet ARKive is aimed at children aged 7-11. It is bright and colourful and easy to use. Children can find information in the fact files, select information by topic, investigate habitats, play a game and find out what they can do to help preserve the environment and the species that live in it. The games are fun and a good way to introduce a topic. They can be used as whole class teaching on an interactive whiteboard or for group activities. Ideal for IPC topics related to habitats, rainforests.

(ICTSCOTLAND)

Draw that habitat- is a great little activity for primary students who are learning about habitats, camouflage, and adaptations. It is probably best to use Draw that Habitat after students have a general understanding of what a habitat is. This is a place where they can solidify that understanding and expand on what they have learned by creating something new. I like the abstract nature of the activity, they aren’t creating a habitat for a known, real animal; instead, students are coming up with new solutions based on some key information they are given. This gives students a chance to think critically, problem solve, and use some creativity and imagination. (ilearn technology)

The Carbon Calculator
This is a really nicely designed site which helps you calculate the amount of carbon your family emits. The site looks great and is rich in vocabulary. (IPC topic sustainability, what price progress).