it4L

http://www.forensicsoftware.co.uk/index.htm

Cybermentors

http://cybermentors.org.uk/

Children from the charity talked about issues facing young people online. Cybermentors are young people who have been trained to act as mentors and guides to other young people online. They are supported by Senior Cybermentors who are HE/FE based students. BBCounsellors   are also on hand and they are fully qualified BACP accredited counsellors who are available 8am to 10pm to assist and counsel young people who are being bullied. Partners carrying the Cybermentors logo direct young people to the site.  The law and CEOP are contactable for serious issues around online behaviour.

Becta Presentation

 Neil McLean, Executive Director Institutional and Workforce Development gave a presentation on Safeguarding Next Generation Learners. He talked about the educational challenges facing children today, such as Continuous change, High Expectations, New roles, and the Changing nature of childhood. He stressed the positive aspects of new technologies while giving everyone responsibility for safeguarding children – “Protecting children whilst they are in our care and educating them for when they are not.”  While many children are confident computer users they still “do not possess the critical and analytical skills to assess the information that they find on the web.”

Becta Accreditation: – enables educational organisations to purchase accredited internet products and services from providers that maintain specific standards of service, including safeguards for internet access.

Policies and practice: – Main recommendations:-E-safety co-ordinator, Policy and management team, Roles and responsibilities, Checklists of AUPs and Incident log. The Becta’s school website can be found at http://www.becta.org.uk/schools/esafety

NEW! DCSF Cyberbullying guidance
www.teachernet.gov.uk/wholeschool/behaviour/tacklingbullying.   

 www.digizen.org/

CPD resources for trainees, practicing teachers and adults who work with children: – Childnet’s  Know it all

Training for professionals: – Think you know, EPICT, UCLAN

Inspection: – It’s in the School Evaluation Framework: 4b the extent to which learners adopt safe and responsible practices in using new technologies, including the Internet. Now strengthened by the Laming review. Ofsted has also designed the new school inspection framework which will apply from September 2009 so that it will have a stronger focus on safeguarding. The current inspection framework already includes a judgement about whether safeguarding arrangements in schools are satisfactory but this will be strengthened in the new framework with a grading on a scale from 1(outstanding) to 4(inadequate) for a school’s safeguarding arrangements. Any school which receives a grade of 4 will also be likely to be awarded an inadequate grade for its overall performance and will need therefore to make urgent improvements. These arrangements will ‘raise the bar’ about the importance of safeguarding for schools and will also facilitate the identification and dissemination of best practice.

What about the children themselves- “Children and young people need to be empowered to keep themselves safe – this isn’t just about a top-down approach. Children will be children – pushing boundaries and taking risks. At a public swimming pool we have gates, put up signs, have lifeguards and shallow ends, but we also teach children how to swim.”  Dr Tanya Bryon, Safer Children in a digital World. The report of the Bryon Review.

UK Council for Child Internet Safety
UKCCIS

• Officially launched 29 September 08 as result of Byron Review
• over 100 organisations chaired by Home Office and DCSF Ministers
• a Child Internet Safety Strategy, to be delivered early next year
• The strategy will:

–        establish a comprehensive public information and awareness and child internet safety campaign across Government and industry including a ‘one-stop shop’ on child internet safety;

–        provide specific measures to support vulnerable children and young people, such as taking down illegal internet sites that promote harmful behaviour;

–        promote responsible advertising to children online; and

–        establish voluntary codes of practice for user-generated content sites, making such sites commit to take down inappropriate content within a given time.  

Warwick Presentation – Safeguarding Children in a Digital World – talked about the Warwickshire e safety solution:-Websense Internet Filtering, Policy Central Enterprise Monitoring and CyberSentinel Home Application. The Websense website has a WCC customer case study report.  http://www.websense.com/docs/CaseStudies/casestudy_warwickshire_county_council_uk.pdf

For information of Forensic software go to http://www.forensicsoftware.co.uk/FSL_Education.htm

 Channel 4 videos – Anna Richardson, Journalist and TV Presenter, reviewed the making of “The Sex Education Show vs. Pornography” for Channel 4 and how ease of access to pornography influences the views of young people towards sex and relationships.

 This event was held in May at West Bromich, Albion Football Club. It was an opportunity to find out about future developments from the 2Simple team (Nigel, Max, Katie and Julie).  Guest speakers included: Margaret Zglinski from Sandwell LA, who talked about how they used 2Simple software in their successful creative projects for KS1 and Early Years called Time to Talk and Time to Think. Simon Widdowson from Porchester Junior School, Nottingham showed examples of how 2DIY has facilitated teaching and learning in his school.   There was also feedback from schools who piloted the new online tools. There were demonstrations of the newest software -2 Do it yourself,  2Simple French and Maths city 2.

2DIY is designed to allow pupils to easily create their own activities and games. Children click, drag and insert items on screen and save as a flash file(.swf).  Teachers can also use it to create personalised resources for children in minutes.

www.2simple.com/2diy

You can view (or add) samples of 2 DIY creations at

http://www.2diyarchive.co.uk/

2Simple French has over 200 activities and children learn correct pronunciation by listening to french speaking robots and watching how their lips move. There are also developments in 2 Simple  Spanish and  a suggestion to create a 2Simple  English as an additional language.

 www.2simple.com/french/video

2Simple Maths City  (shape, space, number and measure) – foundation stage children explore these concepts through topics – The Birthday Party, The Building Site,  The Shoe Shop, The Fruit Shop and Underwater World.

www.2simple.com/mathscity2/video

2Simple are also in the process of developing “2Assess”. It will be a snap short tool of skills and is not intended to give a level or measure ICT capability or to develop self reflection. It will be an additional tool to annotated work. There will be videos to go with each activity.

Message from QCA -
‘Dear colleague,
QCA is urging all those with an interest in education to participate in the curriculum reform public consultation, which closes at 5pm on 24 July.
The government is proposing some important changes to the curriculum. The proposals are about:
- a new primary curriculum
- changes to the status of personal, social, health and economic education
- revised level descriptions for all subjects, and
- updated non-statutory guidance on religious education.
The consultation is online at www.qca.org.uk/curriculumconsultation
This public consultation is your chance to have your say and influence the education of hundreds of thousands of learners. Please also circulate the consultation link to your colleagues and networks and encourage them to contribute.
We look forward to your participation’

Today we were discussing search engines and their use.  Reminiscent of two old codgers we talked of the search engines of our youth, many of which are still around.  There’s a new kid on the block from Microsoft – Bing, and we can’t forget the recent launch  of Wolfram Alpha which dubs itself a knowledge engine rather than a search engine.  Steve reminded me of a really nice visualisation of a search engine, Tag galaxy, that searches Flickr tags and presents images in a really inspired way – guaranteed to motivate youngsters.  Go on, try it.  You can’t help but be impressed.

There are lists of search engines all over the place and here’s one that might be useful, and here’s a blog that discusses the wild world of search engines.  I particularly liked this post which suggests a number of search engine comparison tools.

At the last secondary ICT subject leader meeting we discussed copyright and that many students and teachers use photographs they find using Google Image search.  We discussed the legalities of this and I recommended the use of Flickr Advanced Search, this allows you to search for creative commons images.

Yahoo, who own Flickr, have taken included this and many other options into their Image Search.  These options include:

• Size of image
• Colour or Black & White
• Site/Domain, you can select a suggested site or domain type e.g. .gov, .edu or flickr.com etc or you can enter the site/domain eg. .sch.uk or .ac.uk
• Creative Commons Licence
• Safe Search

I think these options really make this an excellent search engine for images, what do you reckon?

Whilst browsing some sites related to film-making I came across one or two more bits on copyright including an interesting document presented as a comic  . The comic is American but raises many of the issues that we face in the UK. Different formats of the comic can be found here  . The Creative Commons website is also worth a visit especially as it has a search facility that allows users to search a variety of repositories and search engines such as Google and Flickr for images and content that have Creative Commons licences.

From April 2008 Futurelab started a programme of work – supported by Becta – to contribute to the ‘Harnessing Technology: Next Generation Learning 2008-14′ strategy launched in July 2008. This strategy aims to bring about a step-change in the way technology is used across the education and skills system, enabling learners to take greater control of their learning.

Three FREE scenario posters are now available which provide a starting point for considering the potential benefits and challenges of using technologies to support each of our three key areas: Adult Informal Learning, Family Learning and Games and Learning.

The research covered how families and adults use digital technologies to learn outside of formal education, and how to support universal access to learning tools and content for learning in families and adult informal learning. Also, a programme of consultation and research was carried out to develop recommendations on system-wide responses to computer games and learning. Whilst the scenarios resemble real experiences, they are based on comprehensive research and do not represent individual journeys.

For more information on the ‘Harnessing Technology: Next Generation Learning’ project, please visit our website at http://www.futurelab.org.uk/projects/harnessing-technology

To order the FREE full-sized posters (UK only ), please visit our online order form at http://forms.futurelab.org.uk/subscribe/

To download A4 versions of each of the scenarios, please visit the individual project pages:
Adult Informal Learning: http://www.futurelab.org.uk/projects/adult-informal-learning
Family Learning: http://www.futurelab.org.uk/projects/learning-in-families
Games and Learning: http://www.futurelab.org.uk/projects/games-and-learning

Senteo handheld response device

SMART’s electronic handheld response system (aka voting system), the Senteo, allows teachers to get rapid class responses to questions presented on the board. Teachers can use these systems for summative and formative assessment, checking whether students are on track or if they need additional help.

Creating quizzes is easy, and some have already been created and shared at SMART’s UK education resource site.  Please leave a comment to let us know how you might use these devices – contact Steve Compton for a demonstration or for further information on using the Senteo system.

GCSEs and functional skills from 2010

Ofqual published the criteria for GCSEs in English, ICT and mathematics specifications for teaching from September 2010 at the start of April. As a result of Ofqual’s advice to DCSF, learners will not be required to pass level 2 functional skills assessments to achieve A*-C grades in these subjects.

Awarding bodies are developing GCSE specifications against these criteria for accreditation by the regulators. These specifications are scheduled to be available in schools in autumn 2009. They will extensively test functionality, particularly as functional skills are already being delivered as part of the key stage 3 curriculum and will be embedded in programmes of study for key stage 4 in 2010.

Functional skills remain central to the reform of education for 14- to 19-year-olds and schools and colleges will be strongly encouraged to give young people opportunities to enter and achieve free-standing functional skills qualifications. Functional skills remain an important part of every Diploma qualification and their place within the foundation learning tier and apprenticeships remains unchanged.

Details about GCSE criteria development and consultation

QCA’s consultation on functional skill qualifications

We are planning to consult on the criteria that will form the basis of the next generation of functional skills qualifications from 1 June until the end of August.

This consultation is an important stage in the development and introduction of functional skills qualifications. The results of the consultation, together with the lessons learnt from the functional skills pilot, will inform the regulatory criteria for these qualifications for national roll-out in September 2010.

We want to hear from everyone with an interest in functional skills, from employers, schools, further education colleges, sector skills councils and universities.

Information about this consultation will be available from our functional skills pages.

For more information on functional skills qualifications, visit our functional skills pages and subscribe to our functional skills email newsletter.
Joining the functional skills qualifications pilot

Functional skills qualifications will be fully implemented from September 2010 following a three-year pilot. More than 2,000 centres are already involved in the pilot, but we are looking for more centres wishing to join the final year of the pilot.

Places on the pilot are restricted, but centres can join from September 2009 if they are:

• registering learners for the Diploma from September 2009
• offering the Advanced Diploma in September 2010
• a further education college or training provider that can offer apprenticeships
• a centre or provider with contracts offering learning in the custodial sector or probation service
• a centre or provider of adult education.

To establish your eligibility to join the pilot, please email functionalskills@qca.org.uk with details of your centre and the relevant category. We will contact you with details of the next steps once your eligibility has been established.

Lessons learnt from the functional skills qualification pilot

We have produced a case study booklet and video to highlight some of the lessons learnt from the first year of this pilot. They illustrate some of the approaches centres participating in the pilot have taken to introducing functional skills.

The booklet and the video are both available from our website.

Many schools in Shropshire have a variety of interactive solutions in their classrooms including Promethean, SMART, Hitachi, tablet pcs, wireless keyboard and mice etc.  This can make it difficult for teachers to move from classroom to classroom and be able to use a common interactive software. Taking the previous scenario a step further, if a teacher/pupil moves school within Shropshire then they might well have to learn another interactive software application. So, wouldn’t it make life easier if there was a common interactive software application (like Office) throughout your school and the county? As an advisory service we would then be able to produce resources in one format and know that it would be accessible by all our teachers.

Another problems is that, even where schools have thought strategically about their IWBs and have a common format throughout the school, there has sometimes been a lack of pedagogical training and some IWBs are still not being used to their full potential and the software even less so.

This led to me spending the later stages of 2008 consulting with both Promethean and Steljes/SMART to try and put together an interactive software solution for Shropshire schools.  For those who know me they will know that I am not the biggest fan of IWBs but I do realise the power of the interactive, multimedia software that comes with the board.  The solution I was looking for had little to do with IWBs – it was mainly to do with the software, having the software installed on all pcs in a school and also have it available for students to use at home.

As I mentioned earlier the other weakness I think we have when we introduce software to a teacher is lack of training and support throughout their adoption.  This being the case it was essential that what ever solution we put in place in Shropshire training was to be at the core.

As you will have noted from the title the Shropshire Heads ICT group chose to ‘partner’ with Steljes and roll out SMART Notebook 10 to all schools and Notebook SE to all students within the authority.  All schools in Shropshire can download the software and obtain the licence key from here (SLG username and password required).  Both parties see this as very much a partnership. We will become a centre of excellence for SMART technologies and form part of their development team providing constructive feedback every step of the way.

Running alongside the downloading of the software, we have contacted both subject leaders for ICT/ICT co-ordinators and head teachers in all Shropshire schools and have asked them to conduct a skills audit.  This staff questionnaire can be completed online within the Shropshire Learning Gateway here.  Once a school has a 75% completion rate by staff then Steljes will contact the school to arrange training.  It is our intention that teachers will be grouped, when possible, into 3 tiers and the top tier will become trained as trainers to provide sustainability.  We are also looking into the possibility of getting staff to document their development of interactive resources and using this as action research to form part of a Masters qualification.

For more information about this contact either Andrea Dunn, Steve Beard or leave a comment below.