it4L

As part of Digitalbrain’s continuing program of improvement we are pleased to announce Site Release 1.5 will go live on Wednesday 1st August subject to passing QA and testing. This release contains improvement in two key areas:

• New Discussion Forums
• New Adaptamations and Adaptamation Viewer

Forums

The new Forum application has been developed to replace the existing mail discussion functionality within Digitalbrain. Re-designed from the ground up, Forums bring with them massive improvements in terms of look and usability. Developed using our Portlet technology this new application meets and exceeds all current BECTA requirements for a discussion forum within a Learning Platforms.

Adaptamations

When looking for adaptamations to insert into Learning Module pages an new thumbnail browser will be displayed. Dividing the Adaptamations into types the browser will display a thumbnail image coupled with a description of how that Adaptamation works.

To accompany the new browse and insertion process we will be including three new Adaptamations. These new Adaptamations include an image gallery that can pull through image collections from the web site Flikr or from a folder within a Digitalbrain portal.

Further details and updated help files will be available on our updates and help portals at http://updates.digitalbrain.com & http://help.digitalbrain.com respectively, as well as tips on how to make the most of these new features.

Just had this email, which looks interesting:
‘Ictopus (ICT online primary user support) is a new support service for primary education. Anyone can sign up for the free service and will receive a weekly six page printable magazine and a set of activity suggestions. There will also be a regular newsletter or e-bulletin. These resources (and more) will be archived on the ictopus website www.ictopus.org.uk . Ictopus builds on the very useful Becta Direct2U service which ended last year. Each edition of the weekly magazine, ‘Sharing Good Practice’ will be available as a download in a printable format that could be displayed in a staff room and stored in a ring binder for future reference. It is proposed to have a coherent theme for each edition and the overall focus is to be on disseminating good practice.
The weekly activity ideas, ‘Lessons2go’, are a development of the Direct2U activities. These lessons aim to provide ideas for the use of ICT across the primary key stages and curriculum. The pick of the original lessons will be updated, including the checking of web links and inclusion of any new developments. A regularly updated index will be available so that lessons can be found for different key stages, subjects or year groups. 
In addition there will be an e-bulletin which will keep colleagues up-to-date with all things ICT on a very regular basis, including links to a ‘website of the moment’ as new and exciting things come to light.
Users will be able to sign up for each service individually. Resources will be despatched to you as they are issued and will also be archived on the website.
Ictopus is run by a group of primary teachers, university lecturers and consultants who wish to support colleagues working in the field of primary education. It aims to be flexible and adaptive to your needs and to provide a forum for dissemination of the excellent practice currently found in many schools.The service launches in September 2007 but you can sign up for it right now by visiting the website http://www.ictopus.org.uk .’

The new GCSE in ICT (including functional ICT) is an alternative to AiDA and consists of two units.Unit 1 covers the three strands of the stand-alone functional skills ICT pilot qualification and contributes 50% of the marks towards the GCSE ICT. Candidates will sit a practical computer-based examination which is externally set and marked.

In Unit 2 candidates will plan and undertake a substantial project requiring eight hours of work in a controlled environment. The project brief (a mini SPB) will be supplied by Edexcel. Candidates will present their achievements in an eportfolio which is internally assessed and externally moderated.
The pilot is available to a limited number of centres only and offers the opportunity to be at the forefront of these exciting new developments.

This letter gives more details of the pilot. If you are interested in taking part please complete the expression of interest form and return it to us as soon as possible.

In connection with the iClass project and my research at the Institute of Education I have been working on designing a Personalised Search Tool for Teachers called PoSTech, see www.postech.me.uk .

Therefore, if you are a school teacher (primary, secondary or post-compulsory) in UK and have ten minutes to spare then your help would be really appreciated.

To search with the personalised search tool just type in your search keyword/s, followed by selecting your preferred category/ies i.e. subject, resource type and advanced search options, as you would do normally with other search engines, like Google or Yahoo and then click on the ‘Search’ button to view your personalised search results.

To send us your feedback please click on the ‘feedback’ button’ (coloured yellow) to complete the online questionnaire. Please note, to see the ‘feedback button’ teachers would need to click on the ‘Search’ button first.

**** To identify UK teachers, teachers’ name and school address are required, however, if you do not wish to disclose all or any of these information please just type in ‘Becta mailing list’ and ‘UK’ for your name and school address.

For further information please contact Faezeh Seyedarabi at the Institute of Education, University of London.

Your support and valuable time is most appreciated,
Faezeh.

The new programme of study for ICT at KS3 and KS4 was released on Friday 12th July.  You can download the pdf files from the following links:

KS3
KS4

The Schome Park Project, which is run by the Open University, still has some spare capacity to accommodate more students over the summer holiday period.

The Schome Park Project involves a group of 13 to 17 year olds plus staff employed by the Open University, using an island in Teen Second Life alongside the schome community wiki and forum (http://www.schome.ac.uk). Members of the community are exploring the educational potential of Teen Second Life – we have our own closed island called Schome Park which is only accessible to avatars that we have registered ourselves. All the adults within Schome Park have had enhance CRB disclosures within the last two years (or international equivalents).

In order to take part students need to have:

• access to a suitable computer with broadband internet connection
• had their identity confirmed by a reliable source (eg their school)
• returned informed consent forms signed by their parent/guardian and themselves

If you are working with students who might be interested in joining this project over the summer period then contact me Peter Twining (P.Twining@open.ac.uk) – first come first served – the number of places left is limited.

If you work in a school then I will provide you with information (including consent forms) which you can give out to your students - the consent forms are returned directly to me – all you have to do is give them to your students and provide me with a list of the names and dates of birth of the students in question.

To find out more about the Schome Park Project see the Schommunity Website – http://www.schome.ac.uk/

To find out about the schome-NAGTY Teen Second Life Pilot upon which this current work is building download a copy of the Final Report - http://kn.open.ac.uk/public/document.cfm?docid=9851

PeterT

Dr Peter Twining

Director, The Centre for Curriculum And Teaching Studies

The Open University

Walton Hall

MILTON KEYNES MK7 6AA

Phone: +44 (0)1908 655078

Skype: Peter.Twining (UK)

Email: P.Twining@open.ac.uk

Second Life: Schomer Simpson

URL: http://schome.open.ac.uk/wikiworks/index.php/User:PeterT

Title: Creativity and the classroom

Date: 14th April 2008

Time: 9.15 - 4.00 (Bafta’s 5.30 - 7.00)

Venue: Albrighton Hall

Keynote: Stephen Heppell

More details to follow…..

At last nights conference planning group it was agreed that we would have the first Shropshire Bafta’s following the conference next year.  There will be 3 categories - Computer Game, Animation and Short Film and four age groups - KS1, KS2, KS3 and KS4+.

More details to follow early in the new term.

As the title suggests, we need a name for the ceremony.  Please leave a comment with a suggestion, including what school you are from, we will then make a decision on the name by the end of term.  Once we have a name we will be looking for a logo and then a design for the certificate.