it4L

Free Assembly Downloads
Available to download from 1st February 2008

To mark European Safer Internet Day, your school can run the FREE DOWNLOADABLE CEOP school assemblies, ideally during February.  They are creative and innovative assemblies addressing internet and mobile safety that only take a maximum of 15 minutes!

Get it in your school diary NOW! February 2008

There will be individual assemblies for Key Stage 2 (8-10) and Key Stages 3/4 (11-16), targeted and relevant for these age groups.

To get access to the Safer Internet Day Assemblies go to www.thinkuknow.co.uk/teachers/safeintday.aspx or click on the Assemblies Banner in the Teacher/Trainer area.

Once you have registered for the assembly downloads, we will have to verify your account (unless you have already attended a Thinkuknow training course). Once you have been verified for the assembly downloads, you will also have access to other resources such as our Social Networking Film and lesson plan.

The downloads will be available from our “Resource Area” from 1st February 2008 but only to those who have registered and have had their accounts validated.

Kind regards

CEOP Education team

I had forgotten about the excellent interactive whiteboard resources available from the WMNet portal  Resources range from an interactive clock to KS1 phonics activities to KS4 science activities. Well worth a look - and while you’re there, it’d be worth browsing the rest of this valuable resource, available to all of us in Shropshire for free! http://www.wmnet.org.uk

Are your teachers using and sharing
digital resources for learning and teaching?

Becta and the NEN invite your school to join this programme to:

§  exploit online digital resources

§  create new materials to support learning and teaching for secondary aged students using those online digital resources

§  work with your RBC (and possibly its Local Authority and other schools) to produce these materials and then share them across the NEN.

Projects last from April to December 2008.  Funding will be up to £25,000 per project. Bids are required by Friday 22 February 2008.

Further Details

Oscar Stringer, one of our keynote speakers for this year’s ICT conference [14th April], has some tips for animation on his website.

Shirehall, Shrewsbury
Fixed term until 31 March 2009
£23,739 - £25,320 pa

Experienced ICT specialists are sought to provide support to the Local Authority and to schools in the development of the next phase of the Learning Platform for Shropshire children and young people.

You will join our well established and highly respected team working for the Education Advisory Service and will work alongside advisers and teachers in the development of web-based learning resources. Ref ER59/07

For an informal discussion, please contact Phil Wilson on 01743 254344

Closing date Thursday 31 January 2008

Further details can be found here.

Looking at Kudlian Soft’s excellent website, we found some top tips from animator Curtis Jobling, designer of children’s character Bob the Builder and creator of Frankenstein’s Cat. Kudlian Soft are running a competition Animate It 08, and have included information which can be used to support this - or any other animation project (such as the Shropshire Create It! awards). Access Curtis’ tips here.

This letter has also gone out to all schools

The next Shropshire ICT/ e-learning conference will be held at Albrighton Hall on April 14th 2008, from 9:15 - 4. The theme this year will be ‘Creativity in the Classroom’ and we are very lucky to have two excellent keynote speakers - Stephen Heppell (www.heppell.net) and Oscar Stringer (www.animationforeducation.co.uk) , both of whom are leaders in the field of developing creativity through ICT.

The programme for the day will be:
9:15 - Welcome
9:30 - Keynote speaker - Stephen Heppell
10:30- Break
11:00 - School workshops 1 (all at Albrighton Hall)
12:00 - Lunch and seminars
1:30 - Exhibition time
2:00 - School workshops 2 (at Albrighton Hall)
2:45 - Keynote speaker - Oscar Stringer
3:30 - Discussion, action planning and launch of the Shropshire Learning Gateway.
4:00 - Close

The cost of the conference is £125. However, if more than one person from a school wishes to come, there is a special rate of £200 for two people, provided that one of these is a member of the school SMT.
There will be special conference rate software offers running throughout the day, a raffle with exciting prizes and a chance to find out more about the new Shropshire Learning Gateway. We are sure that this will be an instructive and inspiring day.

If you would like to book onto the conference, please contact CPD on 01743 254522 or cpd@shropshire-cc.gov.uk, quoting course code 82330C

We are very grateful to our conference partners - 2Simple, Apple, Espresso, Immersive Education and Kudlian Soft

This letter has gone out to all Shropshire schools

Dear Colleague

As you may be aware, we are running a competition in conjunction with the ICT Creativity Conference, to encourage young people to explore digital creativity, entitled the Shropshire Create It! Awards. There are four categories for the awards:
• Short animation (1 minute)
• Short video (1 minute)
• Interactive story (KS 1/2/) or Computer Game Design (KS 3/4)
• Artistic interpretation (e.g. storyboards, character design, set design etc)

There will be separate awards for KS1, KS2, KS3 and KS4+ in each category. For each award, there will be a prize of a £50 Amazon voucher for the pupils, and a certificate for the school.

In order to make the event a success, we are asking you to encourage your pupils to take part, as part of their curricular or extra-curricular activities. The closing date for entries is February 29th, and entries can be emailed to andrea@it4.org, steve@it4l.org or keith.havercroft@shropshire-cc.gov.uk. Alternatively, you could put them onto a CD/DVD and send them to Andrea Dunn, Steve Beard or Keith Havercroft at
Shropshire LA Children and Young People’s Services Directorate
Shirehall, Abbey Foregate, Shrewsbury, SY2 6ND

Winning entries will be notified by March 17th 2008 and pupils, school representatives and parents will be invited to an evening celebration/awards ceremony at the Albrighton Hall on April 14th 2008.

We look forward to receiving some exciting and creative entries for the competition.

JANET Collaborate is a ‘one-stop-shop’ for teachers and lecturers looking for opportunities to work collaboratively, especially using videoconferencing.

The website is free to join and use. Members can search through the catalogue of Opportunities to collaborate:

• with museums, galleries, archives and other content providers
• with other teachers in schools in the UK and further afield

The site is arranged in three main sections: Find, Share and Organise.

Read the rest of this entry »

The latest news regarding the new KS3 ICT assessment tasks is as follows:

• The latest version of the delivery software was made available to schools on 19 November 2007
• The revised familiarisation materials were made available to schools who have installed the latest version of the delivery software on 19 November
• The data handling tasks at levels 3-4, 4-5 and 5-6 were made available to schools on 23 November
• Support materials (general support, progression grid, toolkit help, data handling task support and data handling tasks ‘non-toolkit’ version) are available to download from the NAA website (www.naa.org.uk/ks3ict)

Schools wanting information on the accreditation process should be directed to the customer services team (email: ks3ict@rm.com.uk or tel: 0870 870 1025 (option 1) - although please note that this number will be changing to 0845 8701025 from 18 February 2008).