Manchester University’s Animation10 project is open for submissions.   Create a 1-minute animation using software from the list below and you stand a chance of being invited to the Animation Festival and prizegiving at The Lowry in Salford Quays, Manchester.

Age groups are KS2, 3, 4 and 16+ .  Only entries created with Alice, Serif, Greenfoot, Scratch or Adobe Flash are acceptable.

Here’s a link for last year’s KS3 runner up from Church Stretton School.

Of course, anything from Shropshire schools entered for this competition will also be eligible for the prestigious Shropshire CreateIt! Awards.

‘Building spaces for the future’ is a FREE event that will draw on recent research by Futurelab about young people’s view of what learning spaces should look like in the future to offer practical support to Local Authorities, schools and those going through building programmes such as BSF and PCP. It will help you to ensure that the buildings and spaces that you create will still be functional in the future and will take into account what education should look like in the future rather than what it is now.

To register for this event which is to be held at the Royal Society in London on 3 March 2010 (10am–12pm), please contact events@futurelab.org.uk.

For further information, go to www.futurelab.org.uk/events/listing/buildingspaces.

Is there a budding Hockney, Turner or Lowry sitting in your classroom? 10 Downing Street is currently running an art competition for young people, which is divided into three age groups: 5-7, 8-11, 12-16. The winning entries of each age group will be displayed in Downing Street.

There are four rounds and the closing date for this round is 25 February 2010. Each round will have a theme and the current theme it is ‘Keeping Healthy’. The entries can relate to how the students try to keep healthy, diet, exercise, do sports, hobbies etc.

For more information visit: http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page21130

At BETT last week we saw a number of new technologies and approaches.  Click below for a quick intro into some of the things that we found interesting.

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Where? – Cheltenham College, Gloucestershire

When? -12-15 April 2010

What you will learn

In the age of digital literacy and creativity, educators need to seek out best practice in the use of the tools available.  Now is your opportunity to develop the ideas you have already had about digital creativity, to see how others are using these new tools with great benefits in learning gains and to understand the pedagogy that underpins the excitement of digital media. You will learn in an environment where you are given the opportunity, inspiration, space and support to be creative with like-minded colleagues. All learning on this unique course will give you a thorough background in digital media in an education context but is carried out in relaxed and friendly manner so is suitable everyone regardless of their experience with IT and creating digital content for.

At this event, you will investigate a range of activities that focus on different digital media:

• Mobile learning- iPod and iPhone in the context of Apple’s Learning Environment
• Podcasting/wikis and blogs
• Creating content using digital video cameras and editing software
• Exploring the use of still images, music and animation in multimedia projects
• Methods for sharing digital projects on DVD and the WebSharing of experiences, action planning and portfolio development.
• Development of skills in subject/age group relevant project

Cost: £500 (ex VAT) – This covers the full conference fee, tuition, accomodation and meals.

Register your interest – To receive a booking form to reserveyour place at ATI 2010 please contact Fiona McGlashan of Impact Exhibitions:

By Phone or Fax: 01223 237426
By Email: impact@appleshack.com

1) SID10

Safer Internet Day (SID) is an annual event organised by Insafe to promote the safer and more responsible use of online technologies and mobile phones. CEOP acts as the co-ordinator of SID activities in the UK. The theme for this year is “Think before you post”, encouraging children and young people to manage their online identity by utilising privacy settings on social networking sites, selecting friends online that they can trust and taking careful consideration of the potential consequences before publishing images of themselves and others online. For further information about CEOP’s initiatives and resources for SID10 please read on or visit www.thinkuknow.co.uk/saferinternetdayuk 

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The 2010 Horizon Report is out.  This is an annual report on emerging technologies that are likely to have an impact on learning and teaching in the next five years.  It’s an excellent read, essential for those who like to keep their finger on the pulse.

Listed in this year’s edition as likely candidates to make an impact in the near future include:

• mobile computing (one year or less);
• open content;
• augmented reality;

Read the online report here for the full details.

Kodu is a free game programming environment from Microsoft.  Formerly only for the XBox, it’s now been ported to the PC.  It requires the XNA framework and an up-to-date .NET framework which are both obtainable from Microsoft if you don’t already have them installed.  It’s in ‘Technical Preview’ release at the moment.  Contrary to what I was told at the Microsoft stand at BETT (and later corrected by Andy Sithers who was on the stand), Kodu runs nicely on Windows XP.

It’s been designed to be used with an XBox controller and the physical programming environment is intuitive and easy, leaving the path clear for thinking about making things happen in the game rather than struggling to  find out the ways to make them happen.  Using it on a PC keyboard is easy too, but I bet the XBox controler makes it even easier. For teaching sequencing and/or programming in the classroom Kodu is a godsend.

First build your world, then populate it with objects. There are a number of pre-built objects including some cute characters for you to use.  Objects are given behaviours, which can be conditional or random.  They can be programmed to interact however you want.  You might want them to move along specific paths, or you might want them to move according to rules you define. There is provision for scores, timers, various aspects of AI so that characters will act independently and interact as you tell them.

For learning to make things happen through sequencing, this program is exellent.  It is engaging and intuitive, it’s easy to learn yet has enough complexity to introduce quite a high level of challenge.

After some basic twiddling, I found a tutorial here to get me started on more complex stuff.

Right, that’s enough blogging.  I have some games to program..

To support European Safer Internet Day and the launch of the new digital code for children “Zip it, Block it, Flag it” Microsoft is offering all UK schools the opportunity to host their own parents awareness session. These virtual sessions offer your school the opportunity to host a parents evening with a presentation led by a Microsoft volunteer to inform and educate parents on the technology their children are using and how they can keep them safe when online.

For further details click here.