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I have been a fan of Brain Pop since I first saw them at BETT 2009, this year we were fortunate enough to have Eylan (@eylanezekiel) with us. BrainPop provided a free subscription as a prize on the day, this was won by Prees Primary school, they have also put together a special offer and free trial for Shropshire Schools – you can view details here.

Over the next couple of weeks I will investigate how to integrate the BrainPop resources within our SharePoint environment.

The Open Clipart library is a project set up to develop an archive of public domain clipart that is free for any use.  It’s a large resource, over 26,000 items of clipart available for download.

It can be found at openclipart.org.  Check it out, leave a comment to let us know what you think.

The Next Generation Learning National Schools Quiz is happening on Friday 12th March. Give your pupils the chance to represent their school, and participate with other children up and down the country, as part of the BIGGEST EVER online schools quiz!
Aimed at primary school children aged 8 and 9, the quiz will cover curriculum areas from history, science, citizenship, numeracy and literacy in a fun, unthreatening, way. You can choose whether your pupils participate on their own in the ‘individual’ competition, or as a group in the ‘class’ or ‘team’ competition.. There are prizes for both categories.
Children will need to answer multiple choice questions and in the event of a tie, response times will be taken into consideration.
You will need to register by 5pm on March 11th in order to take part. All players must be logged on by 10:45am with the quiz pre-downloaded, tested and ready to begin at 11am. All participants will receive a certificate.
The competition will finish by 12:30, though the quiz will remain online for others to play.
To find out more, and to register, go to www.nen.gov.uk/news/144/national-schools-quiz-register-now.html

This just received from Will Gardner of Childnet International:

Safer Internet Day is now just a week away and we’ve put together the following resources to aid schools in preparing for it:

* Check out 10 quick ideas for both PRIMARY and SECONDARY teachers around the theme of ‘think before you post’.

http://www.childnet.com/downloads/Childnet_safer_internet_day_pack.pdf

* Childnet & SWGfL have devised ‘think before you post’ related drama activities and scenarios for both PRIMARY and SECONDARY audiences.

http://www.swgfl.org.uk/Staying-Safe/Content/News-Articles/Teaching-students-to-think-before-they-post-Safer-

Safer Internet Day Know IT All update:

* On Safer Internet Day itself we will be launching a TOOLKIT OF RESOURCES FOR SECONDARY TEACHERS. This new Know IT All resource will be available online at www.childnet.com/kia<http://www.childnet.com/kia> and will contain practical and easy to use lesson plans and resources on a range of subjects, including copyright, digital citizenship, social networking, cyberbullying and grooming. This work has been supported by the TDA, the UKCCIS and Becta.

* Childnet has partnered with ITV’s Signed Stories to produce the Adventures of Kara, Winston and the SMART crew in British Sign Language.  The first BSL chapter will be released on SID.

* Watch out for the new promotional film for the Know IT All suite of resources.  Produced with the support of Becta, the TDA and UKCCIS – this will be available from SID.

Finally, to aid Childnet’s future development of KIA, we have produced an online evaluation form for those who have used or who are using any of the Know IT All resources (i.e. Know IT All for Parents, Know IT All for Primary, Know IT All for Secondary and Know IT All for Trainee teachers). Your feedback is very important to us.  This form can be found online at www.childnet.com/kia<http://www.childnet.com/kia> and I would like to encourage any of you who can to take 5 minutes to provide feedback on these.

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..

Samsung Techwin has officially launched its 2010 ”Focus on Learning” Grant Programme which provides schools with the opportunity to own the latest Samsung SDP-860 Digital Presenter.

Samsung Techwin will be awarding an SDP-860 Digital Presenter to ten individual schools or other educational establishments, who can best describe how they would benefit from using this ultra high resolution document camera.

Schools or other educational establishments based in the British Isles wishing to participate in the Grant Programme, can do so by way of visitingwww.samcam860.co.uk where they will find an easy to complete entry form which must be submitted by 11th February, 2010.

Samsung Techwin has designed the SDP-860 with the education sector specifically in mind and although it is packed with advanced features and functions, it has been priced to make it affordable for the vast majority of schools.

Click here for information on the SDP-860.

To participate in the Grant Programme visit www.samcam860.co.uk

Clunbury Primary School has reached the final in the prestigious ICT Register Showcase. They need our votes to help them win! Go to www.ict-register.net/showcase-awardsvote.php and vote Clunbury

Just got this email, thought as many people as possible should have a chance to comment –
‘Following the QCDA’s consultation in 2009 on the National Curriculum level descriptions, under Section 96 of the Education Act 2002, the Secretary of State is now undertaking a one month consultation on the draft order and proposed level descriptions. The level descriptions and associated documents can be found at the following link:

www.dcsf.gov.uk/consultations/index.cfm?action=consultationDetails&consultationId=1680&external=no&menu=1

As required by the 2002 Act, the Secretary of State’s consultation will run for a period of four weeks. The consultation is now open and will close on Friday 5 February. The response form should be emailed to level.descriptions@dcsf.gsi.gov.uk.

Great news for those interested in using BBC material.  The new permissive licence now allows the download and use of the BBC rushes at the BBC Digital Revolution site.

As they say: