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Here is my 1min introduction to Kodu, that I played at the Shropshire ICT Conference…

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.

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

National Schools Film Week (NSFW) provides teachers and their students the opportunity to see a wide range of films at local cinemas entirely free-of-charge. This year is the 14th annual festival and promises to bring you even more films in even more locations than ever before. From major urban centres to small towns, NSFW extends education into local cinemas, giving teachers the opportunity to use the power of film to cover many different subjects.

The festival is available to any school. Every year we are able to take more groups to the cinema. After a record attendance of 410,000 last year, we hope to achieve 450,000 in 2009.

We welcome bookings of all sizes. Some schools will bring an entire Year group or Key Stage while others attend on a class-by-class basis. We do not limit places to any number of students or schools to any number of bookings. As long as there is space in the cinema, you are welcome!

To book your places, visit the booking section or phone 020 7292 7300.

Augmented Reality technology has been just over the horizon for a while. It was even shown on the Gadget Show a while back so it must now be creeping into mainstream.  It’s been interesting to watch it develop and it would be great to see where it will lead educationally.  There have been  AR applications for various hardware out for a while but imagine the richness of an information source that reads your location and gives corresponding information on your handset about your surroundings. This article outlines some of the ins and outs of presenting data and information through AR.  As one developer says, it’s ‘…just like building a website.  You have your data source and you’re just trying to parse and present it in a meaningful way…’. The possibilities for businesses are huge if this takes off; conversely, the possibilities for mischief, misuse and hijacking of such a system for personal or commercial gain might also raise huge problems.  This could be a good lesson starting point for a discussion on the amounts and types of data that such a system could display on a handheld, where it could be gathered from, who would have access to and compile that data, and where there is a potential for the introducation of bias.

A rich source of AR content can be found at ARSights, where a huge number of 3D models have been built and placed on a Google Earth layer.  The models have been built in Sketchup and can be viewed in 3D by using a webcam and the printed marker page.

I’m looking forward to my 3D AR Top Trumps cards arriving soon.  3D Bugs or Ben 10 Alien Force in 3D cannot fail to be awesome.  Just for my children, you understand…

http://www.saferinternet.org/ww/en/pub/insafe/news/articles/0509/internet_safety_events.htm

Safer Internet Day 2010, 9th February: under the theme “Think before you post”, SID 2010 will focus on how we’re managing images online and consequently, how we deal with privacy in digital environments. Insafe will be launching a pan-European quiz on 1st February, targeting two age-groups: 5-11 and 12-15 year-olds. The quiz will be open to individuals or school classes who will compete with the objective of becoming increasingly aware of their role in protecting themselves and others online. An online SID Fair will showcase participating organizations across the world, and schools are invited to register the events they will be running to mark the day.  Information on Safer Internet Day will gradually become available on www.saferinternet.org as from the month of September.

Just a quick reminder that over the last year or so Shropshire LA have purchased the following software for all schools in Shropshire:

• Comic Life
• Podium
• SMART Notebook 10

If you are a Shropshire School you can download all these titles for FREE from the resources area of the Learning Gateway.  If you would like any support in using the software contact Andrea Dunn [primary] or Steve Beard [secondary].

Next week (18th – 22nd May) is walk to school week. Here are some useful links to help you plan for it, think of activities etc.
http://www.walktoschool.org.uk
http://talesoftheroad.direct.gov.uk
http://www.nhs.uk/Change4Life

This link gives details of some of Shropshire Council’s safer routes to school initiative, and this link gives details of Shropshire’s road safety education programme for primary schools.

QCA are going out to consultation about proposed changes to the level descriptors for ICT (amongst other subjects) along with a variety of other changes (http://www.qca.org.uk/qca_22256.aspx).

‘Proposed revisions to information and communication technology reflect the raised expectations of pupil achievement in the new primary curriculum.’ http://www.qca.org.uk/qca_22260.aspx

The proposed changes for ICT can be downloaded as a pdf file from here.

The consultation will run until 24th July 2009.

Sir Jim Rose has published the final report of his Independent Review of the Primary Curriculum , which you can download from here. Look out for the enhanced role of ICT, which he recommends becomes part of the new core of the primary curriculum, along with English and maths. He also recommends the DCSF looks at providing training so that teachers can keep up with the changing technologies which are part of their pupils’ everyday lives.  Well done to Clunbury Primary School, who are featured in the report as an example of good practice! Lots more to come on this subject when we have had a chance to inwardly digest!