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Students, or teachers, seem to struggle with producing buttons for their websites either in Key Stage 3 or for their DiDA eportfolio at Key Stage 4.  The buttonator website (http://www.buttonator.com/) allows students to produce a basic button which you can be downloaded and inserted into your website as a gif image, then just add your link from it.

We are close to completing our free DiDA resources for all schools and colleges. However due to the size of the videos, the presence of two 3D Game Based Learning Applications, and the full set of resources available in a Moodle course - we are up to around 6GB of content. We’re now sending out the resources physically to prevent the need for schools to do huge downloads as well as reinforcing the fact that the resources physically belong to all schools. On-line provision will be made available as part of the National Education Network (NEN) for those who do not want to host locally.

Could you help us out by either encouraging your schools to complete their details on this link below so they can get their own copy. Alternatively, register yourselves and obtain your own copy, and, if you feel appropriate, advise schools of their value as a free alternative to commercial resources.

http://dida.nwlg.org/register

The development site is www.dida-delivered.org , the resources come in a 4DVD box, we complete our address list by May 22^nd, distribute around 9^th June. Project background is on http://dida.nwlg.org

WMnet have let me know there are two places left on the Dreamweaver course (June 13th) and one on the Fireworks course (June 29th - may clash with subject leader courses). The Flash course is however full. Both courses run from 9:00 until 4:30 at the Sandwell TDC and cost £150 per course. Details are available here. Interested teachers please contact Ray Hills on 01743 246464 or email ray.hills@wmnet.org.uk

I have just received this via Richard Parry, Bridgnorth Endowed School:

The lifespan for the SPB has recently been extended. As a result candidates are able to submit eportfolios in:

December 2005
June 2006
December 2006
June 2007

That means you have three further opportunities to submit work. Confirmation of the changes will be on the DiDA website shortly.
Regards,

Conor Burns
Assessment Coordinator for DiDA & ICT

This is excellent news for all schools delivering the DiDA suite of qualifications.

I have just had confirmation of this, from Ann Weidmann, for all future SPB’s.

The marking of DiDA courses seems to be causing a lot of concern at the moment, from a discussion group I am a member of came a link to this ‘Mark your own DiDA project‘ webpage (it doesn’t work with Firefox), it was posted by: Ernest Waller, Hartismere High School.

Another poster to the discussion group uploaded a similar mark sheet, produced in Excel. I have linked to this page from the ICT Community DiDA page.

This is the headline from an article in the Guardian online today, it adds further fuel to our recent discussions at subject leader updates. One of the interesting points is that it states that QCA has not approved the OCR qualification yet, but according to Ian from Madeley Court it has been accredited.

I think it is a shame that people are saying DiDA is ‘too hard’, surely it is only too hard in comparison to the GNVQ in ICT. It is good to hear that it is taking schools a lot longer to deliver, would we expect double award science to be taught in a single option block? If not why do we think we can teach a 2 GCSE or even a 4 GCSE equivalent in a single option block time, with maybe the extra lesson or two after school. We also near to bear in mind that DiDA is still officialy in its pilot stage and things may well change.

Taken from the Edexcel DiDA microsite:

Helping You Implement DiDA in 2006: Free Regional Events designed to help you succeed.
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Managing your Project - more DiDA resources from “DiDA delivered” - via WMNet, our Regional Broadband Consortium, including a free (but rather limited) mind maping tool. I’d be interested to hear what people think of these - note I found the arrow bullets didn’t work in Firefox

Here are a couple more links to DiDA related resources:

MSN group set up by Jacqui Edwards (http://groups.msn.com/EdexcelDiDAResources). Lots of messages being discussed daily and several resources to support the teaching of DiDA.

Chris Sharples’ current list of DiDA hints and tips kept at http://www.gr8ict.com/school.htm#learningcrossc

I have created a new DiDA section within the ICT Community. I have uploaded the various documents I have which cover DiDA, there is a link to DiDA related websites and you can find details of the schools in Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin who are studying a DiDA qualification this year.