The latest round of the Partnership Grants scheme is now closed. The next round will open on 6 September 2010 and close on 5 November 2010.

Maybe you’re a teacher with a great idea for a science project?  Or perhaps a scientist or an engineer who would like to be more involved with your local school? 

The Royal Society’s Partnership Grants scheme could be just what you’re looking for.

The scheme offers up to £3000 to support teachers, scientists and engineers like you in working together to inspire young people.  Fantastic projects can be created by partnerships like these, allowing teachers to increase their scientific knowledge and giving scientists and engineers the chance to develop their communication skills and engage with enquiring young minds. Perhaps most importantly, these projects give school students a taste of science and engineering today, and their relevance for society.

For teachers the extension ‘A Cleaner YouTube’ is a no brainer, it removes everything off the YouTube page apart from the video you want to watch.  You can install the extension here.

So, if you want to use YouTube in the classroom and you have been put off by the related videos or comments then install Safari and add the extension for a clean view of YouTube.

Click here to find out more and to try out Smart Notebook Express

Smart Notebook express brochure

ClickCEOP is a new ‘app’ launched today (Monday 12 July) which links the young user directly from their Facebook profile to help, advice and reporting facilities of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre – the police agency set up to tackle child abuse.

By adding the app, young people and parents can get support from CEOP on a range of issues – viruses, hacking, dealing with bullying online and they can report someone who is acting inappropriately towards them online.

If you have a Facebook profile, app and bookmark the app.  If children in your care are on Facebook, get them to search ‘ClickCEOP’ in Facebook and give them to chance to be one click away from help – if they should ever need it.

www.facebook.com/clickceop

The Appinventor is a graphical programming environment that looks very similar to StarLOGO TNG, a direct descendant of Seymour Papert‘s LOGO and yes, it is very closely related to Scratch.  So it looks like all those budding Scratch programmers in primary and secondary schools will soon have a market for their talents in the form of Android apps development.

Additionally, there is an obvious progression from using Scratch to learn concepts of programming that can then be easily transferred straight to mobile phone app development.  I’m looking forward to getting my copy of AppInventor – perhaps you would like to sign up too.

Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus – £39.95 (retail £350ish)
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional – £42.95  (retail £150ish)

If your school is actively seen to be promoting this website then they can obtain a 5% rebate from all sales.  Further details about this and posters to promote the site can be downloaded from the Schools & Colleges area of the website.

Is it time for a school or department refresh? Not sure what to do with all your out-of-date kit?

We may have the solution for you. We have been approached by a charity in Leicestershire that hope to fill a container(s) to send computers to schools in Africa this September.

They are in particular need of mice, keyboards, power and interface cables as well as decent spec pc’s, monitors and servers.

Pick up can be arranged at your convenience.

Please contact Keith Douglas on 07976 738079 to discuss further or email your interest to bernadette.brooks@naace.co.uk.

Each team was given some information and then set some activities to carry out the media team were in charge of propaganda.  The group of spies were deciphering codes sent to them, some of these messages were in direct response to broadcasts made by the media team.  The weapons group were deciding on what weapons to purchase and where they should be positioned. Other students in the weapons group were designing new weapons this information was passed on to the media team.  The deployment group were discussing tactics with the media group and the weapons group.

It was great to see the high level of engagement by all students. The session was fast paced and everyone participated with the tasks. Apart from the history content that they were learning the students were developing PLTS.

For further details about the session visit the Video Conferencing site at the Imperial War Museum.

Hopefully you can see on the photo students using paper, post it notes and an iPhone for note taking.  It would be great to see students having access to a range of tools in the classroom that they could select from, to pick the best tool for them for the task they are doing.