Tools, Sites, Apps and Stuff you have to read w/c 3rd June 2013

Each week my Flipboard app, Twitter responses, my kids, my Kindle Fire and my Google reader deliver a collection of new web tools, apps, books, crazy experiences, random rants  and must read articles or books.

Obsolete

Another great find from Vimeo – a site which is sadly blocked in some schools, so best download it first. This is four minutes of stark contrasts of the light outside of the dank ailing toy factory. The robot who is forced to work here is finally released/escapes at the end of the film. And I guess that is your starting point for writing.

Obsolete from Smoking Robot on Vimeo.

Combining Sound/ Music Apps

Though I love playing with apps like Figure and Rebirth  I will admit to being in need of some musical instruction and inspiration to help me move beyond the messing about stage. This is where tutorials from the likes of Julian Coultas come in. Here is a great video from him on using a number of music related apps together to make music for a podcast.

Creative Audio on the iPad from Digital Roadtrip on Vimeo.

Mailshot Pro

One thing that really vexed me over the last year was sending group emails from an iPad. Obviously there are bigger things in my life, but  for a time this was a conundrum that I simply had to solve. I wanted my iPad to be a mobile office and not have to fire up the PC every-time I wanted to send an email to all of Year 4, the LSA team or even the whole school.

Now unless things have changed in the last few minutes then I am pretty sure that IOS devices do not let you send group emails from the mail app. It is not Outlook you know! However we did find “an app for that” in the shape of Mailshot pro.

Though this cost £2.49, it did do what it said on the tin. They have a support site with clear instructions on how to set up your mailing lists too.

Google Forms

This is an oldie for me really. I have been using google forms for some time, both in class and to do evaluations at the end of training sessions. You can forget how good they are though! This week I needed to create a staff survey and we used google forms as a means of collecting  the information. It is such a time saver and if you phrase your questions correctly you can get a good mix of  text-based answers and measurable numerical data which is displayed back to you viewable as pie charts.

Ian Addison is a busy man, but he once gave up ten minutes of his life to create this really handy video for people who would like to use Google Forms, but perhaps lack the confidence.

Animation Chefs

Ok, so these guys rock! They are like anarchic CPD on animation that is both funny and bursting with fresh and helpful ideas. I love watching their videos and picking up tips and new ways for using animation.

Visit their site for more animation craziness.

Why are you Shouting at Us?

Managing behaviour is so important and no matter how long you have been a teacher, you can always develop your strategies for dealing with difficult pupil and class situations.  I am reading a range of Kindle based books at the moment, but this one held my attention right the way until the end.

The authors are both practical and honest and I have found myself using some of their tips and approaches this week. I would highly recommend this feature on the reading list of new and older teachers alike.

Oh and buy – Phil Beadle – How to Teach as Well!

 

Tools, Sites, Apps and Stuff you have to read w/c 13th May 2013

We missed a week due to Bank Holiday – and so we’re back

Each week my Flipboard app, Twitter responses, my kids, my Kindle Fire and my Google reader deliver a collection of new web tools, apps, books, crazy experiences, random rants  and must read articles or books.

Here is this weeks collection:

SquiggleFish

I love this app, it is from Stripey Design who have brought us tools like Anithings and the Just too Easy Infant Tools. Squigglefish allows you to capture your felt pen fish and animate them in an aquarium.  I wish I had this app when I was working with my class on Endless ocean as we could have filled our iPad fish tanks with species that we had spotted in the water. Aside from the obvious ocean/ undersea curriculum links, I also like this app as it encourages creativity and art away from the device. You return to it to add and animate your fish – a good balance I think with my technology obsessed children.

iPads in your School – Where do you even Start? – Switched On ICT – iPad Units

If like many schools you have taken the leap  from the safety of your ICT suite over to mobile iPads, then you could probably do with a bit of help to navigate through this to the exciting new world of apps and anything goes. This was a situation I found myself in a few months ago. In the ICT room I knew where I was it was safe, you had  a scheme and the suite of software you used to teach the curriculum was finite.  You knew where to save, where to upload to and it all made sense, but it could also be predictable and limiting. Although I am sorry Mr Gove, I and many of my other esteemed colleagues rarely if ever taught a boring ICT lesson!

Back to the iPads. For a few months I muddled through trying out apps, talking to colleagues via twitter and attending events like those held at Elm Park Primary or at Apple in Regent Street. This is part of the fun, but I do remember thinking I wish there was something I could just pick up and run with, a course or set of notes from someone who has been there before. There are books like iPads in Education for Dummies, which is OK and I managed to plough through a chapter or two, or the more digestible and cheaper Educator’s iPad by Chris “Shambles Guru” Smith. Enter Switched On ICT and their iPad units. What you get is a growing series of tried and tested lessons that feel like they have been written and tried out in UK classrooms.

Here is a video of myself and my ICT Team Partner and electronic music guru Steve Hawke talking about the Projects

The iPad Projects pack is well suited to a school that is moving steadily and strategically into iPad adoption. It contains two exemplars of using iPads in a cross curricular context. These are Mind Mapping and Ebook creation. These lessons appealed to me as a seasoned know it all cynic, but I also felt that I could hand them to teachers who were less confident with the devices as they are detailed and clear.

For us as a school this pack helped us align the iPads to the full Switched On ICT scheme in the form of a matching chart of apps to units. I wouldn’t say I agree with all of these but most of them are spot on!  You also get access to a free Online course on using iPads in school, which is something I wish I had access to months ago.  It acts as a strong induction and introduction to the technology. It is ideal for those who are starting out on iPad integration, though I picked up some new tips and ideas too!

Mind Mapping apps are explained and presented as a fantastic cross curricular lesson in the pack. Here is a photo of some of the work from my class, taken hurriedly on another iPad.

For me this pack is very good value for money for any school on the iPad journey. It should be on every ICT Coordinators desk, or better still in the PPA room.

Tools, Sites, Apps and Stuff you have to read w/c 28th April 2013

Each week my Flipboard app, Twitter responses, my kids, my Kindle Fire and my Google reader deliver a collection of new web tools, apps, books, crazy experiences and must read articles.

Here is this weeks collection:

Face Film App

My thanks this week goes to Yan Jiangguo, who provided me with a code for his FaceFilm app. The app lets you morph

two faces together with the whole smooth process outputting as a movie or an animated gif. So, as you can see opposite, you can use your iPad to stage your own Doctor Who style regeneration.

In terms of classroom use, this is one of those apps which could act as a writing stimulus. I would get my class to morph themselves into a character and write about how it feels to be that person, perhaps a soldier or a knight or an alien. These would look brilliant displayed on a class  blog with the writing coupled with the gif as an illustration for each story or poem. Possible themes could be going back in time or becoming a celebrity or world leader.

Addition and Subtraction for Kids

Back when I had Year 1, I used to make a lot of worksheets and flip charts involving visual addition and subtraction. For younger children and those with processing difficulties number operations can be just too abstract. As a visual learner myself I have always been keen to bring Maths alive with pictures, role play and objects. Fast forward a few years and Leo my middle son presents with autism and learning difficulties. This means that though he can memorize almost all of the Tube network and a whole collection of number facts by playing Bond Bubbles, he still struggles with simple addition and subtraction. We can spend quite a while battling with 9-0 or 8 + 6 and yet he knows lots of pairs of numbers that will make 100 from rote memory.

Enter this app, Addition and Subtraction for Kids, with the visual prompts and scaffolding of moving sea creatures. It is an app that works well for him and has great promise. Though, I am not going to leap too far up and down for this app as it really lacks the customization and options that other developers like Frogmeleon or Teacher’s Pet give you. In fact if you are listening guys, please make an app like this but with the understanding of teaching and learning that I know you both have!

Purple Mash – Face Lift

I have recently moved schools and I am introducing new colleagues to Purple Mash, a project I began with 2Simple over two years ago. I am thrilled to see how the front page and navigation have moved up a gear. The screen now adjusts seamlessly to fill the browser window and the search tool for activities including drilling down by year and subject is fantastic. It is still not IOS compatible yet, though you can now view the front page on an iPad and further 2Simple apps are on the way.

Teaching Packs

Mark Warner, the man behind Teaching Ideas and other tried tested and enduring Teacher resource sites has created a new site. I was privileged to be able to test this new project over this last weekend and as expected it all looks good and will be another place we all go to for quality resources. Teaching Packs, hosts a small but growing collection of teaching and display resources on themes such as punctuation, times tables and pirates, though that list is growing. A small fee will allow you to download each very comprehensive pack or you could subscribe for the year, which costs around the same as a decent CD!

And finally

David Pogue: 10 top time-saving tech tips

How many of these tips, tricks and short cuts did you know about :

Related articles

• Tools, Sites, Apps and Stuff you have to read w/c 14th April 2013 (antsict.wordpress.com)
• Tools, Sites, Apps and Stuff you have to read w/c 22nd April 2013 (antsict.wordpress.com)
• Tools, Sites, Apps and Stuff you have to read w/c 11th March 2012 (antsict.wordpress.com)
• Tools, Sites, Apps and Stuff you have to read w/c 24th March 2012 (antsict.wordpress.com)
• 4 Dice: Fraction Games Top Math App for Kids (funeducationalapps.com)

 

Tools, Sites, Apps and Stuff you have to read w/c 22nd April 2013

Each week my Flipboard app, Twitter responses, my kids, my Kindle Fire and my Google reader deliver a collection of new web tools, apps, books, crazy experiences and must read articles.

Here is this weeks collection:

Stick n Find

I expect to see a version of this technology in our classrooms in the next two to three years. I can see groups of year 1 children looking for carefully hidden stickered treasure armed with iPads. Or perhaps, techy minded vigilant teachers will sticker their items in the fridge which seem to find their way out of the staff room.

Diddipix

A great site I came across in the TES, which would support Teachers and  Key Stage 2 pupils in their photography work. I have never met a primary pupil yet, who instantly knew about how best to use flash or how to best frame an image. Most Teachers and pupils just aim, snap and rush to the printer. The Labs and workshops pages here help and guide readers to take better photographs and there are galleries to look at how others have achieved stunning results.  Well worth exploring if you are reviewing your scheme of work for ICT.

Minecraft Links

I am currently investigating the possibility of using Minecraft within our school, there is an app, but I am reliably informed by our Year 6 boys of how rubbish it is in comparison to the “real thing”.

I am grateful to friends on Twitter who shared links to these two sites that give further information on Minecraft in an educational setting. I hope I can write more about these sites and indeed Minecraft in future posts.

Firstly head over to Minecraft edu where you can buy an educational version of the game/ creator thingy.

• Purchase an Educational version of Minecraft here

Then have a read of the Primary Teacher blog about how he has been using Minecraft in has classroom.

• A reflective blog on using Minecraft in the classroom

Just buy 8, not 30 iPads!!

Occasionally a blog post will come along that just arrests you and derails your thinking, though in a good way. Julian Coultas’s latest post has had this effect on me this week. Julian has observed that schools who are trying to manage a class set of iPads across a school are finding it a struggle, after all 1:1 is the best model. Julian’s idea is one of 8 iPads per class. This is effectively a ratio of 1: 4 in a class and should also maximise on face rather than screen time.

If I am honest I am not sure where I sit with this yet, having worked mostly with a set of 30 for at least  25% of the week, I would find 8 a struggle. But managing class sets across a whole school is still a hassle, they need charging, syncing, transporting, booking and above all embedding. People need to get used to them and see them as part of their classroom resources, if you only get them once or twice a week and they contain random media/ scores and internet history from the rest of the school that can be a pain.

Julian is looking for schools to follow his 8iPad idea and as he is a man of integrity and modesty, he is not looking to show boat this work, just offer free support to 8 schools that take up the challenge.

I have not seen a duff idea from Julian as yet, so I will follow hashtag 8iPad with interest.

If you are about to buy a set of iPads, read this blog post now!! 

Alchemy -another inspiring Video

Alchemy from Henry Jun Wah Lee / Evosia on Vimeo.

Today, I took assembly, where many of the children were talking about how they had used personification within their poems and sentences. Next to ICT  literacy is probably my favourite subject to teach and enthuse about. Regular readers will now how much I love to find unique videos that will inspire young writers. I think this next video would be an ideal launch pad for work on imagery and create intrigue around time-lapse filming  The scenes in and around your playground may not be as stunning, but throughout the day there are changes in light and shifting clouds. A webcam or the Stop Motion Pro app could achieve an aspirational version of the video. Linking science, art, literacy and ICT.

Or just stick the video on at story time or as children come into the hall for assembly.

Tools, Sites, Apps and Stuff you have to read w/c 14th April 2013

Ok  we had a week off due to it being UK  Easter Holidays.

Each week my Flipboard app, Twitter responses, my kids, my Kindle Fire and my Google reader deliver a collection of new web tools, apps, books, crazy experiences and must read articles.

Here is this weeks Stuff I have seen:

Why the Ipad Can not do it All

Many of us have seen this iPad versus Paper funny on Facebook or Twitter. It has inspired Liz Griffiths to write a piece on when it is appropriate to use a tablet and when paper is best. Take a look at the full article on Edudemic, it is a good discussion starter, particularly if your school is in any stage of an iPad integration journey.

Computer Science for All

The CAS Include group is part of Computing at School and looks at inclusion in the area of Computing Education. The group is looking at getting more girls into computing and IT, though their aim of increasing the diversity of students in the subject shows they have a wide remit. Their newsletter is very informative and has stories of projects and events across the country, along with details of computing posters and great lesson ideas.

Essential CPD from Rising Stars and the Guardian

On the whole my experiences of  courses and training sessions have been quite positive. When it works you listen to an expert for a time, get  asked some challenging questions, undertake tasks that support or extend your learning and then you come away ready to put it all to work back at school. However, I have always been a bit suspicious of online courses and web-based CPD.

I have tried online CPD from another well-known organisation a few months ago, it was disappointing and  the experience was little more than cold box ticking and passage reading. But, this week I have embarked on a challenging online CPD Maths programme that I have found to be more than just a series of well presented multi choice forms. The NACE endorsed course I have signed up for is on Supporting the More Able in Maths at Key Stage 2.

I am finishing session 1 and I am really being stretched , following an introduction and theoretical background as to why children may not make the progress they could it all gets a bit practical. The remainder of this session contextualizes the guidance and advice by looking at your own school data and applying it to real pupils.

I’ll give a full review when I have finished, but suffice to say I have so far been surprised as to how much I am getting out of the course. It is not just practical and relevant either, the flexibility of online means you can pause and reflect or replay parts if you need to clarify something.  There are a range of courses available including  a free one on using iPads in the class. The Maths course I am doing would be great for a senior leader, an assessment leader, Maths Coordinator and or a Key Stage 2 Teacher.

The Objectives for the course are as follows:

• identify and consider the needs of your more able learners
• recognise how you can provide challenge by developing using and applying opportunities
• deepen your own understanding of the mathematics in Key Stage 2 in order to plan effectively
• develop pupil’s communicating and reasoning skills so they can talk confidently about the mathematics they know and are using.

Hopscotch – Coding on an iPad that goes beyond the Beebot.

I have shown this app before and it keeps getting better as more updates are made. Today the beta version, which will soon see approval on the app store allows:

• A range of commands and controls that remind one of Scratch and/or Logo but more immediate and accessible
• The ability to run over 5 different programs simultaneously
• Saving and opening of sequences by name on the devices thus overcoming the sharing of iPad issues which is prevalent in most schools, where one to one iPads is but a dream
• You can share your work via email

This seems to me the most exciting app on the iPad for teaching Coding in primary schools. I am not sure anything else comes close just yet. Let’s have more apps like this which increase the versatility of the iPad and shake us from our Scratch obsessed minds. The coders behind this coding environment have previously built  Daisy the Dinosaur, which for a while was the only remotely coding app for primary children. They are keen that more children get into coding and they have thought very carefully about the design and GUI. It is interesting to read through the very long essay by Brett Victor, which the team mentioned on a tweet recently, it clearly  influenced their thinking and is definitely worth ploughing through if you are interested in Computer Science for kids.  The development team were also inspired by this piece from the New York times, which reminds us that coding should not just be for boys. One only had to drop into my coding club last term to see that ring a few bells with my year 5 and 6 girl coders!  Did I mention it gets a bit addictive? So much so that I recently created a short program to build a city, as you can see in the video below. If you are using Switched on ICT , then this would link very nicely with unit 4.5 – We are Artists or unit 3.3 We are Animators.

And here is a video I made of my playing

Using the Emoji Keyboard in Class

I find a lot of inspiration and new ideas coming from Mr Parkinson’s Blog and his latest post does not disappoint.

Click on the image to read this post

And finally what keeps us working as teachers, ICT Coordinators, senior leaders etc.
Perhaps this TED Talk sheds some light on it all