Kent ICT Blog

Many congratulations to Madginford Park Junior School. The school achieved a magnificant third place in the Primary category of National Finals in the Jaguar Cars Maths in Motion Challenge.

On 26th June four year 6 boys travelled to Warwickshire to take part in the national final. It began 5 months ago with over 100,000 entrants! The boys won themselves an mp3 player, trophy and goody bag as well as some useful ICT equipment for the school.

“Visualgeography.com lets you explore the world through images, flags, money, language, maps and other information.”

View photos of a country, listen to the native language of that area, learn more about transportation, education, religion, people, etc

 Ideal for use on the interactive whiteboard for introducing a topic on a country or comparing countries.

You may like to start with exploring China, in preparation for the Olympics.

Click here to visit our other  "Website of the Week"

Click here to visit our Olympic Resources

A new report, compiled for Childnet International and funded by Becta, has been launched  providing teachers and lecturers with a comprehensive guide to social networking services. It includes an evaluation tool designed to walk teachers through key features of sites they may like to consider using to support teaching and learning.

The report Young People and Social Networking Services is available from the Digizen website.

http://www.digizen.org/socialnetworking/

Jackets to fit on your Bee Bot 

1. There's an aeroplane to use if you are having a Seaside or Holidays topic. The engines drag on the floor though, so I wouldn't bother with them unless you are really enjoying yourself.
2. There is also a Handa's Surprise jacket. This one includes a basket where you can put the fruit. (Handa herself needs to be found elsewhere on the Internet, then cut out and glued onto the jacket).
3. There's a sealife jacket.
4. Finally, in the Beebot Jacket game you can find pre-made jackets for Elmer, The Gingerbread Man and a Police Car.

All of the jackets work best if you place a piece of BluTack behind the Bee Bot's eyes. I like to give the children a 15cm square of  corrugated cardboard. Then they can make their own track or map. 

For these and other Bee Bot resources visit:
http://www.kented.org.uk/ngfl/ict/control/beebot/

ICT2008 Exhibition and Conference
Ashford International Hotel
Thursday 3 July 2008

www.eiskent.co.uk

Guest speaker Tim Rylands
Tim Rylands has been described as “an extremely gifted and inspirational teacher, with a love of the creative potential of technology and an excellent rapport with his pupils”. He has gained notable recognition for using the games in the Myst series to inspire children’s creative confidence in many areas of the curriculum e.g. creative writing, speaking and listening, music and art.

http://www.timrylands.com/

For more information and booking visit:

http://www.eiskent.co.uk/

The Kented website has been moved onto the Kent servers and we are presently experiencing problems editing pages. So .....

Please find below  our website of the week for this week:

Tikatok is a free creative community for kids under 13 where they can write, illustrate, and share their original stories, and have them printed out into real hardcover and paperback books. It was developed by two mothers to encourage the imagination and creativity of their children and children everywhere.

Click here to see our example of a book (Click on fullscreen).

PS. I hope this fantastic resource is not blocked in schools.

Previous websites of the week

http://www.kented.org.uk/ngfl/siteoftheweek

Taggalaxy is one of many online tools that that is a search engine for Flickr. ( Flickr is a photo sharing site powered by Yahoo! that allows users to upload and share their photos.

http://taggalaxy.de/

The way it works is that you type in your key word e.g. Egypt and Taggalaxy finds all of the photos on Flickr which has that key word in its Tags and then presentsthem all  as planets which you can manipulate with the mouse. Click on a planet to zoom in.

Taggalaxy, among other things could be used as a stimulus for creative writing or class discussion.

As with all resources on the internet, it is vital that you check before showing your class. Taggalaxy  randomly chooses photographs. You need to make sure that these photos are suitable for your pupils.

Other online tools based on flickr include: Flickrcc,(search Flickr)  PhotoSoup (wordsearch), Bubblr (create a comic strip from the photos) and 10 by 10 (photos in the news).

Most schools use clipart for presentations on their interactive whiteboards.  Schools should now be considering using photos that are in the public domain or licensed under a creative commons license and making sure, of course, attribution is given to the author. For creative common searches on flickr try http://flickr.com/creativecommons.

Christina Laun on the College@Home blog has compiled a list of  100 Helpful Web Tools for Every Kind of Learner. This is a very useful list and highlights the wide range of tools we have available to us to meet the needs of different “learning styles".

Christine list the tools under the following headings:

Visual Learners

Mind Mapping
Charting and diagrams
Videos and Photos

Auditory Learners

Podcasts
Presentation Tools
Audio Tools
Text Readers
Audio Books

Kinesthetic Learners

Note Taking Tools
Bookmarking
Ineraction
Collaboration

We first had You Tube, then Teacher Tube and now we have Schools Tube.

 http://www.schoolstube.com/  (Hopefully the site is not blocked)

 I have been watching the Vikings this morning and also a stream in Ashford!

What better way to get your pupils fired up about science than to take them through a real murder mystery? Crime Scene Investigation follows one school who, with the help of experts, did just this.

This four part series begins with Planning the Crime, its dramatisation, and the pupils arriving at school to find an unusual scene.

Follow Wylde Green Primary School as they take Year 6 through Collecting the Evidence, DNA Fingerprinting and then deciding on The Verdict.

Described by viewers as 'imaginative' and 'fantastic', Crime Scene Investigation is a compelling and innovative series designed to inspire you and your class.

Click on the links below to watch online

Planning the Crime - An innovative task turns Year 6 pupils into forensic scientists

Collecting the Evidence - Pupils gather forensic evidence after discovering a crime scene
DNA Fingerprinting - Will DNA testing finally reveal the school burglar?

Verdict - All the suspects are brought before the Year 6 pupils as they present the evidence gathered during the investigation.

As part of the 2Simple  ' 10 Year Birthday Celebrations' , for short period of time schools are able to purchase site licences for the entire collection of 2Simple software (28 titles and 2 online titles that could be used at home) for either £999 (existing customers) or £1499 (new customers). A huge saving on some excellent teacher friendly software.

For more information on this offer, visit www.2simple.com/collection/

Products highlighted by the Kent ICT team are those recommended to us by schools and/or where suppliers have offered significant discounts to our schools.  It is not our intention to tell schools what to buy and we acknowledge there are many other equally good products available.  Schools should conduct their own evaluation of hardware / software prior to making decisions about purchasing.