A new decade, how far have we come with learning in the last decade and how far will we have travelled in the next decade? Will Richardson publishes his hopes and expectations of how much actual change will happen in schools over the next decade. He feels, along with many others I’m sure, that things have moved too slowly this past ten years, and that by 2020 we shouldn’t hold our breaths too much. He may have a point, but I’m more hopeful…
Well, I’ve finally decided to resurrect my blog for 2010. My target is to post at last once a week – Let’s see if I can 
Happy New Year…
I recently came across a great visual search tool called KartOO
“KartOO is a metasearch engine with visual display interfaces. When you click on OK, KartOO launches the query to a set of search engines, gathers the results, compiles them and represents them in a series of interactive maps through a proprietary algorithm”
You can select a keyword and the site displays a list of comments next to the website’s name. The site also allows you to preview sites, you can even move search icons around to help prioritise and add order to your search.
http://www.kartoo.com/
February 26th, 2009
Freak
What a great site! The Hero Factory lets you produce your own superheroes. Simply design your super hero and download as a JPEG or print the image.
This would be great to inspire creative writing – students could make a character and then write about him/her. Or you might like to create Captain Maths who you use in your IWB slides to give the students maths problems.
Make Me a Hero
Spotted this in my journey through the blogosphere : Plagiarismadvice.org - a website provided by JISC to provide advice on plagiarism. It includes resources for avoiding plagiarism, discussion as to why pupils do plagiarise and how to avoid it. The website also provides guidance on developing information literacy skills in using electronic sources.
November 18th, 2008
Freak
Becta has unveiled the new Next Generation Learning campaign website, as part of its drive to parents, learners and employers to get the most out of technology in education.
The website is a key resource to find out more about the innovative and exciting ways that technology is already being used by some schools and organisations to improve engagement, motivation and results. New on the Next Generation Learning website is a postcode search facility for parents to find out which schools in their area are using technology effectively. These are the schools that are already using technology to a high standard and have received the prestigious ICT Mark. Research indicates that ICT Mark accredited schools are four times more likely to be rated as outstanding in the overall effectiveness category of Ofsted inspection reports. Pupils at ICT Mark schools are also more likely to achieve better results.
For more information go to the Next Generation Learning website at www.nextgenerationlearning.org.uk
November 15th, 2008
Freak
A group of Herefordshire teachers have produced some high quality interactive whiteboard Promethean flipchart resourcesto support the teaching of Literacy within the Renewed Primary Framework.
www.cs.herefordshire.gov.uk/
November 10th, 2008
Freak
As we are all no doubt aware Youtube is generally blocked in schools, unfortunately this blocking stops a lot of excellent video resources being used. One solution is to use edublogs.tv.
To use edublogs.tv:
1. Register on the site, copy the URL of the clip you wish to view, return to Edublogs.tv
2. Select upload/ manage my videos now, click on ‘Grab YouTube Video’
3. Paste in the YouTube Video URL and the security image, the video information appears, click ‘Get Video Now’, close the window,
4. Select my videos, Wait… and select the appropriate video, You can now watch your video or embed it elsewhere.
‘Eclips‘ is a video, audio and image resource bank for use by teachers. More specifically, it is aimed at teachers in Wales, and is provided by BBC Wales, but can be accessed by anyone. It is very easy to search – by keyword, by subject, by age group, by clip type. Resources are then streamed to your computer, so an internet connection is required (you cannot save the video/audio clips, though you can use the images with other applications). Lots of very valuable resources here – really worth a look.
Click Here to access the site
Vocaroo is a great site, it allows you to record a snippet of audio and embed it into a web page. There’s no need to register – just record a voice recording, and select the ‘Post on the internet’ option. Vocaroo will provide you with an embedded code snippet to add to a web page – its as easy as that!
