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Magic Town
Magic Town is an interesting, free, app full of great picturebook characters and stories.
Created by a group of “parents, educators, authors, illustrators, software engineers, game designers and children’s media specialists”, with a mission is to use storytelling to help children develop a lifelong passion for reading and learning.
All About Explorers ~ Or is it?
“On May 2, 1947, John Cabot set sail aboard a magnificent cruise ship named The Matthew with a crew of servants, and an abundance of DVD’s to keep the crew entertained”.
All About Explorers was designed, to help children discover the importance of checking the voracity of information they find on the web, & this site is almost complete fabrication.
Registering is free & lesson plans are available to download.
With links, from the fabricated facts, to more solid “info”, it is then up to the pupils to work out the “truth”, or “innacurate” information, & through this, begin to gain respect for the need to assess the validity of what we are “fed” on the net.
Button Bass ~ Sound experiments
We have mentioned Button Beats before. They have now changed their name to ButtonBass yet still produce some remarkable, simple, & fascinating musical experiments.
The GreenFrame player is just one of the interesting sound tools you can explore. Record, and trigger, your own sounds, and mix them with prerecorded samples.
Try the cubes, mixers, keyboards, drum kit, guitars, or audio recording studio.
There are many musical machines, and gizmos, that enable remarkable invention.
The site is supported by panel adverts but free otherwise. What are you waiting for? Go on and and get playing.
Linaker Primary School & Children’s Centre ~ Day 3 ~ A Digital Leaders Challenge
The last, of three, full on days at Linaker Primary School and Children’s Centre, in Southport, in Sefton.
Today saw another, new, step taken in the age of adventure, with the newly appointed “Digital leaders”.
The school recently “hired” 15 Digital leaders (7 in year 6, 8 in year 5) who have already set up and logged into Blogger accounts, and started in their support of teachers, fellow pupils, and each other, throughout the school. Thanks to them for their support today and “here’s to the up-for-it explorations of today”.
What fun was had, in the lands of technology today! Exploring uncharted territories, discovering distant digital domains, and generally stretching technology in wild and wondrous ways.
We set foot in the high~ways, low~ways, no~go~ways, by~ways, here~ways, share~ways, there~ways, slow~ways, up~ways, down~ways, under~ways, wonder~ways, no-wonder!~ways, plunder~ways, try~ways, wonder-why~ways, explore~ways, never~before~ways, your~ways, my~ways, our~ways, oh~the~power~ways, who’d~have~known~ways, should’ve~known~ways, newly~truly~alone~ways…
To tell a tale, of any kind, is a challenge. To do so, with access to the wondrous opportunities that technology offers, these days, surely makes it simple?! Well, it does produce a lot of potential, but also introduces challenges of their own.
The children showed some remarkable, mature, problem solving techniques, through which we all learned a lot ~ the mark of great digital leaders. To teach is to learn. To be open to learn teaches us a lot.
Who dares to teach must never cease to learn.John Cotton Dana
“Digital Leaders” is a fascinating concept, and one that is gathering strength, and pace, in schools far and wide now. The Digital Leader Network, draws together those who are exploring the ideas, power and potential, of this movement.
Empowering learners, teachers and sharers of discovery in so many ways.
The Digital Leader Network is a collaborative blog where digital leaders and teachers can showcase the inspirational work that is going on in their schools. It was started by passionate teachers in 2012 and has gone from strength to strength thanks to the community of people who contribute to it.
The network aims to spread the good work of digital leaders far and wide in an attempt to create more sustainable solutions to ICT developments in schools. Each Thursday at 9pm (gmt) members of the network join in #DLchat, on Twitter, and share their thoughts, ideas and what their digital leaders have been doing.
Have a read of this collaborative document where people have shared their experiences of starting digital leader projects in their schools.
The challenge today? To carry on a story of discovery, in small groups, and retell that tale with the support of some inventive, digital delights.
To work in a group adds additional challenges that these children experimented with ways to master ~ finding a common path; valuing strengths and supporting weaknesses; assessing the best way to allot time, resources, and “man-power”; getting something “done well”, inventively and in the most remarkable and effective way.
Well done all. More to follow…
MIT App Inventor
The MIT App Inventor is a Google supported platform where you can get to create apps using just drag and drop. It enables you to customize the look & feel of your apps, add buttons, attach objects and much more. (Requires a Google account).
Linaker Primary School & Children’s Centre ~ Day 2
The second, of three, full on days at Linaker Primary School and Children’s Centre, in Southport, in Sefton.
Today took the theme of travel, discovery, and exploration in to Key Stage One, for a couple of adventures with two groups of 60 Year 2, and then 60 Year 1, voyagers.
Discovery isn’t just about movement though. To discover, to contemplate, to consider, to question, to wonder ~ also takes a bit of standing still. That is something we, as human beings, can often overlook. In the world of education, too, we can sometimes forget the power, and potential, for “holding back”, for “waiting a while” before rushing onwards. The pressures of time, of timetables, of curriculum structures, of targets, can lead us, too easily, in to constantly “moving on”.
It was a joy to “not travel too far, geographically” with some intrepid children, and teachers, but to cover great distances in ideas, imaginations, and more wanderings in the wild wonders of words.
ePubBud ~ Free children’s eBooks
ePubBud collect free Children’s eBooks for the iPad, nook, and other readers. Browse eBooks files others have shared and import them for free.
You can also create an eBook write, edit, and publish your own masterpiece. Alternatively, upload any document you want to read, share, or publish, and they’ll convert it to an ePub. You need to create an account, but then your books are set free.
Linaker Primary School & Children’s Centre ~ Day 1
The first, of three, full on days at Linaker Primary School and Children’s Centres, a superb two, form entry, Primary School, Nursery and Children’s Centre in the heart of Southport, the seaside town in the north of the Borough of Sefton. The school provides for around 500 children aged between 3 and 11 and the centre is considered as one of the most successful in the north of England.
This three day project is taking place during the school’s annual Arts Week and the theme this year is “Discovery”. This topic also lends itself to looking at challenges. The children, and staff, at the the school are no strangers to exploration and challenge*.
The travels, today, happened in the company of two classes of adventurous Year 6 children for a long morning of discovery in some virtual worlds, followed by another trek in in the world of digits with two classes of Year 5 explorers.
Well done, all, for some powerful, brave, and inventive wandering in the world of words, and beyond!
Linaker is proud of its international links. At present they have links with schools in China, Canada and Ghana. The school is also a proud recipient of the International Schools Award, issued by the British Council in recognition of their commitment to global education. The school also welcomes, annually, Foreign Language Assistants from all over the world – recently from Sweden, Spain and China.
Linaker has had links with Long Menhao Primary School in Chongqing, China, since March 2008. Long Menhao is a primary school in Nan’an District and serves over 1000 students aged between 5 and 11 years of age. In 2008 both schools undertook a project on the theme of ‘Olympics’ and in November 2008 Linaker returned to China to share their achievements.
In November 2009 ten children from Linaker visited Long Menhao as part of the on-going programme of exchanges.
Linaker has had a link with Ekwaso Presby School, in Ghana, for nearly four years now. Over that time they have been involved in curriculum exchanges between children in both schools.
In 2008 the school undertook to help re-build the Primary School in the village. You can find out more about the village and the re-building of the school by visiting the website.
*That “up-for-a-challenge-ness-nicity” isn’t stopping soon either: six members of staff will be embarking on a trek to the North Pole next year!
A massive thank you to Colin Coleman, head teacher, and Nick Dempster, ICT Co-ordinator, for organising this visit.
In terms of ICT resources, the school are pretty well stocked too. Some of the technology they have at their disposal includes Year 5 and 6 all having their own iPads; there is also a class set of iPads for the other Year groups; The ICT suite is Apple Macs, there are 30 in the suite; a portable green screen; a radio room which can be operated by two or three children at a time; all classrooms have large (60″+) touch screen televisions; laptops throughout the school – enough for 1 between 2 in most classes and more cameras, flip cam recorders etc than you can shake a stick at!
The Periodic Table of Videos
Tables charting the chemical elements have been around since the 19th century – but this modern version, Periodic Videos .com, has a short video about each one. Yes ~ all 118! ~ AND, like neutrons, there’s no charge!
All these videos are created by video journalist Brady Haran, featuring real working chemists from the University of Nottingham, but they say their job’s not finished: “Now we’re updating all the videos with new stories, better samples and bigger experiments, plus we’re making films about other areas of chemistry, latest news and occasional adventures away from the lab”.
They’ve also started a new series – The Molecular Videos – featuring some favourite molecules and compounds.
Education Innovation Conference & Exhibition~Manchester iThink Therefore iPad & Raspberry Jam ~ February 2014
A long way in the distance, we know, but it’s good to plan ahead & book early eh?
We are delighted to confirm that we will be delivering a keynote speech at “The Education Innovation Conference & Exhibition, (EICE) 2014″ event at Manchester Central on February 27th next year, as part of their 2 day event. (27th/28th Feb 2014)
Achievement through Innovation
Now in its second year, EICE aims to help education professionals to raise levels of achievement by making more effective use of innovation and technology. It will feature over 50 free practical workshops and CPD seminars, delivered by some of the most inspiring individuals within education. The event will also include discussion and debate from ministers and sector leaders.
New features of this two-day event, will include a dedicated ‘innovation in practice’ centre, where educators will showcase the latest ideas and demonstrate how they put to practical use to raise achievement.
Education Innovation is proud to be co-located with the iThink therefore iPad 2014 conference and the Raspberry Jamboree festival.
Event manager David Ventris-Field said: “Building on the success of last year’s Education Innovation, we’re really focusing on how innovation can be used to raise achievement with lots of practical, hands-on workshops and some inspirational speakers. We are delighted that Tim will be working with us once again to make Education Innovation a huge success.”
Find out more at www.educationinnovation.co.uk and follow the show on Twitter at @EICEManchester
Here’s our post about EICE 2013 and see other pictures and video from 2013 at www.facebook.com/EICEManchester
A brief break in transmission ~ Did you Sir? Did you miss?
The blog is taking a few days break, as we are going to be overseas for a couple of weeks, in a place with very limited internet. “Pedal up. Thinband”.
Planning, sharing, repairing, preparing. In the meantime, did you miss, Sir?
As well as our events, we like to share interesting, and more often than not, FREE tools, resources and ideas, some old, some new, and we hope you might find something useful. We'd love your thoughts. Tim & Sarah
