What a lovely way to start a huge year for us: a joyous visit to Hounslow Heath Junior School, Middlesex.

Thank you to Ritu Aulakh (Headteacher), and her colleagues for a sunny, laughter filled, beginning of the new year.

These people really know how to smile, to laugh, and to rise to challenges.

Well done to Bradley Wyatt, Phil Harding and Laura Pavely for coming up and “becoming” gnarled characters and a translator in one of the landscapes we visited. Bradley was on his first day as an NQT at this school! You would never have known – he was so confident.)

There was a nice link to one of our favourite recources, today. Ritu is a good friend of Tom Cox, who invented Thinking Dice .

These incredibly simple, but thought provoking, cubes make a powerful tool for use in any classroom, and at many ages.

Thinking Dice is a  fun concept, which enables pupils to develop higher order thinking and questioning skills.

Teaching children thinking Skills can make a world of difference; research shows that thinking skills are essential for effective learning.

Each set comprises of six large colour coded foam dice. Every dice has a question structure printed on each side. These are specifically designed to promote questioning and higher order thinking, at a specific level of Bloom’s revised taxonomy of thinking.

These are: remembering and recalling information, understanding ideas and concepts, applying information, analysing information in order to explore and understand relationships, evaluating ideas, concepts and situations and creativity, making something new with the knowledge.

As I said, Thinking Dice can be easily adapted for a wide age range.

Watch this space for more developments in how we use them with both children and adults…

Hounslow Heath is a designated Local Nature Reserve and Site of Importance for Nature Conservation (of Metropolitan Importance) and is made up of lowland heath, dry acid grassland, woodland, scrub, neutral grasslands, wetlands, wildflower meadows, providing a wild, rugged country setting with a large network of paths, in what is a heavily urbanised area.

An interesting link about the area here, ‘Highwaymen on Hounslow Heath’.

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A joyous summer full of variety. And most of it, as we attempt to do each year, was analogue.

A key feature, when we’ve been at home, has been an area we made and which we call “The Sanctuary”. It is a corner that captures the sunlight, at certain times of the day, in an already lovely, and tranquil, garden.

Whilst we were building the Sanctuary, small black and white visitors started constructing a house too. At first we thought they might have been penguins, and maybe even badgers. But, when we had mastered the art of non-digital research, we worked out that they must have been housemartins.

It has been a delight to marvel at the acrobatics of these elegant neighbours, and to watch as the little ones master the courage to take that first leap in to the huge summer skies.

The summer was full of family and friends, travel and stopping. We visited the Sidmouth Folk Festival; welcomed a huge range of people to sample Somerset; and even squeezed in a trip to Kefalonia. Gorgeous!

I have to confess that the “almost” in the title, refers to the fact that we have downloaded a ridiculous amount of good music to wallow in during the summer. (Books on an iPad don’t quite grab us yet, so they were analogue. But, music…)

Last.fm has proven to be a joyous nudge towards new music, much in the same style as Amazon’s “If you like this, you are almost bound to fall for this one too” recommendations.

A few “finds” that haven’t left the iPod/pad include Matt Wertz (particularly the album Everything In Between & the song “The Way I feel”, an infectious track that gets even my clumsy legs dancing!) Joshua Radin, Train, Diane Birch, Justin Nozuka, Matt Nathanson, Schuyler Fisk, The Weepies, Urusen and more. But, for me, the most listened to utterly delicious memory of music 2010 will be three albums by Peter Bradley Adams. Relaxed acoustic-to-lose-yourself-in music.

All in all, we had a fantastic summer, and can recommend a digital detox.

Now onwards-onwards for an event and travel packed year…

Thank you to Roger Neilson,of Marden CLC, for his gorgeous feedback on the CLC Conference, last Friday. The originl text is on his blog HERE.

On Friday I sat for a couple of hours along with other colleagues being entertained by Tim Rylands and Sarah Neild. The circus was in town and the time passed rapidly – too rapidly.

About 50% of what they showed was new to me – especially the use of some old- and frankly disparaged software – Powerpoint. The other 50% was new in its use – or forced me to think again about just how effective I was being in using it.

Now for me, who expects to be cutting edge, that was a significant hit rate. However, many other ICT gurus could do a spot like this and give a list of possible new approaches.

What makes the Tim and Sarah show different?

There is an absolute warmth about their delivery, we are part of the act, we are laughed with, we are encouraged, we are complimented, we are given credit for everything we get right.

The pace always seems right. There are pauses for reflection, there is encouragement to explore and expand. They invite us to use our imagination and creativity. We have lots of FUN!

In a week of doom and gloom, where I watched as one aspect of progressive education was put in danger after another, in which I felt the pain of others as they saw what they had worked for, and indeed their very work evaporating I ended on a positive note.

Tim and Sarah are without doubt great at what they do, part of that comes, inevitably from the regular delivery and freedom to do this.

However I also felt that many others in the audience, and amongst the body of teachers currently under so much pressure could to an extent do the same – look back at paragraph two and tell me what there is not part of the armoury of a good teacher?

Tim and Sarah tell it very very well, but if they alone are telling it in this way its not enough – we need to be telling the story properly, we need to be upping our game with assurance and we need to be giving the learners the chance to enjoy the fun.

It would be superb to feel that at the end of each learning event our kids went out feeling like we did at the end of Tim and Sarah’s exposition – and you know something- they could!

Today, we had the pleasure to present a keynote speech and a workshop for Day Two of the National CLC Conference 2010 at Leeds Metropolitan University’s The Rose Bowl.

Day One of the conference included keynotes from Rory Cellan-Jones, the BBC’s Technology Correspondent and John D’abbro, Apple Distinguished Educator presenting on mobile technologies. Over the two days the conference workshops covered four tracks : Teaching and Learning, Technology, Open Source and Information. Read the rest

Today we had the pleasure of attending the Rotherham ICT Conference at the Magna Science Adventure Centre , delivering a keynote speech and three workshops. Read the rest

And now, a short drive across Liverpool, to Liverpool Hope University to present a keynote speech for the Association for Information Technology in Teacher Education (ITTE) Conference. 

This year’s summer conference is titled “This time ITs personal”. Read the rest

A flying visit to Dovedale Junior School, in Liverpool. What a lovely bunch. Smiles all round, from teachers, children and visitors alike.

Read the rest

Savio Salesian College (formerly known as Savio Catholic High School or Savio High School) is a Roman Catholic secondary school in Bootle, Merseyside, England. The school is run by priests and was successful, in early 2006, to secure a bid for specialist Business & Enterprise status. The school has about 820 pupils on roll. The headteacher Fr G Briody joined the school in September 2005.

Read the rest

Cooliris is a browser plug-in that revolutionizes how you find, view, and share photos and videos. Whether you’re browsing the Web, your desktop, or folders of media, Cooliris presents that media on an infinite “3D wall” that lets you enjoy content, without having to click from page to page, or step-by-step through a gallery.

Doodle Avatar Maker I made the doodle (to the left) with this one. Easy to master. At the moment there is no way to change the skin colour.

Simpsons Avatar Creator Doh! Change yourself in to one of the yellow bods with this one. (Follow the link at the top of the page).

Lego Minifig creator Block (!) out a little time to construct a Lego you. (I got all nostalgic and want to get the boxes down from the loft).

Bitstrips is an online comic strip creator that you can use to create a complete “strip”, but also a mini you.  You can get quite detailed after you have gone through the “wizard” by going into the advanced features.

Wii Style Avatar You could spend all wiik on this Nintendo Wii generator.  Wii did. Make a mini Mii

Manga Style Avatar Creator This last one is for you manga fans. Big eyes, spiked hair and all!

Thank you to John McLear for recommending MyAvatarEditor.com and reminding me of The Hero Factory. Any more folks?

Hi Tim and Sarah

With my Year 2 class, at Otley All Saints, the Wii and African Safari have just come into play (now I have learnt how to link it up!).

Having listened to Nicola’s advice, rules of engagement had been negotiated, but nevertheless it proved so exciting that there is plenty of work to be done on communication skills. Nevertheless, the children in an observer/note-taker role did a fantastic job, and on Day 2 (in about 15 minutes) everyone had a go at writing up a journal page. Read the rest