Curnow is a large special school in the beautiful county of Cornwall.

They cater for children and students between 2 and 19 and all have severe learning difficulties (SLD), with many also having sensory or medical needs.

Children and students come from a large geographical area:  from Newquay on the north coast, to Coverack on the Lizard to Hayle in Penwith.  We cover an area of approximately 170 square miles, and all the children and students travel in daily.

The school believes strongly that the most effective way of helping their children and students to learn is through the development of appropriate systems of communication.  So we had some great fun this afternoon.

We took the students on a sensory journey. A virtual beach trip! The weather has been so unpredictable and disappointing this year, even in the normally sunny Cornwall, so it was a relief to catch a glimpse of the sun on our journey in to Myst III:Exile. I don’t know whether I got a sun tan or if that was just a flush of excitement from seeing so many smiles.

If you want some excellent resources for sensory experiences, visit Pete Wells’ brilliant site.

UPDATE: His site seems to be undergoing some re arrangement so a lot of his humorous presentation materials can be found HERE.

The Plasma Screen and Whiteboard site contains a large amount of detailed resources split in to sections on Cause and Effect, Sensory Stories, Targetting and Choosing and Visual Stimulation. Each unit is linked with relevant P scales.

The Priory Woods School website contains a brilliant selection of music videos and animations that can be used to develop cause & effect and targeting skills.

Philip Whittaker has created a group of simple flash animations to develop targeting skills.

There are many different sign languages. I’d only manage half of any of them being currently one-handed. (Have I told you I broke my hand? Yes, Tim!). Handspeak is a website that gives an introduction to just one of those diverse methods of communication.

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Plaster of Paris doesn’t respond very well to swimming and I’m missing it, so I really enjoyed immersing myself and diving headlong into a great few sessions at Pool School, Cornwall.

I really enjoyed the session with Year 7.

After yesterday’s detailed tutorial on drawing dynamic hands, try visiting Anticz for an easier, yet superb guide to drawing the human hand.

Artist, Guido Daniele has taken handart to new levels. Have a look at his animal hand art HERE.

WE WILL FINISH AND ADD SOME PICKIES TO THIS POST ASAP.

AT THE MOMENT THE HAND IS COMPLAINING ABOUT TYPING BUT, WATCH THIS SPACE.

First day working as an (even more) unbalanced (!) lop-sided chap, with my arm in plaster, so thankfully it was at a such a friendly and welcoming place as Newquay Tretherras School in Cornwall.

It is not until you can’t use a hand you realise how much you do use it. My mouse control created a few laughs.

The day started in Key Stage 4 with some Year 10 students, and two of the lads immersed themselves in role playing Yeesha’s brother and a translator. With flare, they responded to questions from their classmates, offerring creative, imaginative, and often very entertaining replies. Thanks Lads!

Well done to the students and staff for offering many helpful hands through, what turned out to be a tremendous and funny stumble through the world of words.

A special Thank You to Jane Griffiths, for organising such a successful and enjoyable day’s training involving the members of her English Department, and beyond. Her conducting skills were very inventive and I secured her authograph for prosperity.

Toby (the only male in the English Department) confidently tackled the Doors of Doom Challenge and survived!

Have a look at this excellent tutorial on drawing expressive hands:

Blog’s been a bit quiet recently because my hand had an argument with a wall … and lost. After years climbing, throwing my body around and doing silly things but getting away with it, I broke the first bone in my body, last Tuesday, tripping over my own foot!

Warning: The picture below is X-Ray-ted.

As a man with wobbly leggies, I tend to rely on my hands to help me walk. In other words, gripping on to Mr Walker, my walking stick, or just grabbing hold of the nearest solid object or friendly shoulder.

dfthdtb  cfh rg wsergn gjh dfh … oops… typing with my left hand is also more than a little clumsy and sluggish.

With an arm in plaster, I’m not able to drive, swim and so much more (1, 2, 3 ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh) but “they aint gonna stop me yet”.

Take a look at this site for some really inventive hand art.

Today was interesting because, technically, we were at a school that doesn’t yet exist! (Cue spooky music.)

Well, OK it does and it doesn’t.

We were at an event organised by Dr. Paul Mortimer, Academy Principal Designate of The Isle of Sheppey Academy. The day was hosted by Minster School.

Today I presented alongside Dave Whyley, (from Wolverhampton and Learning2go), Martin Blows and our great friend, the journalist, and collector of inspirational people, Merlin John.

Education on Sheppey is presently served by the three tier system. Kent is proposing to bring Sheppey education in line with the rest of the county by moving to a two tier structure. The Academy will thus be the provider for secondary provision for students on Sheppey.

A major milestone was reached only at the beginning of the summer holidays with the signing of a Funding Agreement.  The transformation of the primary and secondary phases of education on the Island can begin.

The new Academy will open on the existing sites of Minster College and Cheyne Middle School on 1 September 2009, with an investment of £54 million in new buildings, scheduled for completion by September 2011.  The proposed Academy will have a total student number of 2450 students split evenly into 5 separate schools.

With a few folk, we were discussing how the phrase “embedding ICT” has actually become much more natural for many teachers now. There are many subject areas where ICT resources are abundant, and teacher skills are increasing.

Design and technology is an area a few bods felt they had less experience using ICT effectively.

Starting simply: A fun site with some free nets of 3-D models to print and make. (Click on the model) all though printing a pdf doesn’t stretch the use of ICT too far.

Focus Educational Software have three excellent titles for Primary age DT, my favourite being their mechanical toys CD-ROM. It encourages students of all abilities to conduct their own investigations into the basic principles of mechanisms, including cams, levers, pulleys and gears.

Thank you to Principal, Paul Mortimer, and to his colleagues, for a really inspiring day.

Good luck to all on The Isle of Sheppey for the future changes, challenges and opportunities.

A very enjoyable day at Colindale Primary School, Barnet with staff joining us from Fairway Primary, also in Barnet.

A nice few cuppas today. They know how to make toast too! A lovely aroma of welcome wafted across our nostrils as we entered the building, which is already full of gorgeous displays as well.

On the subject of tea, I like the site “Telescopic Text dot com” which stretches the idea of a shared text being developed by a teacher and pupils and, step by step, transforms the sentence “I made some tea” into “Yawning, I I and smearing my eyes with my fingers, I walked walked bleary eyed into the kitchen and made made myself boiled the kettle. filled the kettle. took the kettlegrabbed the kettle, unhooking it from the cord and filled it... I filled it with fresh waterI turned the tap and drew fresh water, making sure it was cold enough checking with my hands to make sure it was cold enough () (The best tea comes from the coldest water!). I filled the kettle as I glanced outside at the mistoutside for a minute across the city mist. I could taste almost taste the grey. I got some biscuits. The kettle was full so I plugged it inThe kettle was half full, so I switched the tap off and returned it to its socket. I turned it on I flicked the power switch on and got some biscuits out.looked for biscuitssifted through the cupboards, looking for biscuits. Anything Anything above loose crumbs would do. I Thankfully I found some fusty digestives. Biscuits For some reason, biscuits are nicer always nicer when they’re they’ve gone a bit dry and stale. I took the milk out of the fridge. I took the milk out of the fridge and poured some into a mug. I reached over and opened the fridge, retrieving the milk. I got a mug and poured some milk in. I poured a little into a mug at the same time as grabbing the mug from the cupboard and placing it on the surface. This This is a technique I developed that doesn’t really save any time, but makes me feel clever. Then I made myself The kettle began grumbling fiercely so I poured water on to a teabag so I took it from the cord, threw a teabag into my cup and poured boiling water onto it and watched it brew. . I watched swirls brown swirls rise up and through the watermuted white of milky water. A few minutes passed. I put the teabag in the bin. I removed removed and squeezed the teabag, then flicked it into the bin. I picked up my mug and left the kitchen with tea”a cupnice cup, hot cup of tea strong tea into the incredibly comprehensive:

Yawning, I I and smearing my eyes with my fingers, I walked walked bleary eyed into the kitchen and made made myself boiled the kettle. filled the kettle. took the kettlegrabbed the kettle, unhooking it from the cord and filled it.. I filled it with fresh waterI turned the tap and drew fresh water, making sure it was cold enough checking with my hands to make sure it was cold enough () (The best tea comes from the coldest water!). I filled the kettle as I glanced outside at the mistoutside for a minute across the city mist. I could taste almost taste the grey. I got some biscuits. The kettle was full so I plugged it inThe kettle was half full, so I switched the tap off and returned it to its socket. I turned it on I flicked the power switch on and got some biscuits out.looked for biscuitssifted through the cupboards, looking for biscuits. Anything Anything above loose crumbs would do. I Thankfully I found some fusty digestives. Biscuits For some reason, biscuits are nicer always nicer when they’re they’ve gone a bit dry and stale. I took the milk out of the fridge. I took the milk out of the fridge and poured some into a mug. I reached over and opened the fridge, retrieving the milk.

I got a mug and poured some milk in. I poured a little into a mug at the same time as grabbing the mug from the cupboard and placing it on the surface. This This is a technique I developed that doesn’t really save any time, but makes me feel clever. Then I made myself The kettle began grumbling fiercely so I poured water on to a teabag so I took it from the cord, threw a teabag into my cup and poured boiling water onto it and watched it brew. . I watched swirls brown swirls rise up and through the watermuted white of milky water. A few minutes passed. I put the teabag in the bin. I removed removed and squeezed the teabag, then flicked it into the bin. I picked up my mug and left the kitchen with teaa cupnice cup, hot cup of tea strong tea

Well done to J D (or Joe M Michael L Lambert Davis!) for nifty idea.

His main site is also full of whimsical oddities and is well worth investigating.

Thank you to Sally Lajalati and Jan Parker, and their colleagues, for a really enjoyable day.

I really enjoyed today at Holywell Primary School, Watford sharing the day with Pie Corbett. We were also joined by staff from Peartree school in Welwyn Garden City.

It was a really strong move of Holywell head teacher, Mahrukh Mistry, to pair up the complementary ideas and concepts of Pie, in the morning, and myself in the afternoon.

Pie investigated the power of story telling and this led beautifully in to discovering ways of stimulating writing by using virtual landscapes (and a lot more!)

The school is ready to explore the power of virtual worlds as they have a Virtual Tour of the school on their website, created by i-spy360

I love the idea of virtual worlds and installations. The test of any good installation environment is how children respond and few I’ve seen get this kind of intuitive response. Theo Watson and Emily Gobeille, made ‘Funky Forest‘ which premiered at the 2007 Cinekid festival in the Netherlands. ‘Funky Forest’ is an interactive ecosystem where children create trees with their body and then divert the water flowing from the waterfall to the trees to keep them alive. The health of the trees contributes to the overall health of the forest and the types of creatures that inhabit it.

Another excellent virtual world, this time on-line, is Adventure Rock.

Adventure Rock is a 3D virtual environment offering exploration and creative opportunities for children to experiment with music, drawing and animation. The online world is a themed island built for the BBC’s CBBC.

Children explore the world and use message boards so they can share what they find and what they make in the various creative studios dotted around the virtual space. The virtual world does not allow chat. The BBC wants to protect children and thus disable any communication between the game users and potential problems.

For more information and to download the game visit the site HERE

Ideal for a computer/lunch time club.

On the subject of virtual worlds, any iPhone users will be fascinated to hear that Myst is being adapted for the iPhone soon.

Thank you to head teacher, Mahrukh Mistry, for organising a superb structured event.

WE WILL ADD THE REST OF THE PICKIES TO THIS POST A.S.A.P.

It was a joy to spend some time with Pi and we look forward to meeting up again and exploring the world of words. Here, by the way, is a nice little cartoon about another kind of Pi(e):

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“That place in Northern Ireland”

Anybody who has been to any of my presentations or training days, might possibly remember the moment when I show a landscape from Myst III:Exile and pretend I can’t remember the name of “that place in Northern Ireland”

It is my way of making it “US” rather than “Us and him” because I always get a response, from somebody, or all of the audience, of “The Giant’s Causeway”.

It is also a chance to introduce the concept of a shared learning journey when working with children.

Whilst we are in Northern Ireland, I am glad to have had the opportunity to include a trip to the place itself. And what an incredible landscape it is!

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The Giant’s Causeway is Northern Ireland’s most famous landmark and has been an official Unesco World Heritage Site since 1986.

Formed between 50 and 60 million years ago, the ’causeway’ takes its name from the legends of Finn MacCool and draws people from far and wide to this corner of north Antrim.

This jagged promontory of neatly packed columns of hexagonal basalt rocks was created some 6 million years ago by a flow of basaltic lava. As the lava cooled it formed these distinctive hexagonal shapes just as the bottom of a dried riverbed would crack into shapes.

We were quite surprised by the scale of the place. I suppose that, because of the name GIANTs Causeway, I was expecting each pillar to be larger and wider. There were far more than I thought though, the rocks stretching out into the sea in undulating waves of their own.

It is easy to see how these almost perfectly symmetrical formations would be viewed as otherworldly by our earlier ancestors and how the Giant’s Causeway would give rise to colourful legend.

The story goes that mythical Irish giant Finn MacCool (or Fionn mac Cumhaill) built the causeway to get to Scotland and battle with a rival giant called Benandonner. When he got there he found that the Scottish giant was asleep but also far bigger than himself, so Finn returned back across the causeway. When Benandonner woke up he came across the causeway intent on fighting Finn. Finn’s wife dressed up her husband as a baby and when Benandonner arrived she said Finn wasn’t home and to be quiet not to wake up the baby. When Benandonner saw the baby he decided that if the baby was that big, Finn must be massive. So he turned tail and fled back across the causeway ripping it up as he went. All that remains are the ends, here at the Giant’s Causeway and on the island of Staffa in Scotland where similar formations are found.

A Wonder of the world?

In the past the causeway became widely known as the “eigth wonder of the world” when large numbers of visitors came to view it from the 1700’s. Perhaps now there is a chance it could be officially recognised as such: In 2008 the Giant’s Causeway was nominated for the accolade of one of the world’s seven natural wonders. The new seven wonders of the world were announced in Lisbon, Portugal in July 2007 and the “new seven wonders of Nature” as they are officially called were launched. These are currently being ballotted and the chosen wonders will be announced in 2010.

It was very refreshing to see that a site, of such remarkable natural beauty, was still totally open to visitors. We spent a long time at the rocks, sometimes sat marvelling in silence at the shapes and colours. Other times scrambling (or in my case, stumbling) over this huge playground.

Samuel Johnson, in the 18th century, said, about the Causeway, “worth seeing, yes: but not worth going to see.”

I disagree. If you get a chance, GO.

http://www.myguideireland.com/the-giants-causeway