The Dream Lab is a new national design competition for schools. It’s being fronted by Sir Trevor Baylis (inventor of the wind up radio) and Ortis Deley (presenter on Channel 5’s Gadget Show) and it’s inviting school children aged between 13 and 18 to enter their ideas for sleep related gadgets. You can find lots of advice and downloadable resources here.

The winning child’s school design and technology department will win a prize of £20,000 and the winning child or team (up to 4) will win £10,000 to help them get their idea made. Find out more and get involved at thedreamlab.co.uk.

Wallace and Gromit’s Cracking Ideas site is a fantastic resource which covers lots of concepts, including patents, trade marks, design and copyright. The Learning Zone has a number of activity packs, innovation packs, lesson plans and a booklet which explains about intellectual property.

The site is also running a competition, which is open until 31st March 2011. The competition is open to those aged between 4 and 16 and requires children to take part in lots of challenges which are all linked to the creation of an exciting new theme park. Find out more in this Youtube video:

Wallace & Gromit are back with their World of Invention and they need help to put their inventions right. The Crackers pair are in trouble and need some inspiration to build their designs.

Gromit just can’t get Wallace’s wake-up machine to work and has crashed their entire workshop! Could your pupils design a better machine? Go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/wallaceandgromit to enter and they could have their design featured in the show. Their contraption could be re-created into clay and appear in an animated production from the creators of Wallace and Gromit.

Find out more in the Youtube video below:

]]> http://www.teachingnews.co.uk/2010/11/wallace-and-gromit-need-your-help/feed/ 0 http://www.teachingnews.co.uk/2010/09/national-baking-week-2/ http://www.teachingnews.co.uk/2010/09/national-baking-week-2/#comments Tue, 21 Sep 2010 17:14:12 +0000 markwarner http://www.teachingnews.co.uk/?p=5001

National Baking Week 2010 takes place from 19th to 25th October. The event encourages everyone to get involved in baking and their site offers a huge collection of recipes, ideas, advice and resources for schools to help them take part.

You can download teaching packs include teachers’ notes, lesson plans and PowerPoint presentations for use in your classroom, by registering on the teacher’s site.

The Sorrell Foundation is launching the YOUNGDESIGNCLUB to give pupils and their teachers an exciting new resource to inform and stimulate knowledge and debate about design.

The YOUNGDESIGNCLUB is free to UK primary and secondary schools, to run in lunch breaks or as an after-school activity. Each meeting will focus on a piece of design from any discipline, providing a growing menu of over 100 design stories. They will be structured around presentations and supported by flexible resources, including print, film and audio materials and PowerPoint slides (available as downloads). This will be followed by a discussion, and the pupil members will have the opportunity to produce their own crit in response, the best of which will be published by the YOUNGDESIGNCLUB. There will also be an annual awards ceremony at Somerset House, London.

www.thesorrellfoundation.com/young_design_club.php

Are you a teacher interested in running the YOUNGDESIGNCLUB? To register your interest, please complete the online registration form. The club will begin in January 2011 and the Sorrell Foundation will contact you in September with detailed information.

Twitter is an amazing way to discover new and interesting information. Here are links to some of the things that I have found recently:

• Design 2010 – An online exhibition celebrating the achievements of students in Design and Technology. Shared by Gareth Davies.
• Aviary Education – Aviary, who produce lots of fantastic online tools, are now offering a free service for education users. Shared by Paulo Simões.
• History Pin – A digital time machine that allows users to pin their own old photos onto modern Street View scenes. Shared by Claire Jones. Here’s a Youtube video which explains more:

• Diary of an Ofsted Inspection - Michael Shepherd recalls his recent experiences with Ofsted! Shared by Simon Haughton.
• Open ClipArt Library – An archive of clip art that can be used for free by anyone. Shared byProfteresa.
• Augmented Reality – If you’ve heard what augmented reality is, but you’re not quite sure what it does, watch this Youtube video, shared by CommonCraft:

What have you found on Twitter recently?

Image – Run!

www.cbelearning.com is designed to support both students and teachers with the Diploma in Construction and the Built Environment curriculum. This resource will help bring the construction industry, and roles within it, to life through a variety of interactive learning experiences.

www.cbelearning.com

The site allows students to explore real construction situations, engaging activities, tasks and roles. They can follow the construction process from consultation, design, build to operation, applying their knowledge and working together to solve problems as they create their own building. It also has lots of ideas and outline lesson plans for teachers to use.

Do you love baking cakes? Or making bread, cookies or other tasty food? If you do, get involved in National Baking Week from 19th to 25th October 2009.

The National Baking Week site is a wonderful resource for schools, containing recipes, teaching packs for KS1 and KS2, baking tips, a free baking booklet and online games. There is also a national competition running where schools can win £350 worth of Pyrex equipment for their school.

Ministers today launched a fun, interactive website and poster campaign to encourage children to give their views on play and play areas as part of the first ever national consultation on children’s play.

The website and posters give children the chance to design their own play space using playground favourites such as see-saws and round-a-bouts mixed with more modern structures such as wooden climbing walls.

On the website children can choose from a variety of settings to reflect their local areas, with a choice of urban, rural or sports fields on which to build their ideal play area. In order to add equipment to their play space children must answer a series of questions around the idea of play. The more questions answered the more points they earn to spend on designing their own play space.

The views of children and young people will play a crucial part in this consultation, and it is important that as many as possible are able to contribute their ideas. This short, online activity is aimed at 8 to 13 year olds, will ensure that children can give their views while at the same time being creative and having fun. All the consultation questions have been drafted using child–friendly language.

Link: http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/playspace/

There are a number of Design and Technology websites available for children and teachers to use. Most are aimed at KS3/4 but still have some excellent resources. Technology Student and Design and Technology are good examples of these sites, but both contain good sheets and diagrams/videos suitable for upper KS2.

One of the best Design and Technology websites has to be that of DATA (Design And Technology Association), covering the subject from the Foundation Stage to the Secondary Strategy. All have examples of good practice, planning; links with literacy, numeracy, science… There is also a whole page of ‘challenges and competitions’ that you could put into place at your school. The page provides a list of links to Challenge websites, but these do take a lot of time and effort to get up and running!

The Nuffield Foundation also have suitable alternatives to the QCA schemes of work, all with adequate planning and resources. The Welsh NGFL site has excellent resources available for the Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 QCA Units.

So…there are plenty of D&T resources available online. I always get questioned about there being a lack of websites for D&T and I hope this provides a good starting point. Also, if you know of any that enhance learning or save you time(!) please add a comment!