Following my previous posts about education resources from Channel 4, they have been busy making another set of fantastic resources for schools to use. Here are some of the latest additions:

• Alien Ink (graphic novel, videos, social media) - A graphic comic tackling teen issues e.g. Knife crime, peer pressures, bullying etc. This is perfect for PSHE and citizenship lessons.
• Battle of Britain: Squadron 303 (flash game) - A fun and historically accurate game about the Polish Squadron 303 in the British Airforce during WW2. This is great for history lessons, but also citizenship as it teaches about diversity in the British armed forces as far back as the 1940s.

• Battlefront 2 (TV programme, online videos, game) - A second series of this TV programme and website featuring 11 campaigns run by young people on themes from autism, to equal pay, to lowering the voting age to education in Ghana. A fantastic resource for PSHE and citizenship teachers.
• SuperMe (games, videos, quizzes) – This teaches young people how to “live life better”, how to be more resilient and take control of their happiness. Inspired by the Resilience program and featuring celebrities young people look up to such as Pixie Lott, Speech Debelle and footballe Shaun Wright Phillips, this is a great site full of videos, games and quizzes to engage people in citizenship and PSHE issues. Expert psychologist advice also makes this relevant to psychology classes. Here’s an example of one of the videos:

Lots of videos from these series are also featured in the PSHE section of Teaching Videos.

How could you use these resources in your classroom?

Here is another collection of interesting education-related news, links and resources that I’ve discovered during my summer break.

Ideas to Inspire

I’ve added 5 new collaborative presentations to Ideas to Inspire over the past week or two. These have included ‘Ways to get to know your new class‘, ‘Ways to use Google Search in the classroom‘ and ‘Best Non-Tech Strategies and Techniques‘. The total number of ideas on ‘Ideas to Inspire‘ now exceeds 1200 – all of them contributed by teachers and educators from around the world. Thanks to Tom Barrett and David Mitchell for starting the new presentations.

#twittereducator

Peter Richardson has set up a simple way for teachers to find other educators on Twitter. Simply visit Blastfollow and enter the hashtag #twittereducator. You will then be able to follow a number of other teachers who have been recommended on Twitter. If you’re already on Twitter, why not send a tweet recommending other educators and add the hashtag #twittereducator to add them to the list? Find out more on Peter’s blog.

BrainPOP’s Space resources

Our new Space Teaching Theme was launched this week and it has attracted lots of positive feedback. By coincidence, BrainPOP have just revealed a new Space themed page too – Starship Brainpop. Their site has links to all of their space themed movies (some are free and some require a subscription) and their blog has lots of space themed resources too including activity sheets and an Astronaut Moby!

Other links:

• Wacky Races Papercraft – Instructions and printables showing you how to create the Wacky Races vehicles. Shared by @xannov.
• Communication and Collaboration Tools –  A useful list of online tools and resources. Shared by @mbarrow.
• Book Trailers – A selection of short movies which are designed to encourage student motivation to read. Shared by @profteresa.

Have you discovered anything interesting or exciting during your break?

Image – Welcome to my kingdom

I recently set up a new site to accompany my existing collection of Teaching Websites. The new site is called Teaching Events and is a place where you can find:

• Events which could be used as a starting point for a range of classroom activities.
• Conferences, exhibitions and shows which teachers can attend for their own professional development.

www.teachingevents.co.uk

Followers of Teaching Ideas on Twitter and Facebook have already had a sneak preview of the site and the response so far has been extremely positive. I would love to hear your feedback if you are able to look at the site. I would also like to hear about any events that you already use in your classroom:

• Special days, birthdays and anniversaries which you already use as a starting point for school / class activities,
• Charity events which schools can get involved with,
• Professional development events which other teachers might be interested in.

Please email me with the details of any events or use the form on the site. Thank you!

I am planning to add new events as I discover them and build the site into a useful calendar of educational events for schools and teachers. I hope that you like it!

Stuart Ridout has started a useful collection of tips for teachers with interactive whiteboards in their classroom. The tips are all contributed by teachers using Twitter. Simply search for #iwbtips on Twitter to see the latest tips. Here are a small collection of the contributions so far:

• Make sure iwb is accessible-installed at a proper height or w/adjust mount. Tennis ball helps students with challenges touch screen (from EdTechieGeek).
• PLAY with your whiteboard, do not be afraid to explore and experiment (from psycho65).
• Take 5 mins every day to learn how to use an iwb tool and use it with your class, use 5 in one lesson at the end of the week (from Kevin McLaughlin).
• Ensure groups use the IWB for independent working bits in lessons; brainstorm, designing, google earth, presentations, etc (from Mark Robinson).
• Tchrs must remember that iwbs r about the kids not the teachers. Gr8 for group work/indep tasks.Avoid stand and deliver lessons (from Ann McDonald).

Image – IMG_0724

Stuart is planning to compile all of these tips into an e-book and I’ll post another update when news about this has been revealed. Why not share your own #iwbtips and have then added to the e-book?

Following my previous post about iPhone and iPod apps for schools, I thought that it might be useful to write a second post, which also includes links to relevant iPad apps, now that the device has been released. Here are links to some useful apps, sites and resources:

App Suggestions:

• iPhone, apps and the headteacher – The New Head shares a number of useful apps which he uses on a daily basis. A very useful post.
• iPhone apps spreadsheet – A collaborative Google spreadsheet with suggested apps for a huge range of curriculum areas.
• Top iPhone apps for teachers and students – Six apps which are recommended by an advisor for teaching and learning with ICT.
• Learning Continuity – A large list of useful iPad applications for use in educational contexts.
• Ten iPad apps for librarians – This post shares ten different iPad applications that might be useful for librarians, although many of them might be useful for schools and other educators too.
• More iPad apps – Principal Eric Sheninger shares some of his favourite iPad apps in . Don’t miss his original post either.
• 10 iPad apps for Educators – Here’s a video which shows how the iPad might be used by teachers:

• iPads in Science – An amazing list of apps and ideas for using iPads in your Science lessons.
• Punflay – This company makes a large number of iPod / iPad games and educational applications, including a virtual Frog Dissection, physics puzzles and Maths games.
• EducationApps – Another company making educational software, targetted to the UK market.
• Apps for children 0-7 years – A selection of applications for use with younger children.
• Top iPhone / iPod apps for kids – A large number of applications for children to use in the classroom.
• 100 hard to find apps for schools – This list is an extremely useful collection of apps organised by category.
• Animation Creator HD – Lets you make stop-motion animations on the iPad screen. Children in my own class loved using the Pivot Stick Animator software this week, so I’m going to buy this one and see how it compares!
• Singing Fingers – How could you use this fun tool in your classroom?

Other Links:

• The iPad and iPod user group wiki – A useful site with a number of tips for using iPods in the classroom.
• 3 year old using an iPad – If you’re not convinced that young children can use these devices effectively, watch this video of a 3 year old using the 123 Color HD application.
• Introducing the iPad – Matt Lovegrove outlines his initial experiences of using his iPad with his class. Follow his blog for future updates.
• iPad in Education – Oliver Quinlan shares his experiences of an iPad in Education event which he attended.
• This post on the Seomra Ranga blog outlines how one school has arranged their use of iPod Touches in the classroom. It contains some useful advice about extra equipment that might help.

Apps that I’ve used at school:

• Evernote – I use Evernote all the time on my iPhone, iPad and computers. It’s a note taking tool which I use for taking minutes in staff meetings, jotting down ideas, drafting lesson plans and much more. By entering notes on one device, it is automatically synced to every other device (and to the online service too).

Image – Evernote, iPad App Store

• FileBrowser – With this app, I can access files our our school’s network. It’s a great way of quickly browsing the network and looking at important documents when I’m not near my school computer.
• iResponse Pro – I discovered this app whilst attending some training by Chris Thomas. It’s a fantastic assessment tool that works just like a voting system. Teachers set up their questions and the children can use their iPods / iPads to respond to them.
• Videos – We’ve used the built-in Videos app to watch instructional videos in Literacy lessons and to watch movie trailers when learning about dialogue and speech recently.
• Maps – Another built-in application with huge potential for classroom use… it could be used to look at street and satellite maps of an area you are studying. Street View could also be used to get the children to go on a virtual tour of particular places. I’ve started adding ‘Places and Maps’ to the Teaching Themes site, so why not explore some of these places with your iPods and iPads?
• Plants vs Zombies – This isn’t educational at all, but I showed it to my class once when I first got my iPad and they’ve been begging to play it together again ever since!

Many thanks to my Twitter network who have shared many of these over the past few months. I’m keen to explore this topic in future posts, so please get in touch with suggested apps / links or leave a comment. Thanks!

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!

Here are links to some useful video sites which can help you and your colleagues to learn new ICT skills. Many of the videos also suggest possible ways of using different tools in your classrooms:

Teacher Training Videos – Russell Stannard has created a large collection of videos to help teachers to learn how to use a wide range of software and online resources.

www.teachertrainingvideos.com

Learn it in 5 – This site contains a library of how-to videos, produced by technology teachers, for the purpose of helping teachers and students create classroom strategies for today’s 21st century’s digital classroom. Thanks to Mandy Barrow for sharing this via Twitter.

http://learnitin5.com

ICT Video Help – This site, created by Phil Bagge, offers a wonderful set of videos which cover lots of different software.

www.ictvideohelp.co.uk

Why not share these sites with your colleagues in your next staff meeting?