My latest copy of the BBC Schools newsletter was emailed to me a few days ago and it reminded me of all of the fantastic resources that they have created for teachers. Here are some of the things that are available on their site:

• Class Clips – More than 8000 video clips from BBC programmes that you can play in your classroom. These are all clearly organised and easy to search for.
• News for Schools – News reports to support your lessons, along with lesson plans which give ideas for using them.
• CBBC Newsreader – An accessible newsreader which is suitable for primary children. It shares some of the latest news headlines, organised by topic, and the site reads the articles too!
• Teachers’ Packs – Whole sets of lesson plans and printable resources for all ages… I’m sure that the Doctor Who pack will be very popular!
• BBC Bitesize – Revision lessons and activities for all ages and curriculum areas.
• School Radio – Podcasts, downloads, audio and video clips covering Music, Dance, History, Literacy, PSHE, Maths and Collective Worship!
• Primary History – One of my favourite History resources… this site has lots of wonderful resources for children and teachers. The timeline is especially useful.
• Primary Languages – Lots of useful resources for teaching French, Spanish and Mandarin to primary pupils.

Here are another five wonderful teaching resources that I’ve come across recently:

1) Walk to School Week – This week (16th to 20th May) is ‘Walk to School Week’. To support the week, there are lots of resources on the Walk to School site. Thanks to Simon Haughton for recommending these on Twitter.

2) Teaching with Comic Life - Comic Life is a fantastic piece of software for Windows, Mac and iPad which lets you create comic strips using your own digital photos. Lots of schools are using it and it’s been a great success whenever I’ve used it in my own classroom. Digmo has a fantastic guide to Teaching with Comic Life which you can download for free. A fantastic read!

3) BBC Domesday Reloaded - In 1986, the BBC published the Domesday Project and over a million people contributed to this digital snapshot of the country. People (including schools and community groups) were asked to record what they thought would be of interest in another 1000 years. Now, on the BBC Domesday site, you can rediscover and explore images and articles from the original project to find out how life in Britain has changed… and how some things have stayed the same. In addition, you will be able to update the project by re-photographing the images today and updating text entries. Could this be a project for your school to get involved in?

4) ICT Magic – This site is a new wiki which is bursting with links to lots of useful sites. They are all organised by subject / topic and the site is being updated regularly. Thanks to The Whiteboard Blog for bringing this to my attention.

5) Quite Tube – The Ideas for Teachers blog has a great post about the Quiet Tube service. Simply add ‘quiet’ before ‘youtube.com’ in the address bar of any Youtube video (e.g. http://www.quietyoutube.com/watch?v=-ZJDNSp1QJA) and the video opens in a plain window without links to other videos and comments… this is great for teachers who want to show videos without the other (sometimes inappropriate) content on the Youtube pages. Don’t forget that you can find educational Youtube videos on our other site, Teaching Videos.

What new resources have you discovered this week?

A fantastic competition has recently been launched which is a joint effort of Doctor Who’s and the BBC Learning teams. Pupils aged 9-11 are encouraged to collaborate on a three minute script that takes the resident Time Lord on a new quest travelling through space and time inside the TARDIS.

The lucky winners will travel to the BBC’s studios in Cardiff where they will see their script brought to life by the Doctor Who team and cast including Matt Smith.

The BBC have lots of lesson plans to support the writing, and some exciting clips from the Doctor, calling kids to join in. Visit the Script to Screen site for more information.

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/bbc-audio-resources/ http://www.teachingnews.co.uk/2010/09/bbc-audio-resources/#comments Sun, 26 Sep 2010 10:29:42 +0000 markwarner http://www.teachingnews.co.uk/?p=5022

The BBC have a huge collection of audio resources for primary schools on their School Radio pages. These include:

• Dance and PE Workshops,
• Music activities and audio clips to use in lessons,
• Collective Worship resources,
• History audio clips and more…

www.bbc.co.uk/schoolradio

Accompanying teachers resources are online and many of the audio programmes are available as free podcasts, so you can download and use them in your classrooms straight away!

There are lots of great (and free) educational resources for teachers available at the moment. Here are some that I have discovered recently:

• BBC Headroom Teacher’s Pack – BBC Headroom has produced a colourful, interactive resource pack to support the teaching of wellbeing in primary schools. The pack includes short animated films featuring CBBC Bugbears and has been produced in collaboration with educational and psychiatric experts. It comprises of curriculum-linked lesson plans, a DVD and an accompanying wall display. You can order your free copy here. Thanks to FantastICT for bringing this to my attention via Twitter.

• Show My Homework – The fantastic Show My Homework (which I have written about previously) has had lots of updates over the summer, including a new feature allowing students to submit their homework online. Here’s a video which gives you a guided tour of the site.

Have you discovered any useful educational resources recently?

Now that I have returned to work myself, I’ll be posting more regular updates to Teaching News. Let me know if you have any comments or suggestions (or even contributions) for the site. Thanks!

The BBC’s Learning Zone Broadband Class Clips provides rich audio-visual material for use in primary schools, secondary schools and colleges. The short videos have been selected to match the curriculum. They can be used in many ways; from the stimulation and engagement of students to the delivery of very specific learning points. The material is drawn from the Learning Zone and elsewhere in the BBC.

www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips

The clips cover all primary and secondary subjects / topics and they are easy to find using the search tool, or the topic browser. This is a really useful resource to check whenever you’re planning!

The BBC has a new set of resource for teachers and parents of young children. Talkie Time lets grown ups participate in a unique interactive event with their children, at home or at school. It gets children participating in the action, using language confidently and learning through play as they solve problems for Rodd by talking to the television.

Rodd always has something he needs help with. From testing his secret agent game to cheering him up when he has a cold, he is always involved in the things that matter to five-year-olds, their parents, carers and teachers. There are 7 sketches for whiteboards where the teacher has a conversation with Rodd Christensen (Spencer from Balamory) and the children participate with words and actions to create a fun classroom event around topics such as:

• Counting on in twos in ‘Drum Count”,
• Cheering up a friend by writing a new version of Humpty in ‘Cheer Up’
• Classifying charity shop goods in ‘Super Sorting”,
• Phonological awareness through ‘Letters in the air” and ‘The Thing Code’
• Technology through improving photos in ‘Picture Perfect’
• O’Clock times in ‘Time Quiz”

The programmes will be on iplayer until the 26th March with the clips made available on the Class Clips website very soon after. The clips will stay there for 5 years. You can download a PDF support guide to Talkie Time and find related resources on the BBC site.

My World in 60 Seconds is a film project for 11-14 year olds, set up by the Geographical Association, to create an alternative guide to our world, a guide that is created by you. The organisers want to re-present the world as people know it, so they are looking for young people to make short films that are thought provoking, insightful and engaging.

www.geography.org.uk/11-19/myworldin60seconds

60 seconds is just long enough to guide someone through part of your world, to show what it is really like for you. The best films can appear on BBC Big Screens across the country. A panel of judges will watch all the films and the ones that in their opinion best reflect what we are looking for could be shown. These films will also appear online as part of a guide to our world.

Find out more at the My World in 60 Seconds site.

Here are details of two fantastic resources for those teaching Literacy / Music / History linked to the topic of Ancient Greece:

‘Heroes of Troy‘ is a music resource for school children aged 9 to 11 and offers 7 songs to learn, each linking to an episode of the Trojan War. The website is audio-based, but also includes Teachers’ Notes, words and music for the songs, backing tracks…and well-known music presenter David Grant is on hand to teach all of the songs.

www.bbc.co.uk/schools/troy/

It’s intended to target a range of music objectives at Key Stage 2 but also links to the history topic Ancient Greece while offering opportunities to link music with literacy and performance.

Winged Sandals offers animated versions of different Greek myths, along with games and other online activities to try. This has always been popular with children whenever I’ve used it at school.

www.wingedsandals.com