Here are five great new resources that I’ve found online this week:

1) Quadblogging  - David Mitchell has set up Quadblogging as a way of encouraging pupils to publish online and comment on each other’s work. Lots of schools have already signed up and you can too! It’s a great idea and you can find out more about it in the Youtube video here:

Click here to view the embedded video.

2) Worldometers (shared by Dominic Tremblay) – This site shows lots of statistics about the world, which change in real-time. It’s fascinating (but slightly scary) to see some of the numbers rising so rapidly and it would be great for looking at data handling or geography / environmental work.

3) Plot Device – This video was featured on Tom Barrett’s blog. It’s a fantastic story, covering a range of genres, which could be used in a huge variety of ways in the classroom. Enjoy!

Click here to view the embedded video.

4) Animaps (shared by Malcolm Wilson) – This site lets you create animated maps for free. Could you use it to report on a school trip somewhere, to retell a historical event or to tell a story about a fantastic journey?

5) Comix – Danny Nicholson wrote a blog post about this great comic creation tool, which is aimed at younger children. The rest of the site has lots of other tools which could be used in the classroom too.

If you’ve found something useful recently, please consider sharing it in the comments. Thank you

Last week was my half term break which gave me lots of time to create another Teaching Theme. The latest one is called ‘Lights, Camera, Action!‘ and it provides ideas and resources for using film and TV in the classroom.

Huge thanks must go to my wife who draws the cartoon pictures for lots of the resources. Thanks also to those people who have contributed their own ideas and resources. If you have any relevant content that could be added to the site, or if you have any suggestions for future themes, please get in touch. Thanks!

The Youtube video above gives information about a new offer from British Pathé. Their archive of 90,000 films and 12 million photographs covers an enormous range of subjects including modern British and world history, news, fashion, sport, entertainment, travel, warfare and 20th Century social history.

This archive is available to all schools in the UK through a special education subscription. Schools who subscribe have access to the following additional features:

• Unlimited downloads of British Pathé material for use within the classroom,
• Curriculum-specific collections created by teachers,
• Permission to publish films on Secure Learning Platforms.

Many state schools in the UK already have access to free British Pathé downloads under agreements with their Regional Broadband Consortium or Local Authority, so it’s worth checking to see if your school already has free access.

You can also follow British Pathe on Twitter at @patheschools.

I’m a big fan of the FilmClub scheme and have run a successful FilmClub at my own school (including a wonderful ‘FilmClub on the road’ event where the team turned our school hall into a giant cinema screen!). The team at FilmClub have emailed me about an important event which is taking place next month. Here is some more information:

“The gap in educational achievement between children from different economic and social backgrounds has remained stubbornly constant in the UK.

Save the Children UK, FILMCLUB and the Times Educational Supplement (TES) are committed to addressing child poverty and reducing the inequality in attainment. For Save the Children UK, breaking the link between disadvantage and educational achievement is a vital part of ending child poverty. FILMCLUB is seeing early indications that its work is helping address these important issues in ways that could offer a blueprint for future approaches. For the TES, inequality is both a topical and a structural issue in education, of great importance to many of its readers.

Closing the Gap takes place at BAFTA, 195 Piccadilly, London on 9th November 2010. The debate is followed by a complementary lunch and preview screening of award-winning film, Monsters. There will be a Q&A after the screening with the film’s British director, Gareth Edwards.

Tickets for the Closing the Gap debate are £125, but we have a concessionary rate of £75 for FILMCLUB members, charities and education professionals. Insert the discount code CTGDR when booking your place. Book your ticket for the Closing the Gap Debate at this site.

This event is also listed on my Teaching Events site, where you can find a wide range of educational events to use as part of teaching in your classroom, or for your own professional development.

National Schools Film Week (NSFW) provides teachers and their students the opportunity to see a wide range of films at local cinemas entirely free-of-charge. This year will be the 15th annual festival and it is available to any school. They welcome bookings of all sizes. Some schools will bring an entire Year group or Key Stage while others attend on a class-by-class basis. They do not limit places to any number of students or schools to any number of bookings. As long as there is space in the cinema, you are welcome!

The National Schools Film Week is the world’s largest festival for cinema & young people. This year’s dates are:

• England, Wales & Northern Ireland – 14-22 October 2010
• Scotland: 28 October-5 November 2010

Although these dates are a few months away, they are asking for requests now. My school put in our request this week, so get planning and see how you can get involved too!

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.

An exciting competition is now open to young film makers. The Young Minds Digital Times Film competition is open to students in American grades 6-12 (or their international equivalents) and registration is free.

From their site… “The Second Annual Young Minds Digital Times Film Competition (YMDT) is a collaboration between KidThrive.org and Converge magazine to offer an innovative film competition for students around the world to showcase their work, compete against their peers and tackle pressing social issues. Kids have lots to say, ideas to share and talent to showcase, so we’ve created this competition as a learning opportunity for participants.”

Prizes include attendance of the Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas, along with cash prizes for individual entries, for teachers and for schools with the most entries! Registration closes on 19th February 2010 and all entries should be submitted by 19th March, 2010.

If you’re entering the competition, good luck!

For those interested in using film in the classroom, the following sites are extremely useful:

• www.filmclub.org (run your own film club!)
• www.filmstreet.co.uk (learn all about movie making)
• www.filmeducation.org.uk (a charity which aims to support teachers to use film as an educational tool).

Film Education also send out regular newsletters which include updates about their free resources and materials for teachers. Their latest newsletter included invitations to the receptions and screenings for this year’s National Schools Film Week. Sign up to find out more.

Every so often at school, I’m able to run a staff meeting. I always enjoy these, as it’s a chance for me to share new ideas about ICT with other members of staff. Many of our ICT meetings are linked to new software or equipment that has arrived in school, but I wanted this one to be more general. Rather than focussing on one particular idea (which may not be appropriate to every year group), my aim was to share a number of different tools / tips / websites, which staff would then be able to choose from, to try within their teaching where appropriate.

As well as giving information verbally, I created a Smart Notebook file with further information, which is saved on our school’s network, so that staff can refer to it in the future. I’ve also uploaded the file here, in the hope that readers of this blog might be able to pick up a few tips as well.

Download Staff Meeting Notebook File
(Smart Notebook required)

If you don’t have Smart Notebook, here’s a brief outline of the things that I’ve mentioned in the file:

• Independent Maths Activities – using RM Maths and TutPup.
• Using Film in Literacy – with instructions showing how to download Youtube videos using KeepVid. I also added a link to the Film for Literacy wiki, which has examples of films that can be used in particular Literacy units.
• Travel the World – using sites like panoramas.dk and gigapan.org to develop Literacy, Geography and History skills.
• Smartboard Tricks – Children sometimes have difficulties dragging objects across the board, so you can use two fingers to make them jump from one place to another.
• Tools for making displays – Using 2Publish+ software to create banners, and blockposters.com to produce giant images.
• Typing Skills – helping children to type more quickly using 2Type, Dance Mat Typing or Sense Lang.

Which sites / applications / tools would you recommend if you were asked to run an ICT staff meeting?

Image: ‘three thirty‘