Here are links to some of the most popular Teaching News articles over the past few months, in case you have missed any of them:

• Communication 4 All – Have you visited this wonderful resource site?
• Safer Internet Day – Lots of links and advice for teaching your pupils about staying safe online.
• Anithings Offer – A special offer (which has now ended) offering visitors to Teaching News a discount and free gift for purchases of this fantastic animation software.
• Creative Curriculum – Information and links about creative curriculum ideas.
• Ryan’s Thinkers Keys – Download a set of activities that children can take part in at the start of the day, or as part of other lessons.
• New Primary Curriculum Online – Find out all about the new primary curriculum and how to find it online.
• Planbee and Twinkl – Have you seen these new teaching resource sites?
• Spelling Resources – A selection of links and resources to support the teaching of spelling in your classroom.
• Primary Teacher Resource Centre – Take part in this active forum for primary school teachers.
• KS2 Spelling Lists – Download some useful lists of spelling words.

My Life is a free interactive resource produced by The Children’s Society which aims to help children aged 7 to 11 develop the skills they need for a healthy, happy childhood.

www.mylife4schools.org.uk

The content is separated into different units, covering friends, family, learning, beliefs and keeping healthy. There are links to the National Curriculum, Every Child Matters and SEAL.

The resource has information for:

• Teachers – with online activities, case studies, activity sheets and teachers’ notes.
• Children – including animations and online storybooks.
• Parents – showing what the activities are about and how to get information and support.

Tony Poulter has created a wonderful resource called the Primary Teacher’s Toolbox. According to Tony, it has ‘more useful links than you can shake a stick at’.

www.btinternet.com/~tony.poulter

There are links to:

• useful sites for teachers,
• child-safe websites suitable for foundation, KS1 and KS2 children,
• cyberhunts which encourage children to use the Internet,
• interactive quizzes and more…

Tony has also added useful information and documents for teachers and trainees. The site is well worth exploring.

Steph Westwood has been busy creating sets of weblists containing useful links for teachers. These are all created using weblist.me and Steph has organised them into a range of different categories.

http://weblist.me/user/2sparkley

The categories include:

• Word Clouds
• Typing Games
• Interactive Whiteboard sites
• Art sites
• Avatar creators

Steph is planning to create more weblists so keep an eye on the site for future updates. You can also follow Steph’s blog and Twitter account.

Following this week’s Safer Internet Day, lots of news stories and Internet safety resources were announced. Here’s a summary of what I discovered:

• CEOP revealed a new Internet safety resource for children aged 4-7. Lee and Kim’s Adventure, Animal Magic, is an 8 minute animation which involves a brother and sister navigating the online world with the help of their trusted superhero friend SID. Here’s a promotional video to tell you more about the resource:

• There are lots of related resources for teachers, which you can download here.
• These resources share four top tips for younger children to remember:
  • People you don’t know are strangers. They’re not always who they say they are.
  • Be nice to people on the computer like you would in the playground.
  • Keep your personal information private.
  • If you ever get that ‘uh oh’ feeling, you should tell a grown-up you trust.
• There is also a music video which children can use to help them learn and remember the messages shown:

Did you discover any new Internet safety resources this week?

There are lots of places where teachers can chat and share ideas on Internet forums. Two of these include the TES Forums and our own Teaching Forum. A few months ago, I came across another forum… the Primary Teacher Resource Centre Forum (more commonly known as PTRC).

http://primaryresourcecentre.myfreeforum.org/

The forum is full of a really friendly bunch of people who are always happy to give answers to any questions for help. They also share some wonderful resources and links – I have discovered lots of new teaching material through the forum.

I had the pleasure of meeting some of the regular posters on PTRC at BETT last week. It was lovely being able to put faces to the names that I see so often when I’m browsing through the forum.

Safer Internet Day will be taking place on Tuesday 9th February. This event is organised each year to promote safer and more responsible use of online technology and mobile phones, especially amongst children and young people across the world. The topic for 2010 is “Think B4 U post!“.

Here’s a short advertisement which is being used to advertise the day and promote the message:

www.brainpop.co.uk/designandtechnology/ictcommunicatingandcollaborating/onlinesafety/

Simon Haughton has put together a wonderful list of ICT activities that teachers can use in their ICT lessons, or as part of an ICT club.

Parkfield ICT – ICT Club Topics

You’re sure to discover something new with this wonderful collection of sites and resources!

Following part 1 and part 2 of my ‘Favourite blogs for teachers’ posts, here is another collection of useful blogs to follow. Don’t forget to subscribe to their RSS feeds to get the latest updates.

• Technostories – This blog is a fantastic source of inspiration for using ICT in your classroom. Created by Bev Evans who also runs the wonderful Communication4All site.
• Inspiring Creative Technology – Simon Haughton shares his teaching experiences, including many brilliant ICT ideas.

• Digital-Teacher – Simon Widdowson posts regularly about lots of school-related issues. Some of these include his explorations of various online tools as his school attempts to set up their own virtual learning environment.
• Steps in Teaching and Learning – This blog, created by Kevin McLaughlin, is another valuable source of information for teachers, particularly those with an interest in ICT.
• Bits & Bobs – Nicola Stables is a regular blogger who shares her teaching ideas and experiences with this wonderful blog.

• I Learn Technology - Kelly Tenkely is a technology teacher who shares useful ideas and teaching links on this fantastic blog.
• Adventures in Learning – EBD35 only started blogging recently and has written some interesting posts already about the use of the Nintendo Wii to support learning in the classroom.

Many thanks to Steph Westwood (who has started her own blog recently) for suggesting some of these via Twitter.

Image – keyboard ~ blur

Here are links to the most popular ‘Teaching News‘ posts for October 2009. Which ones were most useful for you?

1. Top 10 Teaching Ideas (Sep ‘09) – A list of the most popular ideas on Teaching Ideas.
2. Free Stuff for Teachers – A fantastic site with free resources for teachers to use.
3. Superclubs Plus Free Trial – Sign up to Superclubs with our offer, now extended until 30th November 2009.
4. 100 Best Open Source Apps for Education – How many of these apps do you use?
5. Communication for All – Download lots of top quality resources on this great site.
6. The Potato Story – A wonderful site to support work in Science lessons.
7. New Ideas to Inspire – Have you discovered the new presentations on Ideas to Inspire?
8. Staying Organised – How do you manage all of the jobs that teachers have to do?
9. The Art Classroom – Visit this wonderful blog and discover lots of art ideas and student work.
10. Cool Tools for Schools – An amazing directory of tools that schools can take advantage of.