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?

The PGCE Survival Guide is a new free e-book created to support those who are about to start PGCE teacher-training courses. However, it is such a fantastic resource that it could be useful for all teachers.

The PGCE guide site explains more about the book:

“It’s full of useful and practical, hints, tips and advice from recent PGCE graduates and more experienced teachers covering every element of teacher training, from your first day at university, through the hectic world of placements (with lots of valuable teaching tips) to finding a job- we have it all covered!

You won’t find countless chapters about educational theory – just real tips and advice from real teachers that have been selected to help you during your teacher training.”

I mentioned the #pgcetips Twitter tag on Teaching News a few weeks ago. The contributions to this tag have been collated and added to the book too. In fact, the book has over 250 super useful hints and tips from the education community on twitter!

I wish that there was a book like this when I started my teacher training course many years ago! Tim Handley (and the many other contributors) have done a wonderful job of creating an extremely valuable resource for all teachers, so download a free copy of the book or buy a paper copy!

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

Here are some of the interesting education-related things that I’ve found during my summer break so far:

Google Teacher Academy UK

The first Google Teacher Academy UK event took place this week and it sounded like an amazing experience for those who were able to attend. Even if you couldn’t make it, lots of people have been sharing what happened via their blogs and Twitter accounts. Here are some ways to follow the event it you couldn’t go:

• About the Google Teacher Academy (from Google’s site)
• GTA Posterous Blog – A special blog was set up allowing the attendees to write about what happened. This is a very interesting and useful resource.
• ICTSteps – Kevin McLaughlin has been writing blog posts about his experiences.
• Ian Addison has also describe his feelings about the event on his blog.
• Tom Barrett has created a collection of all of the blog posts about GTAUK which you can subscribe to if you use Google Reader.
• You can also follow the #gtauk hashtag on Twitter.

PGCE Tips:

Tom Henzley is aiming to create a free e-book containing tips for students starting a PGCE course. The book will contain contributions from people who post messages on Twitter using the hashtag #pgcetips. Here are some of the contributions so far:

• Be organised. Listen to and observe everything. Keep all bits of paper! (from @adambutterworth)
• Listen to advice, offer to help, don’t expect to be perfect – your mentor won’t expect you to be! (from @zaragozalass)
• Innovate… learn from school placements and write out your idea of what makes a good teacher… pick the best bits from others (from @dan_bowen)

Take a look at the other contributions by searching Twitter for #pgcetips and add some ideas of your own too. Lots of the ideas will be useful for practising teachers… not just PGCE students!

Other useful sites I’ve found:

• 20 websites no teacher should start the year without – A collection of sites which should be very useful for teachers (suggested by @colport).
• Fuzzwich – A simple online tool which lets you build animations. Shared by Mark Fox.

• Educational Jargon Generator – Create your own educational jargon which this clever site! Shared by @russeltarr.
• Secure Passwords Video – Here’s another fantastic video from Commoncraft which explains why it’s important to have strong passwords. Very useful for ICT / esafety lessons. Suggested by Lee Kolbert.
• Phil Bagge has updated his ICT videos with some new tutorials about using Google Docs for collaborative work.

Have you discovered any useful news / resources during the past few weeks?

Image – Underneath a Star

Edtechroundup is a weekly online meeting between teachers and educators. It is open to all and the conversations take place via Flashmeeting. The discussions are about education and teaching with a particular focus on the use of ICT.

www.edtechroundup.com

You can find the links to future meetings on the Edtechroundup wiki. You can also watch / listen to the previous conversations there if you have missed any. There is also a Twitter page which allows you to keep up to date with the latest meetings and events. Why not take a look and get involved in the meetings yourself?

www.neok12.com

You can also browse for relevant pictures and make your own presentations using the online tools. This is a really useful site that any teachers of Science should definitely bookmark!

Don’t forget that you can also find educational videos (covering a wide range of curriculum areas) at Teaching Videos.

Early Learning HQ is a new site offering hundreds of free Foundation Stage and Key Stage One resources for teachers to use. These include Literacy, Numeracy and themed resources which you can download.

www.earlylearninghq.org.uk

The site also has a ‘photo and illustration’ area where you can get clip art and pictures to use in your own resources. It looks like a valuable resource for teachers of children in the relevant age group. Check it out!

Let Nature Feed Your Senses is an England-wide project to provide farm and nature reserve visits for children, older people, people with disabilities, and others who have difficulty visiting the countryside. The visits are supported by the Big Lottery and Natural England and are tailored to suit different ages and abilities.

www.letnaturefeedyoursenses.org

For more information and to get an idea of who has already enjoyed one of our farm visits, visit the website where you will also find all the contact details you need to arrange a visit to a farm near you. Here’s a video report from the BBC which gives more information about the project:

Teachers.tv offers a huge collection of videos which schools can use in a variety of ways. Individual teachers are able to use many of the videos for their own professional development and they could also be shared in staff meetings. There are also many educational videos which you can use in your own classroom as part of lessons with your pupils – lots of these have been featured on Teaching Videos.

www.teachers.tv

The site has recently announced that their TV channel will be ending from 31st August 2010. However, all of their content will still be available online on their website. You can also follow Teachers.tv on Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and in iTunes!

BrainPop offer lots of wonderful educational animations and resources for schools. Their site is split into different subject areas and the videos are all organised clearly. Although there is a charge to access all of the videos, they regularly offer free videos. Take a look at this list of free videos as a starting point. You can also get a 30 day free trial if you are interested.

www.brainpop.co.uk

Their current featured video is about Sun Protection, which is very useful for schools in the last few weeks of the summer term. The site also has resources for schools including a curriculum matching tool and tips for teachers.