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

Teaching Themes – Space

This month’s Teaching Theme has now been released and all of the ideas and resources are about Space! The theme contains:

• Ideas for lessons and classroom activities,
• Resources to use for your class displays (with some wonderful new space cartoons),
• Educational videos to watch in your lessons,
• Examples of existing space-themed classroom displays for inspiration,
• Online games and apps for your pupils to use,
• Suggestions of places and maps which can be used as part of your space lessons,
• Links to other useful space websites.

I have also added a new section to the theme this month… Jokes! Kevin McLaughlin suggested having a selection of themed jokes on the page which can be used as a starter for lessons or just for fun! Thanks Kevin. I’m aiming to add a jokes section to all previous and future themes too so look out for those.

Find all of the themed resources (including previous themes) at www.teachingthemes.co.uk.

Next month’s theme is ‘Pirates’ and my wife has been busy drawing some wonderful pirate cartoons to use in the resources. I’m really looking forward to sharing them with you!

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!

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!

Here are links to some of the most popular Teaching Ideas, News, Videos and Photos on my websites recently:

• World Cup Ideas and Resources – A large collection of lesson ideas, videos, display material and other resources, to support the use of the World Cup in the classroom.
• Creative Writing – A collection of starting points for creative writing.
• The 100 Square – Use the 100 square to find patterns by colouring in certain squares.
• How many squares on a chessboard? – An enjoyable Maths investigation, which requires logical thinking in order to find the correct answer.
• Ordering the Planets – Can you remember the correct order of the planets? Use these handy tricks to help you!

• Blank Top Trumps Cards – Free resources to help you create your own Top Trumps cards in the classroom.
• Classroom Displays – Discover a site to inspire your own classroom displays.
• iPhone and iPod apps for schools – A collection of applications to use in your lessons.
• Mr. Thorne’s Phonics Videos – Look at these wonderful educational phonics videos for young children.
• Myst Ideas and Resources – An announcement about the release of lots of ideas to support the use of the Myst games in the classroom.

• South African World Cup 2010 – A video made by the South African people when they won the World Cup 2010 Bid.
• Wavin’ Flag – The official theme song for the FIFA World Cup South Africa 2010, by the somalian artist K’naan.
• Fifa World Cup Soccer City – Find out about Soccer City, the venue that will take centre stage during the World Cup finals in South Africa.
• Persuasive Advert KS2 – A persuasive advert which can be used as part of Literacy lessons in KS2.
• The Highwayman – Watch an animated version of the popular poem.

• Designing Games – A display showing children’s ICT work as part of a topic about the creation of computer games.
• Adjectives and Adverbs – Sharing children’s suggestions of adjectives and adverbs, created using WordArt and clipart.
• 3D Shapes – A selection of 3D shapes, made by pupils, along with questions to review their understanding.
• Reading Chart – A chart on which the children move their names, to show how many times they have read at home.
• Colour Mixing – What happens when you mix different colours? Find out in this colourful display!

I’ve published July’s Teaching Theme a few days early, so that it can be used in the last few weeks of the summer term here in the UK. The theme is called ‘Summer at the Seaside‘ and it contains an enormous collection of ideas, resources, display material, photos, videos, links, places and maps… all linked to the summer and seaside topics.

This is our biggest Teaching Theme yet, with over 100 ideas, resources and links for you to explore and I’ve already had lots of wonderful comments from visitors. I must say a HUGE thank you to my wife who has drawn the amazing images on many of the display resources. I’m sure that they will look fantastic in your classroom!

I’ve now started getting ready for August’s theme – Space! If you have any resources or suggestions for any of these themes, please get in touch!

Do you use Velcro in your classroom? A new site has been launched which where teachers can share all the weird and wonderful ways they use Velcro products to create a fun and interactive learning environment in their schools.

http://velcro4schools.com

You can register to share your ideas and explore what others have added. You can even win prizes for your class if your idea is chosen in the monthly or annual prize draws.

Steve Kirkpatrick has blogged about his concerns following the closure of Becta and the dropping of the proposed new primary curriculum.

He states on his site ‘The problem is that the the ICT curriculum needs to be developed from the ground up and not from the top down, the opportunity is that there is a new curriculum coming at some point down the line.

So here is the challenge:

Can we as educators develop a skill based ICT curriculum that is relevant and low cost that will deliver for future learners?   I am sure that this is something that we can do working together that can demonstrate how and why these skills are important.’

In order to do this, Steve has set up a collaborative Google spreadsheet which allows you to add your own suggestions for ICT skills and the tools that can be used to teach them. Why not get involved and add some of your own ideas?

Here are some details about new free resources from Futurelab:

Education Eye
Education Eye is a free, engaging and easy-to-use online space that gives access to a wide range of useful and relevant innovations across educations’ varied communities. Connecting people with innovative uses of digital technology, new resources and new approaches to teaching and learning to help inspire further innovation in education.

Infocow
Infocow is a social search website made for and created by young people aged 14-19. It connects young people with sites, stories, information and inspiration to help take control of their lives. Infocow links to hundreds of different websites and sources of information that can help with making positive changes, whether that’s finding out what to do after GCSEs, or what the first steps are to leaving home. The following Youtube video explains more…

Digital literacy across the curriculum
This handbook aims to introduce educational practitioners to the concepts and contexts of digital literacy and to support them in developing their own practice aimed at fostering the components of digital literacy in classroom subject teaching and in real school settings.

The main Futurelab site has a large collection of resources and information for teachers. It’s well worth exploring.