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!

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!

• 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!

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!

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.

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?

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.

“If I’ve created some great resources that the kids have enjoyed working with and have clearly made good progress, why would I want to keep them to myself? There are too many teachers out there who have a futile stance about keeping their resources to themselves; yes, you’ve spent lots of time making that PowerPoint, so why not let somebody else get some use out of it?”

www.ictgoodies.com

The site does require you to register, but this is free and easy. Why not sign up and share some of your resources? You can also visit other sites in the ‘Goodies’ franchise… Media Studies Goodies, PE Goodies and Business Goodies.

The World Cup has now started and lots of schools are using the event as a starting point for their lessons. Here are links to a selection of my favourite World Cup resource sites:

• Teaching Ideas – This is my own collection of lesson ideas, resources, display material, videos, links and more, which also includes lots of contributions from other teachers. This page is currently the most popular one on Teaching Ideas!

• Primary Resources – As always, Primary Resources, offers a huge collection of wonderful resources for you to explore.
• Communication4All – Bev Evans makes amazing Powerpoint presentations and display resources and she freely shares them on her website. This is well worth a look!
• TES – Lots of teachers contribute to the resource library at TES Connect, making it a great place to search if you’re looking for World Cup resources.
• Literacy Trust – Download lots of free World Cup resources from the Literacy Trust. You can also read a new chapter of a football story each day.
• TeachersTV – The team at TeachersTV have created this useful collection of videos and resources, linked to South Africa and the World Cup.

• International Education Sunderland – Clare Seccombe has produced this amazing site which has loads of freely downloadable content to use in your classroom. Thanks Clare!
• BBC – The BBC have lots of World Cup resources, including football training videos, class video clips about children in South Africa and an interactive wall chart and team tracker.

These are the sites that I will be using most over the coming weeks. What are your favourite World Cup resource sites?

• Zooburst – This amazing site lets you make your own 3D augmented reality pop up books (via @relativism, @xannov and @ianaddison).

• Application for Headship - Information and advice for those who need to write a letter of application when applying for a headship (via @andyross75).
• World Atlas Maps – A large collection of blank maps which are very useful for your Geography lessons (via @simonhaughton).
• Becta Archive – The official archive of the Becta website. Use this site to access the useful resources when the Becta site disappears (via @daibarnes).
• Hello Bonjour Hola – A site containing resources for teaching and learning French and Spanish (via @dawnhallybone and @valleseco)

• SchoolToons – Resources to support animation work in the classroom at KS2-4 (via @DrJoolz).
• Tips for New Tweeters – @stuartridout gives some useful advice for those who have just started to use Twitter.
• Year 5 Control Technology Plans – A set of plans, from @simonhaughton, which include the use of Scratch.
• Literacy with ICT (PDF) (from www.edu.gov.mb.ca) - A handbook for parents about using ICT to support learning in Literacy. See the document below (discovered via @TechnologyToday)

Don’t miss Parts 1, 2, 3 and 4 in this series! Do you use Twitter? What have you discovered recently?

Image – Montreal Twestival 2009 Cupcakes