Teaching videos site

A website in the United Kingdom, Teaching Videos, has a great range of educational videos well orginised into useful categories. Here is an example from the ICT area on social networking:

SuperClubsPLUS Update

At the beginning of August, I wrote a post about signing my class up for SuperClubsPLUS. After the initial success with my own class, I now have all of our five 3/4 classes signed up and the response from the students has been overwhelming. This initiative has been an amazing success and I cannot recommend it enough! There is so much to offer to students, both in learning about web 2.0 technologies and general ICT skills. Here is an article I have written for the next ICTEV journal:

SuperClubsPLUS -

Here are some videos about SuperClubsPLUS:

ABC News coverage of SuperClubsPLUS Australia from Martyn Wild on Vimeo.

Super Cool SuperClubsPLUS! from Martyn Wild on Vimeo.

21st Century Learning

A Staff Meeting Presentation using Prezi.com

Here is a presentation I did the other day using prezi.com - a great presentation tool:

from prezi.com

The three video links are here - I don't think the links work on this embedded presentation:

Video 1

Video 2

Video 3

SuperClubs Plus

I have just signed up my grade to Super Clubs Plus and I am most impressed. Super Clubs Plus is a closed online community for students, where kids can join to safely talk in club forums, build Home Pages and get help with their homework. As you can see (VELS documents below), it covers many areas of each states curriculum comprehensively. Students have to earn stars and badges as they progress by initially completing a cybersafety quiz to get their first star. Once earned, students can build their homepage (like a website) and can also choose one of their pages to be a blog. They can email, visit kids from all over the world's homepages, leave comments, join a great range of clubs (in doing so can earn badges) and join on 'hotseat' forums with authors and many other exciting and engaging people.

VELSwithstars -

StarswithVIC -




Click here to see some kids from England talking about their experiences with Super Clubs Plus.

Fantastic sites for kids

I have been using the website, "Tutpup" with my kids and it has been an overwhelming success. They can practise their quick response to basic number concepts, times tables and spelling. The reason why it is so successful, is that the kids compete with other kids from all over the world or with someone on the computer next to them. Children can create their own account at home or, as I have done, a class account can be created and you can track their progress. If you are trying to find a fun way for kids to practise their maths skills, then I thoroughly recommend this website.

Note: It is still in beta (prototype) stage.

Another website worth visiting is Tikatok, a place where children can create and share online storybooks. One interesting feature is, for a fee, they will publish the student's book and send it professionaly bound.

Robin Hood Primary School

There is a school in Birmingham, England called Robin Hood Primary School that does some fantastic things with ICT education. Have a look at this video and then visit their website.

Another gem from TED

This is an amazing documentry that only goes for six minutes. It is about the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) program in Columbia.



I have had problems fitting this video in and so click here to go to the website and see it full screen.

ICTEV 2009 Conference

As I have just been to an ICTEV meeting I thought it was timely to put out a reminder about our state conference, "ICT for Tomorrow's Learning". This will be held at Melbourne Grammar, on Saturday May 30th. This will be ICTEV's 30th conference and the theme is weaving ICT into all areas of education. Check out the website and have a look at the conference program and details!

StudyTech

I met with a representative from StudyTech, a company that works with school to improve their ICT network and technical challenges.

"For Studytech, education is not a branch or a sideline, but the focus of our entire business. StudyTech exists to respond to the needs of students, educators and the wider education community with the understanding that reliable results, useful innovation and fixed costs translate into exciting outcomes for the end user...the teacher AND student.Having spent years working in the school system, we understand the school culture, its needs, including the inherent frustrations and joys! "

I would recommend having a look at their website. They have been involved in some fascinating projects and the implentation of a MOE (Managed Operating Environment) could a solution for many schools.

Scratch Success

I introduced 'Scratch' today with my grade 3/4 students and decided the best way to begin was to let them explore the website and see what other children have created. They were to look at least five 'Scratch' creations and evaluate them:

What was it about?

What could you do with it?

What did you think of it?

Well, they were really into it and had a great time looking at the great range and variety of creations on the website. They are now all really keen to learn how to use the program.

There are some great resources and 'how to' videos in the support section of the website, but here is a great video to introduce programming with 'Scratch':

Hole in the wall project

Speaking at LIFT 2007, Sugata Mitra talks about his Hole in the Wall project. Young kids in this project figured out how to use a PC on their own -- and then taught other kids. He asks, what else can children teach themselves?

The Ultranet

Here in Victoria the schools are taking on a new ICT initiative, the Ultranet program. From the Victorian Government Website:

"The Ultranet is a student centred electronic learning environment that supports high quality learning and teaching, connects students, teachers and parents and enables efficient knowledge transfer. It will establish a schools environment for the future that improves the educational outcomes of all Victorians."

The question is, are schools ready? This diagram is also from that website.




Would love to hear from schools in Victoria about their thoughts and experiences.

Robin Hood Primary School

I found a wesbite for the school, Robin Hood Primary School in Leeds, England. I really recommend having a look at what they are doing with ICT education. I really like the "Connecting Classrooms" link they have and hope to set up communication with my class here.

Please also check out this video about ICT excellence at this school.

If you know of any great school websites from around the world, please let me know.
hawkins.tim.r@edumail.vic.gov.au