April, 2010

I am always amazed at the various professional networks that teachers belong to. When I was teaching, my professional network revolved mainly around the teachers I met on local authority organised training (these don’t happen to the same extent any more ) and a professional subject network, such as the Association for Science Education . But technology and social networking sites such as Twitter and even our own Partners in Learning Network , now mean that teachers can create for themselves intricate professional learning networks or PLNs. Recently , I came across one of the most imaginative PLN I have seen. One of our Innovative Teacher Award winners, David Rogers  is part of group of teachers called the ‘The Geography Collective'. I will let David describe what this network is all about.

Mission:Explore – innovation in learning

Being creative and innovative with technology is only one way in which I try to support the learning of young people. As a qualified Mountain Leader, I have always recognised the power of external exploration. Indeed, as a geographer, my subject would make little sense to those I teach without getting outside.

It was a shared belief that people should be free to explore and engage in their environment that led to the formation of The Geography Collective over two years ago. We set out with a mission to encourage safe exploration against an increasing culture of risk aversion in schools. Mission:Explore was written in consultation with child safety charities and encourages young people and supports education professionals to take physical, creative and academic risks.

2010 has been an exciting time for The Geography Collective as Mission:Explore was launched in April.  It is a new interactive book that will get young people (re)claiming their right to play and exploration in the spaces in which they live. The book, and forthcoming mobile app, incites adventurous play through a series of challenging missions. Playful ‘research’ is at the heart of each mission so that explorers get to grips with geography, politics, science, sociology, psychology, history, science, religion and other subjects in a provocative, fun and engaging way. Think of it as your own personal licence to explore that fits neatly into your back pocket! The Geography Collective is committed to getting the message out there, so much so that royalties from the book will be invested in free copies of Mission:Explore for deprived children.

 

As a full-time Head of Geography , the missions can easily be adapted in order to develop data collection skills, PLTS and SEAL activities. We have even set missions for homework! If you’d like to know how Mission:Explore could be used in your school, feel free to get in touch with us at the Geocollective.

Of course, we are more than a one trick Gorilla! We are keen to engage as many people as possible and so will be visiting a variety of festivals this summer, including Glastonbury, Latitude and the Secret Garden Party . To find out exactly where we will be, follow the links below, and keep a look out for our pop-up intervention tent near you. The Geography Collective can also provide a range of bespoke CPD to schools and other organisations that ranges from team building to helping young people to get involved in the BSF process

To get more people to hear the message, we are recruiting more mission writers – so if you have a thirst for exploration, we’d love to hear from you.

To find out more about The Geography Collective and order go to: www.geographycollective.co.uk

To download some free Earth Day missions: http://www.missionexplore.co.uk/#/earth-day/4540282746

See how we launched Mission:Explore: http://daviderogers.blogspot.com/2010/04/missionexplore-at-ga-conference-1.html

Get in touch with David: david@thegeographycollective.co.uk

I think you can clearly see that David and his colleagues are clearly passionate about learning, these resources are definitely worth exploring, even if you are not a geography teacher. I know I am ordering my copy of Mission:Explore today.

Our colleague Ray posted this placeholder for a new “Fun, Free Friday” event on his blog earlier in the week. We wanted to repost here, as teachers are invited as well! We’d like to have as many teachers as possible on the day, as we think that there will be a lot of ideas, tools and resources that you’ll be able to use in your teaching right away.

Plus Stuart and I will both be giving demonstrations as part of the fast-paced day. I’m not sure whether this will help convince you to attend or NOT to attend, but I thought I’d mention it.

We hope to see you on Microsoft’s campus in Reading in June!

Advance notice: Stick a placeholder in your diary, as we're shortly going to announce booking details for the free Microsoft "Fun, Free Friday for Schools" at the Microsoft Campus in Reading on 11^th June 2010.

A lively Q&A after the second Microsoft briefing at the NAACE Conference in Blackpool has led to the Microsoft UK team running a free event for schools on the 11^th June 2010, called “Fun Free Friday”. It’s for any staff working with and within schools, so that they can find out all about the free software and resources that Microsoft produces that support teaching and learning.

The agenda for the event runs from 9:30am to 2:30pm with breaks to catch up with colleagues from other schools, and chat with Microsoft staff.

It’s for any staff working with and within schools, so that they can find out all about the free software and resources that Microsoft produce that support teaching and learning.

It will be a fast-paced and fun event, with 3½ hours of rapid demonstrations, featuring a dozen presenters and lots of different free Microsoft software programmes that schools can download and start using in the classroom, school office or IT suite.

Fast paced demonstrations

To keep the pace moving rapidly, no demonstration will last more than 15 minutes, and although it won’t be a PowerPoint-free zone, we’ll keep to a limit of a maximum of 2 PowerPoint slides per presenter!

Free software for every attendee

During the day we will be demonstrating at least 20 pieces of software that can help you to deliver teaching and learning, and absolutely every single one will be free for you to download.

Save money with Microsoft

We know that you’d like to do more with ICT, but that budgets are tight. That’s exactly why we’re putting on this event – to give you inspiration and ideas to take back to share with everybody in your school. Ideas that will appeal to teachers, IT Co-ordinators and the senior leadership team.

This free event is for advisors, classroom teachers, IT specialists, and school leadership teams. We’ve scheduled this event for the summer term 2010, in time for planning for next academic year.

Agenda for the Fun, Free Friday

Here’s the detailed timing of the day, so that you can plan your trip.

9:30 Registration

10:00 Morning sessions

12:00 Lunch and networking

13:00 Afternoon sessions

14:30 Close

We won’t issue an itemised agenda, but some of the products you can expect to see on the day include SkyDrive, Windows Live Movie Maker, Windows Live PhotoGallery, Bing Maps, Photosynth, Pivot, XNA Game Studio, Visual Studio Express, Chemistry Word Add-In, Flashcards, Autocollage, Songsmith, Worldwide Telescope, Windows Live Writer, Maths Worksheet Generator, Office Moodle Add-In, Office Web Apps, Office Ribbon Hero, Bing Search, Microsoft Security Essentials, DeepZoom, Live Sync, Kodu, Digital Storytelling Curriculum Guides, Mouse Mischief, DreamSpark, Microsoft Robotics Studio, Live Family Safety Settings, Microsoft Digital Literacy Curriculum, Windows Live Translator, IE8 Accelerators, PhotoStory 3, Community Clips, Virtual Earth, pptPlex and Live@edu.

And continuing the free theme: if you arrive by public transport, there’s even a free bus from Reading Station to the Microsoft offices.

Book your free place now

We received a great deal of interest in our Innovid competition from teachers all over the UK (and even from some in other countries!). In the end, though, the judging panel had the difficult task of selecting just one teacher’s video as “the best” from among all that we received.

Microsoft is pleased to announce Nicki Maddams as the winner of our Innovid competition. Nicki is a teacher at Hartsdown Technology College in Margate, Kent. Nicki’s video tells you how to create interactive quizzes in PowerPoint. It stood out for the judges because it’s an innovative use of PowerPoint, which is often criticised for being overused by teachers, and shows how the software can be used to add real value to a learning activity. It also is extremely well produced – near professional quality! Take a look for yourself, from the link to our new YouTube channel.

As the winner, Nicki’s school will get 20 N105 Netbooks from Stone. These netbooks come installed with Microsoft Windows 7 and will come with a 3-year warranty from Stone and a protective carrying case. Stuart and I will be hand-delivering the netbooks in a few weeks, and we hope to have more stories to tell about Nicki’s work and about her school. We know already that both she and her head teacher Andy Somers are excited about the delivery of new computers for the school. Nicki says:

I am really excited to have won the competition and am looking forward to using the netbooks in school. I entered the competition because I use Microsoft Office applications frequently in my teaching and often in different ways to their intended purpose!

Please join us in congratulating Nicki on her great work. And thank you to all teachers who took the time to enter the Innovid competition.

Over the past year, the work we have undertaken with teachers and schools has resulted in us creating and collecting a plethora of video resources. We wanted to make sure that we are able share these with as many of you as possible. So we have created our very own YouTube Channel. The UK Partners in Learning Channel is a ‘one stop shop’ to access all the digital media that we use and have created through the UK Partners in Learning Network to support teachers and schools. The content we currently have includes:

• All the Innovids, created by teachers for by teachers. These give practical advice and guidance on how to use a range of Microsoft applications to support learning and teaching. These are ideal CPD resources to develop your own skills or to use with others in training sessions.
• Parental Engagement case studies, these explore how five different schools have used technology successfully to engage parents in their children’s learning.
• Innovative Teachers Programme videos, in which saltash.net community school describe how the Innovative Teachers programme and Peer Coaching have played an important role in their school transformation jpurney.

We have also created a favourites section, where we have bookmarked videos Kristen and I have used in presentations and workshops, and those that we have seen that have inspired us.

There are a number of playlists so that you are able to find videos around a particular subject such as Parental Engagement and using Excel across the curriculum. Clicking on the title of these playlists gives you an URL which you can place on your school portal or blog, giving easy access to these resources.

You can also subscribe to the channel , this means that when we post some new resources you will get an email telling you about them. You are also able to leave leave comments, we would love hear what you have to say or questions you have about the videos and even comments about which video resources you would like to see and find useful. So tune in to the UK Partners in Learning Channel and access a bank of resources that can play an important part in the professional development of yourself, colleagues, staff and school.

We were thrilled to see an email from our colleagues at Microsoft headquarters recently that contained a link to all sorts of free guides, videos, templates and other tools to help you use technology in your teaching. Just go to www.microsoft.com/teacherguides and you’ll find a wealth of resources on these topics:

Digital Storytelling: New resources created by our colleagues in the US that include teacher-created templates and links to tools to help you create activities around storytelling for your students.

Free Tools: Links to downloads of free software and ideas of how you might use it in your teaching

Microsoft Office: Tutorials, a guide and other materials that help you make the most of Office.

Windows 7: Cool shortcuts and other features of Windows 7 that might make your life a little easier (several of the tips and tricks here help me every day)

Windows MovieMaker: The tried and trusted tool that many of you have used for years with your learners already.

Some of the materials will look a bit familiar to you here, as Stuart has already blogged about part of the digital storytelling resources and we’ve talked about a lot of the “free tools” already in this blog. But it’s worth your while to check out the rest – you might just find something that will help you with your lesson planning next week (or next lesson, as the case may be…).

Those of you who are old enough may remember school science broadcasts, where you sat with the whole class, (often a number of classes) waiting patiently for the countdown to the programme start to tick away, whilst some very ‘cheesy’ music played as accompaniment. Not something that would really inspire you to take an interest in science. Check out this video to see what I mean. (Yes, television in schools was really this bad.)

But, thankfully things are now very different. We have been talking to the guys at Science TV, whose mission it is to connect schools with real science via interactive digital media. Their website and professional development programme aims to take science from the cutting edge, from Universities, industry, from the field, the kitchen and mash it up so it’s fit for use in education. This they do by producing high quality video productions, created by award winning filmmakers and leading scientists.

The Science TV site currently has a selection of videos that can you can access from the site or from Science TV’s YouTube Channel , where you can find a range of videos filmed at the The Times Cheltenham Science Festival 2009 , covering ideas from ‘How Movie explosions work’ to ‘Anatomical Body Painting’.

But, Science TV is not just another online video library. They run a series of workshops, where they work with a school , linking scientists and high end filmmaking techniques. Allowing students to explore scientific concepts and create a video of their thoughts and findings.

The quality of the finished material is outstanding. Not only does process create fantastic learning opportunities. But, the completed video becomes a valuable teaching and learning resource in itself. Check out this example to see for yourself. Here students from Bristol, discuss the concept of genetically engineering a Woolly mammoth. If you are interested in getting the Science TV team into your school to create something similar, then they can be contacted via their website.

Science TV are currently working on number of CPD materials which will be available free to schools, to support teachers using these video resources in the classroom. We hope to be able to have some of those resources on the Partners in Learning Network very shortly. But, in the meantime check out Science TV and inspire your students.

Does your school or local authority have a Moodle learning platform? (If you don’t know, find out!) If so, the Microsoft Education Labs team have just launched the Office Add-in for Moodle, which might make your lives a little easier. This launch builds upon the success of the availability of the Microsoft Live Services Plug-in for Moodle which launched last July. 

The idea behind the add-in is simple. Now, when you  Open or Save a file in Office 2003 or 2007, you can select to Open from Moodle or Save to Moodle directly. How does this help you? For a start, it will make it easier for you to transfer your files to your school’s learning platform directly from within Word or PowerPoint (or other Office applications). This saves you having to save the file to your computer and start a separate upload or download process. (If you have a SharePoint-based learning platform, you get similar functionality in Office 2010).

Full details for installing and using the add-in are below. Let us know what you think!

Uploading files to Moodle is now much easier.  The Office Add-in for Moodle (OAM) is an add-in for Microsoft Office (versions 2003 and 2007) that allows you to open and save Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents to a Moodle website. Today, when you use Office and Moodle, you have to switch back and forth between your web browser and Office applications.  With the OAM, you can create, open, edit, and save Moodle documents from within the Office applications.  You no longer need to use your web browser when working with Office documents stored in Moodle.

So what do you need in order to start using the add-in?  OAM does not require anything to be installed on the Moodle server (note that this has been tested against Moodle versions 1.8-1.9).  Anyone who is the teacher or owner of a Moodle course can install the add-in and access their documents.  Once installed, the add-in adds two menu items to your File menu (Office 2003) or the Office Button menu: Open from Moodle and Save to Moodle.  In order to browse course files on your Moodle you will need to first tell the add-in the address of your Moodle and the credentials you use to log in.  Once added you can view the list of courses you are enrolled in.  Naturally, students and others can access the content directly from Moodle as they normally would.

The Education Labs team focused on teachers and content specialists first, since we know most documents posted to Moodle comes from you. We’ve gotten some requests already about adding support for students and assignments, but we want to hear from you.  So check it out, and let the EducationLabs team know what you think and if there’s anything you want them to work on. 

It’s worth browsing on the Education Labs site for other projects recently released www.educationlabs.com

Find out more about, and download, the free Moodle add-in

Did you know that the food system is responsible for approximately 1/3 of global greenhouse gases?  Our friends at TakingITGlobal, a non-profit community  for young people around the world have come up with a great Earth Day initiative to reduce your carbon footprint and take a bite out of climate change, starting with your lunch.  Commit to packing a Low Carbon Lunch for 40 days, from Earth Day, 22 April, to 1 June, and see what a big difference small changes can make! 

TakingITGlobal (TIG), the world’s most popular online community for young leaders, empowers youth around the world to take action on global issues, through social media and technology.  The 40-Day Low Carbon Lunch Challenge is part of Tread Lightly, a free, climate change education and youth engagement initiative developed by TIG.

Tread Lightly provides innovative tools and resources to educators seeking to engage high school students in interactive, climate education, including: lesson plans; a themed virtual classroom; an international climate art contest; and the 40-Day Challenge. 

Here’s how schools can participate in the 40-Day Low Carbon Lunch Challenge:

1) Commit to taking the 40-Day Low Carbon Lunch Challenge.

2) Access the Tread Lightly Low Carbon Lunch lesson plan for resources and activity ideas.

3) Create a free Tread Lightly virtual classroom to engage students in the Low Carbon Lunch challenge online, in a private, secure, advertising-free environment.  

4) Encourage students to participate in the 40-Day Challenge. Ask them to share their Low Carbon Lunch tips in the virtual classroom, and to document their progress by posting food blogs and photos in the student writing and photo galleries.  

For more information on Tread Lightly, visit: www.treadlightly.me.

We’ve just issued the third edition of our accessibility guide for teachers, and it’s available as a download from our accessibility site. The site also includes a number of accessibility video case studies.

The Accessibility: A Guide for Educators has been updated to include information on Windows 7 accessibility features, and current assistive technology product recommendations for teachers

This guide provides information about accessibility and accessible technology to help teachers ensure that all students have equal access to learning with technology, specifically:

• An understanding of accessibility and how it impacts the classroom
• Definitions of impairment types and technology solutions for each type of impairment
• Guidance on choosing accessible technology solutions
• Resources for more information

Download the Accessibility Guide for Teachers