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Venue - Hilton Deansgate Hotel in Manchester

Time - 7:30pm-9:30pm

This is the first time we have hosted such an informal, free event for Teachers, and we are hoping that this something we will do more often in the future.

Please Join us for drinks and canapés (which I think this is a posh word for crisps) and hot topical debate, with a bit of  fun thrown in, at the Hilton’s vibrant Cloud 23 bar, that provides 360-degree views of Manchester.

If you have been to a Teachmeet or an unconference like event before, you will have a good idea of what to expect at this event. If you haven’t, then you will enjoy the informal nature of this event.

We are looking for volunteers to speak in the following:-

• Mini-Presentations for 10 mins
• Nano- Presentations 3mins.

We will also have some Microsoft minute presentations, from our Innovative Teachers highlighting the great free stuff we have to offer.

What to discuss and present

We are not looking for product demos or examples of work, unless they illustrate your issue or theme. We would like presentations on issues that are relevant to teachers and learners.
For example:-

• How can you possibly learn through playing games?
• Is the curriculum meeting the needs of 21st century learners?
• Is twitter really good CPD for teachers? How can we now afford technology?.

Through such topics we hope to spark debate, conversation and inspire some ideas on how to meet such issues.

How do I sign up for a presentation?

That’s easy, just add your name and presentation topic/theme and presentation type (Mini or Nano) as a comment to this post or email me at itnukteam@hotmail.co.uk . Internet access can be intermittent at such venues so be prepared with an alternative, this just adds to the fun. There is no guarantee you will present as presentations will selected at random.

How do I sign up to attend?

If you are looking to attend add your name as a comment or email me at itnukteam@hotmail.co.uk 

If you are attending our UK Innovative Education Forum at the same venue, and staying in Manchester then you are probably already attending, but it wouldn’t hurt to sign up here as well.

You can follow twitter hash tag for this event at #itmeet 

We will end the evening with the presentation of awards to this year’s Innovative Teachers, we hope you will join us to celebrate their achievements. There is still time to enter our awards, more details here.

See you there….

Agenda – sign up via comments

Mini Presenters - 10 mins

• Alessio Bernardelli - Why broadcasting your pupil's work is a confidence booster
• Dawn Hallybone - Why we need to use Game based learning
• Stuart Ball - Do we need the role of ICT co-ordinator?
• David Rogers - Guerilla Innovation - does everything need to be planned?
• Ian Addison - Why we should blog with children
• Jan Webb - Why our VLE works for us
• Colin Graham - Regular Twitter discussions - Waste of time or genuinely helpful CPD?

 Nano Presenters - 3 mins

• Alessio Bernardelli - Great learninig involves risk and failure - a Deep Zoom view
• Mandeep Atwal - Giving Students a voice.
• Jen Deyenberg - Web 2.0 for learning
• David Rogers - This is our Geography - Why having a dept vision is important
• Daniel Stucke - Pupil Led CPD - Digital Leaders
• David Mitchell - How a real audience can add depth to learning
• Chris Mayoh - Protecting your online identity using Avatars
• Zoe Ross - Engaging girls in technology

Attendees

Peter Richardson
Thomas Sale
Jo Ness
Kat Howard
Karl Goddard
Helen Morgan
Katie Hauge
Catherine Elliot
Walter Patterson
Emily Nisbet
Ceri Williams

Is it possible to develop an emotional attachment to a computer? I think so. I have had my Toshiba Portege M400 laptop since I joined Microsoft 4 years ago and we have had some great adventures together. We have travelled the world to various Innovative Educator Forums, presented to hundreds of teachers, seen three incarnations of Windows and Office, responded to thousand of emails, been introduced to Twitter and of course writing this blog. I now have most of those experiences stored ready to transfer to my new laptop.

But, a thought struck me, is it the same in schools? What learning experiences have the computers in school facilitated, is that captured in some way? What happens to all that work when the technology is replaced or the student leaves ? What happens to that ‘redundant’ technology?

I am interested in finding out two things, so your comments would be most welcome :-

• What do schools do with students work stored on servers and hard drives? Can students take their work with them ?
• What mechanisms do schools use to recycle or re-purpose technology? especially in light of this article .

Are any of you giving students when they leave, their e-portfolio? Documenting their whole school life, is this something that would be useful to them? I still have my Year 10 biology exercise book, it hasn’t been a lot of use, except to remind me of how awful my writing was and is! But, if life  learning long learning is the goal for students, then having such a resource could contribute to that.

How are schools breathing life in to ‘old’ kit? My laptop is destined for a an Intern at Microsoft, it will serve exactly the purpose they need . Do you have any strategies that you would like to share, that utilise and extend the life of apparently redundant technology?

This will be the last post I write on my trusty old Toshiba, not a single blue screen in 4 years. Thanks old friend, its been a blast.

On a recent car journey with Kristen, I was amazed at her multi-tasking ability to drive fast, navigate the M25, brake late, drink coffee and discuss her Doctorate research. Now, I am honestly really interested her research findings at the best of times, and  maybe it was my fear as a nervous passenger, but one question she asked, has stuck with me. I have been trying to think of answer ever since. I thought I would share it with you, in the hope I could get some answers. Her question was ‘What do we mean by a Teacher’s practice?’.

Thinking for a moment, all I could come up with was, a Teacher’s practice is what a teacher does everyday with their pupils. But, that what does that mean? What is it as Teachers we really do? Do we instruct, demonstrate, teach, facilitate, guide, direct, all of these and more? or is it something else? I never realised how important a question this is.But, if we want to create and support professional development, we need to identify what it is that professional development will change.

From my own experience, official development of my own practice came about as a result of outside pressures, such as OFSTED inspection or policy changes at local authority level. It was never as a result my own practice needs. Bizarrely enough, my own practice was given top marks in my school inspection lesson observations, so did that mean my practice was ‘perfect’? If so why did the work I did with the Partners in Learning Network  have such an impact on what I did every day in the classroom?

So here are some questions that I would welcome some insight on.

• What do you understand by the phrase ‘developing a teacher’s practice’?
• What aspect of that practice do teachers need to ensure is effective in supporting the needs of the 21st learner?

Please post your comments here on this blog or email me at v-sball@microsoft.com. As a special added incentive, I'll send the first 25 people to respond an Innovative Teachers USB stick. 

I will happily pass your comments on to Kristen, so the next time we travel together by car, the conversation might distract me enough to stop my right leg twitching with imaginary braking every five minutes!

Last Thursday I attended the Reform “think tank” event on Schools for the Future that was held at Microsoft’s office in London. The event included 4  panels of speakers discussing topics such as the state of education in the UK, the quality of teachers, raising the bar, and saving money. It was a really interesting group of speakers, ranging from industry representatives, to head teachers, to university researchers, to former Minister for Schools Jim Knight.

There was a keynote during the day from the current Minister for Schools, Nick Gibb, on this, the 50th day of the new coalition government. The entire transcript of the Minister’s speech can be found HERE if you’d like to read it.

There was one point of the speech that particularly caught me, and I’d love to know what you, as UK teachers, think of it. Here it is:

On one side of the ideological debate are those who believe that children should learn when they are ready, through child-initiated activities and self-discovery – what Plowden called ‘Finding Out’. It is an ideology that puts the emphasis on the processes of learning rather than on the content of knowledge that needs to be learnt.

The American education academic, E.D. Hirsch, traces this ideology back to the 1920s, to the Teachers College Columbia in New York and the influence of the educationalists, John Dewey and William Heard Kilpatrick.

Added to that ideology is the notion that there is so much knowledge in the world that it is impossible to teach it all – and very difficult to discern what should be selected to be taught in schools. So, instead, children should be taught how to learn.

I believe very strongly that education is about the transfer of knowledge from one generation to the next.

Knowledge is the basic building block for a successful life….What is to be criticised is an education system which has relegated the importance of knowledge in favour of ill-defined learning skills.

I’m curious to know where you stand in this debate. Which is it – do we organise our education system around the memorisation of facts and figures and the ability to recall them for national exams? Or do we continue to look at things like learning styles, personalisation of learning, student-centred learning and project-based learning, where “knowledge” can be applied in a real-world context, in a way that motivates and interests learners, and at a pace and style that suits their learning?

(Incidentally – here’s what the Minister has to say about child-centred learning: Again, the ideologically-driven, child-centred approach to education has led to the belief that the mere exposure to books and text, and the repetition of high frequency words, will lead to a child learning to read – as if by osmosis.)

I’d love your comments…

We are pleased to announce the  10 UK Innovative Education Award Winners who will be presented with their awards, as recognition of their Innovative Teacher status, at our Education Forum in Manchester. (There are still a few places left. sign up HERE ). They join an ever increasing group of UK Innovative Teachers, that include Dan Roberts, Ollie Bray, Alessio Bernardelli, David Rogers and of course our latest worldwide event winner Jan Webb.

Judging such great projects always proves to be a very difficult and challenging exercise. The standard and quality of every one of the entries illustrates the outstanding work being undertaken in schools throughout the UK.  They also show the outstanding progress being made in classrooms throughout the UK in integrating technology effectively into learning. They represent some of the best uses of technology across a wide range of different schools and scenarios.

Congratulations to this year's Microsoft UK Innovative Education Award winners Who are...

You can view and download these projects for this community on the UK partners in Learning Network

Please join me in posting a comment to congratulate these great innovative teachers.

Ok , I know this is an exaggerated statement, but it does apply to the ones I know. It has struck me that many teachers I meet or find in forums and on twitter are geography teachers, doing great stuff with technology. Has any one else discovered this phenomenon? Or do I need to broaden the range of places I hang out on–line?

But why in geography rather than other subjects? Understanding this could help in meeting the professional development needs of teachers in other subjects and their use of technology.

So here are my thoughts, based on on nothing more than casual observation and anecdotal evidence.

Could it be that Geography teachers are more inclined to use technology, as their subject has traditionally used it ranging from the compass to GPS systems, paper maps to digital imaging?  Creating a culture that is comfortable and actively seeks to use technology, not only as part of being a geographer, but also in teaching the subject.

I think the applications and technology tools available to Geography teachers are easily identifiable. For example, activities to teach mapping skills can easily be transferred to using the various online maps. The great tools we have at Microsoft, such as Bing Maps, with built in ordinance survey maps and Photosynth, to build 3D views of places. Once seen, their place in the geography curriculum is easily identified.

If it were only that simple as just having easily identifiable technology  tools that would engage students in their learning. But, plotting points on a paper map can be just as non-engaging when done on a digital map. Real thought needs to be given to the learning activity and learning outcomes that take full advantage of the digital tools, if there is to be any real value in their  use. This is not an easy task and requires skill and understanding on the part of the teacher. But, is made easier with identifiable tools.

I would like to suggest that perhaps Geography teachers have very little excuse not engage their students with technology. Which is why so many are doing great things.

Wouldn’t it be great if other subjects had the  same easily recognisable tools as geography? It’s not as easy to identify the maths applications or those suitable for religious studies. Which is why in the Partners in Learning Network we focus on strategies to explore different applications and how they can be used to support learning, even when the connection might not be obvious, such as using Word to explore maths equations .

So my questions to you are:-

• Am I right about geography and geography teachers and their approach technology?
• Are there other subjects that have the same easily recognisable technological  tools that can support learning?
• What strategies can teachers employ to identify technology that can support learning in their subject?

I look forward to your comments.

Download the Teacher Guide here -http://www.slideshare.net/Microsofteduk/kodu-kup-teachers-pack-16335500

Kodu is a visual programming language made specifically for creating games. It is designed to be accessible for children and enjoyable for anyone. Developed by Microsoft Research, the programming environment runs on the PC and Xbox allowing rapid design creation. Elements such as a game controller can be added for input, giving a greater ‘real’ game experience. Kodu is available for free and is supported by a wide range of resources and communities. Kodu is so easy to learn and use it is even being used by children as young as 6 years old

Competition Details

The competition is open to all 7-14 year old students in UK schools.

Teachers need to join and create a profile on the Partners in Learning Network and final submissions will be uploaded to here.

Submissions need consist of two files; the Kodu game and a game case cover to advertise the details of the game  ( a template is provided in the teacher guide)

Each game submitted should be created by a team of 3 students, who have worked together in producing the game.

Any Kodu game created must reflect at least one of these three themes.

- Mars Exploration - Use the Mars Rover character in Kodu Game Lab to create a game centred around the exploration of Mars.

- Water Awareness - Create a game that tackles the environmental issue of water. This could be a local or school-based scenario or something more global.

- Retro Arcade games - Recreate an arcade game from the past with a Kodu twist!

These themes are aimed at promoting the inclusion of computer science across the curriculum. So even if you are not an ICT teacher, you can still enter your students into the competition as geography, science or history teacher.

The closing date for the competition is 31st May 2013

Ten winning entries will be selected by a team of judges, that will include computer game studio genius Gary Carr, whose Lionheart studios are responsible for the epic game Fable- The journey. Those teams will be invited to Microsoft UK Headquarters in Reading, for a day of Kodu activities, where they will share and present their game. Three teams will be selected as the top three and the members of those, will receive an Xbox 360 and Kinect as a prize, with one team being awarded the accolade of being Kodu Kup champions.

Full details, resources, support and the teachers guide can be downloaded from this community on the Partners in Learning Network .You can also the latest updates and support on our Kodu Kup UK Facebook page www.facebook.com/kodukup and follow us on Twitter @kodukup

We are really excited about this competition and are looking forward to receiving some great games from your students. We be holding a number of events throughout the competition around country, with the great support of Computing at Schools and UKIE . Stay tuned to this blog, Facebook and Twitter for further details.

My wife teaches 4 year olds, so I am always under pressure to deliver ideas for that age group through my work with the Innovative Teachers programme. Some may call this nagging, but she assures me that I'm not being treated any differently than any other husband. I think I will definitely be in her good books this week.

I am really pleased to announce our third birthday blog gift for you, our readers. We have teamed up with the award-winning team at Immersive Education who are kindly offering one of their Kar2ouche packages, completely free to members of the Innovative Teachers Network.

Kar2ouche uses creative role play, picture making, storyboarding and animation to support pupils' learning. There are over 50 packages in the series. Through this blog and the Innovative Teachers network, you are able to access for free, the full version of Creative Writing – English Literacy for early years/Key stage 1/Foundation phase.

To download this great resource you will need to be a member of the Innovative Teachers Network (which is free to join) and navigate to the Immersive Education – Creative Writing Community (you will find it listed on the Welcome page and as a link in the feature articles). Although you will be able to view the community, you will not be able to access the download links until you click Join the Community. When you do, you will receive an email from the guys at Kar2ouche, giving you access to the community and download links. Please be aware that the download is 300mb, but I can tell you that it's well worth the wait.

Why not let us know how you are using this software with your pupils? Better still, why not document your use of Kar2ouche as a Virtual Classroom Tour and enter it into the Innovative Teachers Awards?

We hope you and your pupils enjoy this free software. Remember to check back with the Kar2ouche community, or simply set the Alerts feature, so that if new free titles are added in the future, you will be notified.

Here is some information from Immersive Education describing the great activities you can undertake with this software.

Creative Writing Summary: KS1 English Literacy

Creative Writing provides examples of just some of the ways Kar2ouche can be used to enhance your students’ learning through visualisation, discussion, speculation and exploration. It links closely with the National Curriculum and the National Literacy Strategy as well as the Early Learning Goals for the Foundation Stage. In addition, lesson suggestions incorporate activities that can be used to develop ICT capabilities and could also be used to complement PSHE teaching. All of the activities are cross-referenced with the relevant attainment targets for English, ICT and PSHE from the National Curriculum for Key Stage 1, the National Literacy Strategy and, where appropriate, the Foundation Stage Early Learning Goals. The activities also link with ideas suggested in Developing Early Writing (DfEE 2001).

The four units are:

Unit 1 The Three Little Pigs: Contains 3 activities based on the story of The Three Little Pigs for reception classes. The focus is on sequencing aspects of the story and retelling.

Unit 2 Cinderella 1: Has 5 activities and uses Cinderella as the focus for Year 1 and takes students through elements of planning stories, plot and character.

Unit 3 Cinderella 2: Contains 3 activities and focuses on Cinderella, but here Year 2 look at retellings from different cultures.

Unit 4 Familiar Settings: Has 3 activities for Years 1 and 2 and looks at story-writing in everyday settings.

Stay tuned to this blog and the Innovative Teachers Network for your next FREE birthday gift as we continue our September of giving!

I leave Kristen alone for 5 minutes and she has had a blogging frenzy,now I need to catch up after my summer break. This is the first of a series of posts in what I hope will be an informative and constructive workshop, that you would be able to recreate with student and colleagues. As well learn how to use Deep Zoom Composer to create ideas and activities across the curriculum. I have based this post on the workshop activities I run at Innovative Teacher Events, so if you have invited us to your school, this is an idea you will be getting.

What is Deep Zoom?

Firstly, I must explain, this is not a technical demonstration of Deep Zoom, its just how I have adapted the technology to use quickly and efficiently in the classroom and present it to teachers and students. This is how I would have done it as a classroom teacher. You will need to install the Silverlight plug-in to be able to use Deep Zoom. If you have any suggestions of what I should add or how I can improve this workshop please let me know at v-sball@microsoft.com

So what is Deep Zoom? This site describes Deep Zoom as “  provides the ability to interactively view high-resolution images. You can zoom in and out of images rapidly without affecting the performance of your application. “ For me, Deep Zoom is a great way for students and teachers to present and create visual stories. But, the easiest way to illustrate what Deep Zoom is about, is to show it in action.

Firstly, navigate to the Hard Rock Cafe Memorabilia site at http://memorabilia.hardrock.com/

You will see a collection of images of all the memorabilia that has been collected by the Hard rock Cafe company. To zoom in and see the detail , either use the scroll wheel of your mouse to zoom in and out or double click to zoom in and Shift-double click to zoom out. To pan , click and drag.
	From the list of famous rock stars on the left hand side menu, choose ‘The Beatles’. Next, look for a written letter and an envelope. (I found it in the left hand corner). Zoom into the envelope until you can see the postage stamp at top left hand corner.
This postage stamp is made up of a 4 x 4 grid of images. Zoom in on the  image in row 3 column 2. You will see an image of a Hard Rock Cafe on Broadway, New York.
	Zoom in until you can see an image of the infamous Beatles suits. This is to the left of the  main Hard Rock Cafe neon sign and underneath the Hard Rock sign on the left hand side.
Zoom in until you can see 4 models of the fab four. Zoom in on the second Beatle from the left. That’s Paul, Kristen’s favourite Beatle.
Pan down and zoom in on Paul McCartney’s autograph. This should be the starting point for any demo that you give.

Now, from this starting point in your demo of this autograph,which you can see in stunning detail, begin to zoom out, stopping at each section described above i.e. the models, the suits , the hard rock cafe, the stamp and the letter.  You are able to explore in high detail each of these areas. As they are not just details in an image, but images embedded within one another. At this point you audience will be in awe. Especially when you explain that they are able to recreate the same effect in their own classrooms, with pupils and students. This they can do using a free application called Deep Zoom Composer. In my next workshop post, I will describe how to create your own Deep Zooms and highlight some curriculum activities around its use.

Here are some links of further examples of Deep Zooms. These have combined Deep Zoom with a Photo Mosaic creator, I will explain how to do this in my final post on this workshop.

For fans of cute dogs - LINK

For fans of cute cats – LINK

For fans of Michael Jackson - LINK

Deep Zoom Blog

There are two main keyword phrases that people use to find this blog from a web search. These are Autocollage and the Deep Zoom Composer Workshops. So when I was asked at a recent Innovative Teachers workshop, Did I have any guides about Autocollage?, writing an AutoCollage Workshop seemed to be a good idea.

So, this post is based on the way I present AutoCollage at workshops. You should be able to modify this to suit your own needs. It is not a comprehensive guide, but more of a simple walkthrough.

What is AutoCollage?

AutoCollage is best described as an application that ‘allows you to create beautiful collages of your favourite pictures in a few clicks of a mouse’ . But, I always challenge teachers to look at this as not only as something to work with photos. But as an application that can allow pupils and students to record their thinking and ideas, letting them tell digital stories. This post will guide you through how to make a photo collage and some of the settings that you can use to get better results.

Firstly, you will need to get yourself a copy of AutoCollage. As a teacher you can download a free copy from the Partners in Learning Network . You will need to be a member, you can sign up for free with your Windows Live ID. Once signed in you can find AutoCollage by following these links Resources>Tools and Programmes> More Tools and Programmes or by clicking HERE. You will also need  to ensure that you have the latest version of the .NET framework installed.

Starting AutoCollage

Before you start  AutoCollage, create a folder in your Pictures folder called Autocollage projects. Run AutoCollage, it will search your default Pictures folder. If you have a lot of  images in this folder AutoCollage will display them. This could take some time. So, make it look in your new folder by clicking on your newly created folder. You should see it listed in the area called Image Browser.

Don’t wait for the images to load, you can click and select this folder immediately. Next, click the options button and change some of the settings. Click the Input Tab, now select Display detected faces and select Allow manual face detection. Repeat with Display ranking information and select Allow manual ranking.

These simple steps will help when you being to create your collages.

Next, transfer your images to your autocollage project folder. You will also need to ensure that the images are oriented correctly and are the images you want to use. AutoCollage does not have any image editing features so you cannot rotate or delete an image from inside it. You need to do this from your project folder and this is easy to do with the built in tools in Windows.

In AutoCollage, select the folder where your photos have been stored. You will see them begin to appear. Once all the images have  been loaded. You need to choose how many images you want to use. Usually this is the same as the number in the folder. To change the number of images to be used, adjust the slider accordingly. You need to use a minimum of 7 images and there is a maximum of 50. If you select a value more than the number of images, you will get an error message, just agree to create the collage. If you select a value less than the number of images in your folder, AutoCollage will automatically remove images from the collage. You have no control over which images it removes.

Now you are ready to create your collage, click the Create button, marvel at the animation,which always seems to mesmerise teachers and students alike. In moments your photo collage is created. If you don’t like it, click Create again. Although you have little control over how the images are used, there are some factors that you can use to influence your collage creation.

Changing the options in AutoCollage

At the start of this workshop you made some changes to the options. You can use these to influence how your images appear.

AutoCollage uses facial recognition to identify the faces in images. If you have set the manual recognition options, you will be able to select an area of an image that will be the focus point for the collage.

To do this click and select an image, it will enlarge. Next, press and hold the CTRL key, click and drag over the area you want to highlight. A yellow box will appear. This area will be the focus. This is very useful, as you can see from this example ,when you have images that are not faces.

The second element of control is to rank the images. Click on an image, you will see an icon in the top left of the chosen image. Clicking this will give

you a variety of choices for ranking priority. This is useful to place a particular image at the centre of the collage. In this case, I have ranked this image top ranked, number 1 and all the other images, to the lowest setting of avoid this image. Using the same images as before, you can see how changing the ranking order affects the college design, with the top ranked image now appearing in the centre.

Once created your collage is saved as a JPEG and used in the same way as any other image.

In the next post, I will talk about how you can use AutoCollage in the classroom for digital storytelling and recording students ideas and thinking.

In the meantime enjoy experimenting with this great resource.