Note Taking Apps

When it comes to note taking apps on my iPhone there are two that can't be beaten.

The first is the built in Notes app that comes with the phone. I use this app for keeping notes about things I only need to know for a while for example, ordering meals, shopping lists, guests for parties. I only need to access such notes from my iPhone and don't need them to sync with my computer. I can email them to my computer though if I wish. It's perfect for my use.

When it comes to making more detailed notes, however, I prefer Catch. This is a free app and it is fantastic for use in meetings or for anything that you need to access from a PC. I have begun to use it to take notes at staff meetings, Teachmeets and courses. (I just wish I had an iPad so it was quicker to write). I love the fact that notes are synced online and that I can access the notes from anywhere. I can add pictures and links, and I can add hashtags to my notes to make them easier to search. You can record your voice if you wish to make notes that way. Notes can be fully search online and they can be shared by email. It's also handy to be able to set a passcode lock for the app.

Evernote is also an excellent app but I use this primarily for remembering things that were not written by me like blog posts that inspire me and instruction.

Bee Bots

I recently purchased some Bee-Bots for the school. Programming robots is an area of ICT that we were not really hitting - and it's one of the most exciting!!


So that I could inspire our teachers I asked on Twitter if there are any Bee-Bot resources out there. @ianaddison recommended @simonhaughton and @bevevans22. 


Simon recommended: 
http://simonhaughton.typepad.com/ict/2010/11/learning-to-control-the-bee-bot.html
http://simonhaughton.typepad.com/ict/2010/06/an-introduction-to-control-technology.html
These are blog posts written by Simon - real practical ideas for using the robots.
http://y22011.leamoreblogs.net/2011/01/31/tombot-jerry-bot-tts-x-factor-competition-entry/
An amazing demonstration of how Bee-Bots can grip children's imagination.

http://vimeo.com/18591377
How Bee-Bots can be used in the classroom


Bev recommended:
http://technostories.wordpress.com/2009/11/30/go-beebot-crazy/
An excellent post about how Bee-Bots have transformed Key Stage One.
http://www.communication4all.co.uk/http/BeeBot.htm
There are excellent Bee-Bot resources here - these particularly enthused the staff.


Bee-Bots seem to be primarily used in Foundation and Key Stage One but I believe they have a use in Year Three too. Here are some ideas that we will be trying:

• Creating a map of the local area for Bee-Bots to navigate
• Exploring compass directions and making a course for Bee-Bots to explore
• Investigating negative numbers

Here are some other Bee-Bot links:
http://bee-bots-downunder.blogspot.com/
http://www.terrapinlogo.com/bee-bot.php
http://edtechlounge.com/bee-bot-activity-center/


There is software available from Focus Educational which allows children to programme an on-screen robot.


Does anyone else use Bee-Bots in Year Three? What sorts of activities do you do?

ICT Vision

We recently asked our staff to write a vision statement for the subject they co-ordinate. We asked everyone to make sure that it states our beliefs as a school, begins with a statement about where the school is now and it should be aspirational and state how we would like the subject to develop over the coming years.

Here is the one I wrote for ICT:

At SCHOOL we equip all pupils with the experiences and skills of ICT that they will use in a rapidly changing technological world. Children will be confident, independent and safe in their use of ICT. They are able to use technology to communicate, and to access and evaluate information. We aim for our children to develop a range of ICT skills, and an understanding of the most appropriate ways to use them. Children will learn to create pictures and text, music and sound, multimedia, animation and video. They will learn to collect, find, produce and interpret data. They will learn to give instructions and use modelling to investigate solutions. ICT skills are taught and then they are applied to other areas of the curriculum. E-Safety awareness is taught through every unit of work.

We aim to keep pace with educational and technological developments in the world and we have a commitment to provide all teachers with the necessary tools to do their job well, including laptops, interactive whiteboards and interactive whiteboards. Through training, teachers are empowered to give pupils opportunities to learn in different ways through new technologies. We invest money to purchase equipment and software to make the ICT curriculum varied, exciting and complete. 

Most ICT lessons are taught in our ICT Suites. Over the coming years we plan to upgrade our facilities and provide more laptops in our classrooms. We intend to make the school’s learning platform an integral part of our learning at school and at home. The school will work towards achieving the ICT Mark and e-Safety Mark within the next three years.

We intend to develop training and offer guidance to encourage parents to use ICT to further enhance learning out of school for themselves and their children.

Here is a Wordle of the vision statement:

The larger words are the ones that were used most frequently in my statement. Hopefully I've managed to get my main themes across.

The nature of ICT means that my action points are very likely to change over the next few years!

· 

So that's what Digital Literacy is...

I've heard the term 'digital literacy' being used quite a lot over the years.


I recently stumbled across the best definition of it that I've read:

"Exploiting the huge potential of the Information Age is a task set before all of us. Being able to access information at the time and place where it is required is more possible than ever before, with the advent of wireless technologies, broadband connectivity and intelligent agents. Digital literacy is the means through which this can be accomplished... 

In short, digital literacy is all about making the technology work for you, finding new and interesting ways in which information technology can enhance life and improve the quality of teaching and learning. The digitally literate teacher will be convinced of the efficacy and usefulness of the connected computer."

Transforming Primary ICT, edited by Steve Wheeler 2005 

21st Century ICT Learning Part 2

Here is a list of resources and websites that we learned about on the 21st Century ICT course I attended. I have added details about where they could fit into the new curriculum.


Glogster
Interactive online posters

• Finding information
• Creating multimedia
• Creating music and sound
• Creating text and pictures

Scratch
Programming language

• Giving instructions
• Modelling

GoControl and Flowall
Control simulation software

• Giving instructions
• Modelling

Pivot
Stickfigure animation

• Creating multimedia, animation and video
• Creating music and sound
• Creating text and pictures

Primary Pad
For collaborative writing

• Creating text and pictures

Prezi
Presentation tool

• Creating multimedia, animation and video
• Creating text

Primary Wall
Collaborative sticky note wall

• Creating text and pictures
• Finding information

2DIY
Creating games, quizzes and activities

• Creating multimedia, animation and video
• Creating music and sound
• Creating text and pictures
• Giving instructions

We also had a look at Purplemash which covers several areas of the curriculum.

2DIY

My class and I have fallen in love with 2Do It Yourself (2DIY) which is an incredible piece of software made by 2Simple Software. This is not new software, as it has been around for a few years now, but I have only just begun to use it!

This is a unique child-friendly yet incredibly powerful piece of software.


"Create your own interactive Flash resources, activities, games, puzzles, quizzes. With this software teachers and primary school children can create cross-curricular, personalised resources and use them on whiteboards, websites and even on Learning Platforms. There are plenty of opportunities for meaningful learning as children plan, design, create, publish and play."


The software could just as easily be used by teachers to create games and activities for their class as it is for children to use it to demonstrate their learning. It has cross-curricular potential and it could be used in all year groups!


I began using the software with my class by demonstrating the very basics about how to set up a matching pairs game. They were shown how to save their work, create pairs, use the drawing and typing tools and change the timings and sounds. Within 40 minutes they had learned lots of other things - adding music, recording sounds, changing the colours of the backs of cards, adding instructions, animating the instructions menu and more. I believe this is the beauty of the software - it is great for allowing the children to just 'have a go' and find out what they can do! There were a number of 'magic moments' around the ICT Suite as everything that was discovered had a wow factor!


Here are the tasks I have (currently) planned to set the children to try:

• Make a times table matching pairs game
• Create a map labelling activity for our junior building (ready for our Year Twos)
• Put together a multiple choice quiz about Ancient Egyptian Gods and Goddesses
• Create Venn and Carroll diagram activities to demonstrate what they have learned
• Make a game about Isis collecting all of the pieces of Osiris' body
• Design a catching game to catch all of the organs removed and placed in canopic jars during mummification

Websites and resources that could be useful if you are interested in using 2DIY are:

• Examples of 2DIY projects: http://www.2simple.com/2diy/examples/
• Lots of ideas are shared here: http://www.2diyarchive.co.uk/
• Southwark Primary's 2DIY planning: http://ict.southwarkprimary.net/2009/11/09/2diy-planning/
• Simon Haughton's 2DIY planning: http://www.2diyarchive.co.uk/2010/01/simon-haughtons-2diy-planning.html

The games that our children have made can be found on our school website here.


Do you use 2DIY with your pupils?

21st Century ICT Learning

I recently attended an East Cheshire ICT course called 'Developing an ICT curriculum for the 21st Century' superbly led by @jokprice. This was a course I had been eager to attend for a while so that I could find out how to develop our curriculum further.

The QCA scheme – and the Cheshire scheme of work that is based on it – is increasingly outdated and is not reflecting how ICT is used in everyday life and throughout the curriculum. This course would revamp how ICT is taught in the authority.

Here is a short summary of what I learned:


The National Curriculum programme of study can be usefully divided into 3 main themes. Each of these themes is sub-divided into strands to ensure that the full programme of study is covered. In the new curriculum elements of each strand need to be covered at least once a year and revisited later in the year.  This will allow opportunities for children to use and apply ICT capability in a range of contexts. ICT should be taught through the topics so that it is embedded in the whole curriculum. The new curriculum proposes that ICT is taught in major and minor units, where a major unit moves the learning on and teacher input is provided. In the minor unit, learning is revisited or prior knowledge is built upon to create the consolidation and a 'spiral' effect.

The three areas of the curriculum are

Sharing Information

• Creating text
• Creating pictures
• Creating multimedia, animation and video
• Creating music and sound

Collecting and sorting information

• Finding information (internet and CD-ROMs - although surely people don't use CD-ROMs anymore!)
• Handling data (graphing, databases and spreadsheets)
• Data logging (sensors)

Controlling and exploring

• Giving instructions
• Modelling

My immediate thoughts were that our school does loads of sharing information, and elements of finding information. When working in Year Six I introduced handling data and giving instructions but I'm not convinced that my staff know enough about these areas. Data logging is something I am aware that is missing in the school and so our Tesco vouchers this year are being invested in this area.


Our ICT curriculum will be redeveloped in the new year and I can't wait!

eCAPH

Each year in school we have a fancy dress day to celebrate our book fair. And each year I try to arrange a course for that day so that I don't have to dress up! This year I managed to arrange one for the afternoon meaning that I still had to dress up as James and the Giant Peach in the morning and then get changed to drive to Cranage Hall for an ICT event.


eCAPH was a mini-Teachmeet intended to raise the profile of this form of CPD to headteachers and senior leaders in East Cheshire. There was also the opportunity to hear about Uniservity's learning platform upgrade and Microsoft's new software licensing plan.


Here are some of the ideas from the afternoon:


Google lit trips
This site brings books to life by using Google maps to direct you to the places where each part of the story takes place.

Prezi was recommended - it's a tool for creating online presentations, as an alternative to PowerPoint.

Jingproject.com - great for recording screencasts.

The Uniservity learning platform is due to receive a massive overhaul in September. The new version, called Life, looks so much easier to use, especially for non-techy teachers and will make it much easier to embed things like YouTube in the platform.. A migration plan will be rolled out soon with a view to beginning upgrades from September.

Songsmith is available for free from Microsoft's Partners In Learning website. This interesting piece of software generates a backing track in the key that the person sings in.

Lunch and Learn

Inspired by Bianca Hewes and Tekkie Brekkie I have organised four Lunch and Learns in school.

The idea behind Lunch and Learn is that I wanted to offer training, ideas, advice and an opportunity to try in an informal situation to the staff in school. I didn't want people to feel pressured to attend, but at the same time I wanted to be able to say that I at least tried to introduce technology and ideas into lessons.

Its success has been limited to only a small number of colleagues so far but I've been really pleased with the effect it's had on them.

I began Lunch and Learn before Christmas and there have been four so far, with many ideas for more.

The four workshops have been:

1. An introduction to Dropbox.
2. Adding pictures to the school website.
3. Using a data logger.
4. Using a flip camera.

Despite a small attendance I've thoroughly enjoyed delivering the 'training'.

My ideas for further Lunch and Learns are:

·         Bee-Bots

·         Computerised-microscope

·         Adding information to your year group page

·         Using Word/Publisher/PowerPoint

·         Adding blogs to your website

·         Setting up an online quiz

·         Using Robolab to control robots

·         Programming with Logo

·         What are computer simulations? How can they be used in the classroom?

·         Text messaging

·         New websites that we have found

ICT Curriculum

Each of our curriculum co-ordinators has been given a day to explore the planning across the school. The idea is that we would like each teacher to record the progression in skills from the national curriculum and to keep note of the topics/areas of study for each year group.


This week is my turn to look at ICT. I was particularly interested in doing this as I had just read this blog post where the relevance of the curriculum and the QCA Schemes of Work for ICT in 2010 is questioned. The post mentions the evolution of the internet and Google in particular. It also mentions that the searching of CD-ROMs - does anyone use CD-ROMs any more? I can honestly say that I don't and I haven't done for years.

After looking at the planning from the teachers in the school, basing my progression on the National Curriculum, I began to realise that the skills, knowledge and understanding that is described is, in my opinion, nowhere near specific enough and also it doesn't reflect the variety of modern applications of ICT.

So in order to help our staff to meet the demands of the curriculum, challenge the pupils appropriately and include the variety of skills that modern ICT can include, I have looked into different ICT progressions on the internet. I have found two which I think complement each other well which I think staff will helpful and the children will find even more exciting.

The first 'new style curriculum' is the Lancashire Progression. I like the way that the curriculum is split into phases rather than key stages. This means that skills are broken into what should be taught in Key Stage One, lower Key Stage Two and upper Key Stage Two. The progression takes each of the strands from the ICT curriculum and sub-divides them.

• Exchanging and sharing information is now sub-divided into:
• Text and multimedia
• Images, video and animation
• Sound
• Electronic communication
• Finding things out has become:
• Digital research
• Data handling
• Developing ideas and making things happen is:
• Datalogging
• Logo and control
• Simulations and spreadsheet modelling

I think that using these new strands will enable teachers to understand the diversity of skills that should be delivered. The Lancashire progression also features a Software toolkit which gives examples of the software which could be used to deliver the curriculum.

The other progression I like is the Herefordshire progression. Like Lancashire this progression is divided into phases and the strands have been sub-divided too (the names are slightly different but they mean the same thing). This progression gives ideas for the lesson, national curriculum levels and an APP-style grid.

I believe that with a combination of these two progressions our school will be able to deliver a modern, dynamic, diverse ICT curriculum from which the staff and pupils will benefit.

Something else which I have realised I need to learn more about now is the ICT provision in Early Years. This will have to be later in the year!

It's time for the government to Face the Book

I've recently read a couple of blog posts about whether or not to give e-safety advice about children using Facebook and other social networking sites:

http://ianaddison.net/?p=430

http://www.digital-teacher.co.uk/2010/09/do-we-do-or-do-we-dont.html

Both posts offer plenty of food for thought.

I just find the whole issue very frustrating. Why hasn't there been more guidance on this from the government? The previous government, for me, did not regulate social networking sites at all well, and the coalition government has not indicated that they will either. Therefore the lack of awareness of the potential dangers will continue unless schools themselves make an attempt to teach about being safe online.

But of course, as Digital Teacher points out, by doing this could schools open themselves up to litigation if parents believe that the school 'lead them to believe they were doing things safely'?

As far as I can tell, this is the government's advice regarding e-safety in their safeguarding documents:For me this is a green light to go ahead and offer guidance to children about how to use networks safely (whilst always reminding them that they shouldn't use them at all due to the age restrictions on the sites themselves). But it really shouldn't be down to schools to do this without any regulation. The government must show a greater interest and introduce more specific guidance.

The other huge problem that it is probably not the children that need to learn this - but their parents!

The best source of guidance I've found for using Facebook and other social networks is found here.

"To fulfil their commitment to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people all organisations that provide services for children, parents or families, or work with children, should have in place...

A clear understanding of how to work together to help keep children and young people safe online by being adequately equipped to understand, identify and mitigate the risks of new technology."

Engaging with families

 A couple of months ago I raided the Becta website for publications in the fear that they might suddenly disappear. Fortunately the government's cost cutting initiatives haven't included cutting bandwidth to the Becta website just yet, so the document I refer to hasn't disappeared yet. (Incidentally, I wonder what will happen to the publications when Becta does fold?)

Messages from the evidence: Engaging with Families talks about how technology can be used to engage with  parents more effectively. It is based on research from a 2009 survey and is intended to help schools to use what technology has to offer to improve parental engagement. There is an expectation for all primary schools to offer secure online access for parents to information about their child's learning and school life (assuming this expectation still exists).

Now I am well aware that many schools are miles in advance of our school, but here are some things that our school does to use technology to engage with families and what I would like the school to do in the not too distant future.

• Text messages - we subscribed to a school texting system around 18 months ago and it has proved to be a massive hit! Staff love it because it is simple to use and it is an effective way to contact parents. the feedback from parents has been fantastic. I'm not sure how it will work, but next year I want to enable to function where parents can reply to the texts. I don't know if it will become over-complicated for our office staff to manage.
• Emails - the same texting system now offers an email package. We mainly use the system to send newsletters home, reducing the number of printed letters by 75% in the process. In the next year I want to extend this to other letters (e.g. trip letters and after school club letters). This will save time and paper.
• Twitter - although it's hard to tell how effective our Twitter feed is unless people start to follow, I'm sure the fact that our tweets are displayed at the very top of our website means that people must take some note of the news items that pop up daily. I only wish that the Local Authority would unblock it so it can be shared with the children in school.
• Blogs - the Year Six blog that my colleague and I ran has been extremely popular amongst our pupils. Next year it's time to extend this throughout the school and one of my challenges for the learning platform is to demonstrate to staff how to use the blogging tool and get them using it! A blog about our visit to France and a visit in another year group proved to be very well received! It will be important to demonstrate to parents how and where to leave comments.
• The school website (learning platform) - we are just scratching on the surface of the possibilities this offers. During the summer I will be redesigning the school's homepage to make it easier for parents to find essential information like holiday dates, diary dates and news. (I'm sure that I found a statistic somewhere about how many clicks within a website that a visitor will make before they get frustrated and leave. I want to reduce the number of clicks in order to find these items.)
• 'Enable parents to book appointments and consultations online' - blimey! The document recommends this and it would be really cool. I just haven't got a clue how to do it!
• Links on the school website - our Delicious bookmarks feed into our website (using RSS feeds) but I need to add links for parents like local council websites.
• Homework - A survey of parents in 2009 showed that 97% had internet access. I wonder if I could set staff the challenge to distribute some homework to be completed online only?
• Sessions for parents - I would like to offer sessions for parents to demonstrate how to use the school website and the different technologies we offer.
• Online reports - Next year we will be revamping our reporting process. I wonder if we can make the reports available online?

Of course, the document reminds us that,

"No one-size fits all. Good communication includes a range of options to fit around parents' different needs and circumstances, including technology strategies and non-technology strategies."

I guess you can't beat face-to-face interaction in the end! But I'd love to hear from people about how they engage with parents using technology.

Spelling City

I've finally taken the plunge and had a go at using Spelling City. This is a great website which is designed to help children to practise their spellings.

Inspired by http://www.spellingcity.com/mrbarberturnham/ I created an account for our school and uploaded the spellings for the SATs spelling tests from 1996 to 2009.

The process was very easy to do - literally, as easy as typing in the words. The site then creates a sentence which uses the word to put it in context.

The children can go to the site and practice the spellings. Words are read out for them to spell! Simple, yet brilliant!
You can find our SATs Spelling lists at www.spellingcity.com/churchlane.

Junior Librarian.net

A lot of my time recently has been setting up Junior Librarian.net in school.

Junior Librarian is a complete library system for schools. It allows pupils (and teachers) to borrow and return school books. It allows users to reserve and review books. Our version uses a barcode reader to check books in and out.

It's not cheap, but it is a good bit of kit and, although we are just getting started, I feel that it is going to be very useful.

I foresee it being used in many ways:

1. Library books won't just get 'lost' any more. We should know exactly who has them.
2. We can further raise the profile of reading in our school by using it to recommend books to the children.
3. We can use it to guide our purchasing of books - if a type of book becomes popular we could then decide whether to buy more (or less) similar books.
4. We can discover the books that are most commonly read by boys or by girls.
5. We could use it to raise standards of writing by introducing a book review system.

We purchased Junior Librarian.net as this is hosted online, meaning it can be accessed over the internet anywhere in school and out.

One of the problems I had with setting this up is that I wanted pupils to be able to use the barcode reader to borrow and return books whilst in school. But out of school I want the children to be able to access the system to reserve and review books, and of course this can't be done without a barcode reader. So I asked if it would be possible to generate usernames and passwords for the pupils. I felt like this would be a perfectly reasonably request, and I'm sure I', not the only person who was ever asked for this facility. In the end it took absolutely ages to set this up. I had to download a file from SIMs, manipulate it in Excel and Access and then upload it. For somebody quite unfamiliar with this process this proved to be very difficult. I was virtually making phone calls every day trying to figure out why the file I had created just wasn't working. Luckily the helpdesk staff were really helpful and I finally got this sorted. But Microlib - you've got to invent an easier way to do this!

Year Six pupils loved scanning and labelling all of the books. It was really simple to do and they were really proud of their work.

The next part of the process (after half-term) is to introduce the usernames and passwords so that pupils can make full use of the site. I also want to train the staff to use the facilities of the site so that they can find out the most commonly read books in their class.

Long term, there is an option to upgrade to allow Learning Platform integration. This sounds really interesting - we'll see how we get on with the basic version first though.

Does anyone else have experience of Junior Librarian.net?

Printer chaos

During the last couple of weeks in school I've broken the news to staff that nearly £2000 has been spent on printer inks.

What an obscene amount of money!

The first step I have taken in order to try and reduce this amount is to write a policy stating where things can and cannot be printed. In a nutshell, the policy states that our printers in the computer suites are far more expensive to run and so these should purely be used by the children to print out work. All professional work must be printed using our classroom printers.

But after speaking about it on Twitter I have realised that the problem goes deeper. I mean, what exactly are people printing anyway? What was so important to be printed that the best part of £2000 needed to be spent?

The general message from people on Twitter was that we should be trying to print as little as possible. Indeed one Twitter user is trying to make his primary school paperless. Now, I realise that we are a million miles away from achieving that goal, but we must take drastic steps to reduce the amount of printing that we are currently producing.

Useful websites

Now it's the summer holidays I thought I'd share some websites that I have discovered during the last academic year which I plan to embed firmly in the Year Six curriculum next year.

Twitter: I know that this is hardly 'a discovery' as it's been hard to escape from it this year. But Twitter is a brilliant social networking website which school has used to share news about events. This year we have used the site simply as a reporting tool, but next year we plan to use it to engage with our parents more effectively. Our Friends of the school could use it to communicate, too.

Wallwisher: This website will be useful for creating class surveys, but also for sharing thoughts. Next year I want to use it for character studies in English to give the children a way of sharing their ideas. In Maths I can use it for problem solving so that the children can share solutions. It's also great for simply celebrating news events - allowing pupils to offer their own best wishes.

Vimeo: Owing to the number of digital cameras the school has purchased (many through voucher collection schemes) videos of the children's work are becoming more frequent. We have created a channel on Vimeo (which I just feel is safer than YouTube for our children) to share videos.


Wordle: Since introducing Wordle to staff it has mainly been used for display purposes. I intend to use it as a tool for analysing the main messages in a piece of work. It could also be used for examining language choices and investigating the features of a style of writing.

Flickr: We use Flickr for sharing photos from school. Our school newspaper reporters use it to find suitable pictures for their articles. We also use it for work on Photo Story and PowerPoint as it's so easy to find pictures to illustrate our work.

Voicethread: A recent discovery is Voicethread where pupils can have a conversation about a picture together. It is really clever and very easy to use. I think we could use this to explore settings and characters in English and also to use it as a basis for problem solving in maths.

Webspiration: Great for mindmapping and for planning!

Etherpad: This is an awesome collaborative writing website. Up to 8 people can work on the same piece of writing at the same time. We used this to work on radio advert writing and also for writing play scripts. I just think of all the times that I've asked pupils to work as a pair on one piece of writing and then seen only one person doing the work. Never again!

Memiary: This very simple website allows you to share five things that you have done today. Next year I plan to use this as a daily review of what we have learned.

Do you have any new websites that you plan to use with the children next year?

Using Etherpad

I heard about Etherpad via Twitter, and also Mark Warner's blog, http://www.mrwarner.com/. Etherpad is a website where people can work collaboratively on the same document. Brilliant!!

It really is simple to use. Just go to Etherpad and create a new pad. You can then email the link for the pad to other people. Up to 8 can work on the same pad all at once. You can see people editing the document before your very eyes!

The potential for use in school is unlimited. There are many opportunities for using it with staff - all those times where we've put a document together with just one scribe? Well now everyone can get involved! It could also be used for communication!

The classroom possibilities are where the strengths of Etherpad really lie. I have used it with the class this week. Bearing in mind it was the first time using it, it did come with one or two problems, but I'm pleased to just get the ball rolling!

We have been working on balanced report writing for the last few weeks. The trainee teacher that had been teaching the class finished her successful placement on the Friday and so I wanted an exciting project to end the focus on reports. I decided that we could write a balanced report on bedtimes. I presented the children with a biased report explaining why children should go to bed early. The children used Etherpad to plan ideas for the other side of the argument. I used our blog to set up links for each table to find their Etherpad. It went really well and I was pleased with the work produced.

Later in the week we used Etherpad again, this time to prepare a script for a radio talk show. The children had to prepare a radio show where callers would phone to offer their arguments, for or against the issue. The children elected host DJs for each team. They had to write an introduction to the show whilst the others would enter information from the callers. It was really good fun. The DJs did find it a little difficult to keep up with the arguments being presented from all of the callers. With hindsight, perhaps we needed more DJs!

I found that the connections to the Etherpads were a little unreliable, but I think this had more to do with our painfully slow internet connection this week rather than with Etherpad itself. The children became frustrated with the connection continually breaking, so the quality of work was not as good as I'm sure it could have been.

I'm looking forward to finding further opportunities to use Etherpad in the classroom. Have you used Etherpad? How have you used it?

Residential in France

Yesterday I returned from a week in France with our Year Sixes.

This is the third year that we have enjoyed a visit to France, and I'm delighted to say that it has once again been a very successful week!

We set off from school at 6.30am on Monday and arrived at our chateau 11 hours later! Our accomodation is fantastic and the grounds in which we stayed were beautiful.

On Tuesday we toured the local town of Rue. In the afternoon we visited a nearby goat farm where the children had chance to hold some of the goats, rabbits and chicks. We also visited a delicious chocolate factory.

On Wednesday we travelled to Amiens, the nearest city, with one of the most incredible buildings I've ever seen. The cathedral takes my breath away every time I see it! We then set off for an underground city which was used by local villagers to hide during WW2.

On Thursday we travelled to Abbeville to explore the local shops and sample a French cafe. In the afternoon we learned to play petanque and braved the muddiest blind trail!

On Friday we visited Nausicaa, a fantastic aqarium before setting off home again.

It is wonderful to see how much the children gained in confidence and independence during the week. Their French skills developed well.

This year, for the first time, we created a blog which we used to communicate to parents. This was experimental, as we weren't really sure what internet facilities we could use. We used Posterous, and linked to it from our school website. We then simply used Googlemail to send an email with news about the events of the day. The feedback from parents was really positive and lots of them added comments.

Next year we plan to add photos whilst we are away by taking a laptop with us. We will use a wireless connection to upload lots of exciting news. We will also experiment with Twitter so that we can add updates via mobile phone so that little snippets can be added. Before then I want to learn to feed Twitter directly into Posterous.

Very short stories

During our study of different fiction genres we read Short! by Kevin Crossley-Holland. We used the story 'Talk About Short' as inspiration for writing our own short stories. The children wrote stories using less than 140 characters and then uploaded them to our school's Twitter page.

I then used Wordle to create a display of the words they used. Lots of fun!

Online Photo Services

I have spent some time this summer trying to find an online photo service that I am entirely happy with. Let me share some of the pros and cons of what I found:
Snapfish
I have used this site for about a year for getting photos printed. I have been really impressed by the quality of printed photos and the seemingly unlimited storage space for photos. However, the sharing options are far from adequate, and I can't seem to find a way to tag photos. It was for this reason that I tried to find an alternative.

Oosah
Oosah was the next site I tried, tempted by the promise of 1TB of online storage space. It all seemed promising at first, but then I realised that I couldn't upload documents as well, meaning that I was never likely to come close to using all of the 1TB. Unfortunately I can't print photos from the site, and, as clear as day there were pornographic photos in the public photostream! Not ideal.

Picasa
This was next on my list. This could be useful as it links with Blogger. However, I can't print photos from the site.

Facebook
This is really useful if you want to share photos with friends, and the ability to tag people in photos is brilliant. But what if I don't want to share the photos, or simply back them up? Facebook wouldn't allow this.

Flickr
Flickr appears to be one of the best photo sites around. The tagging is excellent, and the photostream and ability to link directly to individual photos are all valuable features. I can edit photos online, and make photos public, for sharing, and private, just for backing up pictures. However, there is one flaw - at the moment you cannot print photos in the UK directly from Flickr.

Photobox
This morning I am trying out Photobox. Despite rather slow uploading speeds, so far it looks the most promising of them all - photo sharing, making photos private, tagging and printing all seem possible. Could I have found The One?

Anyone got any thoughts?