Creative Learning WITH ICT

New ICT Department Site

2007-03-10T00:37:00.000-08:00

It is now possible for anyone, anywhere to access the ICT Department Handbook. This means that staff, parents and perhaps more importantly students can access information such as the assessment information they need to make their work better, examples of students work.

Staff and parents may be interested to read the the ICT policy, Aims, Development Plan, Marking Policy and ICTAC and perhaps best of all there are photos of all members of the department to be admired!

Access the site through www.saltash.net, the link to the ict site is the top link. If you can think of anything you would like added please add a comment to the blog and I will see what can be done!

Le Français est allé au moodle

2007-02-13T03:33:00.000-08:00

French speaking exams have been made easier and revision more accessible to students via Moodle. French teacher Ben Rowe has recorded podcasts which are available through the schools Moodle site which will enable students to familiarise themselves with the French speaking exam questions.

Biology is Magic Too!

2007-02-11T10:43:00.000-08:00

The topic was ‘sliding filament theory of muscle contraction’. Not as exciting as it sounds! The idea was to use the digital cameras to make the double lesson more interesting. The lesson went as follows.

The pupils were given the information on the theory and given time to read through and make sure their understanding was clear. Pupils then made a 2D model of the muscle cell and given story board sheets to plan an animation of the model to show the theory. This also gave time to work out how to use the camera.

Pupils then used the cameras to capture all the images and move the models to get all the images for the animation.

When the groups had got all of the images then they used the windows movie maker software to edit the images together and make the finished animation.

The whole process was completed within 2 hours ready to show at the next lesson.

Physics is Magic!

2007-02-08T03:02:00.000-08:00

Physics is often seen as a difficult subject that needs expensive apparatus to perform complex experiments but the Physics and ICT departments have been working together to try to use students’ natural interest in all things technological to improve their understanding and the learning that takes place in lessons.
Students in Year 12 Physics classes at are experimenting with the use of very cheap DV cameras and “free” software in order to analyse the motion of falling objects, a very important part of any Advanced Level Physics course.
The students are using the cameras to record the dropping of a ball or other object next to a ruler. The video file is saved onto an SD card and then transferred onto one of the Physics department’s computers.
The students then use Windows Movie Maker to step through the motion of the ball from when it is dropped until it hits the floor.
Measurements can then be made to see how far the object has fallen during each frame ( which represents a certain time interval ) and graphs can be plotted.
The beauty of this approach is that the equipment needed is so cheap ( less than £30 for the cameras ) and thus everyone in the group can get “hands-on” with the experiment. Given the rapid improvement in mobile phone technology it probably won’t be long until these can be used in a similar way. A mobile phone camera together with a standard microscope can be used to capture the most amazing images of crystals growing for example!

Podcasting from Moodle!

2007-02-07T22:59:00.000-08:00

Moodle goes from strength to strength, we have changed hosts and now have more space and it seems more stable.

Biology have started making podcasts and they are available through Moodle, watch this space, more on the way!

Year 10 web genius goes professional!

2007-02-07T02:37:00.000-08:00

After learning to design and create websites at school a year ten student has been asked by a chalet rental business to create a website to publicise their business, and has got paid for his work!

Movie Making in Year 9

2007-02-05T01:39:00.000-08:00

Year 9 have written proposals to the Leadership Group to explain why they should be allowed to come off normal curriculum and use video cameras to make movies about their lives, the image shows an excellent and very persuasive argument!

Game Makers!

2007-02-05T01:31:00.000-08:00

Year 8 are making computer games to insert into their recently created websites. There are some incredible creative games being made and a lot of fun had!

Global Gateway!

2007-01-22T10:54:00.000-08:00

Mr Rowe and one of his French language classes have used the Global Gateway link to begin talking to students in a school in Marseille.

The students have emailed the school and have already recieved replies!

2007-01-19T05:45:00.000-08:00

It got worse at lunchtime!

Weather in Saltash!

2007-01-19T04:14:00.000-08:00

ewww, the proof that it really is 'orrible weather here!

More Storms Over Cornwall......!

2007-01-18T12:44:00.000-08:00

More terrible stormy weather over Cornwall causing trees to fall over and roofs to fall off and other more devasting loss has meant that year 7 has not measured the growth of their bulbs this week, though I am sure the weather monitor has picked up some extreme data for us to collect!
We will hopefully try again next week when the weather looks a little less dramatic!

Happy New Year and BETT

2007-01-14T01:32:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! We started school on Monday and I took thursday and friday off to go to the BETT show. Spent thursday delayed and re-routed as there was a tree on the line and arrived late at Paddington, humph. Anyway, got to the BETT show and wandered around the vast area that is Olympia, incredible space, and some really interesting stands, not many fab giveaways this year, but got some pens and postits!

On friday I worked with TwoFour Learning who are working with us to create some fab web tv. It was great day, and got a couple of great contacts.

Got an earlier train home but was delayed by a fatality on the line and a diversion behaind a slow train through Bristol, making me 2 hours late....grrrrrrr.

Happy Christmas from saltash.net ict!

2006-12-22T10:15:00.000-08:00

It has been a little while since I posted here, but it has been a very busy end to a great first term at saltash.net. Getting to know the department members, the students, the curriculum, the exam requirements ...........the tune of "thank god it's Christmas" springs to mind, but though it has been utterly exhausting and has required skills I didn't think I had, (until I needed them!) I have loved every minute of it.
The students have finished off the year creating some great logos for the department, I tried to upload them but it looks like blogger doesn't like flash graphics.
We had a great staff party and I hope that in January when we return we will all be refreshed and ready for the coming term, which I have heard rumours that it is as long as the last one!
Happy Christmas from Cornwall!
http://cam1.saltash.cornwall.sch.uk/en/AViewer.html

Storm force bulb planting!

2006-12-11T10:25:00.000-08:00

Year 7 and I braved the elements today, torrential Cornish rain and storm force winds, to plant more spring flowering bulbs. All went well, bulbs were planted in between a tree and a bush, and will be easy to keep an eye on from the office window. We will be watching and measuring the bulbs after the Christmas break to see how the rainfall and sunshine (or lack of!)will affect their growth. We will be getting our weather data from the weather station on the roof of the school, (you can see our weather data on http://www.saltashweather.net)

We are going to record and analyse the growth and weather using a spreadsheet application, should be fun. I wanted the students to collect their OWN data, data which they had made, relevant to them, hope it's fun, hope it works!

SSA SW1 Seminar

2006-12-10T01:40:00.000-08:00

AA navigated and I drove to the SW1 conference at Braunton Community College. It's a long way to Braunton from Saltash, and I was very glad to be navigated, about five hours driving, there and back, eeeeewwww!

AA and I talked to the delegates about our ideas for the Specialised Diploma and invited all the delegates to join us for a Skype conference in January. It went well, we got some good ideas, and received some great feedback. Here's hoping that the Skype conference will go ahead in January.

Specialised Diploma thoughts, research, mistakes, the whole darn journey so far!

2006-12-09T07:34:00.000-08:00

We have submitted our bid, as a school,to be a 'Gateway' for the specialised diploma in ICT. Because our location is so rural, and the other schools who we will work with in our link group of schools, Torpoint, Liskeard, Looe and Callington are also in rural locations, we are looking at not transporting students to Saltash literally. Instead we are working out how we can convey the information, or the lessons, to the remote students while they are still in their own classrooms.
We have done some work with video conferencing using Skype, we originally used this to enable a better/smoother transition from key stage 2 to 3, but we could also use it to make a live link between classrooms, the corporate skype enables a live video link to and from more than two locations, and we are trying this. But it is more complicated than this, if we just have a video link between the classrooms, are we not just going to turn a lesson into a lecture, and how will I know that the students elsewhere have grasped the concepts I am teaching? Working with Amazing Adam, the Network Manager, we came up with what we thought would be a solution, the students could talk back using a private chatroom, and Amazing Adam quickly installed one we could use and of course it worked. But what about the students who didn't understand and needed to see the skill being taught again? In a classroom situation it works fine, you just show them again, but when you are teaching students across many schools, it would become more difficult. We had been in touch with media company Two Four Commmunications, originally they had offered to introduce us to software they had been using which they thought might help us with the original problem but in retrospect they felt it may not be stable enough for us to use. Two Four suggested that they could come and film a lesson, break the lesson into component parts, starter, intro, skills, etc and then let us use it as part of our test. This type of lesson is currently being used on the CEDs TV site, http://hosting.twofourtv.com/CEDStv/new/index.asp?player=wmp and works well for Cornwall County Council.
The filming of the lesson took two hours, great fun, and we got loads of tips about how to film the lesson, how to break the lesson into parts that would work via film, but we needed the work to be sustainable and transferable, after all there maybe only four subjects going live though the specialised diploma in 2008 but there are many more to follow, we wanted to create a package for schools which was as cheap as possible and easy to use. Two Four are going to use the film they made of the lesson and it will be viewable from CEDs TV soon, infact Amazing Adam and I will be at the BETT show in January on the Two Four stand promoting it!
However, we needed to find a way of making sure that students could revisit the work which was sustainable for us to do. Part of the filming with Two Four involved them filming the computer monitor while the skill was being illustrated. Easy peesy, we would use some screen recording software and do the same, but without the alternative screen of the presenters face showing too. But.... have you seen how many screen recording software applications there are?! and how bad some of them are at it!! After a considerable amount of research Amazing Adam (AA) and I decided on BB Flashback, brilliant easy to use software, does exactly what it says on the tin.
Now we record the skill being taught, label it and add a voice over, it saves as a flash movie, so it is a small file size and with all the other ideas we have had, I think we may be near reaching the package we have been trying to achieve, watch this space, more news soon!

So far so good....!

2006-12-09T06:52:00.000-08:00

It has been thirteen weeks since I started at Saltash.net as Head of ICT, and I love it!
As a department wehave been busy, getting used to each other, learning from each other, and at the same time getting on with teaching and learning and keeping those students at it.

A few of the things we have been up to.

Virtual Teaching and Learning Environment
This term, a new virtual learning environment (VLE)has been created for the school. The VLE, Moodle is used by students to access resources for lessons, both in and out of school. This means that if students are absent for any reason they can catch up from home, or if they want to revise work they can get the work they need away from school.Currently Science, contributed by Mr Neighour and Mr Garland, and ICT are using the VLE, but shortly DT, MFL, Maths and Geography will be adding resources. Because Moodle is getting so busy with so many students accessing it we are buying a bigger and better one, that we can all access all the time, so keep on using it., it is getting bigger and better!

Video Conferencing Using the video conferencing application Skype we have been linking primary school year 6 classes with year 7 classes. We have begun an e-mentoring scheme which will help to make the change from primary school to secondary school not such a big and maybe sometimes such a worrying change. Year 6 have been asking questions about the lessons, homework, and the teachers and year 7 classes have been telling them how it really is here at Saltash.net

Blogging
Linking from Moodle, to support students working out of school is the ICT Blog!The blog is an area where students can send any problems with their ICT work out of school, within hours an ICT teacher will respond to the problem and offer help, also as students can access and read the problems they can also help by sending the answer to the problem to the blog, so any ICT homework problems just blog it!!

Year 7 Data Collection
Early next year 7 will begin a data collection and analysis unit in ICT using the growth of spring flowering bulbs they have planted in the school gardens. They will be monitoring their growth and relating it to the rain fall and sun hours per week, this data will be collected from the schools weather station, maintained by Mr Brooks. The students will use a spreadsheet to find out what amount of rain and sunshine will make the bulbs grow a certain amount.

The MFL department are using the schools membership of Global Gateway to link Mr Rowes French lessons with a school in France. Students are becoming e-pals with the French students and are making some great International links.