Ian Addison's Blog

I'm Moving...

2010-03-14T13:44:00.000Z

I know this blog is fairly new and only been here for a few months, but it is moving. Why move? Well a number of reasons really. My Hampshire contract is due to run out in July and with it will go my county email address. This has been the email I have used for everything work/school related for nearly two years. In September, I assume I will get yet another new email for whichever school I end up in.

Therefore I wanted an email I could use regardless of my role or where I am. I tried Google and all variants of my name were taken, probably serves me right for being the last person alive to sign up to Googlemail! So I decided to buy the domain ianaddison.net and use the email address that came with it. Once I had the domain, it just seemed to make sense to move my blog across as well. I've spent a bit of time over the past couple of weeks finding a decent theme, but I think I'm now happy!
So, thanks for reading this and I look forward to seeing you on my new blog instead.
www.ianaddison.net

Stop, Collaborate and Listen...

2010-02-28T13:46:00.000Z

Collaboration is a funny thing. As you may know, I train teachers at the moment and I would say currently, 90% of my days are used training on using the VLE. We talk about sharing and collaborating all of the time. Teachers think it sounds like a great idea, but who's going to start it?

We are a large authority, I believe 2nd behind Kent, but collaboration across our schools isn't great at the moment. Is it because teachers don't want to? Is it because they don't know how? Not sure. I tend to work with ICT teachers and people that have already been 'won over' by technology, so maybe my audience is a little biased, but even so, they still worry about sharing being time consuming.

Within our VLE, we do have a shared area that can house content created by teachers, but it is still very limited. If/when this takes off, it will be great, but is there a quick win I can achieve? I believe so.

Through my job, and more importantly, through Twitter, I am finding tonnes of useful websites and resources that need to be shared. Have I used all of them? Of course not, but I now know about them. Most are stored on my Delicious account for sorting later, but at least they are there. So if I find storing websites useful, maybe others will too? Imagine the power if all 440 of our primary schools shared websites amongst each other? To be honest, if 10 of them shared, it will be a good start!

So that's where Hampshire Delicious comes in. I've started the account and it's currently going through the management team to check they are on board, but if they're not? I'll push it anyway. It'll be harder, but it will work for those that want it to.

The key I believe is not just in standardised tagging (KS2? Key Stage 2? KS 2?) but with the notes element. This will be extremely useful for teachers to see what the site is about rather than them having to wade through it to explore.

At the time of writing, it has 12 websites on it. 2 of those being guidance notes or a video of how to save bookmarks. By the end of the week I want 50. By then I should be ready to start launching it. Will it work? Will it change the way teachers find websites and resources? Will they see it as another thing to do? Who knows. But if I don't try it, we'll never know.

So...what do you think my problems will be? What will be the main benefits? Would it be something you would want to use/add to? I'll hopefully be writing the communication to schools about it before Easter.

Just because it is a Hampshire Delicious account doesn't mean it can't be shared wider. The username and password is there for all to see on the guidance, so feel free to add a site or two (maybe your blog?) to it. I trust my network to use it wisely.

Why not check it out so far... www.delicious.com/hampshirebookmarks

If you want to see a huge Delicious resource, check out @simonhaughton's account: www.delicious.com/parkfield I want to emulate this, but with notes about each site to help teachers a bit further.

ps. I sort of apologise for the Vanilla Ice-inspired title to this post, but hey...it made me smile.

Home Access

2010-02-18T15:04:00.000Z

I spend all day training schools to use the internet, the VLE and other web-based tools. Often we get the negative comments regarding children's computer access at home. Schools sometimes have no idea how many children do not have access, so we often suggest running a survey or hands-up in class. We also suggest that they open up their suite at lunch, break of after school. But then you need to think about supervision. Why not get a year 6 child to run it?
This works well in junior schools or if your suite is in an area with high traffic, but not so good for an infant school!

So what is being done about the lack of internet or computer use at home? Home Access. That's what.

This is a Government funded scheme aimed at children from low-income familes to help them get connected and get online. Familes with children in year 3 to year 9 that have registered for free school meals will be entitled to a free laptop or PC. If you want to be picky, there are flaws. I hear these everyday when I mention it to teachers.

Why is it the people on benefits getting more handouts?
What about the people who work, but are just above this cut-off point?
Surely they'll just sell it/swap it for drugs (I swear, some schools said this)

For those that know me, I am a fairly positive person. So I take this scheme for the positive areas. Yes, it is this cohort that again get another benefit, but potentially, 270,000 families will be online because of this scheme. As a teacher, that is a huge bonus for what I would want to achieve in my classroom, whether it is blogging, VLEs, Voicethread etc. The power of the computer can not be underestimated.

So how do parents go about applying? By going to the website (ironic, I know) or calling a number, they will get an application form. Filling this in is very straightforward. They then send it back and get a voucher for their free computer.

Although currently seconded to the LA, I ran some parents evenings recently to showcase the benefits of having a computer at home and keeping safe. I mentioned sites that could help the children's learning, such as iboard, tutpup, education city or primarygames but I tried to focus on supporting the parent as well.
I gave examples of how I had used the internet since moving house recently. I had used sites such as Confused or Money Saving Expert to save £100s on gas, electricity or even foreign currency for my half-term holiday. We also looked at sites such as Jobsite, Monster and Learn Direct.
One parent was particularly keen to see Picasa and how photo sharing could help her send photos of her grandson to family in Scotland. ( I would've shown Facebook, but due to LA-blocking, I was limited to screenshots).

We briefly covered e-safety as I didn't want the meeting to be too negative, but we did discuss keeping safe on Facebook, phishing and antivirus software. Parents seemed positive, even if the turnout was disappointingly low!

If you want to use the resources, feel free. They are below. If you want to adapt them, go ahead. the main thing is that the children and families we work with are given every possible opportunity to succeed and that maybe, you need to spend an hour of your time helping those parents complete a form or become more aware of internet safety.It is always hard to share a presentation, but hopefully someone will find it a useful starting point.

I'd be very keen to hear how your sessions go!

Home Access PowerPoint
Sample Application Form

ICT Cluster Spring 1 - Roundup Pt2

2010-02-05T09:06:00.000Z

Part 1 of the Roundup can be found here

WallWisher - http://www.wallwisher.com/
What does it do?
Wallwisher allows you to create an empty space or wall and collate children's comments. You can create any name for your wall so you can make it easier for your children to remember e.g. www.wallwisher.com/wall/ianaddison
This can then be embedded into a VLE to show the children's learning or their ideas.
Possible Uses
Starting a topic: What do you already know about_____? What would you like to find out about___? Or later on, what have you learnt about ____ ?
Top Tip
This doesn't work with Internet Explorer 6, so if you still have that, you'll have to wait until you get an upgrade. For EdICT schools, this should be happening in the next few months.

MyEBook - http://www.myebook.com/
Examples - http://www.myebook.com/mr_hill_3-4H from @colport
What does it do?
MyEBook allows you to create an online book to showcase children's work. There is an over-13 limit on it, and some books are not suitable for primary, but if created by the teacher, they could be used within a VLE or website. You create a book, choose a template or blank book and start dragging photos, sound or text onto the pages. You can add and remove pages at will. Why not get the children reading the text in a story or their work and upload that too? For an exmample of this, look at the Wallace and Gromit book from the link above.
Possible Uses
You could have a book for 1 child over a year, showcasing their work and creating a portfolio of their learning or create a class book to showcase all learning from a particular topic.
Top Tip
MyEBook links to online photo sites such as Flickr, Picasa or Facebook, so if you have pictures online already, you can link to them to save you uploading.

Animoto - http://www.animoto.com/ (Free 30second long videos) www.animoto.com/education (Free, longer videos)
What does it do?
Animoto allows you to upload pictures and create an online presentation. Create a free account, choose some pictures and then upload them. These can then be manipulated and re-ordered if necessary. You then choose a soundtrack from the library or upload your own and then finish. Within 10minutes or so, you'll have a presentation video that can be linked to or embedded within a VLR or website.
Possible Uses
Uploading pictures of a DT project so that the photos show the making process from start to end. Picture 1 being the materials and picture 8 being the final car/sandwich/model.
Top Tip
Why not get the children to record some audio to upload onto their presentation?

The next session will be on March 18th at Hulbert Junior School and we will make it a 4:15pm start this time as that seems to be when I start anyway! If you can get there for 4, you'll be treated to tea/coffee and some biscuits too.
The next session will be looking at blogging. This will be a mixture of getting the children involved with blogging, getting YOU to start a blog and sharing examples from other teachers too. Don't be scared about it, I only started in December, so we can all be new at it together! Brilliant for reflection and I will show how it can be brilliant for CPD too. I might also try and fit in a brief bit about convincing you all to join Twitter too...but we'll see if time allows.

I am running a Home Access meeting for parents at Hulbert next week, (8th February) so will post resources after that.

ICT Cluster Spring 1 - Roundup Pt1

2010-02-03T16:27:00.000Z

So, another ICT cluster has finished and this one seemed to fly by like a whirlwind! I think I probably tried fitting too much into a short space of time. I promise next session I will slow down and give more playing time! (and find a room with a decent projector)
So here is a round-up of some of the things we did, and didn't, cover. I will also send this out on twitter and hopefully people will add examples below too.

The purpose of this session was to show you some of the exciting websites that I have found recently, the majority through Twitter. These range from time-saving to collaboration-based tools. After meeting with some teachers before Christmas and one of them stating that there seemed to be a lack of innovation from Lead Teachers and above, I thought I'd try my best to lead by example. Who knows if it worked or not!

So, what did we look at? (BTW, all of these are free.)

Delicious - http://www.delicious.com/
Examples: www.delicious.com/ianaddison or www.delicious.com/parkfield
What does it do?
It allows you to store websites and favourites online so that they can be accessed from anywhere. Now this might sound like a small thing for some people, but if you think a bit bigger, such as creating a school account like @simonhaughton has done, then collaboration becomes much easier. I showed this at an inset day at the start of term and the teachers added their favourite sites, within an hour we had 50 websites for them to share. even amongst this small number of teachers, they were all adding websites that others hadn't heard of. This means that next time they want to find a site for poetry, it might have been found by someone already. Very useful indeed. Next step? What about a Hampshire-wide account? hhmmm..might need some thought!
Top Tip
If you create a school account, make sure you decide on the tags beforehand. Otherwise, you'll end up with KS2, KS 2 and Key Stage 2.

PrimaryPad - http://www.primarypad.com/
What does it do?
Primary Pad is a tool that allows you to upload a word document or start from scratch and then have multiple users adding to and editing the document at the same time. Sounds chaotic? It can be. But now that @johnmclear has limited it to 6 people per pad, it works brilliantly for small groups of children. We have used in Hants to plan testing for Wizkid, we were all online plotting our next steps in real-time. It's quite a lot of fun too!
Possible Uses
Why not get the children to collaborate on a story or piece of writing? Poetry? Playscript?
What about teachers editing a policy?
Top Tip
Go to www.primarypad.com/whateverwordyoulike and providing someone hasn't put that word on there before, you can make a new pad. This means that you can have a pad tailored for your class or group, much easier to remember than using the random letters at the end!
Also, let the children try it first, then decide on rules. They can edit and delete each others work, so session 2 may need some rules!

Wordle - http://www.wordle.net/
What does it do?
Wordle takes a selction of words you have typed or pasted and create a collage of them with the more frequent words appearing larger than the others. The best way to see this is to copy and paste a news article from a site such as http://www.bbc.co.uk/ and then try to see the key words of the article. I showed this using Andy Murray's match report and the key words were 'Murray', 'Tennis' and 'Open'. Useful to see if a child has written one word more than the others.
Possible Uses
Why not ask the children to list different words for 'said' or 'walked'? Write the main word e.g. 'said' 3/4 times, then the others will appear smaller. Great for a vocabulary display or a way of creating a wordbank before starting a poem.
Top Tip
When typing words, put ~ between them. This way, the words stay together e.g. once~upon~a~time would stay together as a phrase. Perfect for story starters! More tips can be found at www.delicious.com/ianaddison/wordle

Part 2 will follow with Wallwisher, MyEBook and Animoto as well as details of Home Access

My favourite finds at BETT

2010-01-20T20:35:00.000Z

I know that BETT finished ages ago (well it seems like it anyway) but it has been a busy few days packing boxes and such like so I haven't had chance to post about my BETT finds. Some of these are obvious and some less so. What I have tried to do is also contact the company to find out more information to help you out. There is nothing in it for me, I just liked what I say and thought some of you might like them too.I must say that this post is aimed at my ICT cluster, but obviously, if you find it useful, that's great!

So in no particular order...

Brainpop - www.brainpop.co.uk/freetrial
(30 day free trial)
Brainpop seemed like a great resource for explaining difficult subjects and ideas. These also include quizzes to test the children's knowledge. The videos inject humour into the range of topics and would be useful for teaching children about a range of different topics.

Class Pet - www.scholastic.co.uk/classpet
(3 month free trial)
I was initially attracted to the Scholastic stand because they were playing a huge part in TeachMeet Takeover (as were BrainPop). I was around presenting and attracting teachers to the stand to listen to the ideas that were being shared by other teachers. After a while, I had a look at their demo of Class Pet and liked what I saw. You can easily assess the children using a number of objectives and activities. Activities can be assigned to specific pupils so that they can assess themselves at their own pace. This looks like a good way of using ICT to assess maths and literacy.

Anithings - http://www.anithings.com/try.html
(15% discount for Hampshire schools - email me)
Anithings was one of the products and companies being showcased on TeachersTV in the run up to BETT. I was immediately drawn to the characters that could be used within the animations. Younger children will love the cartoony creatures, but you can add and adapt the characters too. It is easy to move them around the screen and then the final animation can be embedded as a flash file. Maybe it's just the googly eyes, but it is good fun!

2Simple - 2Create a Super Story - http://www.2simple.com/super/
(30 day free trial)

As always, 2Simple have delivered. There are many blogs already about their incredible new product so I will let you read those below. It easily lets you create stories, information texts and anything you like really. Characters are dragged on to the screen and then manipulated in a number of ways to animate them and move them around the screen. Sound can also be put in very quickly and easily. The finished article can then be saved as a flash file and put into a VLE, blog or website. Great for sharing with parents or for extending learning after the lesson.
Read more from some of the experts:
2Simple Blog
Bev Evans - @bevevans22
Simon Widdowsden - @xannov
Simon Haughton - @simonhaughton
Mark Warner - @markw29

Not really new but...
Espresso - www.espresso.com
(Reduced rate until Feb half-term 2010 for Hampshire Schools)
Espresso is a fantastic resource when it is used well. I used to use it all of the time at school, it made searching for content a nice, simple task. I would often use the resources for assemblies or as part of my input. Espresso have made two major changes recently. Every video can now be embedded into a VLE, making it very simple to share the videos as part of a discussion or a test or maybe even a blog. They have also just launched a home access module allowing the pupils the opportunity to explore the resources themselves at home.

i-board - http://tes.iboard.co.uk/
i-board was my favourite find of Bett 2009. A whole host of inexpensive, fun activities for Key Stage 1 children. This year I was given the fantastic news that these are now completely free. Fantastic news for anyone with KS1 children. They are so good that many Year 3/4 teachers have used them too.

What did you see at BETT? Have I missed something?

My feelings after BETT

2010-01-17T18:37:00.001Z

I have finally returned home after a long, but exciting few days at BETT.I went for 2 days last year, but managed to stay for 3 this time around. Posting this on the Sunday means that everyone has already made it home and blogged already!

The most exciting thing for me was the TeachMeet Takeover and the Teachmeet event on the Friday night. I want to say thank you to everyone for organising the events and the effort that was put in. It was scary enough volunteering to present at TeachMeet, let alone being the first one chosen to present! Luckily @lisibo followed me and I think our talks complemented each other quite nicely as I explained how to make a Voki and then Lisa showed them in use!

Here's a pictureof me in front of 250+ people, thanks to @iusher for the picture.

I will post later about the exciting products I saw at BETT, but this post is more about Teachmeet and the wonderful people that I met. I was lucky enough to meet some fantastic people and to list them all would take ages and I am sure to miss someone! But thank you to everyone for all of their help and support before and during BETT.

The supportive tweets after my presentation also took my breath away and I thank everyone that made a comment! I know at least 2 people have made a VOKI since and one that is using it with her class on Monday. I have never thought of myself as innovative before, but I love that I can share ideas with others.

To quote Lisa, 'What seems like old hat for you is a lightbulb moment for someone else'

The biggest inspiration from anyone though came from the guy that talked about the TeachMeet in Holland. I immediately turned to Phil (@baggiepr) and began planning how we would go about organising a TeachMeet Hampshire at our annual ICT Conference. I have drafted an email already and who knows Maybe we can make it happen.

Thanks again to everyone for inspiring me and making BETT very enjoyable this year!

Bett on thursday

2010-01-14T18:44:00.001Z

I've finally sat down after a crazy day at bett. After the train announcer said there was a motor fault on the train, i was a little worried how the day would go. Luckily marion from @netintelligence offered to look after my bag, helping reduce queueing time. First stop was to go and see @digitalmaverick at the first ever #tmtakeover. While there i met @joga5 aka bill lord and @dughall, although i was also tigged too! My tmtakeover went well, the crowd started with about ten, reduced to 5 or so at one point but finished with about 25, so i'll take that as a success. Thanks to @chrisrat for hosting. Bett is a strange experience, wandering from one stand to another, watching people just walking up to take pens and the like. My freebies today include chocolate from espresso and free tea and coffee from o2 upstairs. It was great to meet the fellow tweeters and also great to be present at the naace stand to see droxford school recieve their ict mark award. The second tmtakeover had just 3 attendants, but that just gave it a more intimate feel. I've had a great day meeting people, catching up with 2simple, espresso etc and sharing ideas with others. Here's to tomorrow where i'm looking forward to @lisibo and @tombarrett and of course teachmeet. brilliant day, well done everyone. Oh, @johnmclear looks just like his avatar, it.s weird!

Posted via email from Ian Addison's Blog

My bett blog, the night before

2010-01-13T22:04:00.001Z

I'm just testing my blog before bett. I'm heading off tomorrow morning, with a busy day planned. There are two teachmeet takeover presentations, midday at the scholastic stand, g40 where i'll be talking about vles and some of the challenges we've had in hampshire. I'll also be showing some examples of learning too. Then later in the afternoon i'll be at the netintelligence stand to show some online tools such as myebook and animoto. Inbetween those there's the chance to meet with john to discuss primary pad. Very busy day ahead, but should be fun. I'm definitely looking forward to meeting people from twitter and seeing the 2simple stand and seeing an expert using 2cass properly! If you're there tomorrow, send me a tweet. But if you're 'it' then stay away! Search for #betttig if you want to know more...

Posted via email from Ian Addison's Blog

Let me map it out for you

2010-01-11T16:09:00.000Z

So what did you do today? This morning I spent time using Google Maps to create a map of all schools in Hampshire that are using our VLE, Wizkid. This is the Hampshire name for Studywiz.

Why do we want a map of our schools? Well, there are a few reasons:

*To see which schools have signed up to the county solution- many of us are visual people!

*So schools can see if the others in their area are using the same VLE and when they started using it

*To help us plan support sessions depending on the amount of schools

We have around 400 schools that have started, finished or are halfway through their VLE training. The last batch of schools are all starting this term, so this is the last map we will be producing. In the past, I created a map at each phase of training. This was fine for the first 100 or so schools, but Google Maps had the odd problem of allowing 200 points on a map. This was an issue and meant our map didn't look very good due to the second page.So something else was needed.

We created 4 maps, splitting the county into areas. They can also be overlaid to produce the picture below.

Now, why am I telling you about our Google Map? If you are outside of Hampshire, surely this is pointless?

Well, no...

For those of you that are thinking I spent hours plotting all 400 points, you are wrong. I used a fab service called MapAList This is a service that allows you to create a map using a Goolge spreadsheet. It is designed for businesses to map their customers, but I thought it could help me too.

I had a list of schools already in Excel, I deleted the information that I didn't need and then uploaded this into Google Docs. MapAList then links with Google Docs and transfers the data into a map. You can give all points the same pin or use the advanced tool, as I have done, and assign different colours. All of the pins with the same colour started their training in the same term. You can then save the .KML file and import it into Google Earth or Google Maps.

So how would I use it within school?

@deputymitchell is teaching a zoo based topic(starting today) and asked for people to suggest zoos for his children to investigate. Putting these onto a Google Doc would enable him to map them across the globe.

What about plotting the countries in the World Cup/African Cup of Nations?

Where do we have relatives? Plot their locations on a map and investigate different parts of the UK.

I saw a school that had a local map on the wall and they had put sticky labels to represent children. This showed how far and wide the children had travelled to attend their school. This could be done very quickly and simply using Google maps and an exported CSV file from the school office.

How would you use this mapping service? It would be great to hear your comments.

If you wish to see the maps, click below:

http://bit.ly/wizkidarea1

http://bit.ly/wizkidarea2

http://bit.ly/wizkidarea3

http://bit.ly/wizkidarea4

My bett blog

2010-01-10T20:37:00.001Z

I will be keeping a blog during the bett show. I've just set it up on my phone thanks to @markw29 i'll be using it to keep track of my thoughts and views of the bett show!

Posted via email from ianaddison's posterous

My First Story with 2CASS

2010-01-09T10:49:00.001Z

I have been lucky enough to have a play with an early version of 2Create a Super Story. One of the schools here in Hampshire will be using it with their children in the next few weeks too - snow permitting!

What does 2CASS do? Er...a bit of everything really. There are a number of different writing templates. Actually writing is wrong. Story/book templates is better. There is a flip book, a scroll and other ways to display your writing learning.

To start, you choose an object and drag it into the main screen. I started with faces and a few other things and then I found the dinosaur. The 10year old boy in me took over and my 'story' became about a dinosaur. Obviously called Rex...I should probably point out I did this late in the evening and it is probably not my best work, yet.

So, I had my main character. But what was he going to do? If I was planning this properly, I would have discussed it with my peers or my class, but I made it up as I went along letting 2CASS dictate the story for me.

There is the option to make your characters/objects move along the screen. Perfect. Rex would go for a walk. In the rain. I dragged the rain object on, coloured it blue and voila, rain fell. To add the rain effect took about 30 seconds. 20 of these deciding which shade of blue to use!

I saw an interesting object that to me looked like a worm, so on my cover, you will see a worm wiggling across the screen. Is it important to the story? No, but who cares!

Finding a house object, I set about designing my house and background. I thought it would be good for Rex to roar as he reached the house. Now, I searched through the sound effects available and realised that the sheep noise wouldn't make Rex very scary so I went with the lion. (My house was far too quiet for me to record myself roaring)

After about an hour of fiddling with helicopters and deleting pages and editing, I found the 'whole page' option. This enabled me to make the whole page shake! It could shake as Rex stomped around. Fantastic!

I had a great hour and a half playing with 2CASS. I laughed a couple of times and smiled almost constantly. It was a real pleasure to explore and set my mind off on a million things. If I showed a class my story without words, they could write the text, why is Rex unhappy? What sort of character is he? Why are people scared of him?Are people scared or is he misunderstood?

What happens in the end? Click on the link and find out yourself!

The only problem I have is that now I have to find time in my schedule to play with 2DIY and 2CASS!

Click here to view Rex's story

School's Closed! (But has the learning stopped?)

2010-01-06T17:20:00.002Z

As you may have noticed today, it snowed. A lot. Here in Hampshire, a lot of schools were closed as they were across the rest of the country.

Now what happens to the children's learning while the school is closed? This could be due to snow, burst water pipe or whatever. What do you do to continue the learning? Now, I must say that if my school was closed for a day due to snow, I would be encouraging pupils to get out there and enjoy it. It doesn't happen much in my part of Hampshire! But what if it is closed for 2 or 3 days? a week? Is there something in place for the children? Even if they do go and play in the snow, they will want to come in the warm eventually and maybe they will venture online...Maybe they live away from their friends and would love to have the chance to chat online. Maybe they are just enthusiastic about their learning? If set as an optional task, then this will definitely win over parents. Be careful that it isn't set as compulsory, especially if not all of your pupils have internet access.

I heard reports of schools using VLEs last year in the Far East when Swine Flu was a problem, but it hasn't really been mentioned much here in the UK until now.

I saw a lot of Twitter posts from the likes of @primarypete_ and @Deputymitchell about their 'snow lessons' that went on today and I know that these inspired other teachers too. I was sitting here wishing I had a class to work with! In Hampshire we are in the middle of our rollout for the VLE, lots of schools are using it a little bit and quite a few have it embedded throughout the school. How many have been using it today? It is hard to tell without looking into the stats and that will come in a few days time. But what did your school do? Did you plan anything?

So what could you do if it was snowing? How about:

*Using descriptive language to describe a snowman example
*How deep is the snow outside?

*Give the children a title and ask them to write a story on PrimaryPad together

*Using a gallery to share pictures of the view from their house and describing what they can see
*Using these descriptive words to write a story setting / start a story
*Embedding videos of the snow and asking the children to discuss a new form of transport to cope with the weather

There are some things that can be done and set up for the children to access without a teacher and some with teachers involved. From what I can gather, most of these examples had teachers online with the children too. But if you don't want to be as involved (or you fancy going outside yourself) then why not set up some activities for them to do?

Studywiz has a great gallery tool. Get the children to upload photos of their garden and use the comment box underneath to describe it. Think about the vocabulary, think about how your sentences make the reader feel.As a teacher you could start this off and let the children access it throughout the day. Some of people on Twitter sent texts to their children informing them when the online lesson would start, but having resources available to all is also an option.

It really shows the potential of the technology. I know a few schools are now planning to add activities for the children as they enter the 2nd or 3rd day of snow.

Very exciting indeed!

For a much better description of what went on, read about it below on their blogs instead:

http://bitsbobsandwaffles.blogspot.com/ @mynictle

http://mrmitchell.heathfieldcps.net/2010/01/06/my-snow-day-online-collaboration-lessonsresources/ @deputymitchell

http://www.twiddla.com/Replay.aspx?sessionID=176083 - @primarypete_

http://primarypete.net/snowlesson

I would watch the Twiddla link on medium/fast, lesson starts around 340, the number is in the top left.

ICT Cluster Meeting Spring 2010 - Ideas to Inspire

2010-01-01T17:53:00.003Z

Next meeting: Thursday January 28th 2010, 4-5pm
Hulbert Junior, Waterlooville, PO7 8ED.

Ideas to Inspire

I will be showing some new technology and websites that will hopefully change the way you work, improve your organisation and improve collaboration. I have a few sites I want to show and all are free. There will also be guides and ideas of how to use them.

The idea is that I want to be innovative and showcase some fantastic web 2.0 technology that you probably haven't seen. There has been an explosion in free online software for classroom use recently and I have been working with a few teachers across the country via Twitter to develop some resources to aid the use of these sites. I want you to leave the session inspired with at least 1 resource or idea to use in the classroom the next day.

We will be showing sites such as:
Delicious
Wallwisher
MyEBook
Interesting Ways to...
Voicethread
PrimaryPad
Google Reader

The cluster is open to anyone from schools in Havant or the surrounding areas. If you can make it there, you're invited. We often have people from Petersfield, Fareham and beyond!

Please email me if you wish to attend.
ian.addison@hants.gov.uk

Looking Ahead to 2010

2009-12-31T13:24:00.005Z

I write this blog with about 11 1/2 hours left of 2009 and we are about to enter the tenties/teens/whatever we'll call it. Predicting the next decade would be impossible, so I'll just talk about some of the targets I have for 2010 instead.

Professionally, it is going to be a massive year for me. First up there is the BETT show in January. When I was at University doing my teaching degree, the Bett show was a jolly on a minibus. We used to go up there, wander around and see who could get the best freebies. I once got a blue fleece with a tiny MS Office logo on the back. Quite nice, but still had a geeky side to it which meant it was reserved for home use! Now Bett has become something different. Last year I went for two days with the view of acquiring software demos/freebies for our VLE, Studywiz. The idea was that we could put some software and titles online and schools could use them and then buy more. We found some great stuff from companies like iboard for our younger children or SUMS for numeracy work, but little else. Most companies didn't see VLEs being a big thing despite the government targets.
This year Bett is completely different again. It is now a 3-day event for me. On the Thursday I am doing a presentation as part of the Teach Meet Takeover and then Friday a short 7minute talk as part of Teachmeet. I haven't been to one of these events before, but it should be good to attend and meet lots of inspiring teachers, most I have only ever tweeted with!
On the Saturday, I am a lot more relaxed as my girlfriend will be joining me, so we can wander round and collect free pens! I should say she is also a teacher, I don't see BETT as somewhere to take a date!

In March, we have the first Primary VLE conference in Hampshire. We are hoping to have 120 people attend and listen to teachers talk about their use of the VLE and this should be a great way to network with colleagues, help with issues and listen to inspiring ways of working with children. We have already planned to use Wallwisher and Twitter to collect ideas throughout the day. As well as paper, pens and post-its of course.

Hopefully the use of the VLE will continue to grow and develop. We will be launching our Beacon Schools project in January, enabling the top schools to get some recognition for their hard work and commitment so far. This excites me a great deal and hopefully the schools will see a great benefit to them too.

My secondment comes to an end in July and I have the difficult decision to make of returning to my old school or finding a new direction. Many people say you should never go back, it isn't the same a second time and maybe they're right. It would be a huge challenge to go back. But maybe things have changed too much and I will find a different challenge elsewhere?
Jobs don't tend to be advertised until February at the very earliest, so I have some time to look and see what's about. I think I am quite happy looking for a 'normal' class teacher role. I can worry about promotion later in my career. I would love to be in the classroom using some of the fantastic tools that are available now and spreading the collabortive message. I guess I will have to see what sort of jobs are available in the Spring term!

On a personal level, this is also a big year as we move into our first house together in 3 weeks! Scary stuff!

Anyways, wherever you are reading this, enjoy your New Year and I look forward to working with many more people over the coming months. Everyone I talk to gives me inspiration and ideas. I hope I can pass some of it on to others!!

ICT Cluster - Assessment

2009-12-29T12:47:00.000Z

Autumn 2009 Assessment Links

Below you will find details of all of the websites used or referenced within the Cluster meeting.

http://hias.hants.gov.uk/ict/
HIAS ICT Moodle - Click Primary and then assessment

http://eduwight.iow.gov.uk/curriculum/core/ict/record_sheets/
Skills linked to QCA schemes of Work.

http://www.ngfl.ac.uk/ictembeddedintothecurricu_files/assessment_18.htm
I Can statements – KS1 and KS2 linked to QCA topics

http://curriculum.qcda.gov.uk/key-stages-1-and-2/assessment/assessmentofsubjects/assessmentinict/index.aspx
Assessment in ICT

http://www.kented.org.uk/ngfl/ict/assessment/
I can statements for KS1 and KS2 for QCA Schemes of work. Includes Year-by-year progression grid.

http://www.halton.gov.uk/schools/ict/pupilselfassess.htm
Pupil Self-assessment Sheets

http://www.itass.newham.gov.uk/curriculum/assessment.aspx
Prompt sheet to help assessment

http://www.hereford-edu.org.uk/ict/introduction.asp
What is ICT capability?

http://www.abbotswood.hants.sch.uk/planning/assessment05.htm
Abbotswood Assessment

My 2009

2009-12-28T16:18:00.003Z

So as we come to the end of the year, I thought, like others, I should look back on what has happened over the past 12 months. Looking back is always scary, because it means you also have to look forward, but it is incredible to see how far we/I have come.

For those that don't know, my day job at the moment involves teaching teachers using Studywiz, the chosen Hampshire VLE. At this stage last year, I had been in post for a term, and we were about to start with the second batch of schools. We had 70ish schools using the VLE across the county and we were slowly finding our feet.
Fast forward to now and we are about to start the final push to bring our total schools to around 420 across the county. We have a VLE conference planned for the end of March and constant comments from teachers about the enthusiasm of their staff and children. This has been a very good year for the VLE! One group on Studywiz has over 600 people in it already. I wonder if we can get this past 1000 before we finish? We have schools using Studywiz to discuss the XFactor results

For me personally, I have learnt a massive amount. Most of this is due to the huge potential of Twitter. I wasn't using it at the start of the year, probably didn't see the point. Now, I can't get enough of it. Whether it is listening to @tombarrett's latest idea, discussing studywiz with @primarypete_, finding out about new ways to use 2DIY from @porchester or listening to @chris1974 tweeting about the xfactor, it has been an enjoyable and very rewarding experience.

With Twitter, it is all about who you follow. Follow the right people and it can bring you a wealth of knowledge. I am constantly being sent new websites or ideas to try. Teachers always say that the best way to share ideas is to talk to other teachers or to visit their classroom. Blogging and Tweeting allows this without having to step outdoors. Very useful indeed. My inset next week will see if I can convince non-ICT people that blogging is useful!

As we sit on the edge of 2010, I am excited about the potential of some new technology that others have been using in class for a while, but because of my secondment, I haven't had chance to use yet. Sites like MyEBook or Animoto keep giving me ideas for sharing ideas with an audience.

I wrote earlier about the problems I had been having organising information for the ICT cluster and I think that I will have this sorted in the next week or so, it's all looking good indeed! I'll write about my professional and personal targets later in the week.

Ian Addison
@ianaddison

Collaboration is the way forward

2009-12-24T16:44:00.005Z

I love the new way that I work. I used to sit, thinking of ideas, occasionally bouncing them off of my partner, as she is a teacher too, or seeing what I thought would be good. Those were the old days. It doesn't work like that any more.

In January I have two sessions showing web 2.0 technology. One is my local ICT cluster that I run and the other is a session at a school that was put together because I was asked to come in and inspire the staff.
Now, web 2.0 covers a lot of areas and the cluster meeting is only around an hour long! This left me with a huge dilemma. What do I cover? Do I briefly show lots of things? Or really delve into Primarypad (was Etherpad) and blogging? But what about Wallwisher? Twitter? Go Animate?
I knew what to do, I asked my PLN (Personal Learning Network) for some help. I created a Primary pad (http://mraddison.primarypad.com/2) and started coming up with ideas. I then sent a link out on Twitter and within seconds, I had the help of 3 other teachers who were keen to share their ideas.

Unfortunately, they had so many ideas that instead of trimming mine down to a manageable hour, I have been inundated with other things to try! MyEBook is a particular favourite that was suggested. I think Delicious will have the biggest impact long term on the way that they share and work as a school, but for a quick win that they can use the next day in class, I think Wordle or Primary pad will be a good start. Showing Blogging/Google Reader will help them to develop until I see them again in later sessions.

I know that the sessions will be fantastic and should really capture the attention and imagination of the teachers there and for that I have to thank Twitter and my PLN.

Thanks to @icklekid, @colport, and @primarypete_ for their help and ideas!
Oh and @johnmclear for his work on Primary Pad

My Information Dilemma

2009-12-21T15:37:00.007Z

I've been having a tough time figuring out what to do. I want to share ideas with people and try and give them one place to look for them. I have my Twitter feed. This is generally followed by strangers or friends found through Twitter. I also have this blog which was set up because everyone seemed to be blogging and I wasn't. I thought it would be good to see what it was all about. Then I have my website. This is a Joomla-based website for my ICT Cluster. As well as the day job, I run an ICT cluster for around 50 schools. Some meetings we get 15 people, some we get 50. I wanted them to have somewhere to go to find out information, but none of them use Twitter.
So what's the solution?
Maybe I should cut-down the website completely and just have cluster and ICT Mark information? The rest of the site is less important and was put on there to help fill it up a bit.
Maybe I should point them all to this blog? For now I have put the links on the blog page so that they can use my Twitter feed or delicious links if they wish. But it still lacks a space to give ICT mark information or useful dates.
Maybe I should have the invite/agenda of cluster meetings as a blog post, they can then use the labels/tags to find cluster agendas?

Any suggestions?

Ps: Jack Bauer interrogating Santa. Very funny, but a couple of rude words http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6yUCbqAGrg

2009-10-03T13:56:00.000+01:00

So here I am. Finally in the world of blogging. I've always hated writing or maybe it was just because I wasn't any good at it. At school it wa my weakest subject and when I started teaching, I hated literacy. Working hard on it with my year 3s helped, but I'm still just a beginner. So who knows, maybe I'll enjoy blogging, maybe I wont.
Anyway, what do I do? I'm a primary teacher currently on secondment working with the local authority, Hampshire, on the rollout of their learning platform Studywiz. It has its ups and its downs but the potential for collaboration across Hampshire is huge. As we stand at the moment in October 09, we have trained just under 200 schools and will have 420 onboard by January. It is a mammoth task and one that has been exciting, but full of struggles and learning opportunities.
Throughout the secondment my mind has always been torn about what to do next. Do I go back to my old school, Hulbert? Do i look somewhere new? Do I try and combine Studywiz and teaching? I think the half and half approach was where my mind has been at for most of the past year, but joining Twitter has given me an enthusiasm for trying new things with children.
I follow a few teachers on Twitter and constantly, every day, I see new sites, new links, new ideas that I wish I was using with a class of my own. Seeing the virtual timeline gave me ideas about creating a class timeline or maybe one for the whole school? Looking at blogs about the use of the Wii for maths or deep sea diving has made me want to go and see what other opportunities there are for learning.
A visit to Hulbert last week gave me a buzz. They are using Community outreach money to equip an empty classroom with 6 Wiis! I mentioned I had heard of ways of using it and now I've been invited to lead the training.
What about Wii golf or baseball to find out how far the ball has gone? Manipulating the numbers to provide the different sums needed. What about using Mario Kart to explore different worlds and settings? The fire of Bowser's Castle, the dark, broody scenes of the highway, all rich for vocabulary collection.
So now I'm thinking I want to go back and teach full time. The opportunities are huge. I want to use the learning platform to share a radio show. I want to create animations and games using tools like Scratch. I want children to comment and share ideas using Edmodo or Studywiz. I want to share vocabulary using Wordle. Am I being greedy? Maybe. But I have always tried new things with my class, but maybe this time I need to think more about the whole-school. How will Google calendars help with whole school organisation? How will the website help with invigorating home-school links? I have ideas bouncing all over the place and this is even if ignore 90% of the links on Twitter.
I've signed up for a delicious account. What about sharing websites with the whole staff? We have a school account and tag the bookmarks to share with everyone. I need to play with it more but it could work. Are the staff too old-school for it to work? Who knows. Will the head want me to go in and change anything? Will there be another job available that tempts me instead? Who knows! But the opportunities are there.
Anyway...thats the first blog post. Not sure what will become of this, it will probably just be a list of the useful things I find on Twitter, tagged and ready for use next year when/if I go into class again. Tomorrow I'm off for the first join meeting with the Primary and Secondary Leading ICT teachers. Could be interesting, and I know at least one uses Delicious so I'm sure he'll be my first friend on there!