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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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