Next Meeting – Camerton

Following a period of protracted discussion and negotiation Rob Sandel has kindly agreed to host the next meeting of the ICT and Cakes meeting. This group aims to provide a “self help” forum for folk to meet and discuss absolutely anything to do with ICT – assessment, pedagogy, hardware, learning platforms, in fact whatever people at the meeting bring up.

If you want to talk about anything specific either post a comment here or email me at:

richard.hearn@moorlands-jun.bathnes.sch.uk

I will, this time, be providing the chocolate brownies and Rob will be providing the coffee and tea.

And the bit you want to know?

Thursday 22nd May 2008, Camerton Primary, 4pm until 5pm

Camerton Primary, Camerton, BA2 0PS

Note the date has changed from Wednesday to Thursday – apologies if this has caused any inconvenience.

See you at Camerton,

Richard Hearn

Meeting at Wellow

A thoroughly enjoyable meeting was held at St Julian’s Primary, Wellow – although we were reasonably few in number a great deal was covered.

Spencer provided us with an update on Merlin. The general feeling seemed to be there was great potential but

• It has to work
• Users have to have support and training
• It should not be implemented / imposed too quickly

Richard talked very briefly through the implementation of a project to equip all 60 year 5 pupils at Moorlands Junior School with PDAs. Whilst this has been tremendously exciting and beneficial there is more to this than can be summarised here so get in touch to find out more – richard.hearn@moorlands-jun.bathnes.sch.uk

Rob demonstrated the uses he has found for the Camerton blog.

www.camerton.wordpress.com

Posting children’s work on the blog has given them a real sense of authorship. Positive comments received from pupils, parents and further afield have given the children real boosts in confidence. Talk to Rob for help on the set up:

rob.sandel@camerton.bathnes.sch.uk

A general discussion was held on the assessment of ICT, especially if the QCA units were not being used. An possible spreadsheet found on the Wokingham LA website was discussed.  Have a look at

http://www.wokingham.gov.uk/index.asp?pgid=46688

(bottom of the page) if you are interested in trying it out.

Rob Sandel has kindly offered to host our next meeting (and I promise I’ll make cakes this time) at Camerton sometime in term 5. Details to be posted here as soon as we know them.

In the meantime, let us know three things:

1. Will you be coming to the next meeting?
2. Can you share a ‘good news’ story?
3. Is there a question / problem you would like to ask / discuss?

Next ICTexchange Meeting

The next meeting of the ICTexchange group will be on the 17th March at St Julian’s Primary, Wellow at 4pm. Although aimed primarily at people with a greater interest in ICT than is healthy – ICT subject leaders / technicians / LA consultants, anyone interested in teaching and learning involving ICT is welcome.

So far on the agenda we have:

Handheld / mobile learning using PDAs / laptops etc.  (Richard Hearn, Moorlands)

Merlin update (Spencer Cartwright, B&NES)

Video conferencing using SWGfL (Denis, ICT Technical support)

Blogging as a way of publishing children’s work (Rob Sandel)

Assessing ICT (Please bring your ideas)

Next Meeting for ICTexchange

Many thanks to St Julian’s Primary at Wellow for offering to host the next meeting on Monday 17th March.

We will aim to start at 4.00pm and finish at 5.00pm.

The idea is that we share things which work in our schools or ask a question about something we are struggling with. Please let me know what you might be able to share with the meeting. I’ll publicise in advance what will be coming up and it might well be that a theme starts to emerge, in which case we’ll try to look in more detail around that theme.

richard.hearn@moorlands-jun.bathnes.sch.uk

hearn.richard@gmail.com

Securing Data

Does anyone know of any easy to use software useful for encrypting data on USB drives which staff might happen to take off site?

ICT Exchange Blog created

This may be a way of sharing some of the information discussed today at our meeting at St Stephens Primary.

As I recall, the main topics of discussion were:

Whether to site ex-computer suite machines in clusters for group work or one in each classroom. How would they be used most effectively.

Use of think.com for email, social networking and collaborative projects. Do we wait for Merlin and when might it appear. Spencer’s advice was that Merlin (the SWGfL single sign on access to resources / shared work areas / etc) would appear in September and that schools should hold fire until that is around after which we can see what else, if anything might be required to fulfill the ‘learning platform’ requirements for 2008. Suggested that playing with think.com allows for teaching of aspects such as e-safety and cyber bullying, copyright and plagiarism in a safe environment and as it is free, have a go if you want to.

How blogs are used. We touched on wikis and blogs and there seemed to be a feeling they could inspire children but needed regular use to be effective. Perhaps this needs expansion at the next meeting.

Scratch was briefly shown and discussed as a vehicle for teaching control.

Other points raised:

• Focus was KS2 and it would be nice to include KS1 relevant material.
• Agreement that varying location and day would be a good idea.
• Would a more structured approach help get more benefit from the meeting?
• We suggested that people coming along should bring if possible an example of something they have had success with at their school OR a question they would like discussed. Also suggested that we had a theme for a meeting. It may be that the themes become self selecting as people suggest what they want to discuss.

Richard Hearn (Moorlands Junior)