The reflective blog of Robert Jones, teacher and educational leader.
Google Project for High School Students
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A quick heads up that Google have launched The Google Highly Open Participation Contest - a global contest for high school students. I'll definitely be passing this on to our Computing department.
At my visit to Musselburgh Grammar this morning, I spoke to some of the maths department about using Activote. They were enthusiastic about the potential of the technology, but said something like "it looks easy as you stand there and explain it, but we'll forget everything you've said by the time we next come to use it". So.... to provide a bit of backup, here's a step by step guide to using Activote with your class. The following assumes that the voting pads have been registered with your PC. If not, chase up IT! Setting up the User Database You'll want your pupil names to be stored in the system, so that their names appear at the top of the screen when you run a vote. Here's how.... In East Lothian, we have a problem - we don't have write-access to the place on the C drive where the user database is stored! To get around this, we need to copy the default user database to somewhere that is writeable, then tell ACTIVStudio that we've done so: I
I was most surprised today to discover that the top search phrase leading people to this blog over the last few weeks has been "the catburgers." This is the name of the indie band I was in back in the late '80s (I sang and played guitar). I can't imagine who might be looking for my old band, unless it is some kids in North Berwick who heard about the band through my son. Whoever it might be, I'll take advantage of this opportunity to post up some mp3s from the good old days, both recorded in 1987. I just realised that's 20 years ago! Time for a reunion tour of the states... anyway here are "Children's TV" and "First Day of Spring" for your entertainment: [audio:childrens-tv.mp3] [audio:first-day-of-spring.mp3] After all, you have to keep your visitors happy don't you?
There have been several headlines over the last few days along the lines of "£50 million wasted on iwbs", based on this study from the DFES. So what does it really say? Unsurprisingly, it does not say that iwbs are a waste of money: Overall, the statistical analysis failed to find evidence of any impact of the increase in IWB acquisition in London schools on attainment in the three core subjects in the academic year 2004/5. However, given the variation in use documented in the case studies, this is in line with what we would predict at this stage in the policy cycle. The study is worth reading in its entirety, but if you want my spin on it, I picked up on a couple of key points: A theme running through the report is that this technology itself will not change what happens in classrooms. ....the introduction of an IWB does not in and of itself transform existing pedagogies. The capacity of IWBs to support, extend or transform existing pedagogies depends upon the teacher's
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