education

My 1st day back – Disaster! Software not working!

It was my 1st day back at school today (yes, I know most people went back last week) and  have been looking forward to delivering my new Kodu scheme of work.

Over the holidays, as I am sure some of you have read, I spent 2 weeks creating resources for it.

I had 4 classes today that I intended to deliver the 1st lesson to. Period 1 and the 1st class came in. I explained the project, the learning objectives and the purpose of using Kodu for programming. Now it was time to the next step:

“OK folks, now its time to open Kodu and have a proper look.”

It didn’t work! The software refused to start! Not a great first day back. Four lessons planned and I could not deliver any of them as I had hoped.

What can you do when this happens? Panic? Cry? Get angry?

You have got to be composed and think on your feet.

Luckily I have a number of resources and websites available in just such an occasion. I would advise every teacher to make sure they have the same. Most teachers, I can imagine, do already. One website that is really useful for KS3 is www.reviseict.co.uk, there are some great revision games on there for students.

By period 5, the 4th lesson I was supposed to deliver Kodu, it was up and running. The technicians were great and dropped everything to ensure the software was working correctly. I was a very happy man.

I have to say, I really enjoyed teaching Kodu. It is great fun and really engaging. The students loved it too! The feedback was great, plus many of the students stayed in at lunch to work on their programs.

After an initial disaster I finished work a happy man.

Edmodo – Do you need to pay for a VLE? (presentation included)

I am sure that there are very few people who have not heard of Edmodo by now. However, for those who haven’t, or who are not sure what it is; I thought I would include a very brief overview.

Over the last few years I have used several expensive learning platforms and VLE’s. In my experience they have been overly complicated, time consuming and often did not do what the school wanted. Without going into too much detail, I know two schools who have both purchased a very expensive learning platform and instantly regretted it. Luckily they managed to get their money back. I can imagine these were the lucky ones.

I started using Edmodo a while ago and I have not looked back. Its fantastic, does pretty much everything I want, its easy to use and best of all its free.

Some will say its simply a stripped down VLE, I would say it is just streamlined.

Perhaps it is not as advanced as many paid for products, but how many schools actually utilize all the features found in these?

Please have a look at  presentation below. (Click here for the formatted presentation on SkyDrive) It should should give you a brief overview of what Edmodo can do. Hope you find it useful and perhaps it may save your school some money.

Blux Movie – Great new iPad/iPhone HD Video App (Video Clip Included)

Blux Movie

I have just stumbled across a great new video App that really takes advantage of the camera on the new iPad/4s. Its called Blux Movie and allows you to capture HD video and add effects to it in real time.

The effects are pretty sweet and I can imagine there will be more coming.

Once you have captured your movie you can save it to your camera roll. This is awesome as you can go ahead and edit it in iMovie. I can imagine you can create something that looks fairly profession.

As well as saving to the camera roll you can upload to YouTube or Facebook. You can also transfer your video over WiFi.

It is free for a short period of time. If I was you I would download it now!

Have a look at the very quick video I captured using it.

(Updated) Online / technology safety for parents (Presentation/Video included)

Smartphones

UPDATED – New presentation included

Last academic year we had several requests from parents for some information about online and technology safety.

Many parents felt like they were out of touch with technology and what it can do, as well as what was available on the internet.

In order to remedy this, myself and another member of staff set up a parent association evening. I have included some of what we have covered. Several of the slides have been removed as they link directly to files on the school server and would be inaccessibile.

Enjoy.