| Digital - teacher | Education in a technological world

Learn 4 Life

Discovered this site - Learn 4 Life -  tonight that seems to be fairly new on the scene (its archives go back to Dec 2006). I don't need to describe it, their about page does it for me;

Learn 4 Life is increasingly becoming the one place for news about innovation in education in the UK and the world.

We have just completed extensive video interviews of key innovators and products at the 2007 BETT show. No-where else is there a service like this for the ICT teaching and advisory community.

We have a total of over 16 audio podcasts with key innovative individuals in ICT community in the UK and worldwide. Our recently launched vlogs of people and products that make the difference in ICT education has proved phenomenally popular with CLC’s, LA’s, Advisors, Teachers and schools.

Learn 4 Life is the one place where people come for quick updates for information, pedagogy and practice in the world of ICT.

In addition, they have lots of RSS feeds from ICT education related sites (Becta / Futurelab / NAACE to name but three).

One to keep an eye on...

Your [virtual] room is booked

Just read that the NSPCC will be setting up a 'centre' in the virtual world of Habbo Hotel in an attempt to reach out to children who may otherwise not contact them when they are in need of help.

"It hopes that its three-month stay in Habbo Hotel - a virtual community for children - will allow it to reach out to a new audience.

The charity will host events and activities on the website aimed at getting young people involved in its various campaigns."

In addition to the events, there will also be a host of celebrities visiting the 'hotel' too.

It could be you

...Places at popular secondary schools will be allocated by lottery for the first time in England after a vote by Brighton and Hove City Council...

...Now the city will be divided into six catchment areas and pupils will be expected to go to a school in their area. Where there are two schools in one catchment area, admissions will be decided by lottery, not proximity...

Read more about this here.

Army of lean, mean, meddlers

Taken from the Times Online Education section;

...Time was when fat kids only had to fear the school bully. Now they and their parents risk being bullied by a gang of authorities and experts. Complaining that “People pick on us ’cos of my weight”, Connor says he is “sick of the nutters always shouting at us”. To those picking on his family he can now add two specialist obesity nurses, a consultant paediatrician, two social workers and a police officer, who will all be at the conference...

From columnist Mick Hume

 

Ready to Switch?

Becta, the government's lead partner in the strategic development and delivery of its e-strategy, has information on it's website related to the switch from analogue to digital television broadcasting that begins next year.
They have detailed information about how your educational institution should go about preparing for this switch.

Submissions are on their way

Yeah!! There have been several comments submitted to Bectan Sands, and a piece of writing has been sent in to today. It might only be a few flakes at the moment, but I'm hopeful that it will turn into an avalanche of work soon.

What I like most of all, is that the comments being sent in are really positive towards the original writer. It seems like not only is this an online literacy task (with a bit of geography thrown in) but also PSHE. It's getting more cross curricular all the time...

Ten books you can't live without

It's World Book Day on Thursday 1st March, and as usual there are £1 (or €1.50) tokens for school children to spend on the books.
As it is the 10th birthday (yes, can it really be 10 years since they started this?) there are 10 books, not 6 to choose from this time around.

In addition, by visiting the website you can click through to 10 books you can't live without, and vote for your all time top 10 list of books you must have.

The Big One

Not long now until the latest Red Nose Day - "The Big One". The schools section of their website contains a whole host of resources, from assemblies, lessons, fundraising ideas, and lots of competitions and challenges.

For pupils, why not "Bling my nose", and over on TeachersTV there are 36hour challenges to get involved in.

What if...

...we had no computers suddenly. How would we cope? What would we do?
Quote;

"Be a part of one of the biggest global experiments ever to take place on the internet. The idea behind the experiment is to find out how many people can go without a computer for one whole day, and what will happen if we all participate!
Shutdown your computer on this day and find out! Can you survive for 24 hours without your computer?"

Find out more about it here, and why not give it a go.

Web in your pocket

Interesting technology report on the BBC website regarding mobile phones and 'Web2.0' developments.

How long before a pupil sits in class with their mobile, you tell them to put it away and they answer with "But I'm doing my work Sir. I'm on the interweb"...

New Tricks

I have been using Typepad to host a blog since 2003 - when I undertook my role as the 'Digital Teacher in Residence' for the trAce online writing centre and their Writers for the Future project.

When that role ended, I started a new blog - I called it Racing Right By Me - where I continued to post both educational and non - educational thoughts.

It has become confusing recently as to which blog to post to, but thanks to those whizzes over at Typepad the solution could not have been simpler; a straightforward export of posts from one blog into a txt file, and then an import of that into Digital-Teacher.co.uk and all my posts are now together.

Simplicity itself, and now everything is contained in one handy sized website.

Things to do when you're bored

What can you do if you are bored and at a loose end? Try visiting 'Things to do when you're bored' for a list of pointless things you can do with absolutely nothing, things you can do with very little and things you can do with another person.

The list is pointless, yet intriguing. For instance, don't you just want to try this out now;

"Try to not think about penguins
(Amusement Potential: 1-5 minutes)
This is especially hard, because by trying too much, you remember what you were trying to avoid thinking of. If you try too little, you end up thinking about penguins anyway."