Archive for ◊ 2010 ◊

Looking ahead to 2011

Friday, December 31st, 2010 | Author: Ian Addison

Here goes, it’s that time when you look forward to all things new and we set ourselves some targets…so here are mine.

I guess I should start with school. So where do I see my school in a year’s time? We’ve made huge changes in the past term buying two netbook trolleys, redoing the whole network and beginning our curriculum change so what could be next?

Curriculum

I need to change the ICT curriculum. I also need to ensure that e-safety is fully embedded thoughout the school. This will be a mixture of existing plans from other schools, new plans that I have written and some plans taken from Rising Stars’ new Switched on ICT scheme of work. I’ve been lucky enough to see a bit of this and it looks very exciting. Some of this will slot in very nicely at my school.

Google Apps vs Live@edu

I wrote in the Summer about my Google/Live domain dilemma. Do I go with Google that looks all nice and configurable or do I go with the county decision and use Live@edu? After all I helped choose Live@edu, for reasons I discussed earlier. I had sort of decided to stick with the LA, I’d be a pilot school and would be able to change things if I needed. However a few months after it was due to be launched we’re still sitting and waiting. We might know more at the end of January, but you never know, it could be delayed again. I’m thinking that I need to have one or the other installed by March so I have a month or so to play and test with a small group before slowly dripping it out to staff over the Summer term and launch properly for September. So let’s hope that within 3 months I can update you on our position. At the end of the day, I’m going to use whichever matches the need of our school, our staff and our children.

Children

I wrote a few weeks ago about my plan for the Digital Leaders, this is one of my favourite plans of the year. I can’t wait to see what this small group of children will achieve. Let’s hope they tell you all about it soon.

Software

I don’t think we’ll be getting any new software over the next year, it’ll be more about using what we already have and making the most of it. This will of course include lots of different web2 tech as well. I have already been given the go-ahead to start investigating using 13+ sites with our primary children. This will obviously be dealt with very carefully to ensure that our children are sfae and not subjected to any possibly dodgy libraries e.g. flickr or vimeo, but can use tools such as Voki and goanimate. I also want to fully extend our se of tools such as Purple Mash, BrainPop and J2E.

Hardware

Probably no new hardware this year either. 2011 is about using out 68 netbooks to their full potential. We might get a few more cameras or visualisers, but it’ll be smal rather than big purchases I think this year.

Other ICT Bits

I’ve spent some time recently looking at a number of frameworks. Now this isn’t to get the badge as such but I have found the 360safe and ICT Mark frameworks very useful in finding ways to improve ou ICT use. We have also been given the Data for Improvement guidance to ensure we are getting the most from our MIS system. These have helped to fine tune the ICT action plan for the school and I hope by the Summer we are in a position to have covered most of these frameworks and to have a clear plan of how to move forward.

I also want to introduce ICT assessment across the school and ensure children are aware of how they can improve their use of ICT and be able to self- and peer-assess.

Communication

In one term we have had 43,000 visits to our blogs (well 43,000 page views). This is massive but really only a few teachers write blog posts at the moment. I would say only 2 are completely independant. We have 11 classes plus a few other areas too so the only way is up. A low estimate would be to get to 150,000 by the end of Summer. With the children’s help, we will ensure that the teachers are confident blogging and sharing with their class and with their parents and this will hopefully lead to further links with other schools. I also want to get a class or two using Twitter. One class has just been given a few netbooks to have in their room permanently, so maybe I can convince her that writing for an audience will be a great little idea.

Conferences and Sharing

Obviously Bett stuff is quite high on the list. I am doing a presentation for 2simple, hopefully another for Scholastic and then spending some time with Brainpop. I will also be presenting at a Teachmeet Takeover and helping to organise, and presenting at, Teachmeet Bett. All in 3 days.

After Bett there are a number of other challenges and opportunities. I am running staff traning for 4 other schools within January alone, I am attending and presenting at an SSAT event at the end of January and have been invited to present at the Northern Grid Conference in the Summer. I am also running a couple of courses on the use of social media (Hampshire people, check here).

Of course the big one for me personally is Teachmeet. I want to have another Teachmeet before Easter and hope to have details of this within the next couple of weeks. They’re always so much fun and I hope lots of people can get involved.

Personal

After the house move and engagement last year, there are hopefully no big personal events this year. The most I will be attempting is to lose weight and get into some kind of shape for the wedding in 2012. The Weight Loss Challengey Thing (wlct) already has over 30 people taking part. Which means we should be able to support each other as we move towards our targets. I’ll also be attempting a run or two this year and will be in the Great South Run again in October.

So what are your targets or resolutions? These are just the ones that spring to mind, I’m sure there are other things I will be doing that I’ve missed out!

Looking back…(and forward a bit)

Thursday, December 30th, 2010 | Author: Ian Addison

I wrote last year about my predictions and plans for 2010 and looking back, it seemed like I only planned for the first few months of the year! I talked about Bett, which is always a highlight, our Hampshire VLE conference and the need to look for another job. All that happened of course but so much more besides! So what was I busy doing this year?

Bett/Teachmeets

Yes, I attended Bett and yes I attended Teachmeet. I went first and presented on the use of Voki, and thoroughly enjoyed myself. Since that first Teachmeet in January 2010, I have now organised Teachmeet Hants along with Gideon Wiliams as well as supporting others including Bev Evans and Tim Hand as they organise their own Teachmeets. I have presented via video at many more throughout the year. As we come to the end of 2010, I am in the midst of organising the big one, Bett 2011. Quite a huge jump within a year! Looking ahead, the next Teachmeet Hampshire will happen soon. Hopefully before Easter but I need to speak to some people and find some venues. Yep, venues. Hampshire is massive so hopefully we will have one in the north and one in the south to keep people happy.

Other Conferences

This time last year I didn’t even know what a Google Teacher was and now I am one. It was a great achievement and I was honoured to attend. Thanks again to Tom Barrett. Also this year I attended the Microsoft Innovative Educators Forum and was very happy to see @ideas_factory and @deputymitchell honoured for their amazing work.

VLE/School

I finished my contract with the local authority and am now back in school. It was a great two year post and I enjoyed it. I hope the work I did, along with my fellow consultants, will have a big impact on the schools and children within Hampshire. But things move on and I’ve been in my school a term now and it’s crazy to think of what we’ve achieved already with 40,000+ blog views and 13,000 to our school website just since September. This is fantastic and I am truly amazed. I have big plans for next year in school and I will blog about those tomorrow.

Sharing

I have also been involved in the Vital Primary ICT Forum for the past few months along with @colport. This is a great area for sharing practice with other professionals and trying to help in the crazy world of ICT. I have also been helping when possible with UKedchat and this has become a huge event each week for teachers to share ideas and discuss key topics within school.

Personal stuff (aka the important bits)

We moved house in January and we’re all settled, a friend commented that it looks like we’ve been here forever as it looks perfect. Which is a good thing. Other than that, we got engaged in the Summer so now have a 2012 wedding to prepare for!

Category: General Thoughts | Tags: Bett Show, gtauk, review, ukedchat, vital | 2 Comments

Sharing ideas from Teachmeet

Thursday, December 30th, 2010 | Author: Ian Addison

Just a short post after my previous efforts in the past few days. As you must all know, I am a massive fan of Teachmeets and they are a great way of sharing ideas. One problem though is that you get a lot of information thrown at you very quickly. Another is that they happen all over the place and it’s always difficult to attend them all because of geography and working hours. Yes, you can watch some online or back later but still, collecting all of the ideas can be very tricky.

So how can this be made easier? One thing that Bett Teachmeet has is an email address that allows attendees to email their ideas back to the organisers. This could be things they’ve picked up on or ways they’ve used a certain tool in the classroom after seeing it at a Teachmeet. While discussing Teachmeet at Bett with @tomhenzley and discussing this feedback system, we came up with the idea of a blog. What if people could write a blog post saying what they had learnt at Teachmeet and how they had taken the ideas back to class? After all, this is the whole point of Teachmeet isn’t it?

Posterous seems like a perfect solution. So @tomhenzley has been busy setting it up. The idea being we will launch this at Bett, but if other Teachmeets want to use it too, that’s fine. After you attend a Teachmeet, you email your feedback, tagging it with key words e.g. primary or tmbett2011 and then it will appear on the blog (after we verify it) and people can read it and search for it online. Will it work? Who knows. Might do. The verification is to stop spam rather than to edit comments of course.

So, your challenge this year is to attend Bett and then share what you’ve learnt with others. How did you take that idea, that thought and use it with your children? Details of the blog will be posted nearer the time. You can’t evaluate something you haven’t been to

@tomhenzley’s blog is here

Category: Conferences / BETT | Tags: Teachmeet, tmbett2011 | 4 Comments

Going Underground at Bett #bett2011

Wednesday, December 29th, 2010 | Author: Ian Addison

This is the third of three pre-Bett posts I have planned. The first is about Teachmeet at Bett and the second is a beginner’s guide to Bett. This post is about the underground side to Bett. The bits they don’t want you to know about. The exciting bits.

Bett is mental. It involves hundreds of stands and countless people trying to entice you to look at their whiteboard/VLE/network lead/software and they thrust leaflets in your hands and it can all be a bit bewildering. Read my beginner’s guide for some tips. I’m assuming now though that you’ve found your way around and you need a bit more to whet your appetite.

Here is where it gets interesting. These events/meetups/whatevers have all been arranged by teachers for teachers. These are to keep you sane, entertain you and inspire you.

The first is an event I have never managed to attend due to it being on the Wednesday evening. It is called TedxOrenda. You can find out more about this event here. the Tedx website describes it as follows:

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized. (Subject to certain rules and regulations.)

On the Thursday evening, there is a brand new event called Collabor84Change and to sign up, you can visit this page. Their website says:

Collabor8 4 Change is an innovative ‘unconference’ event with a clear focus on leadership of ICT, use of hardware and software, with an emphasis on the impact on pupil outcomes, making effective use of existing ICT resources – as well as demonstrating innovative products that benefit school improvement through ICT. It will involve pupils/students as well as practitioners.

Basically, there are 15 tables and throughout the event you will sit on 5 of these. On each table there will be a focus and people can discuss that focus and share ideas. It sounds quite exciting and it’ll be a great way to get to know people and collect a bank of ideas to take back to the classroom. This event is aimed more at the management team within school as these are the people that need to be inspired and can make the changes needed within school.

Of course on the Friday evening there is the big one. Teachmeet. I wrote about this here, so I won’t repeat myself but it is filling up nicely and we have a great range of presentations due. Have a look here for more.

Throughout the 4 days there is a repeat of the exciting event from last year, Teachmeet Takeover. This is fantastic. The great thing about Takeover is that you can listen to real teachers talk about real classroom ideas instead of someone showing how their particular software/whiteboard/VLE will affect you. I loved going to these last year and listening to teachers such as @bevevans22, @digitalmaverick and @tombarrett discuss how they’d used stuff in their classroom. The timetable for Takeover can be found here.

Now for the silly bits…

Although Bett lasts for 4 days, I’ve always found that Friday is the busiest. I guess this is because more teachers can get Friday out of school than any other day. Last year there were a few people who either stayed over Thursday evening or came down early Friday so I thought it would be a good idea to meet for a cup of coffee beforehand so we all knew someone before we entered Bett. This worked well and @xannov, @mister_jim, @tomsale and I had a quick meet up before Bett. This year, I was asked if I was organising it again. I am. Here is the sign-up page. I don’t know where we’re meeting yet and it’s not a formal thing, but for people new to Bett, it will be a great way to meet someone you’ve probably tweeted with throughout the year. Oh, and you can get a caffeine kick before a day of wandering round!

And finally…Bett tig. Another silly excuse to get people chatting and meeting, @dughall organised this last year and the idea is, if you meet a fellow Twitter user, you tig them (or tag them if you’re a southerner like me) and they become ‘it’. You then continue until the day is over and then they have to buy drinks for previous tiggers at the evening event. Last year I got tigged quite quickly and I don’t remember getting any drinks bought for me, but who cares. It was a bit of fun. The full rules are here. Yep, @dughall wrote rules.

So those are some of the other things happening at Bett. I’m at all of those except TedxOrenda so please do come and say hello if you get a chance

I’ve written about previous Bett Shows a few times and these posts can be found here

Category: Conferences / BETT | Tags: Bett Show, Teachmeet | 2 Comments

Bett for beginners

Wednesday, December 29th, 2010 | Author: Ian Addison

This is the second of three posts about Bett 2011. The first was about Teachmeet and the third is about the other underground events that you can find.

This post is a beginner’s guide to Bett. I’m sure there are others out there, but here are mine. Before I start, I have been to Bett as a trainee teacher twice, as a VLE consultant twice and this will be my first year there as a teacher. I never attended while in my previous teaching post due to a lack of money and a lack of awareness of Teachmeet events and the like. This time, we are still in the ‘no money’ situation, but I am keen to attend to meet up with my fellow Twitter educators and to get involved in as many events to share ideas as I can. So here goes…

Before the show:

Book a ticket. It helps to have one as your line will move quicker. The Bett website is here so go on, go and sign up.
Plan your day/s. Why are you there? What do you want to see? Who do you need to go and speak to? Especially in these ‘financially uncertain times’, what will you be taking back to school? They’ve spent £xx covering your class, so you need to go back with something to show for it. Make sure your day is well planed and you’ll be fine.
Also plan in rest stops. But why not plan these to coincide with a Teachmeet Takeover? Last year I sat and had lunch while watching @tombarrett share Maths Maps. Two birds. One Stone.
Do some research! There are some great show-only deals available, but there’s no point negotiating if you don’t know the normal price. Think of it like DFS. There might be a great sale price available, but is it always that price? Have they only knocked £5 off for Bett? Knowing your stuff before you go will help. When you’re at Bett your mind will be in a bit of a daze from the sights/sounds so trial some software, look at some prices etc.
Ask your staff what they would like to find out. Does the literacy coordinator need to look at e-books? Does the SEN coordinator need some software to help writing? Ask the staff and that may help your plan.
Look at the seminar list. Yes, you may need to pay for some of these, but some will be great. My personal highlight would be listening to @deputymitchell talk about the fantastic use of blogging in the primary school. I have openly said I am trying to emulate his success, so go and listen while he shares some ideas.
Make business cards. Now this is where opinion will get divided. Some will mock me for suggesting such an old-fashioned approach, some will say ‘I’m not important enough for a card’. I say neither am I. My cards have my name, position, school, blog and twitter name on. That’s it. If you meet someone and want to follow them/swap ideas, why not just pass them a card? The cards are also useful should you want to enter a competition as some stands have jars for you to put your name/card in to enter their prize draw. I’d also take a small stapler as suggested by Terry Freedman so you can staple your card to a prize entry from. You could also make your cards a little different, why not add your Twitter avatar, especially if it isn’t a photo and why not add a QR code that links to your blog? Google will help you to find a QR code generator here.
Get a spare battery/charger. Your phone will run out. You’ll be trying to tweet all day so it will probably run out. Last year’s lasting memory was @lisibo asking anyone and everyone if they had a plug so she could charge her iphone (and being told to move for being a fire hazard). Buy a spare battery (and charge it). You’ll need it come 3/4pm. Especially if you attend an evening event! Update – Chris Ratcliffe (@chrisrat) says you can charge your Android or iPhone at the Scholastic stand. This is perfect as they are hosting lots of Teachmeet Takeovers too.

On the day:

Buy some water and a snack. The food and drink inside Olympia is quite pricey so grab yourself some water beforehand. – There will be FREE water on the Espresso stand (as well as yummy chocolate)
Display your name/twitter name so people can see who you are. I can’t remember how many times I’ve met someone whose name and twitter name don’t match and I’ve spent ages trying to marry the two together. There are loads of people, so grab a marker pen and write your Twitter name on your badge. (Or copy @dughall with this snazzy jumper)
If you need a friend, come and visit us. Quite often people attend Bett on their own. This could be because of cost so why not pair up with someone else when you get there? To find people head to a Teachmeet takeover or head to Brainpop’s stand. There are lots of Twitter users there, not to mention the always friendly @eylanezekiel. You can then say hello to people and feel less alone. I’m on the Brainpop stand on Friday afternoon, come and say hi!
Get your bearings. Bett is big and can be scary. There are lights, colours, sounds everywhere. Spend a while getting used to it. Walk from one room to another, find the stairs, the toilets. Look for a key stand e.g. Microsoft, Scholastic, 2Simple that will help you get your bearings as you walk around. Then you can start to follow your plan.
It’s like a theme park, at lunchtimes the cafes are busy. Don’t go there at lunchtime. Silly but it’s true. It’s also expensive so, as above, take a snack/picnic.
Wear sensible clothes. You don’t need a suit. You’re not presenting/selling anything so get comfortable. Wear shoes you can walk in for 8hours. Take a jacket you can carry when you get hot (which you will). You can put stuff in the cloakroom, but again, you’ll be queueing and paying.
Don’t get offended by Twitter. I’ve had a few occasions when I’ve met someone who was following me but I didn’t know who they were and vice versa. It’ll happen. Say hello, apologise to them or ask them what they do. Then remedy the situation by following them. If they aren’t very interesting, unfollow later. Twitter is a huge place and I’m sure you’ve missed someone or other, don’t worry about it.
Don’t worry if people seem pushy. Politely take their leaflet or tell them you’re not interested and move on. Sometimes people are rude and noone wants to see that. I tend to sit down for 5mins and empty my bag of everything and then put the interesting stuff back in and the rubbish in the bin. There’s a lot of rubbish, but some great hidden treats too.
Oh, if you ignore your plan (as I have done a few times), don’t worry. Of course something caught your eye. Don’t worry that you sat and watched a 3D presentation or joined in a competition to win a whiteboard or whatever. It’ll happen.
Don’t worry that you forgot to tweet about what you saw or who you met. Do it later.
Enjoy yourself! Yes it’s big, yes it’s overwhelming, but I enjoy it. Mainly because of the underground events and meeting people, but still. It’s good fun.

After Bett:

Take stock of what you’ve seen. What did you learn? Blog about t. Don’t have a blog? Start one.
Tweet people to say hello. You’ll have got new followers and you’ll be following new people. Say hi to them.
Follow up the free trials and contacts you’ve made. Have a play with new software and share it with colleagues.
Look up the materials from Teachmeet. I’ll post those on here so don’t worry!

This all sounds like a lot, but it is mostly common sense and stuff that I’ve picked up along the way. Do you have any other tips for Bett newbies? Is there something I’ve missed?

More tips for beginners here

Category: Conferences / BETT | Tags: Bett Show | 9 Comments

New year, new lifestyle (again) #WLCT

Tuesday, December 28th, 2010 | Author: Ian Addison

It’s nearly that time of year again. We all start looking back at the past and start looking forward to a new start. Last year, Chris Ratcliffe, Bill Lord and a couple of others joined me in a challenge where we weighed ourselves each week and posted the results online in a google form. This is sort of semi-private and not open to the world.We all did OK for a while, but I lost it a bit and I know Chris gave up/struggled after the Great South Run too. So we’re trying again. We jokingly called it a Weight Loss Challengey Thing…this is a bit long for a hashtag so we’re going with #wlct instead.

The idea is that if you share your weightloss with others, you are more likely to stick to the healthy eating/gym/wii fit. Especially as the others will praise you for doing well and (slightly) rib you for being rubbish.

When I asked Chris if he wanted to try again this year, others jumped in and wanted to join too, so if you want to join, send me your email address (mine is mail@ianaddison.net) and I’ll add you to the sheet. This should be the email you use for Google Docs. Once in, add your name to a column and a target to the bottom.

We’ll start next week when school starts as I find it really hard to stay good when there is chocolate and crisps in every cupboard in my house. This time next year I hope to have gone from just under 15stone down to 13. With others helping, I might get there. Or I’ll be writing this same blog post next year!!

Category: Personal | Tags: WLCT | 6 Comments

Teachmeet Bett 2011 #tmbett2011

Thursday, December 23rd, 2010 | Author: Ian Addison

It’s that time of year again. Bett is nearly here. There are many things happening this year and I will blog about those later but for now, I am focussing on Teachmeet. This year, there are a number of us organising various parts of it and it is a totally different beast to normal Teachmeets. Ian Usher has blogged about the process here. It’s exciting and we’d love it if you could make it.

I am going to talk about how to sign up instead. I don’t want this to be patronising, but it’s different to normal. So, if you want to attend Teachmeet Bett, you simply visit the Eventbrite page, choose the number of tickets you’d like and fill out your details. Then you print out your tickets, bring them along and you’re in. Simple.

If you want to attend and come for food afterwards or present then you need to sign up for a ticket and then visit the wiki page here and login. Username: guest, password: teemhcaet

You can then edit the page to add your name as a presenter for a 7minute or 2minute presentation or add your name at the bottom for the teacheat afterwards. That’s it.

One thing we will be doing at Tmbett is providing a programme or presentations. This will include a few sentences about the presentation as well as contact details (twitter, blog etc) so you can contact the presenter afterwards and hopefully a copy of any resources or links they used too. This will mean you will need to take less notes and will mean you can have something to take back to school with you to share with colleagues. There’s also another very exciting thing we have planned, but we need to check it will work before making it public…

So…come along, sign up, get a ticket and let’s make it a great Teachmeet.

Category: Conferences / BETT | Tags: Bett Show, Teachmeet | 4 Comments

Primary Digital Leaders

Tuesday, December 21st, 2010 | Author: Ian Addison

Have you ever noticed that as ICT coordinator you are responsible for a million things around school? The VLE, blogs, website, microphones, cameras, laptops, photocopier(?) and oh yeah, the ICT curriculum. Regular readers will know I’m trying to improve ICT across the whole school and I want to remove some of these minor roles from my day-to-day life. So I’m going to give them to the children.

Kristian Still has a very successful Digital Leaders programme at Hamble College and after a brief chat with him last month (and Dawn Hallybone) we thought about how this would look in primary. So after Christmas I will be inviting children to apply for the role within school. The children will need to fill out a short online form asking why they should be considered and then I will choose and briefly interview them until I have my team. I envisage starting with about 6 children. I will obviously have overall responsibility for them, but I think that some children have shown huge potential and I want to tap into that. So, below I have listed the responsibilites they will have. Most of these will be infrequent or maybe weekly. Most they can do at home or in their lunchtime if they wish. The role is not compulsory and I might not get any applicants, but it will be interesting to see the response.

So what do you do in your school? Do you have a list of ‘silly’ jobs that the children could take over? Or better yet, new jobs that they could take responsibility for?

Digital Leaders will have the following responsibilities:

Website/Blogs/Online

Uploading new photographs into each year group area of the website
Editing/adding to some areas of the website
Converting documents into Flash and embedding them within the website
Write blog posts for your class and comment on other blogs across the school
Reset/change password for children that have lost or forgotten theirs (Blogs, Purple Mash etc)
Helping staff to upload pictures/videos to their blog

ICT Clubs

Plan and lead ICT club at lunchtimes for 3/4 and 5/6 (1 day each)
Possibly lead an after-school ICT club

Other

Change photographs on the TV screen in the reception
Turn on, and choose, a webcam to play in the hall during lunchtimes
At times, and with your class teacher’s permission, support teachers across the school when they teach ICT and use new hardware or software
Organise competitions e.g. a drawing competition in Purple Mash
Possibly attend events and other schools to share ICT learning
Attend after-school training for staff and parents – with your parents’ permission of course!
Trialling new software as required

Mr Addison will:

Make sure you have enough training and accounts with a suitable level of responsibility to manage the tasks above
Provide you with software to trial so that you can use it as part of the ICT club

Category: ICT Co-ordinator Stuff | Tags: digital leaders | 17 Comments

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