Archive for the ‘Teach-It’ Category

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Forward not backward in ICT

Saturday, July 3rd, 2010

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It’s been a while since we posted here at Do Be. With the rapid success of Teach-It across Scotland, England and now Wales, the development of Teach-It – Alcohol Awareness and Teach-It 2 now well underway for it’s launch in Setember 2010 we have hardly had a second to spare.

However, this BBC news report caught my attention this morning and I thought it was the perfect opportunity to air our thoughts on the subject of ICT as a tool for learning and teaching.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/10495726.stm

Firstly, I think the report highlights the fears we almost all feel with regards to the future of education as it currently stands. Education is of course an ever changing, growing entity but I’m talking about the general sense of movement. For a long time now it has seemed that education across the UK has been moving forward with regards to ICT. In some cases this sense of movement has been a rapid advance while in others perhaps just a steady plod but always generally a forward motion.
Advancements in technology over the last few years have allowed schools to own far more computers than ever before, access the internet through broadband connections with consistently higher speeds and interact with anyone, anywhere in the world. Teachers and pupils in UK schools have instant access to the entire world from the comfort of the classroom desk.

Web 2.0, social media and handheld technologies have revolutionised communication in the corridors and classrooms of our schools. Powerful computers, interactive white boards and projectors have become more accessible and affordable as well as gadgets such as quality microphones, camera equipment, radio and video technology and of course a vast array of brilliant software allowing teachers, pupils and parents to develop curriculum learning in new, exciting and engaging ways.

As the report quotes Paul Wareing of Becta, the UK is ‘the envy of the world‘ in our willingness to embrace (and of course fund) technology as a learning tool with our practices emulated globally.

We mustn’t start to move backwards in our use of ICT.

At Do Be we have always worked to promote the concept that technology and software are a necessary part of the successful engagement of todays school pupils. Technology alone is of course not the answer but as each year passes and the technological demands of a hi-tech global workplace bear down on each school leaver it is imperative that technology is given it’s place in the education of those pupils bound for that workplace.

And so secondly, I believe that in order to meet this ‘backward step’ we have to look at the way we use the technology we currently have.
It would be correct to assume that the creation of tech savvy schools across the entire UK through through the purchase of both equipment and software would (and does) cost an eye watering amount of money.

Teach-It and our upcoming Teach-It 2 provide schools with the ‘how to‘ of using a vast selection of technologies, websites and applications that are freely available. If we can help teachers to continue to engage our ‘tech savvy’ pupils and achieve the same results using cost effective ICT, that’s what we’ll do.

If you would like to know more about how we can help you to make the most of your existing technology as well as new, cost effective tools please contact us on 01383 829969

Posted in Education, Teach-It | No Comments »

Education Show 2010

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

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Well it came and it went and it was everything we hoped it would be.
Our first Education show was a marvel; huge, diverse and full of amazing people from every area of UK education. We met teachers, deputes, heads, governors, nursery teachers, special needs teachers, carers, parents, ICT coordinators, probationers, parents and of course…pupils.

I had the pleasure of watching Lisa Stevens (tw: lisibo) talk about lighting up learning in languages using everything from puppets, plastic fruit and cloth bags to TV adverts Web 2.0 tools.

I marvelled at Ollie Bray (tw: olliebray) who talked for 45 minutes seemingly without breathing about Google Earth and a wide variety of ‘mashups’ that can be used to enhance almost any area of the curriculum.

I met Joe Dale (tw: joedale) who I have been following since my introduction to Twitter. We threw together a quick audio recording on our Teach-It which will be made available soon (watch this space) and I also bumped into Tim Rylands (tw: timrylands) and look forward to seeing him again at the Games Based Learning ‘BMobile’ event in Bradford in May 2010.

Still working our way through all the contacts we made and those interested in the Teach-It. We had a massive interest and look forward to working closely with a huge number of authorities in England very soon.

and Finally, we had a Nintendo DS ‘Brain Training’ competition. 10 simple sums using ‘Brain Training’. The results are to be announced shortly but all I can say is that it was a primary school pupil who smashed the records set at 38 seconds, 28 seconds and 25 seconds with an amazing 17 seconds!!!
We’d also like to comment on the noticable and heartwarming welcome we received by everyone in Birmingham from staff and visitors to the show to shop keepers, taxi drivers and even the night crawlers in Birmingham city.

What an amazing city…we will definately be visiting again!

Posted in Education, Education Show, Teach-It | No Comments »

Learning@School Conference Rotorua

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

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It took four hours on the bus from Auckland to Rotorua through some amazing scenery.  My first impression was that it was a pretty cool little town but once I’d had a look around Rotorua I was pretty dumbstruck. It is absolutely stunning here……so what if  it’s a little pongy from all the sulpher.  It totally rocks!

In the evening I experienced a Polynesian Spa and I’m pretty convinced that my joints, hair, nails and skin have benefited from all the minerals in the water.  From my hotel I practically step outside my front door and step into the hot baths unlike a priest named Father Mahoney who trekked 80 Kilometers in 1878 from Tauranga to Rotorua to bathe in a hand-dug, fern and manuka-fringed thermal pool exactly where the beautiful Polynesian Spa is now.

Father Mahoneys’ arthritis was greatly alleviated from bathing regularly in the pool so the hot mineral spring water now have quite a ‘therapeutic’ reputation.  All I can say is that the view from the pool took my breath away and I felt wonderful afterwards :0)

I was delighted to run two breakout sessions at the Rotorua Convention Centre for the Learning@School Conference #latsconf.  My first session was ‘Google Earth in a Social Science Context‘ and my second was ‘Use of Online Games in Primary‘ (with a bit of Web 2.0 flung in).

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Full course outline here…Do Be Rotarua

The teachers that came to both sessions were lovely and reaffirmed to me that Kiwi’s are the nicest people on this earth.  Nothing is ever a problem, they always seem to be laughing and having fun and I can honestly say I’ve witnessed more random acts of kindness in these two short weeks than in my whole life.

There were a couple of moments that stood out for me this trip and get a special mention.  The first was drinking an AWESOME smoothie at lunchtime – the sweetest, most yummiest thing ever.  The second was taking my shoes off at the end of the day and walking back to my hotel in my bare feet.  There was something so comforting about doing that.

I LOVE that the pavements here have no dog poo on them.  How amazing is that eh?  Clean streets.

Looking forward to my two sessions tomorrow then the real fun starts – I’m going backpacking from Friday.

My Prezi can be viewed here: Lou Zealand Prezi

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Posted in Conference, Education, Eduvation, Ideas, NZEdu, New Zealand, Rotorua, Teach-It, Web 2.0 | No Comments »

Do Be @ the Education Show

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

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As you all know Do Be have been selected to take part in ‘Innovation Alley’ at this years Education Show in Birmingham.

There’s only 21 days left until Do Be hit Birmingham. It’s all very exciting at Do Be HQ. We are just about to unveil our new logo and launch into England at the same time.

You can find us at stand Q7OJ. If you are attending please come along to visit us. We would love to see you.

We are also running a competition involving the Nintendo DS games consoles. This is your chance to play with one of these systems and use your gaming skills to win a Teach-It by achieving the fastest times, highest scores and youngest brain age! Each day we will be giving away a Teach-It to one lucky winner for use within the school of your choice. In the words of Dale Winton ‘You have to be in it to win it’ so get over to Q7O7 and take up this years Do Be DS challenge.

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Posted in Conference, Education, Education Show, Eduvation, Games Based Learning, Teach-It, Technology, Technovation | No Comments »

DoBeLou in Rotorua NZ

Thursday, January 7th, 2010

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It’s confirmed…Louise will be speaking at the Learning@School conference in Rotorua, New Zealand on 24th and 25th February!

We have been invited to speak about 21st Century Learning and how we approach the use of technology in the classrooms of Britain.

There are a great many people who have been involved in professional development programmes throughout New Zealand in the past few years. The Learning@School conference provides a wonderful opportunity for practitioners to share what has been happening for them as well as an opportunity for the international education community to take part too.

The Ministry of Education sponsors this annual Information and Communication Technologies Professional Development (ICTPD) conference at the Energy Events Centre in Rotorua, to be held from 23-26 February 2010. There will be a powhiri and a special reception for all of our conference presenters on 23rd February.

Aptly named ‘Embedding New Technologies across the National Curriculum‘ Louise’s presentation will promote what we call ‘Eduvation‘, combining Education with Innovation, Inspiration and Application.

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Course Aims Include:

- Explore a variety of ICT technologies and apply them in a classroom context

- To develop lesson ideas using ICT to engage learners

- Experience ‘Eduvation’ through the eyes of the learner

- Practice and apply Games-Based-Learning, Social Media and ICT to the curriculum

Technologies explored:

- Google Earth

- Digital Media

- MP3/MP4

- Games Platforms – Guitar Hero/Nintendo DS/Nintendo Wii

- Web 2.0 technologies

A complete course outline can be viewed here: Eduvation NZ Rotorua

Follow Louise’s adventures in New Zealand at www.do-be.co.uk/nzedu

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Posted in Classroom, Education, Eduvation, Games Based Learning, Lesson Ideas, NZEdu, New Zealand, Rotarua, Teach-It, Technology, Technovation, Web 2.0 | No Comments »

Do Be Launch at The Education Show

Monday, December 14th, 2009

The Education Show is the UK’s largest educational resources exhibition. It is taking place at the NEC, Birmingham between the 4th and 6th of March 2010.

We are delighted to announce we are going to be launching Teach-It into England at the show. What is even more exciting is that we have been selected as one of ten companies to exhibit in ‘Innovation Alley‘. ‘Innovation Alley‘ is a brand new feature at the show. The companies that have been selected are innovative and have shown a fresh and exciting apprach to teaching and learning.

The organisers of the show were excited to provide us with our invitation. They commented that Teach-It is very unique and something they believe will be a huge hit with english teachers and local authorities.

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West Lothian Launch Teach-It

Monday, December 7th, 2009

Meeting with John Low and his inspiring team this week at West Lothian was more like chatting with friends. There was a real and natural connection with what we were doing at Do Be and where West Lothian are aiming in the use of emerging technologies in their schools. The material in the Teach-It classroom resource seemed to tick all the boxes for them.

West Lothian have implemented the online version of the Teach-It across all of their schools to achieve maximum impact and to give their teachers and learners quick and easy access to the material.

John and his team firmly believe that the use of ICT in the classroom is central to the learning of the children in this day and age.

To Launch the Teach-It we organised a twilight session in West Lothian Education and Training Centre with over 80 schools attending. Stephen took the teachers through each section of the Teach-It using an interactive whiteboard to give the teachers an idea of how easily the resource could be used in the classroom with instant results.

Teachers commented on how the lesson ideas were so simple yet powerful in their design and could see uses across both Primary and Secondary schools in every example.

The partnership does not end there! We are returning at the start of the year with a session aimed to re-launch the Teach-It to any teachers that could not make it to the first or would like to revisit the the first launch. This, in turn will be followed by a session to support staff with any questions as their use of the pack becomes more in depth.

Early next year a full ‘Use-It‘ session will be conducted providing the complete hands-on approach as part of a CPD training day.

We’d like to thank John and his team for their dedication and hard work in getting this up and running in West Lothian. We look forward to working with you all again soon.

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Posted in Education, Resources, Teach-It, Training | No Comments »

Bo’ness Academy Do-It and Teach-It

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009

Kirsten and Steve Dougan

It’s taken a bit of time to get this blog post up. It’s been a very busy time at the Do Be HQ. We attended the annual Scottish Leaders Conference in Cumbernauld.  The theme of the two conference was respecting professionalism. Head teachers from all over Scotland enjoyed the key notes speakers (Fiona Hyslop, Dr Carol Craig and Professor James Conroy) Dinner was particularly enjoyable at the Westerwood Hotel which I would recommend. We also had time to take advantage of the brand new leisure facilities. I feel it is a must to take advantage of these opportunities when they are available!

At the conference we ran a competition and Steve Dougan at Bo’ness Academy won Teach-It. It was an honor to present the Teach-It to Steve. David Mitchell the HT was also there but he voted on being the photographer this time. Bo’ness Academy have supported Do Be since day one so I was delighted when they won our competition. There are many reasons why we are elated to be working with Bo’ness Academy. ‘Eduvation‘ is the perfect word to describe how teaching and learning works in Bo’ness. They use a blend of technology and innovation to engage their learners in their education everyday.

2009 has been an exceptional year for the Bo’ness.  Their S1 pupils worked closely with our local business partner Caledonian Produce to produce healthy salads.  The pupils were split into teams and worked in Art & Design, Home Economics, Business Ed/ICT and PSE to design, make and market a salad which could be sold to young people in Marks and Spencers.  The winning teams salad “Fruity Fiesta Rice” was so good is was sold by Marks & Spencers.  Over 40000 salads have been sold with the profits coming back to Bo’ness Academy.  Now that’s what I call enterprising pupils!

The school has been awarded the accolade of “Smart Showcase School”.  This award has only been presented to 5 schools in the UK.  It is for schools that have demonstrated a high level of innovative use of ICT across the curriculum.  At present along with using interactive whiteboards our teachers  use blogs, twitter, voting tools, video (you tube), digital papers, podcasts and MP4 players (do-be ones obviously!)

Through our involvement in the promotion of effective ICT as a tool to aid learning and teaching, Steve had the privilege of being selected as part of a Scottish contingent to visit Copenhagen to look at what is going on in their education system with regards to innovative ICT work (Steve you get all the good jobs)

We are going to be working closely with Steve’s staff on the implementation of Teach-It into the curriculum. Steve commented ‘We are working closely with Do Be to help some of our staff become more confident in using the internet to stimulate and promote discussions.  Teach-it is a fantastic aid and the training that is provided makes even the most IT illiterate member feel empowered’

It is clear to me that Bo’ness Academy is paving the way in Scottish education and beyond. They are always keen to look at ways they could be even more creative in the classroom and it is a exciting to working with Bo’ness taking learning to the next level…

Posted in Classroom, Education, Eduvation, Teach-It | No Comments »

Wordle Safety Solution

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009

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As many of the tools used in the Teach-It are hosted and accessed by the general public we at Do Be, and the teachers using these tools have little or no control over what the public decide to do with them. As is the nature of Web 2.0, we gain the most from it when we are invited to interact with these tools in such a way that we provide data (words, pictures, sounds etc) and the tools in turn provide us with rich content that can be used to enhance learning and teaching in our classrooms.

We are aware however that on this basis, there may be elements of these tools/websites that can be unsuitable for a younger audience. Not on the part of the tool creators themselves but from the public providing the data.

An example would be Wordle…fast becoming a widely recognised tool suitable for use for all manner of learning from literacy to self assessment and even CV creation. We all want to be able to use Wordle in the classroom but there are many other people using Wordle for different reasons, many of which are simply recreational. These ‘Wordles’ are then posted on a public gallery from which their content can be viewed by anyone and that includes your pupils. These public ‘Wordles’ may include words that are unsuitable for children (or anyone for that matter) and so the knee jerk reaction tends to be a complete ban of Wordle across a school or even an entire authority.

At Do Be we believe in helping teachers with both ‘Responsible Use‘ guidelines as well as solutions where these guidelines are not enough. In the case of Wordle I would like to bring a solution to your attention which will allow you to continue to use this tool in class without the worry of inappropriate material being accessed:


The Wordle front page will never feature images or links that are inappropriate for classroom use. Therefore, it’s possible to configure “site-blocking” software to keep Wordle safe.
Simply have your networking administrator block the following base URLs:

http://www.wordle.net/gallery
http://www.wordle.net/next
http://www.wordle.net/random

Your users will not be inadvertently shown anything that’s not safe for classrooms.
If your filtering software only blocks per domain, then you’re out of luck.

It should be noted that the chances of stumbling across inappropriate public material in Wordle is not possible when following the Teach-It Wordle Lesson Ideas.

I hope this helps
Stephen

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Posted in Classroom, Education, Ideas, Responsibity, Solutions, Teach-It | No Comments »

Havering Rocks!

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

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I recently had the pleasure of working with teachers in the Borough of Havering, London. The 7 schools that attended were given Teach-It packs and virtual access by their very kind LEA www.haveringict.edublogs.org.

HUGE thanks and many hugs to Dave Smith @haveringict who is leading the project and Naree Salee who organised practically everything to help the day run smoothly :0)

I was delighted at how enthusiastic and motivated staff were and I’m really excited about working with them to link Teach-It to the National Curriculum. Here is what I covered over the half day that we worked together: Teach IT Havering (PDF)

Dave Smith sent us an email afterwards simply saying ‘Great product, great delivery, great company’.

Some teachers have been in touch since with information on how they are using the Teach-It so far:

Ann Penn has used Wordle in class to create a simple but effective display using the children’s suggestions for connectives which they thought was ‘cool’ while Jenny has used PicNik – linking it to her literacy lessons with work on creative writing – landscapes. ‘It was very effective‘ she said ‘and very simple‘, ‘but most importantly the children loved it’.

Since our training some teachers have asked for advice on helping pupils to use the internet responsibly as some sites in Teach-It require teachers to lead lessons more than others. We have decided to produce this information and put it on the virtual version of the pack. So Havering staff please bear with us and we’ll have this to you asap.We look forward to working with Havering in the future and watching the legacy of the Teach-It unfold.

Here is some video footage of one of the teachers rockin’ with Guitar Hero!:


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Posted in Education, Eduvation, Games Based Learning, Guitar Hero, Ideas, Lesson Ideas, London, Resources, Teach-It, Technology, Technovation, Training, Web 2.0 | 2 Comments »

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