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-Itacross 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-Itusing 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.
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!:
Glasgow saw it’s first glimpse of the newTeach-Itthis week as Stephen launched to classroom resource in John Paul Academy.
JPA are leading the way inTechnovation, 21st Century TeachingandCPDas staff have been given the resource as part of their personal and professional development as well as their active classroom resources this year.
The project, led by Technical teacher and ICT enthusiastFrank Bannon(Twitter – MrBTec) is designed to help staff develop their knowledge and practical application of the technologies pupils are using every day. The Teach-It will help all staff to learn how to use 5 key technologies for use in the classroom as part of the new curriculum throughout the year.
The launch, carried out as a twilight session was a huge success with a full turnout of staff including P.E teacher Charlie (who I met a few days later at a mutual friends wedding!). Staff were shown the Teach-It in both paper and online format and given time to discuss it’s use in each of their subjects.
As always we look forward to next years CPD training day – TheDo Be Use-Itin which the Teach-It will be used to it’s full potential by the staff at JPA, creating rich content for use in the classroom as well as for whole school projects, blogs and even GLOW.
Thanks to Head Teacher Vincent Docherty for his belief in the Teach-It and toFrank Bannon (Twitter – MrBTec) for his tireless efforts in setting this whole project up. The eyes of Glasgows education network are on you!
We are delighted to continue our work with John Paul Academy. They are the first school in Glasgow to use Teach-It and one of the first schools in Scotland to be trained on the resource.
Frank Bannon (teacher and ICT whizz) was excited when the Teach-It arrived this week and commented:
“I’m so impressed with the Teach-Its. They are all glossy and cool looking“…Thanks Frank!
John Paul are going to be using the Teach-Its to engage their ‘digital natives‘ in learning across the curriculum at all levels. Their training session is taking place on Monday so we will keep you updated with their progress.
Special thanks to Vincent Docherty (HT) and Frank Bannon for their continued support and brilliant minds.
Felt really inspired this morning by the P6’s and P7’s at St Mary’s PS in North Lanarkshire. Stephen and I were working with them to explore the different ways that they could use mobile learning, specifically MP4 technology, to develop literacy, numeracy and much, much more. All I can say is that I was blown away by their creativity, confidence and enthusiasm. Believe me, they taught us a few things.
Here’s some pics of the training and I’ll update this post shortly with some audio feedback.
We’re almost there………our latest product, the Teach-It is days away from completion…..yeah!
The Teach-It is designed to help teachers and pupils develop the confidence and skills required to take full advantage of new technologies and to encourage innovation and creativity in the 21st Century classroom.
Teach-It is a brand new classroom resource filled with innovative lesson ideas for using a wide range of the latest technologies. These lesson ideas are designed to stimulate creativity and encourage an integrated approach to technology for both learning and teaching.
Simple ideas can be very powerful and Teach-It brings the most up-to-date technologies into the classroom with a minimum of fuss and without the need for extensive technical knowledge.
Most importantly Teach-It supports teachers by engaging young people with technologies/applications that are already a big part of their lives beyond school such as:
• Google Earth
• Digital Imaging
• Audio (MP3, Audacity, Downloading/converting files)
• Games (Wii, Guitar Hero, Nintendo DS)
• Web (Animoto, Comic Brush, Go Animate, Best of GLOW games)
Each lesson idea is designed to be followed step by step either directly by a learner or used as pupil/teacher led classroom resource.
Teach-It has been designed to support interdisciplinary learning and to encourage the application of ICT skills in different learning contexts across the curriculum.
Teach-It is available as a hard copy pack and is supported by a dynamic online website which will inspire both teachers and learners.
Found an interesting BBC reporton the practice of cramming for exams. As we explain to pupils on our Learn-It, Study Skills course across the UK, the need to start your studies early is paramount to success on the day.
We appreciate that in a lot of cases this may not always be possible but where and when it is we urge pupils to use their time wisely and get cracking now!
For help with your studies or those of your pupils please contact us.
