Current news items from Register Schools:

Supporting innovation in schools

The new handbook, ‘Promoting Transformative Innovation in Schools’, is designed to prompt debate around the nature and purpose of innovation in schools. It aims to offer evidence, insights, ideas and recommendations that can be built upon to support and nurture a culture of transformative innovation within education and to share approaches and tools that can support innovative practice in schools.

This handbook is available to download free from www.futurelab.org.uk/handbooks

Early Years Learning

A new report, ‘Perspectives on Early Years and Digital Technologies’ based on research from Futurelab’s PhD studentship network, investigates the role of digital technologies in early years learning, considering how their design might have a significant part to play in their effectiveness and exploring how we can use existing research traditions to create challenging new directions for design and development in this field.

This publication is available to download free from www.futurelab.org.uk/openingeducation

Hodgson has been working closely with One Point Surveys to offer text surveys to parents and learners within and outside of school. The service will allow a representative of the school to set up an online survey which can be triggered by the use of a key word. The survey will then send questions to the mobile phone as text messages and the survey responses will be based on the replies from these messages. This survey will cost nothing to receive as the school pay for the credits and will provide instant feedback to the person who set the survey up! For a case study click here - http://www.onepointsurveys.com/box/case5.aspx For news on the latest developments click here - http://www.onepointsurveys.com/web/News26.aspx

If you are looking for Networking management tools this is an opportunity not to miss! ICT Networks are running a monthly competition during November and December which will give schools the opportunity of winning a prize. If you visit their website www.ict-networks.co.uk and download a trial version of either Faronics Deepfreeze or Faronics Insight, and you will be entered into a draw at the end of the month.

Deep Freeze instantly protects and preserves original computer configurations, eliminating routine IT maintenance while allowing complete unrestricted access to a workstation.

Faronics Insight is the ultimate classroom technology management system that empowers teachers with the ability to share their screen with students, control student access to applications.

There is no cost for the software download and schools can try on a monthly basis. There is a link on our website for schools to follow and once the download is complete the school will be entered into the draw.

ICT Networks are also sponsoring the ICT Register Showcase this year ICT Register Showcase Conference

Good luck

All staff and children at Hartside Primary School have been very busy over the summer term filming and editing animations. The aim was to use up skill both teachers and pupils in the use of animation and to further develop and consolidate mathematical learning in a creative way. Staff and pupils worked alongside a digital artist called Sheryl Jenkins to animate a mathematical concept that was proving to be particularly challenging to the class. The results (we think you will agree!) are very impressive. Our very youngest children in Class One decided they were struggling to remember the names and properties of 3D shapes. They worked with Sheryl to come up with shape characters and a storyline to help them remember the tricky names of the shapes. Class Two were having problems with counting in twos and they had great fun recording their singing and animating sausages. Class Three decided they were struggling with rounding numbers and they worked hard to animate the numbers going up and down to remind them about how to round numbers. Class Four worked very hard to make an animation about place value Class Five animated some incredible dancing nets of shapes. And the eldest children in Class Six decided that the very difficult concept of ratio would be the focus of their animation and had the pleasure of drinking eating the fruit and drinking the ‘smoothies’ they had made in the process! A Gala Performance of all of the animations was held and feedback from the children showed that they had had fun being animators and now felt confident about their chosen mathematical concept. The teachers and children are planning to use the videos as a teaching tool from now on! They will also plan opportunities for using their animation skills this term.

The 27th January 2009 has been booked for the ICT Register Showcase Conference. The conference will again be at the Holywell Park Conference Centre in Loughborough.

Last year’s conference was a resounding success. If you would like to refresh your memory of the event or you missed the conference, please visit the ICT Register website to view the videos of the Keynote Speakers presentations.

Put the date in your diary so that you do not miss this one.