A new video from Leap Motion

I love the Leap Motion devices we have at the Isle of Portland Aldridge Community Academy, they are a real innovation in product, design and learning experience.

Check out Leap Motion's latest video below:

 

Hands have the power to change the world. From artists and DJs pushing the boundaries of creative expression, to small children reaching out to learn and explore, we’ve seen how the Leap Motion Controller has opened a new world of things you can do with your hands.

ICE - Session 2 - Impact on Learning

ICE ran a series of workshops throughout the day, the second of these that I attended was 'Impact on Teaching and Learning' - please see below for a selection of bullet points shared from this session to the wider group -

 - Really good feedback with a long list of things discussed.

- Big impact from instant on nature of Chromebooks - quick access to technology.

- Compatibility - GAFE providing a cross-platform solution - no excuses for lost homework.

- Personalisation of learning - the use of online learning.

ICE - Session 1 - 1:1 Approaches

ICE ran a series of workshops throughout the day, the first of these that I attended was '1:1 Approaches' - please see below for a selection of bullet points shared from this session to the wider group -

- Together we have had alot of experiences of what constitutes '1:1 provision'.

- Different schools of thought around control of devices and filtering (open or locked down).

- Discussion of issues around accessiblity and involving parents in this.

- The importance of BYOD and how GAFE can link a agnostic approach to devices.

ICE - Innovative Cloud Educators

Today I attended the Innovative Cloud Educators event at Samsung's Chertsey office. The event was attended by around 30 people including Headteachers, Directors of ICT, Heads of E-Learning and Network Managers together with Ben Brown (Samsung) & Liz Sproat (Google).

Ian Nairn (C-Learning) welcoming colleagues

A website dedicated to the event can be found at: https://sites.google.com/a/c-learning.net/ice-event-21st-november-2013/home 

#IPACALearn Chromebook Project - Week 2

In Week 2 of our Chromebook project, we began our lesson by calling one of our end users. Mr. Flowers is a member of IT Support and he gave us some pointers on what we can do to improve our website.

To see our progress with our website, please click here.

Brilliant Code Club Posters!

It's very exciting that a code club is starting up this week at Royal Manor Campus. This is being led by Jordan Day (@JordanAJday) and Matt Delany (@IPACA_Business). I am really impressed with the posters they have put together (with a little help from the master Nigel Coelho).

Looking forward to seeing this club develop!

Guest Post - A Tour of Our Classroom

It's really good to see West Base at Osprey Quay Campus have set up a blog and are posting all about the fabulous learning that is happening at the Isle of Portland Aldridge Community Academy.

Please do read the blog at: http://oqwest.blogspot.co.uk/ and be sure to add your comments.

See below for the latest post:

Title - A Tour of Our Classroom

We thought it might be nice to give you a quick tour of our classroom. This video has been taken on a 'normal' school day during Guided reading. Guided reading happens every day for 30 minutes, just before lunch. This video gives you some idea of how the children at Osprey Quay work.

Community Computer Fun!

 

Really excited to see this starting in West Base at Osprey Quay Campus, 'From Thursday 7th November we will be running a fun weekly opportunity for parents and carers to spend time with their children exploring the technology used to support learning at IPACA. All children attending this event must be accompanied by an adult'.

 

I am certain who will be leading the learning at these event... the pupils of course!

Kidsmeet

Today students (2x Year 3, 2 x Year 5, 3 x Year 6, 1 x Year 7 and 1 x Year 8) from the Isle of Portland Aldridge Community Academy attended  'Kidsmeet Dorset' at Downlands Primary School, Blandford.

Kidsmeet provided students with an opportunity to share the resources they use to support learning with their peers from throughout Dorset. As an Academy, we shared our use of 1:1 Chromebooks, how we use Computer Aided Design software throughout the curriculum and our use of 3D Printers.

Further information and a selection of pictures from the event can be found on the Downlands Primary School blog at: http://skoolshare.com/portfolios/dkm/

Well done to everyone who went and represented IPACA so well.

Basic Overview - Gmail and Calendars

In tonight's 'Engage, Innovate and Inspire CPD Session' I shared a basic introduction to Gmail and Google Calendars with colleagues at Osprey Quay Campus. Please see below for a video of this session -

Sixth Form Video

As we prepare for our Sixth Form Open Evening next week (Wednesday 20th November, 2013) the below video has been created to promote the unique offer we have for students:

If you would like any more information on the IPACA Sixth Form, please see: http://www.ipaca.org.uk/SixthForm

Guest Post - #GAFE Example

I have been really impressed with the way people have been embracing #GAFE across the Isle of Portland Aldridge Community Academy. One great example of this in action, making real difference to teaching and learning is included below.

The below post was written by Head of Science Faculty at the Isle of Portland Aldridge Community Academy, Marcus Stevens -

I have been working quite hard over the past couple of days to come up with a nice document using Google forms, for helping me talk to the parents of the pupils in my family group.

How this works -

Essentially, during tutor time tomorrow, I will get the pupils to use their Chromebooks and I will send the form out to them to complete via the sharing facility. The form goes through a check list with some similarities to the paper copies that we have been given for them to write on. However, the difference with Google forms, is in the fact that their responses are sent back to you in a spreadsheet that has quite clever analysis capabilities built in.

Benefits -

Working in this way will allow the students to become much more involved in the process as they will be able to modify the form as they gain further reports in time. They can quite literally see their progress.

The document/form will allow students and the tutor to gather a greater amount of information for controlling their destiny and indeed can be modified by the owner to reflect changes in the pupils age and indeed the experiences that they gain over the time they spend at IPACA (work experience etc).

Year 9 #IPACALearn Literacy Session

Every week I am working with two Year 9 Literacy groups to explore writing for a purpose. This week we started creating our website which can be viewed at: https://sites.google.com/a/ipaca.org.uk/chromebooks/. I encourage you to check back regularly to see how this site grows and add a comment to support the pupils work.

In addition to starting the site, both groups also created the below video which I hope you will all enjoy. The video was created using iMovie on OSX.

Guest Post - #NaNoWriMo

The below guest post comes from Rachel Stempien-

You may not know it but NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is sweeping across the country, hey, even the world! NaNoWriMo’s Young Writer’s Program asks its participants to push themselves beyond what they’ve thought possible and write a phenomenal 30,000 words in one month.

As the days turned dark and November crept in upon us, students of Royal Manor Campus turned to their Chromebooks and set their imaginations free.

One week in and we’ve had several massive success stories already! Isabelle Ballard, Year 7, has produced an amazing 7,000 words in 7 days, while Katie Ingram-King in Year 8 has flown past us all, teachers and students alike, having written over 11,000 words already this month!

As more and more pupils flock to participate in NaNoWriMo, the impossible is becoming increasingly possible. It is seeming that yes - together we can do it. We can write a novel in a month...each!

Brilliant Digital Leader Session - #IPACALearn

I really enjoyed my session tonight with our fantastic IPACA Digital Leaders at Royal Manor Campus. Tonight was a re-launch for the group which lost a little momentum last half-term.

Tonight was previewed through Edmodo, as the below shows:

This clearly engaged the Digital Leaders with one pupil producing the below ahead of our meeting. This video was created using http://www.powtoon.com which I really encourage you to check out if you haven't tried it yet.

Tonight there was great engagement from all three groups.

The first group, led by former pupil Will, explored thoughts for 'IPACA Radio' and created the below mini-podcast on a Chromebook using http://www.spreaker.com -



 The second group, supported by Mr. Day, explored the technology that will support @IPACA_Praise. @IPACA_Praise will be the online home of IPACA's Praise Pod (more information on this to follow shortly).

Finally, group three were making preparations for KidsMeet Dorset, see poster below, whic next week will see them travel with younger IPACA Digital Leaders to Downlands Primary School in Blandford.

 

More information on KidsMeet will follow shortly.

Molten Metal - Desktop 3D Printer

Aiming to make desktop 3D metal printing a reality, Vader Systems is developing a device which uses molten aluminum in place of plastic.

3D printing has so far been limited to plastics, but regular visitors to Springwise will have recently read about the DIWire, a machine that bends metal wire according to digital designs. Now aiming to make desktop 3D metal printing a reality, Vader Systems is developing a device which uses molten aluminum in place of plastic.

Demonstrating its prototype at the Maker Faire New York 2013, the machine features and small, onboard furnace that heats the metal until it is liquid. The printer then uses magnetism — either natural or electrically induced — to draw the material out onto the printer bed. When a digital file is sent to the Vader, its prints out tiny blobs of metal in the desired location in much the same way as an inkjet printer does with ink on paper. It also works as quickly as consumer inkjets, although as with plastic 3D printers it is able to layer the material additively to create 3D structures out of metal with a maximum build volume of 250mm cubed.

According to reports, the father-and-son team of Vader Systems hopes to continue developing the machine to be able to bring the final product to the market for around USD 10,000 sometime in 2014. Are there other materials that could get the 3D printing treatment?

Website: www.vadersystems.com
Contact: scott@vadersystems.com

Spotted by Murray Orange, written by Springwise