@martindalepaul at #IPACA

Last Thursday (9th May, 2013) we were very luck to be joined at IPACA by Paul Martindale (@martindalepaul), Deputy Headteacher from the magical Jesmond Gardens. Paul shared with IPACA colleagues how pedagogy, learning spaces and technology to create an amazing learning experience at Jesmond Gardens Primary School.

More information on Jesmond Gardens Primary School - The school is a new 315 place school (with 26 full time nursery places) designed to replace, as part of Hartlepool’s Primary Capital Programme, an existing Victorian school built on a nearby site. The 2,055 sqm school is designed around principles of transformational learning, which encourages the use of personalised, independent learning approaches that reflect a child’s stage, rather than age. 

Jesmond Gardens has a central ‘heart’ area that was designed to enable expansion of the teaching areas and main hall.  The two can be linked together, or separated, providing agile options for assembly, lunch times, and to house the thriving parent community. Similarly, the circulation spaces can be used as ICT-enabled extensions to the learning spaces.

Internal and external space works to provide an integrated environment.  In addition to a trim trail, MUGA and sports pitch, the design also incorporates allotments and a wildlife area that provides a habitat zone.

A copy of the brilliant material shared by Paul Martindale is included below:

This is awesome!

The below is a fantastic tutorial from Jennifer Roberts on how to add voice comments in Google Docs, and I for one was blown away by it! I love this simple, easy way to leave feedback on students work. Plus, if you have students who function better with communication that is auditory, this can be a nice way to differentiate feedback.

Would love to know what you think of this through the comments section.

Big Grips Tweener

I am loving using my Big Grips Tweener (image above) for my iPad mini. The case which is the mini version of the 'Big Grips Frame' is perfect for the iPad mini with maximum protection, easy access to ports and very functional (and durable) stand.

Received the below email this morning from the big grips team and it is good to see their product range continues to grow:

Hello Friends!

A quick announcement to let everyone know that a fresh shipment of Big Grips has arrived! Available now at www.biggrips.com/store

This shipment includes:

- Big Grips Frame and Stand for iPad 2/3/4 in blue, green, black, gray, purple, and pink (coming soon in red and orange)
- Big Grips Frame and Stand for iPad original in blue and green
- Big Grips Tweener and Wedge for iPad mini in black (already available in blue, green, red, and orange)

Be sure to also check out Big Grips Hipster (www.biggrips.com/hipster), the versatile travel/carry bag for Big Grips Frame and Big Grips Buddy for iPod touch (www.biggrips.com/buddy)!

All Big Grips products are also available to educators through our Educator Discount program. Visit www.biggrips.com/educators to request a quote today!

Thank you for your support!

Cheers!

-The Big Grips Team

KEM Ventures, Inc.
Makers of Big Grips Frame™ for iPad
Toll Free (888) 456-7047
Fax: (916) 475-1241
www.biggrips.com :-)

Quib.ly - Worth checking out?

Was recommended to check out Quib.ly the other day by a colleague and thought it worthy of a mention on this blog.

What is Quibly?
Quibly is a members-only community that aims to help parents give their kids a head start in this connected world. But the story behind that is that we parents are raising kids in a world that is changing all the time..

While the age-old stuff still applies (we want them to be happy, warm, safe, healthy, well-fed, inquisitive and so on), we also want our kids to stand proud and equipped when they take their first step on the career ladder. We want them to enjoy creative pursuits of which we could only dream. We want to keep them safe from risks that, as adults, we don’t always see or understand. And we want them to be surprised and impressed that we, their boring old parents, actually know about some very cool stuff.

“65% of today’s grade school kids will end up at jobs that haven’t been invented yet” (US Dept of Labor) – that’s the future for which we’re trying to prepare our kids. Our school days two or three decades ago were vastly different to those of a child today. They submit maths homework online and the results are waiting at school the next day. We did ours in a rush on the bus. 3D printers can produce chocolate bars at home, we aspired to a daisy wheel printer.

We want to understand the amazing lives our kids have in front of them and help support their interests and their education. We want to know about the incredible new technology and opportunities out there for them. We know we’re not alone.

I would definitely suggest Quib.ly is worth a browse -->  http://quib.ly/welcome

Brilliant Digital Learning

The below is a student recording of their revision notes from the B604 Philosophy and Applied Ethics module, 'Peace and Justice-Religion and Equality' — at IPACA.

The recording was made in class by the pupils and put together in around 50 minutes and is now available on Facebook for Year 11 revision.

Tools to Teach

In the below video I share 'Tools to Teach' an IPC unit. This talk was filmed as part of an IPACA training day at Royal Manor Campus on Tuesday 16th April, 2013.

3D Printers Arrive

At the Isle of Portland Aldridge Community Academy we are developing learning opportunities that enable students to experience first-hand the real and fast changing world of designing and making.

Students are learning computer aided designing techniques and other processes that are used in industry. With the arrival of three 3D printers, pupils will understand and use techniques needed to realise their concepts and ideas, to be creative and technically minded, and to become economically viable.

More to follow on this story as we develop our use of this exciting new technology...

Independent Learning

Please see below for the presentation shared by Jane Hurdiss and myself as part of the Primary element of our recent training day. A recording of this presentation can also be viewed directly on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7JdGEGFX0w

 To view the original copy of this presentation please click here


101 Ideas for Independent Learning

In addition to the above, this presentation is something that I have been pulling together for a couple of weeks now and includes a range of cloud-sourced ideas to support independent learning. I would love it if you would like to add your thoughts?

Chrome OS - Interesting response from SMART

I recently contact SMART Technologies about support for Chrome OS and had the following interesting response:

Hi Gary,

Thank you for submitting a feature request. They go to a suggestion box that we check periodically, so I apologize for the delayed response.

We wanted to let you know that we are working on some support for Chrome OS.  We are building a web-based version of SMART Notebook that will run in most web browsers, including on Chrome OS.  A beta is currently available at smartnotebook.com – please try it out and send us your feedback.  It is still a beta, so check back often to see new features!  Running a SMART Board off a Chromebook (to get ink and touch) is actually a difficult technical problem.  We’re looking into it, but we’re unable to commit to anything at this point.

I hope that information helps a bit – please check out Notebook for Web and let us know what you think, and if it would meet some of your needs on Chrome OS.  And please don’t hesitate to let me know if you have any more feedback about any of SMART’s products.

Best regards,


----
User Experience Designer
SMART Technologies

Ofsted and Outstanding Classroom Practice

Today at our Isle of Portland Aldridge Community Academy training day we had the pleasure of hearing from Deborah Zachary. Deborah from the 'The Zachary Network' is a lead Ofsted Inspector and came today to share her view on Outstanding Classroom Practice.

Deborah encouraged us to think about some outstanding teaching we have either seen or delivered. My thoughts took me back to earlier this year at the Prince of Wales First School to a lesson where the pupils used Lego WeDO robotics to independently solve a problem-based challenge. See below:

Deborah then shared an example observation from an Outstanding lesson she observed in the Spring Term, this was from a Year 5 mixed ability Maths lesson. The thoughts below relate to this lesson's starter: 

- Excellent start, self-start with strong differentiation.

- Teacher tight on timing but lively.

- Teacher encourages challenge.

- Building on work from yesterday.

- ThinkPINK time - AfL Strategy - involving everyone.

The key is that outstanding teaching leads to outstanding learning.

We then explored the Ofsted Grade Descriptors - Quality of teaching in the school:

I have taken the Outstanding criteria from above and created the below word cloud:

Deborah shared the importance of fostering an environment where IT IS OK TO FAIL, after all isn't this how we all learn? This reminded me of the great Michael Jordan advert for Nike:

What would you see?

How do you know the strategy is working?