On of the problems with innovation in ICT is that it can be difficult to determine if it actually makes any difference to children’s learning. Blogging, for example, may be enjoyed by the teacher and pupils but does it actually make any difference to the quality of their learning? If it does, how can we tell?

The main purpose of MIICE (Measurement of the Impact of Ict on Children’s Education) “to put into words what most recognise is good quality in learning and teaching incorporating the use of ICT. It is concerned with those qualities which cannot readily be assessed in conventional ways.” Read more »

I’ve linked here to a report by Falkirk Council which compares various types of voting system.

At the moment I think voting systems have a limited place in the curriculum, are too expensive, are not as reliable as they need to be, can be difficult to set up, time consuming to create questions and are difficult to organise in a busy classroom.

If you’ve had a more positive experience with voting systems, let me know.

A data projector lets you present material very effectively to a whole class but you’re tied to the laptop or PC to control the screen. If you have an interactive whiteboard, you can work at the board facing the class but this is an expensive option and is (usually) a fixed resource which can’t be moved from classroom to classroom.

Portable solutions which combine a short-throw projector with a board are available but are still very costly.
There are a number of alternatives to the interactive whiteboard that give varying degrees of flexibility in the classroom.
The ebeam is a small device which converts any white area into an interactive board. It can connect to the laptop by bluetooth (short-range wireless) or USB cable. It provides a portable interactive board solution. RM price here.
A similar device is the Mimio.
If you want to control the screen from anywhere in the classroom, there are two choices - RM classpad or gyromouse.

The RM Classpad (and other similar devices) is a small tablet that lets you control the screen using a pen on the screen. It can be used with or without an interactive board.

The gyromouse is great fun. You control what’s happening on the screen using a wireless mouse which you wave in the air to move around the screen. It’s much easier than it sounds. This is a cheap but very effective way of controlling your computer from anywhere in the classroom.
Video here. RM prices here.

Keeping track of your favourite websites is easy. When you visit a website, you just add it to your Favourites (or Bookmarks on some browsers). If you’re really organised, you put your Favourites in folders so you can find what you want easily.

So why do you need anything else?

Here are a couple of problems. You might have found that wonderful website when you were browsing at home but you want to use it in school. It’s not much help when the favourite is stored on a computer that’s somewhere else. Even when you’ve got the computer with the favourites, a problem that many of us have is that, however hard we try, it is very difficult to categorise a particular site. I may have found a great site that would be really useful for teaching Shakespeare to an S5 class but equaly good at introducing poetry to primary children. Which folder does it go into - English, Language, Shakespeare, Poetry , etc? You see the problem.

But there is a simple solution that cures all the problems and adds some functions that make your Favourites even more valuable.

http://del.icio.us/

The del.icio.us site lets you keey your favourites online so that they are available from any computer. It also lets you use tags, not folders so that you don’t need to worry about finding one category for your favourite web site. In the example above, the site could be tagged with the words ‘Shakespeare’, ‘English’, ‘poetry’, ‘S5′, ‘primary’ - in fact with as many tags as you want. So when you search using any of the tag words, the site will be listed. Simple but effective. Saving a favourite to delicious is as simple as clicking a button when you’re on a site that you want to bookmark.

If that was all that del.icio.us can do, it would be a godsend but there’s more. Read more »

Flickr is a free system that lets you save your photos online so that they can be seen by others. You can keep your photos private so they can only be seen by those you allow or can make them public. You can also look at other people’s photos. You can find Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/

There are a number of educational uses for Flickr.

Because you can add comments to photos, you can post a photo (or series of photos) and then ask pupils to comment on it.

You (or the pupils) can attach notes to a picture. See here for an excellent example of this in use.

Here is an example of a photo which has notes attached but, more interestingly, is geotagged. Underneath the comment you can click on a link which will display a map showing where the photo was taken. If you have Google Earth on your computer, there is a link which will connect to Google earth and take you to the location. For anyone who’s interested, find out more about geotagging Flickr photos here.

Flickr is useful for storing and sharing personal photos but also has some interesting educational applications.

Inspired by John’s work at Sandaig, I started a Primary 7 writing blog. So far, 8 schools have joined in.

If you visit, leave at least one comment.

http://www.abernet.org.uk/weblogs/index.php?blogId=4

This has only been going for about 10 days. Only teachers have the password to allow blogs to be posted and I moderate all comments. I don’t correct any comments and have only rejected one.

I’m happy to discuss the thinking behind this project with anyone who is interested. Essentially I want to capitalise on the sense of audience to improve writing skills.

Andy