communICTy

Happy New Year!
This edition marks the first birthday of Global Messenger! It is now going out to over 400 practioners around the world. As the need to put a global dimension into the curriculum continues to gather pace, so is number of ideas and resources that are being developed. Thanks to everyone who has pointed me to the information below.

Book Aid
The 10th year of World Book Day will take place on Thursday 1st March 2007. Your school can help us provide reading materials to school and public libraries in countires where there are desperate shortages ob books. This year’s theme is “A Day in My Life”. Look out for the World Book Day schools pack and Book Aid International poster. www.bookaid.org/schools

Fair Trade Fortnight
New versions of the banana game have been created. http://www.bananalink.org.uk/ have created a new pdf version. I’ve also created a version using an Excel spreadsheet to show it as a series of budget models using formulae. For a comprehensive list of Fair Trade resources go to http://www.globaldimension.org.uk/default.aspx?id=166

World Water Day
I’ve been creating and collecting resources on water for the last two years. It seems to be a great theme to get students started on global issues.

Abolition of the Slave Trade
2007 marks the 200th anniversary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade in Britain and the colonies – the first step to outlawing slavery altogether. http://www.understandingslavery.com/ and http://www.globaldimension.org.uk/default.aspx?id=303

Around the World series, Oxfam
Help children in the Early Years develop a global perspective with the
Around the World series: Hair, Bicycles, Homes, and Playtime. Each book includes stunning photographs from around the world, and a world map showing where the children come from.
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/publications tel:01202 712933 email: oxfam@bebc.co.uk

Sustainable Schools
The Sustainable Schools Framework sets out the government’s vision of how schools can become beacons of sustainability for their community. The framework promotes sustainability not as an ‘added extra’ but as a core context and ethos for whole school improvement.
There is also a new self-evaluation tool for schools to use to assess their sustainable practices, based on and complementing the current school self-evaluation (SEF) format.
www.teachernet.gov.uk/sustainableschools

Greenscene
Greenscene is a twice yearly publication that goes to all Norfolk schools and Governing Bodies, to support these schools with sustainable development.
www.norfolkesinet.org.uk/envedu 01603 774023 joy.lambert@norfolk.gov.uk.

International Day of Peace Update
On 21 September there were reported Peace Day activities in 200 countries, directly involving 27.6 million people. Furthermore, POD were honoured to collaborate with leading humanitarian organisations to document the first ever life-saving activities specific to Peace Day in southern Sudan and The Democratic Republic of the Congo and immunisation campaigns in a further eight countries worldwide.
Now, more than ever, it is crucial that we come together to make an urgent, heartfelt and unified call for a peaceful and sustainable world.
For a list of planned activities and suggestions for ways in which you could mark the day visit my peace site or http://www.peaceoneday.org/ communICTy.org Update
communICTy is my weekly blog on exploring the real world through ICT. Recent posts include:
R U Global – Resources for a training day on global education to PGCE students
Assessment for learning in ICT – How to assess KS3 ICT
2020 vision of personalised learning – in response to the Gilbert Review
Online Surveys – how to create and analyse survey data Global Del.icio.us
To see all the global websites I find, view my global del.icio.us tags. To learn how to create your own del.icio.us to bookmark useful sites visit how to social bookmark. Global Dates
UNICEF day for change – 2.2.7
Fair Trade fortnight – 26.2.7
World Book Day – 1.3.7
International Women’s Day – 8.3.7
National Science Week – 9.3.7
Commonwealth Day – 12.3.7
Earth Day – 20.3.7
International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination – 21.3.7
World Water Day – 22.3.7
Bicentenary of the abolition of slavery in the British Colonies – 25.3.7
World Environment Day – 5.6.7
World Refugee Day – 20.6.7
World Population Day – 11.7.7
International Day of Peace – 21.9.7

Subscribe / Unsubscribe
You are welcome to forward this e-newsletter to anyone in your network. If you wish to unsubscribe, simply send me an email with unsubscribe global messenger in the subject title bar. Global Messenger is made in association with Norfolk Education for Action and Development, Norfolk LA and Notre Dame High School, Norwich.

BETT is well known for its freebies, but you can also spend some serious money. I resisted the temptation of gonks and lollipops and hunted down free innovative ideas instead.

Free Advice
From a wide range of talks, I attended a NAACE Seminar given by Robert Hart of intuitivemedia on personalised learning using ICT. The message is clear, students use their computers far more at home than at school and in much more creative and collaborative ways. The challenge we face is to bridge the gap between home and school use of ICT, both in terms of technology and pedagogy.

Futurelab
If you want to know the latest research on the future of ICT, Futurelab is where to head. They do an excellent magazine and e-newsletter which you can subscribe to for free. They have just launched a blog called flux for educationalists to discuss and share the latest in innovation.

BBC Jam
Jam is an interactive website with the motto “explore, learn, create”. You can learn whilst playing interactive games, then create your own cartoons, projects and games to challenge your friends. I watched a demonstration of an instantly appealing geography activity involving a group of dishy looking characters called The Operatives. This an excellent example of online resources that students can do at school and be encouraged to try at home too.

Flashmeeting
If video conferencing is proving costly and/or difficult to set up, Flashmeeting could be your solution. It is a simple, secure, easy to use tool that allows up to 20 individuals or small groups to come together.
All you need is Flash and a simple webcam, or even just a microphone. You don’t need to download any special software and it uses the most commonly open ports. It will even record the session and give you a URL to play it back.

Regional Broadband Consortia
BETT is a great opportunity to see what the RBCs are offering. I visited the E2BN stand and was given a large number of cards for exciting sites such as Myths and legends, e2bn gallery and making the news.

Cultureonline
Cultureonline has just won two awards at BETT for exploring and creating art and music. See ArtisanCam and SoundJunction.

Moodle
A VLE for free, is this possible? Sadly, it doesn’t come with the person you will need to set up and maintain it. However, judging by the number of people hovering around this stand, Moodle does seem worth consideration.

Best freebie
Without a doubt the most sort after freebie this year was the BBC Jam bags. As I was concentrating my efforts on finding free resources, they were all gone by the time I got there. Imagine my disgust when I met up with the rest of our group all proudly displaying theirs. It seems that looking for free innovation at BETT comes at a price after all!

Add a comment
Did you find anything good at BETT, be it free or not? If so, add a comment below.