communICTy

CommunICTy Blog has moved to edublogs!
The latest update of edublogs has a number of new features that has motivated me to move my blog over to communicty.edublogs.org . I’m particularly pleased with their new selection of presentation themes which enable you to upload and crop your own header.

ICTnet East Conference
I’m organising a conference for ICT teachers, trainees, NQTs and trainers with Ian Noble from Tendring College, Essex. The theme is ‘Moving cutting edge ICT into sustainable practice’. We will be demonstrating ways of teaching with VLEs, blogs, wikis, online surveys, audacity, movie maker and flashmeeting.
The conference will take place at the Eastern Leadership Centre in Cambridge on Thursday 15th November and will cost £50. You can make a booking to attend the conference online by visiting this page on the SSAT Website.

KS3 ICT Resources
QCA have now launched their new Secondary Curriculum. It is great to see that themes such as global learning, personalised learning, creativity and collaboration have been included. Luckily, our adapted KS3 ICT units seem to relate really well to the changes. I’ve moved our online resources homepage to http://communicty.wikispaces.com/ks3ict .

I’ve updated some of our units and am in the process of creating some new ones.
MyTree – This unit will provide a new theme for unit 7.1. Instead of students describing their families and pets, they will create a presentation about their emotions in different school situations. They will share their ideas by contributing comments to blog posts.

7.3 Leaflet – Instead of creating a leaflet about their school, students research the global right to education and share their opinions by contributing comments to a blog post on how they learn better and what makes a good teacher.

Peace One Day - This unit is a good way to start the year with a new class. Students research the theme of the International Day of Peace (21st Sept) and create posters to put around the school to promote the day.

8.6 Film Reviews – This unit enables students to explore a variety of different applications whilst researching their favourite films. They contribute moderated comments to blog posts, complete an online survey, analyse the data in a database, create a text based film review and finally an audio podcast review.
Pirates of the caribbean 2

9.2 Online Survey – This unit enables students to compare the lives of young people in the UK and USA. We are hoping to involve students in other countries too this year for a global survey. Students then analyse the data using pivot charts and write a report to explain what the data proves.

My Recent Articles
Global Messenger – a 3 monthly enewsletter I write on putting a global dimension into the curriculum. email global@notredamehigh.norfolk.sch.uk if you would like to subscribe.
Giving ICT a Global Dimension – Ideas on how to use blog posts flashmeeting and leaflets to communicate with students in other countries.
Personalising Data – How to generate and analyse real data