This is my first tutorial using Kodu demonstrating how to make a simple collection game. You can create games either by using a wired XBOX 360 controller or using the keyboard.
If you have any questions please comment below or contact me on Twitter.
Student voice is a big part of modern school life and senior management teams need to take more notice of what students think. Part of the way we achieve this is by using the Questionnaire functionality of our virtual learning environment (Moodle) to poll our students and get their opinions.
Two ways that we have used this recently is “The BIG ICT Survey” and “Have YOUR say on reports”.
The BIG ICT Survey
This is one of our major research methods into
- the way students use ICT at home
- what devices they have access to
- the level of ICT and Internet access at home
- how we can improve our online features
We perform this survey annually (in lesson time to avoid skewing the results) and this informs our decision making in the ICT Strategy Group. In last year’s survey we found that 95% of respondents have access to the Internet at home and that 91% have access to some form of mobile audio (e.g. iPod, generic MP3 players or music capabilities on mobiles). When you have information like that it encourages you to develop more publishing in that area e.g. revision podcasts.
We’ve updated the questions for 2010 to get more information about how students use Moodle and access our services from home. You can view this year’s questionnaire here. We’re currently running the survey so will publish findings soon.
Have YOUR say … on reports
We’ve recently been looking at improving our reporting systems for parents and students. As part of the review process we wanted to find out what students and parents thought about the way we report.
We created two questionnaires to be completed online by these groups. These were advertised in our school newsletter, on our website and to students on the Moodle homepage.
The return rate was excellent and the results were quite illuminating and will certainly help us to continue to improve our reports. It also meant that students and parents knew that their voice had been heard and that we were working in partnership with them.
Advantages and Disadvantages
The advantages to doing surveys online are clear
- we have no paperwork flying around (and getting lost)
- nobody has to copy results into Excel spreadsheets (and potentially make errors)
- the results are analysed and graphs are produced automatically
The main disadvantage is how students and parents without access are prevented from answering online but by making paper copies available this can be mitigated. Students can access the survey in lessons or at the library before and after school.
We also learned a few things about carefully constructing our questions. This includes
- writing questions in plain English
- making sure the options are easy to understand
- trialling the questions with focus groups of students to find any potential problems before rolling out to the whole school
Hi,
My name is Stuart and I’m an Assistant Headteacher and Head of ICT at one of the largest schools in the UK (2800 students).
Firstly … we LOVE Storybird!
It’s a great site and I’ve tweeted and blogged about how we used it in the classroom - http://www.stuartridout.com/post/347591517/writing-with-storybird
The only thing that’s a little iffy for me/us is the terms of service, specifically the part about the age restriction. “If you are under the age of 18 you may use this Site and submit personal information to us only in conjunction with and under the supervision of your parent or guardian.” This is kind of prohibitive for us in the classroom as to use this fantastic resource we would have to get consent from every parent. For us 2800 signatures is a big logistical task and to be honest we wouldn’t move forward with this. 
I was wondering if there was any scope for looking at this. When you sign up for Storybird you don’t actually give any personal information other than your name and email so I think it wouldn’t be a big problem for students to sign up without parental consent. I know there are teachers in the UK who are using this with kids as young as 8 or 9 years old.
Secondly, after using Storybird with a number of students they were unhappy with the username being used on the front cover of the book. You can’t always get the username you want as it might be taken and they said they would prefer to be able to type the name on the cover (as opposed to using username or the name on the account). They also said they found the artwork screen on the book writing section a little ‘messy’ and were wondering if you could have a button to arrange the artists work into a tiled layout (rather than the default view) or to click a button and have artwork arranged into ‘piles’ by theme, style or keyword. Some of the ‘busier’ artists have a lot of artwork on there and the writing screen is quite cluttered.
We still love Storybird and I’ll continue to use it in the classroom but I told my students that I’ll pass their feedback on to you.
Many thanks
Stuart Ridout
Many of us have been waiting for the Apple iTablet, iSlate, iPad for some time. Some thought the announcement would come a year ago but were left disappointed. Fast forward a year to 27th January 2010 and Steve Jobs announces the iPad to the world. This has been overhyped almost as much as the iPhone but without the ingenuity and innovation that came on the iPhone.
In the run up to the event, speculation was rife that one of the main target groups was education and that it was a ‘game changer’ that would revolutionise the classroom. Now having watched the blogs and video on the Apple iPad page, I think that it probably won’t (in it’s current incarnation.)
It’s certainly a sexy product, 0.5 inch thick, 9.7 inch display, 1.5 lb in weight and a great 10 hour battery life (depending on usage) but to me it looked more like a leisure device (lounging on the sofa) and less of a business/education computer.
Web browsing is apparently a dream on the iPad but still no Flash … that missing plugin icon is still there on Flash enabled websites. That means no animated demos or online educational games (such as Content Generator on your VLE).
School budgets are increasingly constrained and with the Apple exchange rate the iPad will probably be too expensive for a school to justify purchasing. Steve announced the entry price was $499 for the 16GB model (with no 3G) but the Apple exchange rate will probably give us a price of £400 (at least) IMHO. International pricing will be announced later.
With a £12000 budget would you buy 30 iPads or spend it in a different way? I think that schools will struggle to see the educational value in a class set. Of course it does run the 140,000 apps on the App Store so it is a truly multifunctional device, but will the multitude of brain training apps and mini-games justify this spend?
For an additional $30 you can run the iWork suite but could the class type an essay on Pages, or will they have the patience to work with graphs on Numbers?
It could change the eBook in the classroom and make reading cool again for students but unless you give the class their own iPad to take home and curl up in bed with the latest eBook will it make a difference?
As I write, I am left with many questions but not many answers! Of course, I think the school should purchase one for me to ‘try out’ as part of our ongoing research and development into ICT in education but I can’t see it making it in the classroom yet.
So, given £12000 … how would you spend it?
Today we had a collapsed curriculum day; we call it a hall day. This is a day where the timetable is abandoned (!) and students work in a subject all day. Today in ICT we had half of our Year 9 classes working with us (that’s about 210 students) on a project to write stories for younger children.
We were using Storybird for the stories and Moodle for the delivery. The fictional scenario was about a once great book company called Winkleberry books who had falled on hard times since they published “Killer Toddler Zombies”. Their role was to restore this company with the next big thing!
We set up a course with tutorial videos, helpsheets, and web pages. All passages of text were available with sound so they could listen along if the text was not accessible to them. This was available via Moodle and you can view it by clicking here and using the password typeface
They had the whole school day on it and the outcomes were fantastic! Here are a few of the books produced. These are from mixed ability classes and groups.
Of course we also got some students to review them on their blogs. Here are some of the comments (and links to the blogs).
“Today at school we had our ICT hall day!!! That meant all day we did ICT. We had to create a childs story book in groups using story bird!!! It’s really cool, other artists upload their images for you to use for free!!!”
Charlie S’s Blog
“Today at school we had hall day. Our hall day was a whole day of ICT:) I enjoyed today because it was a change from the other hall days that we have had”
Dani’s Blog
“everything has to be just right and its really difficult just to make up your own story because you have to make sure you have all the right punctuation amd i find that really difficult, But Hall Day today was the best one yet!”
Becca’s Blog
“I have enjoyed making my story today it has been helpful for the future incase i need to do something that involves making a book.”
Chantelle’s Blog
We have been using netbooks with two classes for over three months now. This is part of a pilot to test the effects of 1:1 computing. We investing in three sets of netbooks …
- two class sets that are assigned to students as their personal equipment. They are allowed to take the netbooks home and they are encouraged to treat it as if it were their own
- a class set that is assigned to a teacher. They are his netbooks to use as he pleases with his classes. He is completely responsible for their charging, storage and care. These are stored in a laptop trolley to charge all netbooks overnight
The class sets were issued at the end of October 2009 to a Year 8 class and a Year 9 class. They won the netbooks as part of a whole school competition to decide which classes would form the pilot groups.
The Year 9 students maintain blogs to record their thoughts and experiences as the project goes on. All of this group were specifically asked to write a blog post reviewing everything so far. The Year 8 group will be doing this and we’ll then collate it into a single report.
They certainly seem to have made a difference to their learning in a short space of time and I’m really excited to see what will happen as the skills of the teachers and students increases over the course of the year!
Here are notable quotes from the reviews so far with links to their full blog posts.
“Since I have got the Netbook I have been able to make my work more understandable because I can type up my work and email the teacher rather than write it with my scribbly handwriting.”
Charlie B’s Blog
” It helps me to have more confidence in class and i answer more questions now cuz have learnt alot from the netbooks.”
Chantelle’s Blog
“I think it does improve our learning, its a different way of learing too. Technology’s changing and people can find out stuff that they didnt know.”
Charlie S’s Blog
“I think my Netbook has made the most difference at home. I don’t have my own computer, so usually it’s a fight to the death between me and my sister to see who gets the only other computer available to us. So, in many ways, the Netbook has made a difference to my life, too.”
Emma’s Blog
“At home my mum uses it, with my help she has done online banking on it and my uncle has used it for e-mailing. At home i have gone on Facebook to interact with friends and family in india and germany.”
Iran’s Blog
“I do think it has improved my learning because I been taking it in more and not like the old saying in one ear and out the other.”
Maryellen’s Blog
“I think it has helped us become more independent because we have to remember to take in our netbooks every day and it has made us think for ourselves.”
Sarah’s Blog
If you’ve read my post about the great BIG netbook competition at my school, you’ll know about our project where we are trialling the use of netbooks with two classes to provide one to one computing.
The Year 9 class who are participating in the trial are helping us out by blogging their experiences. Some have really taken to it and some haven’t. This is obvious as many people try to blog but run out of steam quickly.
One of the students who has really taken the blogging on board is Charlie. He blogs … a LOT! Sometimes it is useful stuff where he has reviewed his day and sometimes it is him talking about things he does outside of school. He wrote a great short post last month about what to do if you are bored where he suggested to draw a face on your chin and film it upside down on your netbook.
He really enjoys getting comments on his blog; a little while back the vice-principal from the school commented on a post and he sent me an email with the following …
“Hi Stuart Guess what, Liz Boote commented on my Blog!!! WOW!!! Shes like high up head in the school!!! “
He then took it upon himself to email the principal of the school to tell him about his blog and invited him to read it. Brilliant self publicity … he’ll go far!
Please take a look at Charlie’s blog at http://charlieswan.wordpress.com or have a look at one of my highlights from his blog.
- explaining the netbook competition from his point of view
- review of Hall Day (a collapsed curriculum day) - this is the one that the vice-principal commented on
- showcase of a piece of work that he did in art - just used the netbook webcam to photograph it
- tips if you are bored - the upside down chin post
Exciting times are ahead if teachers carrying on their excellent practice in the way I observed over the last couple of days.
Firstly, BETT itself had a couple of highs for me. If I wasn’t out supporting someone by watching their #tmtakeover talk then I was concentrating on the “little stands”, those hidden gems that are a bargain price and can make a big difference. I was really excited by a weather presenting program from Kudlian software that allowed you to create the weather maps, write a weather script and then present it using green screen, if you have it, or split screen if you don’t. A single license for this was in the region of £45 and a site license for a secondary school was only about £450ish. Very exciting as we dabble in this but it’s difficult and time consuming.
I was really interested in the TTS stand and the Easi-Speak Mic Pro. I’ve seen the Easi-Speak Mic in the past but felt it was too ‘primary school’ to use in a secondary context. It is light and bright yellow … all a little Fisher Price for my liking. The Pro version is silver, more weighty and has a more expensive feel. The quality is no different but the credibility for students is important. It’s only a little more expensive so I’ve ordered 10 to see how it goes in the classroom.
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TeachMeet Takeover was probably the most exciting aspect of the day. This was due to the excellent organisation by Tom Barrett and outstanding support from sponsors such as Scholastic, BrainPop, Adobe and many more. I think the exciting thing for me is the opportunity to affect a much wider audience than with a full TeachMeet which is a big commitment if you don’t know what it’s all about.
The TeachMeet in the evening was fantastic. The presenters were really interesting. Helen Myers talking about Second Life to learn languages, Oliver Quinlan talking about blogs for Year 4 and Ian Addison talking about Voki. Some of it may not be new to everyone in the room but it will be new to some people. We even managed to get some people signed up to Twitter in the break. A downside was the quality of the video using FlashMeeting for online participation. We had a new sponsor signed up late in the day from ConnectEd Education who provide video streaming solutions but unfortunately there were some problems with the Internet connection, ports and IP ranges and we couldn’t get it off the ground. This was a shame but a last minute idea so with more planning we could get it going next year. Thanks to @eyebeams for running a twitcam stream that was better apparently.
The TeachEat at Pizza Express was great as well and thanks to the sponsors, Promethean, Anderton Tiger and RM who covered all pizzas and drinks.
TeachMeet is a fantastic network but it’s still relatively small. We need to continue building our networks but also build connect our network to other networks to extend this excellent practice.
Don’t forget to report how you’ve used practice from #tmbett2010 and #tmtakeover to get your hands on one of 25 full Camtasia licences from TechSmith or an iPod from Promethean. Just email tmbett2010@gmail.com and tell us whose idea you used, how it went and even examples of work!
When we released #movemeon as a printed book we wanted it to look the best it could, so designed it in full colour … but colour costs £12.24 (still an excellent price)
Now you can buy #movemeon with a full colour glossy cover but black and white printed inners for only £2.64.
£2.64?!? You could buy a few copies for school and share them with your nearest and dearest colleages!
Seriously though, nobody’s making any money from the book as it’s offered to you at cost price and it’s still chock-full with over 250 amazing teaching tips from the community on twitter.
So buy it now (or download free) as they are the same great tips but better value for money!
