Details of how to create an iTunes account without having to use a credit card

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Some of you found that if you calculated the perimeter and area of the windows using centimetres, you ended up with very large numbers for the area. When you then tried to convert the area in square cm to square metres, you encounted a problem.
Try this on your calculator:
0.6m x 0.6m=
60cm x 60cm =
Compare these two answers. What do you notice?
Now think about centimetre squared paper. You may have some in class that you could look at. How many squares of 1cm x 1cm does that paper have? Is this more that you expected? (Paper measuring 20cm by 30cm will have 600 squares, yet 0.2m x 0.3 m = 0.06 square metres
Can you now imagine a piece of paper 1m x 1m? How many squares of 1cm x 1cm will that piece of paper have?
What conclusions can you make?

What conclusions can you make?

The intention of this first of 2 days was to develop the cross curricular ICT skills of gifted and talented children as a joint partnership project. I worked alongside Mrs Keeley Poole, Thackley Primary, to develop the focus of the training for the day. It had to be something the children could do once they returned to their own schools. We chose to teach the children how to create a multi-track radio broadcast in the morning and in the afternoon we covered how to create a movie about e-safety using iPods. We know not every school has access to iOS devices but it gave the children the opportunity to see what these mobile devices were capable of.

As the children were all ‘G&T’ we decided not to ‘spoon-feed’ them but complete both tasks as independently as possible. We also decided to mix the groups of children up so each child worked with pupils from the other schools in the partnership. I was delighted with the children’s behaviour, teamwork, script writing and final ICT related products they produced. We received very positive feedback from the children and the adults attending the day and we are thoroughly looking forward to delivering day 2.

I have embedded all the radio adverts below and I’ll think you’ll agree, all of the children did a great job! Well done! I must also say a big thank you to all of the adults that helped out from the different schools and we look forward to working with you again soon.

The Curriculum Innovation team are often called to run these partnership events for different groups of schools across Bradford and beyond. If you would like us to work with you to plan and deliver a gifted and talented partnership day with your schools please contact sarah.hawkins@bradford.gov.uk

Earlier today I blogged about how to show your iPad on a whiteboard in class. Well this is how to do the same with an android tablet.

It’s been much more complicated to do this as there are so many different android tablets that are running different versions of the operating system. I’ve tested this using a seven inch Samsung Galaxy Tab Running Android 4.1.1.

There are a few apps that do this for you. The trouble is most of them involve rooting your tablet which essentially means taking some of the restrictions off that the manufacturer imposes. It’s a bit like Jailbreaking an iPad which is not recommended. This will invalidate the warranty for most makes. If you want to go down this route (and you or your technician know how to root devices) then you can use MirrorOp. You’ll also need to check your device is compatible -check on their web site.  You need to install the free app and pay around £10 for the program on a windows computer.

I decided not to root my device. After weeks of searching I’ve got the answer. At the time of writing this is the only way to mirror an android tablet to a computer without rooting the tablet.

You need to buy the VM Lite VNC Server from the Google Play Store. It’s less than £5.

You then download free PC software from their web site. There are instructions to follow here. As with most Android devices it’s not as straightforward as it could be so here are a few tips:

The first time you set this up you have to connect with a usb cable. It might say “No android device is connected.” If you go to settings> Storage settings , change from a Media device (MTP) to a camera connection (PTP) and it should work.

Even though mine works fine it still says ”No android decice is connected.” Just click “Start VMLite VNC server” and open up a browser with the address it says. I find the Java option works best for me.

You can’t scale the window. It’s either full size or half size. If possible turn your tablet horizontally to landscape mode, I find this works best.

A bit fiddly but it works! I hope this works for you, please let me know how you get on.

Projecting the Tiny Tap app onto a whiteboard using Airserver.

Teachers and pupils love the chance to work with iPads and other tablets. No waiting around to log on to a network, easy and intuitive to use and create beautiful books, films, animations and music. One problem has always been how to use the whiteboard in class to model tasks and to share work produced by children. Here are the options for schools with iPads. Unfortunately at the time of writing there is no way to mirror an iPod touch to the screen, although it can be done with an iphone.

Choice 1. Buy a cable.

At the time of writing these cables cost just over £10 from Amazon. They plug straight into the whiteboard VGA lead just as your laptop or class computer does. The down side is you are limted by the length of the lead, so you can’t walk around the room with your iPad. The only way to share work with a student is to unplug your iPad and plug in the one being used by a pupil.

Choice 2 Use Airserver

Airserver is a program you install on a PC or a Mac. It costs roughly £10 for a personal licence but you can buy 20 educational licences for approximately £60, see details here. Once Airserver is running you double tap on your home button on the iPad and swipe left to right until you see the mirroring option below. Turn on the option and your iPad appears on your PC screen. You need to make sure the iPad and PC are on the same wifi network. For me this is a winner. There are no wires so you can wander around the room. You can mirror more than one iPad on the board at once. The most we’ve tried is twelve! It means you can switch iPads on the board quickly, you can compare work side by side too. Airserver also broadcasts the audio from and iPad or iPhone.

Choice 3 Reflector

Reflector is a Mac and PC program that is similar to Airserver.  It also allows you to record a video of your actions on the iPad and save it as a video file on your PC. There are free ways of doing this already. You can use the Smart Recorder in Smartboard software or you can use the fantastic free Screencastomatic.

Choice 4 Apple TV

I really don’t see the point of buying Apple TV any more. They cost £90 each and you could kit all your classrooms out with Air Server of Reflector for about the same price as one. They offer you the chance to connect multiple iPads to the Apple TV wirelessly. I suppose one advantage is that you don’t have to go through a computer.

Please leave a comment to share your experiences. I’ve just managed to mirror android tablets too, so I’ll add this information in a separate post.

This year saw nominations and shortlisting for both the Curriculum ICT team in the Curriculum Support Service Category and for Chris Mayoh (a member of the Curriculum Innovation Team) in the Primary Impact Category. In all the award categories there were some very strong contenders and making a final choice by the judges must have been extremely difficult.

The Curriculum ICT team were nominated for the following reason:-
‘For the support offered by their Curriculum ICT team, ensuring their schools are kept up-to-date with new initiatives and encouraged to implement new technologies, such as the Digital Leaders Programme.’

Chris Mayoh, Bowling Park Primary, was nominated for the following reason:-
‘For revolutionising opportunities for independent learning and for implementing rigorous processes for e-safety training.’

Congratulations to all the winners. The full list can be viewed here:-
http://www.naace.co.uk/events/conference2013/naaceimpactawards2013/winners

A huge congratulations to Chris from all of the Curriculum Innovation Team. He was chosen as the worthy winner of the Primary Impact Award. Other teams within CBMDC are also extremely proud of him as well.

The web address that will enable you to access the standards files is http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20110809091832/teachingandlearningresources.org.uk/collection/30926

The Primary Science Co-ordinators Assessment Child is the outline we annotated with the levels and the evidence associated with the child working at this level.

In order to decide the levels awarded we used the Attainment Target Level Descriptions along with the APP sheets to be found at http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20110809101133/nsonline.org.uk/node/20683

The Science Assessment Flow Chart gave the overview of how one school manages end of unit and end of year assessments.

The Internal Assessment & Moderation Procedures Spider Diagram was what i had intended to use when i posed the question about moderation…it may be of use to you.

This is the outline for the final SWOT Analysis that enabled you to produce your action points to take back into school.

Here are the comments that you put on the post-it notes about the different ways in which we can collect and record evidence of a child working at a particular level 130312 VW Recording assessments.

Finally, these are the levels awarded to each child with your reasons and questions APP Science Child Levels and Comments.

My thanks again for all your efforts during the meeting and I look forward to seeing you on day 3 - Monday 10th June 2013 at TICB.

The afternoon kicked of with a brief introduction to the day by Andrea Nicholls (EYFS consultant for CBMDC). The audience were given feedback sheets so that they could determine which of the products on show might be appropriate for their setting. All the presenters did a FANTASTIC job clearly demonstrating effective use of these products in their particular setting and the pros and cons of each system.

The second session started immediately after the first session. This was an ‘open house’ session  set up in a Teachmeet style format where each of the presenters were given 7 minutes to extol the virtues of the product they used. The open invitation proved to be extremely popular as people streamed through the doors of TICK over the following 2 hours. The buzz in the air was palpable as people chose which of the 3 studios to visit first. The verbal feedback we have had so far has been extremely positive and staff would like us to run another roadshow, or perhaps an EYFS Teachmeet in the very near future. By the end of the day 120 visitors had attended the roadshow and we hope that they found system that works for their setting.

Andrea, Dulcie Leach and myself would like to say a HUGE thank you to all the presenters who worked so hard throughout the day even though some of them were really nervous. One of the biggest thank you’s has to go to the two members of staff at TICK – Ben and Jo who ensured everything ran smoothly as a venue.

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