Lots of ideas for using textease for Christmas ict lessons. Use co-ordinates to find santa or write instructions about how to build a snowman.
http://www.kenttrustweb.org.uk/kentict/kentict_soft_text_christmas.cfm
Find out how much it would cost to really send the 12 days of Christmas presents! KS2 can create an excel spreadsheet to calculate the cost using the prices from the website below. http://www.pncchristmaspriceindex.com/
Christmas display materials to print out. Number bonds to 10 on Christmas socks, Christmas themed self registration and Nativity words to http://www.communication4all.co.uk/http/Christmas%20specials.htm
A Santa Cyberhunt – search the Internet and find out lots of santa facts. http://www.btinternet.com/~tony.poulter/cyberhunts/santahunt.htm
Lots of fun maths activities and a story about santa and his helpers along with lots of other fun games to play. http://www.topmarks.co.uk/Christmas/ChristmasGames.aspx
TOP 5…
…Interactive Whiteboard ideas for the start of term
* Self Registration – Using Power Points to allow children to register themselves when they arrive in the morning. http://www.communication4all.co.uk/http/IWB%20Resources.htm
*Interactive White Board too high for little arms? Give them a xylophone beater to use to reach higher.
* Enter all your pupils names in the Random Word Chooser in Smartnotebook and use it to pick children for different things.
* Use the new handwriting pen to smooth out your letters on the newer versions of smartnotebook.
* Right Click and choose infinite cloner if you want to be able to drag unlimited number of images (great for use with money)
Learn songs and poems in different languages – this website has songs from around the world with translations in English, some songs have music files and videos.
1. Go to www.Zamzar.com
2. Click URL on step one and copy the web address of the You Tube clip you want to save into the box below, select AVI in step 2. Add your email address and click convert.
3. You will then be a link to your clip (usually within half an hour) follow the link and download and save on your PC.
This is an assembly from CEOPs Thinkuknow education programme that helps children to understand what constitutes personal information. The assembly enables children to understand that they need to be just as protective of their personal information online, as they are in the real world. It also directs where to go and what to do if children are worried about any of the issues covered.
For more information please visit: www.thinkuknow.co.uk
How can you make the reason for this poignant day relevant to primary school children? It can be a bit of a balancing act, but cross curricular ICT resources can help bring to life these sensitive topics.
We know that sometimes the most challenging part of planning a cross curricular lesson can be finding a great piece of software or hardware and implementing it in a relevant way. It can typically be a ’square peg, round hole’ situation. We hope we have come up with some good ideas to save you time in doing this and these lessons can be found below.
Finally, this is the link to the Royal British Legion’s Poppy Appeal, http://www.poppy.org.uk/. An incredible £33,570,454 was raised last year.
Links to video tutorials
KS1 – Remembrance Day Poster – 2 Simple
Using simple paint tools to create a poppy border and then choosing an appropriate font to create the text for a Remembrance Poster
Follow this link to view – http://www.turniton.co.uk/iteachers/demo/8.htm
KS1 – Remembrance Day Poster – Colour Magic
Using the stamp and text tools in Colour Magic to produce a Remembrance Day poster.
Follow this link to view – http://www.turniton.co.uk/iteachers/demo/9.htm
KS1 – Remembrance Day Presentation
Using the Internet to research Remembrance Day events in London and presenting a comparison of these and local Remembrance Day events, in a multimedia presentation. The software used is 2 Simple 2 Create A Story and animation and sound can be added making this a more advanced lesson than the previous tutorials
Follow this link to view – http://www.turniton.co.uk/iteachers/demo/10.htm
We are delighted to announce that we have been shortlisted for the ICT Service and Support BETT 2011 Award. Celebrating the best digital product and technological companies supplying technology and services to education, the BETT Awards are widely regarded as the most highly esteemed awards in the industry.
Turn IT On! has been recognised for its ability to provide exceptional services, support and professional development to ensure that ICT really makes an impact in the classroom. It gives our ever-growing team of consultants great recognition for the real impact our service is having in schools and the fact that our service really does make a difference!
Turn IT On! will be exhibiting on Stand S57 at the BETT Show 2011 (12-15 January) if you want to come and talk us about our support services and how we can ensure your school gets real value for money from your IT equipment.
The winners will be announced at the London Hilton, Park Lane, on the evening of 12 January after the first day of the BETT Show, the world’s largest educational technology event.
For further information about Turn IT On! please contact Tom Welch, Business Development Director, on 07856 687935, email: tom.welch@turniton.co.uk or visit the website: www.turniton.co.uk.
It is Child Poverty Day on 16th October. The usual way to donate money to causes these days is via the internet so why not get your class to create their own donation page on your school’s website?
Basic (and here I do stress basic) html code is easy for kids to learn because of its formulaic nature. If this project is coupled with some marketing to parents encouraging donations, it could be a great success.
The children will get a kick out of seeing donations coming in and seeing how many ‘hits’ their page gets. You can track your school website’s traffic volume by installing Google Analytics on your website (which you can find here: http://www.google.com/analytics/) which will tell you exactly how many people have visited the site since their page was developed.
This needn’t be a one-off either – whenever your school is raising money for a cause the page could be adapted and utilised.
If this sounds like a project you think your school would be interested in and you feel you’d need some support with getting started please do get in touch. Turn IT On will be able to assist every step of the way. My email address is tom.welch@turniton.co.uk and my phone number is 01865 309659 if you’d like to have a chat about this.
If this idea sounds a bit too ambitious for the time being but you still want to tell your class a bit more about child rights and welfare during the lead up to Child Poverty Day, there is a lot of accessible information on this CBBC webpage:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/find_out/guides/2003/life_for_african_kids/newsid_2678000/2678157.stm
Also, ActionAid, the founders of Child Poverty Day, are holding their annual Big School Dinner campaign which you find out about here: http://www.actionaid.org.uk/childpovertyday/.
Good luck with all your fundraising.
Tom Welch
Founder
Turn IT On
PS. Children in Need is coming up in November. Perhaps you’d like to get your webpage up and running for that instead? Just let me know on tom.welch@turniton.co.uk or 01865 309659
A question I get asked quite often is how to make ICT in lessons relevant. It may sound obvious but during my time as a primary school teacher I found that one way to do this was by tying lessons into seasonal events and national days of celebration.
Of course this is not a revolutionary idea; the usual seasonal and religious events have always been marked in schools. But I’ve found that by digging a little deeper to find out the more imaginative and unusual national days (like national Talk Like a Pirate Day on 19th September and World Smile Day on 1st October) you can often incorporate a wider range of cross curricular activities into lessons and link them with ICT.
So, now we have just passed the Autumn Equinox, I’ve included a free video tutorial from the iTeachers website, which shows how to use RM Colour Magic to examine ‘Light and Dark’ now that the nights are drawing in:
I hope you find it of use and if you’d like a more comprehensive list of national days, holidays and events please email me on tom.welch@turniton.co.uk and I will happily send you a copy of mine.
KS1 – Light and Dark
This tutorial uses a variety of drawing tools in RM Colour Magic, including symmetry and line/shape drawing tools, to create a symmetrical landscape which is filled with colour to show the differences between light and dark.