primary – Page 10 – John McLear

Jaycut in the primary classroom – Video editing

Posted on June 7, 2010September 2, 2012 by John McLear

Recently when making my GTA application I checked out Jaycut.

Jaycut is an online video editing tool. I was super sceptical of using Jaycut, what with the size of video files and how slow preview should be over the internet, especially on my poxy home internet connection. I was very surprised by the results, although at one point I did lose all of my work! Watch the video and check it out.. No doubt it will be filtered inside of your school, get calling your LA/internet provider and get it opened up. It’s another great web2 tool we should be supporting.

As you can see it is very simple to use and accessible anywhere which makes it my #1 preferred option for editing video after they have been captured by a digital video camera.

Bye bye creative curriculum?

Posted on June 7, 2010July 11, 2011 by John McLear

The new Primary Curriculum is axed. Cutting the creative curriculum means 1 of 2 things, either:
a) schools can adopt their own creative curriculum without government guidance
or
b) schools have to stick to the current curriculum

Option a seems to make most sense as Cameron talks about empowering teachers.

So it is very likely schools will have to stick the current curriculum (option a) as sensible decisions isn’t the way Whitehall operates. Anyone else get the “If it can be cut – cut it” type mentality? On the same day as Cameron reminded us that our national debt is larger than Ron Jeremy’s libido.

It is no surprise that any “new spending” or “new project” would get cut but it seems like the Conservatives need to be clear and frank about the Primary Curriculum and their reasons for not proceeding with it after teachers have collectively spent tens of thousands of hours working towards delivering it.

Before Becta closes they have rushed through the Self review framework changes.

What do you think? Do you think it will be option a or b? Leave a comment and let me know your thoughts.

UPDATE: In the meantime, the Department has advised schools that the existing primary curriculum will continue to be in force in 2011/12 and primary schools should plan on that basis. Source

Ouch…

Focusing on Reading, writing and arithmetic will be a disaster.

Posted on May 29, 2010May 29, 2010 by John McLear

View from 5:30 if you don’t have time to watch it all. Basically saying it will be a disaster to go back to reading, writing and maths only model. For the most part I agree. I believe that it is our duty to give pupils opportunities to be creative as a priority.

Google Cloudcourse is not a learning platform

Posted on May 26, 2010September 2, 2012 by primaryt

"CloudCourse is a course scheduling system. ” — Google Code.

Not a learning platform. (as claimed by this post)

C’mon people, just because something is a web based tool that can be used WITHIN a learning platform doesn’t mean it IS a learning platform. Educators are already confused enough with companies offering them learning platforms that don’t do what a learning platform should do according to Becta(RIP) and Wikipedia.

Obviously a lot of people are still confused to what is a learning platform. I recommend you watch this video.

There is a live version of cloudcourse for YOU TO PLAY WITH here.

It is pretty much irrelevant for Primary Schools, I will try to find a creative way to use it in a primary but don’t hold your breath…

I am waiting on a call/email from Irwin(from the CloudCourse team) who will hopefully disagree with me and prove me wrong.

Does Cloudcourse compete with Frog, Moodle & other learning platforms? No.