Top 10 tools for learning

Posted on by primaryt

1 – Primary School Teaching – Share and rate teaching resources
2 – Primary Blogger – Free blogging for schools (WordPress)
3 – TED – Inspirational talks on important matters
4 – School Email – Email system that does everything a school needs
5 – Miro – Great way to get video content
6 – MySchoolClosures – Simple way to inform parents and teachers if a school is closed
7 – Facebook – For when I’m stuck and willing to wait
8 – Twitter – For when I’m stuck and not willing to wait!
9 – Picasa–I love to share my pictures easily
10 – Primary Games Arena – This one is the kids favorite, not mine.

I wanted to put in applications that I think are great for teachers now and will be great in the future. Just to emphasize that point, the list is focused at tools for teachers not pupils. This list is more of a “Top 10 tools for empowering teachers to provide learning”.

All are cloud/web applications and I think that says something!

What do you think?

Arghhh, I published this then I realised I missed out Primary School Safe Search, I take this tool for granted but it is awesome.

The lasting impact of E Learning Credits

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The impact on the mindset of ICT purchasing.

“I used to get it for free and now I have to pay? I don’t think its worth that much!!” Schools are being much more frugal when it comes to purchasing new ICT software and services. This has lead to a decline in schools taking risks in new services and maintaining the status quo in a lot of cases. I think in a few years we will be able to see the impact of this.

The impact on small business.

The massive rise of small companies providing teaching resources and ICT services on the back of ELCs(E Learning Credits) was huge. I could pick out a handful that purely relied on them as a source of revenue, growing extremely quickly. I call this type of growth “unnatural” – This type of growth is fine if you are well managed but a lot of these small companies weren’t so we now have a lot of failing ICT companies declaring bankruptcy and making people redundant.

We never relied on ELCs, we knew the risk of trying to grow too quick. If ELCs were launched again we would do the same as Primary Technology but probably launch something as a company that would be guaranteed quick growth, quick depletion, no long lasting support. ELCs make IT companies grab money then scarper. Running an ELC program again would be so damaging for schools it would be unmeasurable, especially if you take into account how many services are now cloud/hosted services that can not be simply transferred to another provider in a lot of cases.

The impact on Learning

Lots of new services that popped up around this type provided software for educational problems that needed to be provided. I worked with various software houses during this time and the emphasis was always on quantity and never quality. Software companies knew schools had to spend money so giving them options was good. Schools were not interested in long term commitments as the ELCs were only short term so opted to spend all their ELCs even if they knew the software was less than fit for purpose. This left many schools with systems clogged with hundreds of pieces of software, cluttering their desktops, confusing both teachers and pupils alike. In one school I remember installing 8 different word processors on one laptop image that had a 20 GB hard disk.

Why all the negativity?

A lot of good did come from ELC purchasing but the cost was quickly reflected when new hardware needed to be purchased to accommodate all of these new tools. The new purchasing of hardware fitted in perfectly with the B and G generations of wireless networks and instantly a new learning type with technology was born. Pupils and Teachers could roam around, learning as an individual focused on a piece of software. One big problem though, ELCs didn’t encourage cloud/online services. Yes you could put them towards your website but most of the software available on ELCs were installed locally, something we have recognized will be a thing of the past. I think this was the #1 oversight – In my world I would of ensured each school had good internet connectivity then would have explicitly made ELCs available only to online services such as Education City & School Email.

Replacing ELCs with the HTG (Harnessing Technology Grant)…

The harnessing technology grant isn’t treated by schools the same way that E learning credits were. The money isn’t as well ring fenced as ELCs so some of the time it is poorly spent. I have been into a lot of schools where the ICT co-ordinator doesn’t even know the school has HTG money.

How can we run an ELC type programme again in the future without damaging learning or business?

Software is becoming cheaper, in fact in a lot of cases educational software and learning resources are free, created by the community. The timing for this couldn’t of been more fortunate for the folks who put the original ELCs in place. However, most of the companies who make these freebies have a solid customer base from the days of the ELCs so can afford to provide free services with the key principle that they are building a community in which the next time a government funded opportunity comes around they can pounce and rebuild their damaged revenue streams.

Review of Microsoft Family Safety Usage

Posted on by primaryt

This is an extension of my review of Microsoft Family Safety, in Part 1 you may remember I decided Family Safety’s installation process is too complication for the average parent therefore I pretty much gave it a big fat FAIL.

I felt I should review the entire product or at least try to understand its positives and negatives. I’m not going to write about what it does, go read Microsoft’s site for that.

I’m not sure that a google search for “girl” should be blocked.. but oh well, I will ask in person to get it opened..

The ask in person process works quite well, would be nice if it auto refreshed the “This page is blocked” once a parent has approved a site..

Interesting that if I goto images I get the images I want but if I click next to goto page 2 I have to re-request access.

I could of allowed all of google.co.uk but that’s not what I want.

Also interesting I could get to photobucket from that site.. So far its a big fat fail, however ads are getting blocked which is nice..

So it doesn’t filter content as I expect, lets see if I can get to some sites I want to get to..

I can get to most educational sites, that’s nice.. http://primarygamesarena.com and http://primaryschoolict.com worked, I’m guessing that’s because I have basic mode.

To summarize, Microsoft Family Safety is a resource heavy monster that restricts your child’s usage however it does show a certain sense of responsibility taken by you as a parent. You can use it however you want, it is fully customizable.

Do NOT make the mistake of thinking Microsoft Family Safety is the only thing you need to do. Speaking to your child is the key ingredient to all of this, they will not always have a filtered environment so teach them about responsibility internet usage.

Quick start developing for Android using SDK

Posted on by primaryt

1. Download Android SDK from http://developer.android.com/ (.180MB file)

2. Extract to c:\android

3. Download Eclipse IDE for Java EE dev from http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/ (.180MB file)

4. Extract to c:\eclipse

5. Start – Run – type: cmd

6. Type –> Cd \ – CD android – CD tools

7. Type –> android create avd –target 2 –name my_avd

8. Hit enter

9. Right click My computer – properties – advanced – Environment Variables – Under System Variables add ;c:\android\tools

10. OK / OK

11. Run c:\eclipse\eclipse.exe

12. Click OK

13. Click Help

14. Click Install new software

15. Add

16. Name = Android

17. Location = https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/

.18. OK

19. Wait for it to finish “Pending”

20. Click Developer Tools

21. Click Next

22. Click Next

23. Read the T&C’s

24. Click I accept

25. Click Finish

26. Click yes to Restart Eclipse

27. Click OK

28. Click Windows – Preferences

29. Click android

30. Click browse

31. Browse to c:\android

32. Click Apply/OK

33. Click File/New/Project/Android/Android project

34. Package Name: hello

35. Select Android 1.1

36. Applicationame = helloworld

37. PackageName = hello.world

38. Create Activity = hello

39. Min SDK Version: 2

40. Expand out Hello > src > Hello.World > Hello.Java

41. Paste over the current code visible in the centre of the screen:

package Hello.World;

import android.app.Activity;

import android.os.Bundle;

import android.widget.TextView;

public class hello extends Activity {

/** Called when the activity is first created. */

@Override

public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {

super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

TextView tv = new TextView(this);

tv.setText(“Hello, Android”);

setContentView(tv);

}

}

42. Click Run / Run / Android Application

43. Click Yes to save changes

44. Wait quite a while – Tada…