13 March 2012
Northern Grid in its new partnership with BT is pleased to promote:
FREE 'LIVING WITH TECHNOLOGY SESSIONS' FOR PARENTS
eSafety with a difference!
As part of the Living with Technology pilot programme, BT have worked with The Parent Zone to develop a free, hour long workshop for parents, giving practical advice and information to help them feel confident in understanding and enjoying technology with their family.
The Parent Zone have trained BT workers, most of them parents themselves, to deliver the workshop, and are also responsible for matching volunteers to schools.
BT has developed a series of 'how to' hand outs that parents will receive, and The Parent Zone offers follow up email support to parents and schools after the workshop. The workshop can be delivered to parents with children of any age, but is probably most useful for parents of 8-14 year olds.
We have volunteers trained and ready to deliver in Newcastle, Gateshead, Blyth, Alnwick, Cramlington and Tynemouth – to register for a workshop in your school go to www.btlivingwithtechnology.com and fill out the online form.
Alternatively, you can ring Sophie, the Project Coordinator on 07939 569617.
Deadline for booking a workshop: 4th May
Please note: as this is a pilot, the number of workshops is limited, so sign up now to avoid disappointment! Once you have registered, Sophie will be in touch to find a suitable date and time; she'll also send you materials to help you promote the workshop to parents.
23 January 2012
“very interesting and thought provoking and the information was delivered very clearly and concisely”
Northern Grid delivered an in school support session on Parental Engagement to the staff of Ash Trees School in January 2012.
The focus of the session was how technology can be used to support effective parental engagement.
The aims of the 1 hour session were to:
- recognise the importance of parental engagement
- identify how technology can be used to improve parental engagement
- start the process of planning how to develop your school’s approach to parental engagement.
The session included:
- A review of the current literature and research
- Parental Engagement and the Ofsted Evaluation Schedule and the Ofsted Schools and Parents report
- Becta resources
- Technology and how it can be used
Glenn Atkinson, ICT coordinator at Ash Trees provided the following feedback:
“the staff and myself found your input very interesting and thought provoking and the information was delivered very clearly and concisely. I know you had condensed your usual delivery to meet the limited time available for our staff meeting but I do feel you imparted lots of useful information without the feeling of being bombarded with too much.”
For more information about this session contact christine.jack@northerngrid.org
To find out how else Northern Grid can support your school contact support@northerngrid.org
16 November 2011
A head teacher from a primary school in one of the Northern Grid partner LAs recently asked about teaching Control Technology and what equipment was needed. Susie Arnott, who has worked with Northern Grid regularly over the last few years, has produced this helpful guide.
For more information contact support@northerngrid.org or contact Susie by email susie.arnott@mac.com on Twitter @darktigerlily or via her website http://www.storywebs.co.uk
Teaching Control Technology in the Primary Curricuum
Teaching control technology starts in Early Years.
Many Early Years settings will have lots of role play toys such as microwave ovens etc. that have buttons to start timers, noises etc. Old “real’ items, such as old mobile phones also offer opportunities for important play and talk. Adults should draw attention to the “cause and effect” of pressing buttons etc., and also discuss the control switches, dials etc. on real-life machines and gadgets.
The most frequently seen “formal” equipment is the BeeBot which has a simple set of control buttons to make it move forwards, backwards, turn to right or left and make a sound. There are lots of accessories to add, such as additional shell tops to transform your BeeBot into a variety of different characters/colours, and play mats that encourage the planning of routes.
Play with BeeBots (and other programmable toys) begins in an experiential way. Structured, adult-supported activities are needed to supplement free play in order to develop the important sequencing strategies for making complicated actions in one go. With the addition of some support materials for planning or recording moves, children’s development in understanding of this technology can be extended greatly. This can be as simple as providing a set of teacher-made cards which match the buttons on the toy and setting them out in a sequence to show the buttons to press to complete a specific action.
Many schools also have ROAMER. This is more suitable for use with children in Y2 up – if they are to develop sequencing and programming skills...
07 October 2011
Social Media CPD Shotton Primary Durham
On Monday 3rd October I led a CPD session for the staff at Shotton Primary Durham to look at ways of making informed and appropriate choices about using social media tools.
The session also looked at how to manage the risks by considering safe practice in order to protect yourself, your pupils and the wider school community.
The following 10 important points were considered and discussed:
- Decision should be made as a school.
- Full support of the SLT
- Use should be fully documented
- Risk assessed
- Identified within the eSafety policy
- Responsibilities for moderation
- Up to date content - keep it fresh
- Sites Terms and Conditions
- Compliance with schools behaviour and complaints procedures
- Due to the global nature of the internet, risk cannot be 100% removed, a clearly defined eSafety policy and incident procedure is essential
The following links may be of use if you are thinking of engaging the use of Social Media for your School Community:
Shotton Primary staff have a commitment to increasing the use of Social Media to engage parents and the wider community.
They will be taking into consideration the points raised...
30 September 2011
or...The Importance of Ownership
A superb eSafety video from Northern Grids' ‘Protecting Adults Who Work With Children’ event.
Also labeled:
Bullying,
eSafety,
Guidance,
Head Teachers,
Learning Platform,
Multimedia,
News,
NG Services,
Northern Grid Created,
Parents/Carers,
Presentations,
Publications,
Teachers,
Video
29 September 2011
Northern Grid attended the Kinect™, Kindles™, Know How and Learning Impact! event on Tuesday 27th September. During the event schools had the opportunity to find out about the wide range of support available from Naace, including the ICT CPD 4 Free website and the Naace ICT CPD award scheme. Vital shared information about the work they do and the support they provide (see: http://www.vital.ac.uk) and some of the events they are supporting in partnership with Northern Grid, including the Tees Teachmeet on October 6th.
Then it was time to hear how Kindles and XBox Kinects are being used in primary, secondary and special school classrooms and a have chance to play with the Kindles and the XBox Kinects set up in the room.
After playtime the session was rounded off with Steve Bunce sharing some great ideas for using free tools to add some excitment to teaching and learning. Ideas included using Angry Birds, Scratch and Camera Mouse - an interesting tool that can turn your nose into a mouse!
The afternoon was very enjoyable and it was great to meet such enthusiastic teachers from across the region.
For more information on how Northern Grid and Vital can support you: support@northerngrid.org
28 September 2011
Dame Dorothy Primary School in Sunderland completed a support request at the Northern Grid conference in June. They wanted a session that would support staff in building on their knowledge of using sounds, images and PowerPoint.
The session included:
- How to find images and sounds to use in school that wouldn’t cause problems with copyright.
(There are a number of online archives available e.g. the NEN Gallery, British Pathé and Audio Network)
- How to add images and sounds to PowerPoint to create engaging presentations and records of pupil achievement.
For more information about this session or How to Use Digital Assets in School contact christine.jack@northerngrid.org
Northern Grid provides a range of support for schools. For more information about how we can help you please contact support@northerngrid.org
15 September 2011
North Tyneside LSCB Childminder Network
“Simon delivered a presentation to our Childminder Network earlier in the year, around how to keep within professional boundaries when using social websites. We all got so much from this session that the network requested a return visit. As usual, Simon delivered a fast paced, very informative session which stimulated much thought and discussion".
September 13 2011
Working with children has many rewards and also presents a range of safeguarding challenges.
An interesting area of my esafety and safeguarding work involves supporting childminders, and the challenges they face are much more complex than we may at first expect.
Childminders work at home and the benefits of this are clear, yet the blurring of work and personal boundaries can lead to problems. We may occasionally be more flexible in our understanding of ‘acceptable’ in our own home than perhaps if we were working in an open plan office or alongside colleagues all day.
The group of childminders I met, in the evening, this week had a huge range of experience, and one childminder had almost 30 years’ experience in working with young children. If we consider the changes in technology over the last 30 years we can begin to imagine how the risks to both the children and the childminder have increased at a seemingly alarming rate. A childminder must ensure that they have the confidence and skills to manage the risks facing children who use common internet technologies including games consoles, phones and computers.
In addition to the challenges of working at home and the lack of day to day contact with colleagues who could provide important support and advice, childminders also face the challenge of informal relationships with their clients or customers. Where other self-employed people will have clearly defined parameters to relationships with their clients, childminders may have close friendships with the parents of the children in their care. We discussed this during the session and where the childminder and the parent of the children share a mutual trust and understanding then friendships and working relationships can be managed very effectively. This may mean the general guidance we offer in managing Facebook privacy settings is often much harder for childminders, and those who work at home, to put into effect. Unfortunately this can lead to potential areas of difficulty if parents of...
15 September 2011
September 14th 2011
"The presentation was very comprehensive and delivered in a way that everyone could interact with and understand. The balance between the talking and hands on was great and staff went home last night and actually explored further.Thank you very much for you time and effort - it was great!"
Staff from Archibald First School attended the Northern Grid Conference in June and were impressed by the work other schools were doing with Blogs. They filled in a support voucher on the day which entitled them to a 2 hour support session from a member of the Northern Grid eLearning team.
The session included:
- An introduction to how Blogs can support teaching and learning
- An overview of things to consider when setting up Blogs for use in school
- A chance to examine the eSafety issues involved in using Blogs
- An introduction to using Blogger
- A practical, hands on session
Feedback from the session was very posive and the school is now planning how they will introduce Blogs. For more information about this session or How to Use Blogs in School contact christine.jack@northerngrid.org
Northern Grid provides a range of support for schools. For more information about how we can help you please contact support@northerngrid.org
