This July a Digital summer camp is being run in London – this looks like a great event fro students and teachers – the aim of the event is to ignite passion for computing and digital skills in ‘hotshot entrepeneurs’ aged 9-18. The press release from them gives more information:

 Tech City, East London, home to over 1,340 tech companies hacking, building and making cutting-edge digital products and innovations is to host a Digital Summer Camp http://digitalsummercamp.com/, 10^th – 11^th – 12^th July 2013 set to ignite a passion for computing in 3,000 hot shot technology entrepreneurs aged 9-18 keen to create their own digital products and to learn from the world’s best programmers and digital producers.  Supporters include The Mayor of London’s Office, Pearson, The British Computer Society, The Big Society and Tech City Investment Organisation.

 Helping schools and young people learn important skills, shape their digital futures and champion innovation, this new three day event will take place in the centre of this explosive digital community at Hackney Community College (HCC). One of London’s leading Further Education institutions, the college is situated in a safe and secure gated environment just minutes from Old Street tube station.

 Aspiring digital natives will be given the opportunity to learn from dozens of participating businesses. They’ll be shown how to code, build their own computer game, design the next flash or HTML5 web sensation, create an app with the potential to storm the charts, film the next hit viral video, learn how to use a 3D printer or programme a robot to jam to their own digital dance track.

Firmly footed in Science, Technology Engineering and Maths skills (STEM) this event is also designed to support wider digital ‘arts’ such as digital video, audio and design as well as providing advice for routes to careers, apprenticeships and entrepreneurship.

Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said: “The Digital Summer Camp will provide a great launch-pad for the technology leaders of the future, helping them to enhance the competitive edge of London’s Tech City and building its reputation as a place where local talent can thrive. Not only will it help London’s whizz kids fulfil their dreams of becoming tech entrepreneurs, through the Apprenticeships Pavilion it will encourage more businesses in the capital to give young people the chance to get their careers off to a flying start.”

Digital Summer Camp is supporting the teaching of digital skills in young people by offering £50,000 worth of free tickets to companies and organisations keen to invite their own school networks, hoping to engage up to 10,000 Greater London students and educators. With over 100+ exhibitors showcasing the best interactive games, apps, digital displays and effects, attendees will engage in hands-on digital workshops, meet leading digital entrepreneurs and hone their digital skills, and explore digital careers and apprenticeships.

Commenting on the Digital Summer Camp, Event Organiser, Edward Baker, said, “My vision is to create a digital playground in which every school in is invited. If Britain is to gain long-term economic stability it’s essential that our schools start producing a digitally skilled workforce. Students and educators will be invited to attend hands-on digital workshops, test innovative new gadgets and learning technologies, enter competitions to win brilliant prizes and gain exposure to the inner workings of the digital space. ”

“The UK digital economy is growing 2% faster than any other sector; to support this growth, we need to develop digital talent but also we must enable educators – helping them to understand the new technology landscape. The UK excels in producing award winning computer games, digital video and digital audio artists; Digital Summer Camp is designed to connect these companies with schools and students – and to engage the blooming Tech City ecosystem.

Our mission is to not only to find the next Mark Zuckerberg but uncover the next Dizzee Rascal, Danny Boyle or Nick D’Aloisio¹!”

Opening times:  9am-6pm.10-11-12th July 2013. Tickets cost £10 (early bird tickets are available at £5 if purchased before June 10th). To register click on: www.digitalsummercamp.com/tickets

 

This really does look like a great event – if you are looking to go along – please mention this blog to receive a discount code.

Livewire Public Relations

E: carolyn.boosey@livewirepr.com

T: +44 (0)208 339 7443

Richenda Wood

Livewire Public Relations

E:  richenda.wood@livewirepr.com

T: 44 (0)208 339 7442

NOTES:

Tech City figures from http://www.techcitymap.com/index.html

Nick D’Aloisio, 17, recently netted £20m from Yahoo, for his App Summly

SPECIAL DIGITAL ZONES INCLUDE:

The ‘Apprenticeship & Work Experience Pavilion’ supported by the Mayor of London

More than 200 of London’s leading business leaders will be coming down to the Digital Summer Camp to explore how the National Apprenticeships Programme can work for their business. Students are invited to explore the Apprenticeship & Work Experience Pavilion and meet companies who can help them secure their dream jobs (and explore how to use digital skills in future careers).

Whole School Hack supported by Pearson

Situated inside Hackney Community College is Hackney UTC – a secondary academy, that is being taken over by the Digital Summer Camp team running a 3x day ‘hackathon’ event where students and educators work together to devise and develop new ideas for digital products.

Innovation Zone supported by Tech City Investment Organisation

The Innovation Zone welcomes Tech City’s leading digital companies down to the campus to engage the audience and share their experience and expertise. A number of Tech City’s hottest start-up tech companies will camp out and inspire the next generation by sharing advice and providing inspiration as well as demonstrating first-hand the products they’ve developed.

Digital Leaders Zone

Hackney Community College’s huge, sunken amphitheatre will be transformed into a state of the art interactive presentation zone. Each morning visitors will start their day with an induction, and in the afternoon, some of Europe’s leading digital experts, digital entrepreneurs and role models will share their own digital skills and experiences.

Digital Village http://digitalsummercamp.com/workshops

Hackney Community College’s huge indoor sports hall will be converted into a ‘Digital Village’ with eight distinct arenas including Digital Music; Digital Film Making; Computer Games; Computer Science and App Design; Digital Design and Animation; Punk Science and Digital Printing; Digital Careers and Entrepreneurs; Content Creation for Web and also Hardware and Robotics.

Central Square

Situated in the middle of the Digital Summer Camp, ‘Central Square’ is a networking hotspot, designed to help digital communities establish themselves and help students connect to their digital future.

Campus Exhibitors

Located around the perimeter of the campus will be thirty exhibition spaces for the digital and education community, universities and colleges to demo their new technologies, test new ideas and approaches and share their skills and experience.

Bett 13 finished two days ago and feel that I have just about recovered.  This year was a busy one – on Wednesday myself and one of the HLTAs from school took 4 of our digital leaders.  They were presenting on the 2simple and Rising Stars stands as well as having a look to see what caught their eye and what they could suggest to us in order to move us forward.

Two things they found were:

First up was the Acer Iconia we are currently trialling tablets from Toshiba, the children really like these devices and as we are looking at moving away from a ‘suite’ it was interesting to see what attracted the children.  Their comments were: light, flexible and portable, is a tablet and a net book. One of their highlights on the Acer stand was also the chance to meet Jonathan Marray winner of the doubles at Wimbledon last year and they even got to play tennis against him – on the Xbox!

Secondly was Tig Tag, to be fair it did catch my eye first as I have always liked Twig as a company and the resources that they produce for Secondary.  I asked all the digital leaders to watch and feedback – they views were positive – they liked the fact that they were short and to the point and gave them the essential information – I have already passed on details to our Science co-ordinator.

It was then back to BETT on Friday for me – a time to look around and take part in a number of talks on various stands.  One of the highlights was taking part in TM takeover with the lovely @aknill we did a ‘Geografree’ takeover talking about lots of ways to use free sites and apps for primary and Secondary Geography. I also took part in a series of free CPD talks on the Stone stand organised by Tony Parkin – there were some great talks on the stand over the three days.

As ever it was lovely to meet so many people who I now class as friends that I have been lucky enough to connect with on Twitter – too many to mention but you know who you are – your generosity, humour and goodwill are always appreciated.

In the evening it was time for Teachmeet at Bett – I was tasked with organising the after shindig – the teach eat so missed a fair few of the talks but am catching up with the videos over the course of this week you can as well by following the links here and here it was a most amazing night and it seems the plans are already afoot for a bigger one in 2014.

I was back on the Saturday this time with mini bones 1 – or Phoebe – she loves coming along and seeing what is out there and being part of the BrianPop team, this year BrainPop launched their Game UP – I was really looking forward to seeing this and was not disappointed.  The premise behind Game up is to match high quality educational games with the content that is already available on the site, the games do not disappoint. Games from Manga High and lure of the labyrinth are already available – my favourite at the moment is guts and bolts.  I’m really looking forward to exploring this more with my class and see what other games they add to their collection.

One of the highlights of the Saturday and of BETT was seeing the brilliant Tim Rylands present in the arena with the title – Back to their future – Tim really didn’t disappoint and it was great for me to be able to take mini bones along – she loved it and when we got home began exploring some of the sites mentioned! It was great to see and share it with her.

So that was my BETT – yes it was a new venue – that was long, no windows but on the upside was 15 minutes drive form my house

How was yours?

Do you have a great idea for technology in education – if so then the EdMix pitchfest at BETT could be for you!  EdMix have announced Europe’s largest edtech pitching competition – they are looking to hear from businesses and education innovations with any subject focus and of course any technology.  There is a fantastic prize pot on offer as well thanks to their industry sponsors – the company voted first place at the end of the pitch fest will wiin:

- six months free central london desk space for four people at Pearson’s HQ – this includes broadband, breakout spaces and meeting rooms.

- quarterly membership from leaf investments and Pearson.

Interested? Then this is what you need to do next:

The submission deadline is January 27th at 9 pm - all that is needed is for you to upload 1x page document that details your business idea – the top 15 entries will be then invited to pitch these ideas to judges at the pitchfest to be held at BETT on the 1st February. Bett this year will also host a start up pavillion, also joining ed mix at BETT will be  the world’s largest edtech blog (EdSurge.com), and Pearson’s President and CIO are attending… along with Europe’s first edtech specific investment fund (Leaf Investments)

So what are you waiting for – I think this is a great opportunity to get your ideas ‘out there’.  For more details on the pitchfest and where to submit then click here

I am looking forward to going along and hearing the pitches on the 1st.

On Thursday night I headed along to a local school to attend a teach meet concerning all things iPad – it was a most excellent evening organised by Mr Skinny boy Evans.  At the moment I only use my own iPad in class and was really looking forward to hearing how other schools had approached putting these into schools – the results that they had found and useful apps for across the curriculum.

The first presentation was from Stephen Hawke who spoke about an app called Figure – the idea behind it was to make relevant music for the children and ability to see instant results.  It has 3 musical parts – drum, bass and lead and all work by touching and placing fingers on the screen. You are able to layer up different versions and put different beats in – it also uses the musical terminology such as tempo, key and rhythm.  Figure is an iPhone app and is 69p to download.  I have already downloaded this and have to say – it is very intuitive and is my sons current favourite app!

Next up were Laura and Neree form Elm Park Primary – they spoke about and showed their journey of implementing first of all iPod touches and then iPads into their school and curriculum – they showed a video which really highlighted the impact and progress that has been enabled across all levels of learning.  You can also follow them on twitter @EPPS_ICT  where they also tweet about the excellent work that goes on.  For me it was really interesting to see the route they went down, looking at integrating apple alongside laptops using a range of tools where they are best suited for the curriculum.

Steve Bunce appeared via video – included were the following apps – coach’s eye and huntzz – a great app that could be used to set treasure trails around the school and local environment – this app has amazing potential! You can watch the video here

Mike McSharry shared e paper with us – a great app that is a drawing tool that enables children to create their own picture books I think this would be really useful for a project within a class with each child creating a page within the book.

Today is Ada Lovelace day – a day to celebrate women not only in technology but also scientists, engineers and mathematicians, the aim is to create new role models for girls and women in these male-dominated fields by raising the profile of other women in STEM.

When I was younger and growing up one of my heroes was Maggie Philbin, who was a presenter on Swap Shop but also Tomorrow’s World, the latter was a programme that I loved it was BBC’s flagship science programme that mixed film reports alongside live experiments as well as examining the changing state of current technology and putting new inventions to the test.  It was great as a girl growing up to see a woman in such a key role on television.  I have subsequently been lucky enough to meet Maggie who continues to promote science and engineering for teenagers through Teen Tech which she created in 2008.

Currently there are two women who inspire me – the first is Dr Sue Black, who is a Senior Research Associate in the Software Systems Engineering group in the Department of Computer Science at University College London.  She has been campaigning since 1998 for equality and more support for women in tech, and also from 2008 to 2011 she campaigned to save Bletchley Park, which has been saved.  She also set up the goto Foundation last year, a non profit organisation which aims to make computer science more meaningful to the public.

The other is Emma Mulqueeny who runs Rewired State and Young Rewired state – a campaign to bring coding into mainstream education, an amazing organization that does so much to both engage and inspire youngsters around technology. As well as developing ‘hack days’ bringing digital innovation and revolution through rapid prototyping events.

All three of these women inspire me to promote technology,  - who inspires you?

Last week, I headed along to the Apple Store on Regent street for the launch of the book ‘Little Miss Geek’.  

The book has been written by Belinda Parmar , it marks the start of a new campaign to bridge the gender gap that exists in technology. The book is the culmination of months of research, discussions with leading industry figures and workshops with schools around the country, the Little Geek campaign is designed to inspire the next generation of female talent.

The launch itself started with four articulate young ladies outlining their aspirations for the future, we were treated to original songwriting, art, film and the next female prime minister.  What struck me while listening to all four talk was their passion for the subjects that interested them, but also the part that IT already plays within their lives. Their favourite gadgets covered an iPad, a MacBook Pro, an xbox and the Raspberry Pi – with these gadgets in their hands they are already able to use technology to push their passion for songwriting or film to a much wider audience than was possible 5-10 years ago, such is the speed that recent technology has moved at.

The discussion then moved onto the ‘Panel’ who were all given a minute a persuade the four that a career in IT was worth looking at.  The individual members of the panel were then judged!

First up was Lee Epting, former Global Head of content at Vodafone – she spoke about the fact that women are opinionated they don’t want to be influenced they want to influence and to have an impact – the biggest place for this at the moment – to have an impact and to influence was in mobile technology which was now everywhere and who knows where it could be in the future.  Next was Kat Grant, an ICT teacher at King Alfred School who spoke about the fact that often ICT itself as a name was a turn off, it should not just be about ‘office’ tools but being more creative, mashing things up and joining passion with ICT in order to create. Olivia Solon, associate editor of Wired was next who spoke about the fact that IT was permeating all sectors now and to follow your passion – linking IT with DT both involved making and creating things. Anna Fielding, on lie editor of stylist followed speaking of the fact that technology is an important part of any job, technology and the use of it  should be seen as part of the normal job and women should look a the depth of knowledge they already have but not realise.  Fast up was Laura Patterson, lead consultant at Thought Works who spoke passionately about the fact that technology is innovative creative and tangible but most of all technology is fun! it involves team work, collaboration and the thrill of solving puzzles.  Technology makes a difference.

I found all five talks informative but the last one definitely struck a chord – it is what I enjoy about technology the team work and the collaboration as well as most importantly making a difference however small.

For me any campaign that encourages females of all ages to become involved with technology is a worth while one – I see the enthusiasm from all children towards ICT at the primary level – and this needs to be encouraged as they progress through Secondary and into future careers.  They have started at primary and the love they have for using programs such as Scratch, Kodu and mine craft should be encouraged, at the same time realising that IT is more than coding, it offers a range of possibilities across all sectors and should be promoted.

The great folks over at bee-it have also written a blog post and offering five lucky readers the opportunity to win a free workshop with the Lady Geek team for their school, as well as a free copy of Little Miss Geek. To be in with the chance of winning this great prize, simply retweet their article  on Twitter or share it on Facebook. Winners will be chosen at random by bee-it on Friday 2 November 2012.

This year I am in year 5 again – the great thing for me staying in the same year group is reflecting on what worked well and what we need to change/adapt for the new cohort of children.

This year we have made use of the fantastic resource from the BBC Stargazing site, this includes a set of fantastic lessons plans as well as videos which help to explain more complex concepts.  Alongside these are a range of lesson plans and information sheets – a great resource for all those who are looking at the topic of Earth and Beyond.

In ICT we have been making use of Purple Mash which has a range of resources based on aliens and space – a large proportion of these are free and provide good prompts for the children for writing.  We have also downloaded SPEX Lunar onto our system – this is a great free resource.  The children used it to design their own moon base, thinking what astronauts would need for a base on the moon and designing it accordingly.  Another great resource is Google sky which enables you to look at constellations and explore the sky at night.

In Literacy we have once again looked at stories in space - this is the blog post I wrote last year about using Storybird and the picture book the Way back home.  We have also made use of the fantastic Literacy Shed - this is a great resource featuring a range of videos, we made use of the Sci Fi shed and started our topic with the lovely imaginations video.

We have also had a visit from a mobile planetarium and visited the Science Museum.

More great ideas for Space can be found here – a great blog post by Bill Lord

Last week the guys from Zondle along with Dr Paul Howard Jones came in to introduce Zondle Team Play to my class and to see it in action! The children in my class are used to Zondle as we make a great deal of use of it in the Autumn term creating quizzes alongside our space topic.

Zondle Team play is a new concept from the team at Zondle and is designed to be used on the IWB or projector and screen with the whole class.  Any Multiple Choice format style questions already inputted in Zondle can be used in team play, although in my opinion works slightly better with a ppt format – the ppt can then be used to teach/re-enforce the learning that has happened – can be sounds/pictures as well as information.  Dr Paul Howard-Jones is involved looking at the neuroscience behind the game and the value of uncertain rewards and how these are related to wanting to find out more – more information about the science behind Zondle play can be found here.

We used a Year 8 Tudor ppt as this would re enforce the work that my year 5 team had carried out in the Spring Term.  I used the powerpoint as a teaching screen reading information and linking it to prior learning.  One of the benefits for me about Zondle Team Play is that it encourages collaboration between the students, which was certainly in evidence when we played.  Also from the teaching point of view once the children had answered the questions, you then as a teacher can go through and look at all the options explaining why they are wrong.

To say the children enjoyed their first go at Zondle Team Play would be an understatement! It was like being on a game show! The children worked together, discussed options and gave their answers and cheered when they got it correct – all sounds like a normal use of multiple choice so far.  Zondle Team Play however gives the team an option before you reveal the answers you ask them if they would like to ‘game’ their answers – this means that if they get it right they have the chance to ‘spin the wheel’  spinning the wheel then gives them a 50:50 chance of either doubling their points or losing them totally for that question.  At first all four teams played it safe with no-one taking the chance to double it – however once one team had tried they soon all went for it.

Some of the questions included things we had not covered during our topic, they also had to use skills of inference and deduction as the answers were not always obvious. This is the beauty of using the Mutliple choice selection – they teacher can alter the type of questions that they give – there is advice on types of question on the Zondle Team play blog As the rounds went on – it is up to the teacher the amount of questions that are set and the points on offer,  the chldren became more and more animated when the scores were announced but also more focused when they were being given information.

For myself, it was insightful watching the children in different groups – listening to their thought processes and how they decided on their answers.  Also how they decided to game up their answers.  As the one at the front I did become involved in the ‘game show’ element of the play – it was brilliant! There is also the opportunity to put in bonus rounds – again all based on chance for the children to earn more points and move back into the game.

The children loved it – they could all tell me something that they had found out/remembered about the Tudors and really enjoyed working together as teams.

Here are some of the thoughts of the children:

“it was good to learn and find out more about the Tudors and work as a team but most of all it was fun – especially the challenge of gaming up”

” I thought the multiple choice was great as it gave all the players something to talk about and discuss, the questions ranged from being easy to being quite difficult -it was a great afternoon and a fun way to learn.”

Zondle Team play is a great new adition to the Zondle family and one that I can see using in my class next year.  The children were enthused and wanted to create their own quizes for next year as well as thinking about quizes they could do at home for family birthdays etc!

Really the possibilities are endless!

What not have a play would be great to hear your thoughts!

I am very keen to work with software developers in school – this has a huge benefit for both parties.  The children get to met/talk/work with real life programmers, coders and artists and for the company they get invaluable market research.  On Monday afternoon the team from Education Games Network, who run Wordia.com, spent the afternoon with my Year 5 class.

Wordia was launched a few years ago as a ‘living video dictionary’ (Wordia encourages users to explore the connotation of a word, on video and upload it next to the dictionary denotation).  They combine games with words – for children to improve spelling, vocabulary and keyboard skills.

Teachers can sign up and then are able to upload a class list – the site then generates user names and log ins which you are able to hand out to your pupils.

On the home page are a collection of both single player and multiplayer games that have already been collected by those playing in the Wordia community.  However, where I feel it comes into its own is that teachers can create their own games based on spelling lists and topic banks that they are using in class. These can then be set just for your class by issuing a unique url and a playcode that you can give to your class – or can be tagged and once approved, can be made public.

As well as building up the vocabulary it also enables the children to practice and refine their keyboard skills. . There are also videos on the site that define words as well – something that can for example be embedded in a blog and used as a word of the week within schools.

My class had not seen the site before deliberately as we wanted to see their initial reactions to it and how they thought it could be improved.  They started by playing the single player games on the home page created by other schools. Three topics were showcased: environmental words, geographical topics and America History – obviously the first two proved more interesting than the third! We moved on then to multiplayer games and the children really enjoyed the platform game – although they said that the controls were a little tricky.

They then moved on to create their own games with their own word lists relating to our current topic – which they could then all play – access through the dashboard, as class members are able to see other class members games as well as the class teacher being able to log in and see who is playing and creating. Teachers also have a dashboard that tracks a class, and pupil’s progress when they play each game.

During feedback the children said they would like to be able to play around with the characters and the backgrounds of the games more to personlise it for their games and also came up with a lot of suggestions of other games that they would like to see. When asked 90% of the class said they would use it at home and would help them learn their weekly spellings if we uploaded these each week for them to do at home. This was great to hear as a class, they are used to using games to help them.

As a teacher for me this is a great site to set up and set games and word lists for the class – also for them as a revision tool it is a great for them to compile lists of topic words across the curriculum. The video definitions also enable them to learn the meaning of any words they are unsure of. Games that are public are tagged with topic and age ranges from 7 – 14 – we will be using this now within the class and will continue to monitor feedback from the class.

Wordia on PhotoPeach

We already use a lot of ‘maths’ based games within class, but this site I feel starts to look at spellings and words, and I know that in development is a tool that would enbale children to have a vocabulary ‘age’.  To get started go to www. wordia.com to sign up.  It would be great to hear what you think.

So the Diamond Jubilee is almost upon us and I know that a lot of schools are celebrating in some way.  For our school it will be in the form of a joint garden party with our infant school that will then turn into an evening organised by the PTA.

Our overriding theme is Best of British and classes will be working on this theme now and on the run up to the Jubilee – I had a few ideas milling round in my head but as ever these days I turned to the wisdom of Twitter.  Below is ideas that we have already used – ideas that you could use and links to websites that may prove useful.  Would be great to hear what others are doing to celebrate.

Stamps – one of the activities that we carried out was to use 2Publish+ and the multi option to create a new stamp, that for them summed up the Best of British – we had already spent time in class thinking about what this meant, having discussions and brainstorming.  We also looked at the different ranges of stamps that have been created in the run up to public celebrations.  The children really enjoyed this activity, it led to some fantastic discussions as well as some great stamps.
Best of British Stamps on PhotoPeach

Menu – Cook for the Queen Also found this site looking a creating a menu for the Queen, it also links to produce from the local area, regal food and wan another great lesson that enabled the children to research, communicate and decide on what they would cook for the queen.  Purple Mash also has a menu apptivity as well as a range of others linked to the Jubilee.

Writing – The children could also choose a piece of writing based on the theme of Best of British and the Jubilee – this could take the form of poems, what it means to be British, imagining they were queen/king for the day and how they would celebrate, describe what gift they would give to the queen and why.

These are some of the ways that we have already started to think about the Jubilee but there are many others:

Other ideas

* Talk to family members – what other Jubilees do they remember and how did they celebrate?

* 60 most important inventions/discoveries of the last 60 years

* 60 photographs of the local area – old and new displayed in the number 60

*@bootleian also suggested England in a shoebox- what would you put in a shoebox to send to a partner school abroad to represent England?