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

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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.

One of the ways we did this was using weebly this is a free service whereby teachers can sign up to 40 students for free.  The children are then able to create their own websites of up to 5 pages, learning key skills of presenting, research, combining information and sharing this.  The children in pairs all picked their own part of Tudor life that they wanted to research – ranging from fashion to the wives.  We found it was a great way for the to present their research in stead of doing it via a powerpoint.  The idea came from the Switched on ICT unit 6.5 we are web designers – we did tweak the plans to suit our children.  You can see examples of their work here

Another resource that we use is Purple Mash – with this we created Tudor houses using 2 design and make – the children first looked at some example of Tudor houses then created the nets – these were then printed and then cut out and put together to create a Tudor village display.  We also used 2DIY 3D to create games- the children really enjoyed this activity looking at what made a good game and how they could make them more challenging and appealing to play – examples of these can be found here.  Purple mash also has some great Tudor activities these include creating a Tudor menu, creating a magazine front cover and using the mash cam to become Henry VIII.

BBC Learning clips  has always been a favourite little resource and it has some great clips for use with the Tudors – my favourites are those from schools radio including this one about Tudor rich and poor great for developing listening skills.

Once again our corridor has been converted into a Tudor museum – we are using Night at the Museum on the Wii within Literacy – we have tweaked the plans slightly this year but you can get the general idea from the post I wrote last year.

We have also visited the Golden Hinde, created new gardens for Henry VIII at Hampton Court in maths using our area and perimeter knowledge and will be making pottage. As well as looking at Romeo and Juliet, filming news reports live from the streets of Verona and learning Tudor dance.

The Tudors aren’t so terrible after all!

For the first time, this series of contests is exploring emerging opportunities in the education technology sector. IC tomorrow is looking for innovative ideas from start-ups, practitioners and developers to meet four challenges set in conjunction with the contest challenge partners; The Open University, Mozilla, Cambridge University Press and Pearson. For more information please see: http://goo.gl/tqWkP

IC tomorrow are holding a briefing event on Thursday March 14th in central London at the Work Foundation, starting at 10am SW1H 0AD. All of the contest partners will be there to speak about their individual challenges and members of our IC tomorrow team will review the application process for attendees. Register for the event here: http://bit.ly/VZTUOY

It’s a very simple application process. To apply, innovators simply need to submit a 2minute YT video and complete a light weight application form to explain their idea. There’s no requirement to have an existing prototype or be currently working in the education space. IC tomorrow are looking for a range of applications from great ideas through to prototypes already built. Closing date for entry is midday 8 April 2013 – so just over a month to submit applications.

Looking forward to seeing how this develops

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?

- 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.

My daughter is currently in Year 6, for her this is a perfect app for using at home – I can see how she is progressing and she prefers this style of learning and enables her to consolidate and improve her knowledge.  In a classroom situation, I only have one iPad so one niggle I would have is that there is no way of adding ‘users’ or seeing how individual children are progressing.  However in a 1:1 situation this app would be perfect for assessing needs and enabling children to make progress, enabling the children to see impact.

As well as  the question element it also has a handy key facts section and a great tip section for preparing for the test. The app is easy to use – first of all choose an area to practice from number and algebra, shape, space and measures, handling data and using and applying maths – each area has a progress bar that shows how much the child has completed in each area.  Once an area has been selected, you then choose an objective which takes you to the practice questions. Once you have completed 80% of the questions in a area correctly it then unlocks sample Level 5 questions as well.

For me this is a great little app that links to the National curriculum and enables children to consolidate and build on skills and knowledge needed to achieve Lvel 4

This year the organisers  have added an additional ticket category especially for teachers to come and pitch the ideas that they feel would have the most impact in their classroom or lecture hall. They have also provided a special discount code of TEACHER for those who wish to come along – I would say if you can – DO!! You can sign up here

It is a manic 54 hours but one that left me absolutely buzzing!

I started the day by listening to Michael Gove – may be not the most ideal way to start at Saturday but I enjoyed the conversation – he does have an unerring belief in his own beliefs which I do not always agree with.  Yes, there are schools that are not operating as outstanding schools, but surely there should be support for these – not just turning into academies.  Yes, I believe that education should be assessed but the notion that education without assessment is just play – well then I will continue to ‘play’ in my teaching and learning as surely this is how we learn? Yes as Michael Gove pointed out if you tell someone that they are a failure this will have a devastating effect they why does he do this to our profession as a whole?

Graeme Eyre has written a more detailed account of the conversation which you can read here. Also Tom Bennett  as ever has written a great account of the opening conversation with Gove which you can read here.   Oliver Quinlan also blogged here

Next was a panel  with Sir Tim Brighouse, Vic Goddard and Munira Mirza talking about What does it mean to be educated? very interesting perspectives from all three.  Vic Goddard kicked it off and I really  agreed with his point that listening was important within the classroom and talking and listening – hearing the aesthetics in a conversation – he spoke of humanising knowledge – promoting empathy and that if all we do is fill children with knowledge then they are no more than a dictionary. Everything we do is about making connections.  Sir Tim Brighouse was next quoting Temple  as the purpose of education as this: ”Are you going to treat students as they are or as they might be?”  Going on to say that if you want to have human liberty you must have education – to ‘think for yourself, act for others’. As ever he spoke so much sense that I could have listened to him all day – he also made the point  that Eton can give a false sense of confidence, like making you think you can run the economy or country when you can’t – again hitting the nail on the head!

At this time I have to confess on leaving the main hall, a combination of needing something to eat and also to process what had been said in the morning sessions – it was that full.  I had also missed Oliver running his session on ReconsiderED; the discussion – he has written this session up and can be read here.  I also missed Dug Belshaw discussing Learning technologies, but again he has blogged both the session and his thoughts on the conference.  It did mean that I could grab some lunch and have those conversations which was needed and I think to build on this year would be great to build in a slice of thinking/wandering time into next years programme to give delegates the chance to visit the various pop up spaces around the festival which I missed.

After lunch it was back into the main hall for ‘what makes great teaching – the global view’ this had John Hattie and Pasi Sahlberg on the panel and was fascinating. Hattie spoke of the impact of teachers of their passion – not just a love for the job but the passion that enables teachers to see ways to improve own impact and that see teaching as part of their lives.  It was also ways to build on these high impact teachers within schools, it is about the impact of teaching on students, not the teaching, that ”we must recognise ourselves-the impact we have as teachers.However, we reward and recognise student effort – not ours”  he spoke out the biggest issue being within our schools, not without and  asked where is our professional teaching body within the country?  Sahlberg continued this theme by stating that in Finland ‘we trust our teachers, we don’t test them to death, we dance and play as well as do the academic and that - The quality of the education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachrs.  He spoke about Finish findings on good learning saying that learning had to be goal-orientated, contextual and cumulative.  He also got one of the biggest round of applause when he suggested that politicians stay out of teaching.  Hattie made a great point during the questions when asked about time and where was the time to become a High IMpact teacher – that these teachers ahd the same amount of time as everyone else!

Then it was off to #ukedchat – looking at how social media can connect educators this was run but Tim Rylands and Martin Burrett – it was great – we did some speed dating – talking to others in the room about the pros and cons of using tools such as twitter and tips for the best way of using tools such as twitter. As well as this we were also introduced to some great tools – on the iPad/iPhone – GroupZap, brainstorm and syncspace for sharing ideas.  There was also Cacoo and linoit for min mapping as well as memplai.  Sarah has also created a lino that people in the session were asked to add to that can be found here. it was a great fast moving session and at the same time there was a live #ukedchat occurring!

Next was back into the main hall to listen to two of my favourite authors Michael Rosen and Anthony Horowitz – who spoke about developing a love for reading – at the heart of this was creating a great library, that literacy and reading are not the same thing, reading is not a passive activity you are actively involved in the themes and characters of the text that you are reading, reading is not something to rise up to – if you are not enjoying it – leave it – find something that you do. Rosen was more political – asking what we were doing to put children off reading – giving them tests like the Spag!  Transformational power in reading for pleasure, but with all the strategies in place and the form filling that teachers had to do there was no time – we need to make time!  It was a great session, although I had missed Sir Michael Wilshire talking, thankfully it had been recorded and a transcript of it as well as the recording can be found here

Finally was the question of what qualities do the best teachers share?  Camilla Batmanghelidjh spoke of the best teaching being rigorous, demanding, aspirational and that worked to abilities, Bridget Minimore read her own poem about English Teachers , some things will stick with you forever! Celia Hoyles, spoke of the fact that great teachers give everyone a grounding but also a glimpse of the horizon, Michael Rosen – more highlights advice to be curious and that the fundamental basis of education is talk.  Kindness was also mentioned but if you want the teachers to be kind to the children, the management has to be kind to the teachers was again a great point from Camila.

It was a great day! For next year – easier entrance, more time to have those conversations- over coffee, in break out rooms.  Congratulations must go to all who organised and I look forward to next year!

To end a thought from Camila again – ‘Why are donuts always round and not triangles”

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.