PrimaryOdds'n'Ends » Useful Software

Sir Jim’s Leeks

Mr Ball — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 07:06:36 +0000

Pupils to study Twitter and blogs in primary schools shake-up
• New curriculum will give teachers more freedom
• Second world war and Victoria not compulsory

Polly Curtis – Guardian 25/03/09

Study Twitter? Study Blogs? They are just tools to engage and stimulate. For many they are already, just an every day, common place thing.
I wonder sometimes if the people writing the headlines have any idea?

“The proposed curriculum, which would mark the biggest change to primary schooling in a decade, strips away hundreds of specifications about the scientific, geographical and historical knowledge pupils must accumulate before they are 11 to allow schools greater flexibility in what they teach.”

You can just hear the scrape of old soapboxes as they are pulled out of cupboards in response to this idea.

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“satisfactory” = “unsatisfactory”

Mr Ball — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 08:09:03 +0000

Well put article in the Guardian this morning explains ‘Ofsted Newspeak’

Just trying to keep the inspectors satisfied

It’s now a mark of dishonour to be labelled a ‘satisfactory’ teacher, says Phil Beadle

Guardian 24/03/2009

“No more. What should we read into the change to the bald four grades currently in use, where lessons are either “outstanding”, “good”, “satisfactory” or “inadequate”? We conclude that “excellence” is no longer enough. “Good” is a broad church. “Satisfactory” means little better than the level beneath it. And you can’t dip your toes into “unsatisfactory” any more; you are immediately and summarily deemed “inadequate”.”

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Animation for all

Mr Ball — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 16:55:48 +0000

An online timeline animation program.

Ajax Animator.

Interesting posssiblities for e-learning materials

And an introduction to film making.

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Scratch Resources

Mr Ball — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 11:27:16 +0000

This came up in Simon Mill’s (ICT Inspirations Blog) del.icio.us.

We have one or two pages here that explain Scratch.

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Clay Animation Anyone?

Mr Ball — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 07:24:35 +0000

A free program for stop motion animation and a whole site full of help.

Stop Motion Animator

Clay Animator Website

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Create your own start page.

Mr Ball — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 09:25:47 +0000

There are a number of companies offering services to create your own start page. Simply put, rather than having one home page, you can have many pages feeding to one or more aggregated pages.

On your home page you can choose to have a mixture of LINKS, RSS FEEDS, FLICKR PHOTOS, WEATHER MAPS, CLOCKS etc. In Norfolk Primary Schools, if you’ve been using the VLE, it’s a bit like the opening page of modules but in this case you have complete control as to what goes on there and it’s a lot easier to change and alter. You can also have categorised subpages which are just a click away.

The internet is the the VLE, not a subsection of it, if you like.

The following screen grabs come from a NetVibes enabled start page.

This is a page of EDU Blogs

NetVibes

is but one of many and I’m sure there are more to come.

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PhotoFiltre

Mr Ball — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 08:06:47 +0000

A free graphics program to experiment with filters.

PhotoFiltre

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MWSnap

Mr Ball — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 07:47:39 +0000

A Free downloadable screen capture utility.

Great as a companion to PAINT.net for creating Blog size graphics.


















Mirek's Free Windows Software via kwout

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Scattr

Mr Ball — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 12:11:32 +0000

A Flash program that can scatter Flickr photographs onto an enabled page. A small fee is required to purchase this.

brendandawes.com » Scattr via kwout

Must get the photos onto flicker.

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