World Book Week

As part of Cefn Fforest Primary School's celebration of World Book Day ( Week )we had a variety of activities in school ranging from a 'Book Fair' and book related lessons ( book cover designs and book reviews). Included were visits to school by authors and illustrators ( some organised by our local School Library Service, and some through school contacts ).
To finish the week of activities on Friday 9th March Jan Woodward and Kath Jenkins visited school to talk to our Year 3 pupils about their new book 'Five Fairies go on Holiday' which has just been published and is available through amazon.com.
We managed to podcast the question and answer session.


Click here to get your own player.

To all educational bloggers using Blogger itself there is a way to get rid of the banner headline which contains the icon for next blog ( this allows any viewer of your blog to click onto a randomly selected next blog - not a good idea in an educational setting ) Allanah king on her blog 'life is a race not to be first finished' has some very interesting snippets of advice including the code needed to get rid of this banner. There are also links to Allanah's work on 'Adding Bling to your Blog' do take a look and let Allanah know what you think.

Today Friday 9th March was a day that my European partners in Italy, Estonia and The Czech Republic had planned for a week or so - we had arranged to take part in a Skype Conference Call at 9.30am (UK). This needed a bit of re-arrangement in Cefn Fforest as we had to miss a special Merit Assembly in order to be in class for the 'Phone Call'. On checking I found that all of our friends were online however Killi in Estonia appeared to be going off-line occasionally. Just after 9.30 the call came from Daniela in Lazio, we had a chat while she tried to contact Estonia - however all Kylli managed to say was 'Hello!' then her link disappeared. We were quite frustrated in Wales when we could just see our friends briefly before we lost the signal!!!
We called Allanah King in New Zealand in the meantime in order to check that the fault wasn't with our link - we could talk to NZ over 13,000 miles pefectly, however our European link was still poor.
We did however manage to re-contact Daniela and we sang some of our favourite songs to Daniela who was very pleased by our singing. We finished chatting with Daniela and then settled back to work ( spelling test !!!!!)
Luckily for the pupils Killi seemed determined to get through to us, and we both tried several times to link. It was at around 10.15am that Estonia finally made a good contact - We could see our friends in their classroom in Estonia (Hurray!!!)- sadly they couldn't see us but we soldiered on and sang songs to each other, ours in English and Welsh and theirs in Englih and Estonian it was great fun, my pupils certainly enjoyed singing and listening to their new friends. They asked us about our weather- wondering whether we still had our snow, their snow is still on the ground however temperatures in Estonia were above freezing for the first time over their winter today and their snow began to melt a little. ( they still have plenty of snow though ).
We found out also that they begin school at 8.00am, have their lunch at 11.00am and go home at 1.00pm, they do have some after-school sports clubs however most students go home then.
We concluded our chat just as our playtime bell rang, agreeing to talk again on Monday 12th March at around 9.30am (UK). On Tuesday 13th we hope to contact Irena's class in the Czech Republic as part of a Conference Call with the help of Daniela.
A very busy Friday indeed, topped off by the visit of Jan Woodward an author who has just published her first book 'The Five Fairies go on holiday' which can be found at Amazon illustrated by Jan's colleague, and our Local Police Liason Officer ( more on a podcast coming very soon)

With the added problem at the moment of having to keep any eye on at least 3 time zones ( 2 European plus New Zealand ) - I have decided it is high 'time' we had a visual way in which to keep an eye on Time itself in addition to placing our new friends on a map so that we can picture where they are. This is the start of our display on our New European Projects, we are engaged in 2 - one which has been running for some time and a brand new project being run jointly by ourselves and a school in Nerviano near Milan, Italy ( not on the map yet !!! )

Hey great news from Cefn Fforest Primary School - we have a new class blogging - Mrs Prescott my colleague in Year 3 has just joined the blogosphere and would love some comments - so go ahead guys make their day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I hope that this will be the first of many classes that I can encourage into the fabulous world of Web 2.0 ... watch this space.
( message sent from Class 3H Cefn Fforest Primary School 12.10pm Thursday 8th March)

Lunar eclipse in action - here in the UK with beautifully clear night skies ( for a change )starting at around 9.15pm. Gradually the shadow of the Earth is gradually working its way across the surface of the moon.

You can't see the reddish glow which was still present at totality on the podcast below, but it does give a short sequence as the eclipse was happening.

Another thought provoking YouTube video is 'Animal School'


This link came from a discussion in TappedIn an online discussion forum set up by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach for Web 2.0 mentors and a group of postgraduate teachers at William and Mary College in Virginia. It also makes one think deeply about the stereotypical pupils we all have in our classrooms and how much the input we have with these pupils can perpetuate their future in education and life... enjoy.

This video shows very clearly how strange a 'new technology' can seem to those who are not in the first wave of using it. It should strike home to all of us involved in using Web 2.0 tools with colleagues!!!! Thanks to Jane Nicholls at ICTUCAN for the link.

**Revision to post Joe Dale's FlashMeeting session will start at 8.00GMT to allow more people to take part **

E-Twinning seems to be quite in vogue at the moment and we at Cefn Fforest Primary are flying the flag for Wales in Europe with the 2 projects with which we are involved.
Joe Dale a blogging and skype buddy of ours had the opportunity to visit the recent E-Twinning Conference in Brussels - along with people such as Ewan McIntosh, Jeff Howson (follow the link to projects and e-twinning) and Stephen Heppell amongst of course many others from around Europe. As Joe said ' it really brings home to you what E-Twinning is all about when you visit these events and see the networking of teachers from across the Community.
Joe managed to get an interview with Jeff and his colleague John Warwick on FlashMeeting
which is an excellent means of videoconferencing between schools in Europe ( I particularly recommend it for my partners around Europe to try it out). Unlike Skype which is well known to me, FlashMeeting does not require any software to be downloaded you simply make sure that you have your webcam and microphone set up and log on to the system and join your discussion area ( the administrator pre-books the time and likely number of participants). All schools who have joined the e-twinning webzone from the UK has automatically be allocated a FlashMeeting account, a fact not widely appreciated as far as I am aware.
In order to promote the use of FlashMeeting specifically amongst the MFL community Joe has organised a FlashMeeting get together online on March 8th at 7.00 GMT with the Theme 'Blogging and Podcasting: Creative and personalised ways of engaging and extending your pupils in the Modern Foreign Languages classroom' he has given a link to visit just prior to the start of the hour long session. It will be an excellent way for some of us novices to check out the potential of FlashMeeting in our European Projects... see you there on Thursday!!!!
Why not take a look at Joe's other thought s by following the links on the sidebar to Joe's blog site.

Moving on from my photographic disaster - by the way many thanks for the comments Allanah and Daniela, it is a cautionary tale and something that any of us can easily overlook. I will be asking other staff for some general pictures of all of our pupils in their National Costume - the one good shot saved was a shot of our 'Chocolate Fish' from New Zealand prior to them being given to our ClassBlogmeister bloggers.

**Disaster**
Unfortunately technology has bitten back this week. On St David's Day (March 1st) I had a fab day taking many many photographs of pupils in National Costumes and of us playing and performing on the day. In the evening I began to download the photographs to the Apple MacBook - then DISASTER!!!, I hadn't noticed how low the cameras battery was, it ran out giving me a warning message about loss of data. I had to wait then until the following morning when my batteries had recharged before I was able to check out what had happened, sure enough -the camera said that the xd card required formatting!!!!! in doing so it cleared the card - ALL PHOTOGRAPHS NOW GONE. All of the work of the day before is now lost, I was devastated and will now have to gather images from other members of staff - Technology Bites Back : (

Class Blogmeister Bloggers from Cefn Fforest Primary

We have just started using Class Blogmeister which is an educational blogging community run by David Warlick's Learning Project. Our main blogspace has become a hive of activity for my kids, I know that it is something new and is bound to have an immediate take up which will slow down - but at present I have pupils in my class begging for 'computer time' during their playtimes and lunchtimes in order to blog ( we have over 12 bloggers now). I have suggested that our now experienced 'bloggers' assist the less able ( and those who don't have a computer at home ) to get 'blogging'
As World Book Day approaches I have set the task for my class to blog about their favourite books - so watch this space for more reports on the Class 3H bloggers - do put some comments on their work they will be really pleased to get comments ( Thanks Miss K your comments have really boosted the bloggers confidence in what they are doing ).
Well done to the Cefn Fforest Year 3 Bloggers.

**An Amazing Conversation**

All was excitement in Class 3H at Cefn Fforest Primary School this morning. We had pre-arranged a video-conference between Class 3H Cefn Fforest, Mrs Kaasik's Class at Killi Gynmasium School Estonia and our E-Twinning Co-ordinator Daniela in Lazio Rome. The conversation was planned for 9am (UK time) which is 11am in Estonia and 10am in Italy.
Mr H arrived in class at 8.20am to set everything up - all seemed fine the PC started up and Skype opened. ( story we have just had a new-ish win XP installed in our classroom) Just to ensure that everything was working I attached a microphone to the system and set-up the speakers. Then I tried out the microphone ( it recorded in MS Sound Recorder) but in Skype I had no audio pick-up at all - by now it was 8.45am ( and panic began to set in) I went through the system and a sister computer quickly but could not get any audio at all. I was finally admitting defeat and frantically Instant Messaging my colleagues around Europe explaining our position...
At 9.10 we finally gave up, leaving Skype running, the children went into assembly. At 9.20 the Skype phone rang it was Estonia calling complete with video - I could see the pupils in their classroom in Estonia where they were actually in a maths lesson, the pupils said their 'Hello's' and sang in english their 'Hello Song' ( no Skype recording sadly!!!). We lost connection just as my pupils returned from assembly.
We then had a few minutes in class where we weren't really sure what was happening - followed by a conference call where Daniela rang ( Estonia were already online). My children introduced themselves to each other in song - they repeated the 'Hello Song' and we sang a Welsh Folksong back. The pupils applauded each other and said their welcomes. Daniela dropped out of the conversation in order to allow Killi to contact us with Video enabled - it worked and we were able to see our friends in their classroom - you can just imagine the excitement of actually seeing and hearing their pals in Estonia. It was great fun, we chatted for a few minutes and then went our own way - we went off to learn some simple Estonian phrases for our next conversation ( I guess the Estonians went back to their maths lesson).
I chatted later with Killi in Estonia and we have agreed to talk again next week. ( we have to get our microphone and webcam sorted out in the meantime). We can't wait!!!!!

Allanah meets and greets David in Rotorua

Listening Live to David Warlick via skype over the internet how cool is that. Allanah King has her laptop at a workshop on RSS being given by David Warlick in New Zealand at this very moment.


David's talk ranges over a variety of Web 2.0 technology and how relevant it is to teachers. He discusses the use of copying RSS feeds into aggregators in order to take the 'leg work'out of keeping your links up to date. He also talks about 'tagging' of blog entries and flickr photosets.
I hope that David will not think it too much of a liberty for me to podcast the part of his talk that I managed to listen to - fascinating stuff ( it was almost like being there in person !!!) enjoy...



I have now had some time to reflect on what happened last night, and it is quite an amazing story to me as I come to terms with the 'flat earth' concept.
I had carried out a skype conversation live with Allanah King while she was talking to teachers about the global aspect of podcasting which in itself is quite a feat of technology that would have entailed a huge amount of pre-planning just a few short years ago. The conference called Learning@School wa taking place in Rotorua in the North Island of New Zealand ( about 13,000 miles away!!).
The following evening while I was sat partly watching the television and partly updating some blogs on my laptop ( with Skype on of course ) it was around 9.15pm. I had a Skype IM from Allanah who asked ' I am sitting in David Warlick's talk on the use of RSS in aggregating, would you like to hear what he has to say?'
The answer of course was 'YES PLEASE!!' - seconds later the Skype Phone rang and I was listening to David in the lecture room 13,000 miles away! I could also hear people around Allanah which is really weird like actually being there !! Sadly no Video ( but you can't have everything) Another message ' would you like to move closer in order to hear better?' To which the answer again was 'Yes please!'
Now being so far away I will have to imagine the rest of the story - I can see Allanah calmly placing her laptop on the platform in front of David!!!! What I have since heard is that David could actually see me ( my video on ) while he was presenting ( I was looking very studious honest and taking notes (and dressed!!!) He was also fascinated by Allanah's screensaver as it kicked in.
I have always wanted to have the opportunity of listening to David speak so you can imagine my enjoyment of 'almost' being there as he was inspiring the educators in New Zealand with his Virginia 'twang'. I was only disappointed when sadly the battery on the laptop gave out before the end - I have to imagine the bits I missed, but the time I had listening was quite something -
Thank you very much Allanah and David for the experience.

A Welsh Folk Dance ( Y Delyn Newydd - The New Harp)



If you follow the link above you will see the first of what we hope will be a series of videopodcasts. This is a walk-through of the dance for which you will need your pupils in sets of 4 couples in a line with partners next to each other ( boy have the girl on your right hand side ). We hope that you will enjoy Part 1 ( do leave us a comment if you find it useful ) hopefully we will podcast the music next week for you to have a go for your self.

Cuddly Kiwi spent some time today supporting Class 3H in an indoor hockey final against Mrs Prescott's Class - Class 3H by 1 - 0

** Flickr Group**
I recently joined a Flickr Group called 'School Photo a Day' . The group has been organised by teachers (17 in the group so far - do join in teachers out there )with the aim of spreading the creative use of digital photography in schools.
Each week a focus is selected - teachers around the globe then upload and post their photo's on the set theme. Week 1 was based around 'out of lesson time - playtime etc'... Week 2 is currently still running with the theme of 'pens' .
This is an interesting way to get pupils to engage with technology and also an excellent way to see how pupils work and spend their leisure time in other countries around the world.

E-TWINNING LABEL AWARDED FOR PARTNERSHIP
Above is a copy of the e-twinning label that has been given for the project set up by Caterina Canovi at Nerviano near Milan in Italy. The project is set to run for 1-2 years and is specifically to give our pupils the chance to learn how others live within the European Community. We are looking forward very much to sharing our experiences with our new friends.

We have also been accepted recently into partnership with another group of schools ( 12 schools across Europe) - this group has been set up by Daniela Lucci Cordisco in Lazio Rome and Killi Kaaluk in Estonia to study how children in Europe play and live in the European Community. We have already posted work to the project's web page
We hope to make good contributions to this group and to become good friends with our partners.

WriteToMyBlog

Testing out a new site discovered thanks to Darren Kuropatwa in Canada, when I was browsing educational blogs( linked from Terry Freedman's ICT in Education )- Darren had posted to his blog using the site. I thought it was worth trying out to see what the result quality was like - as they say the proof of the pudding.... The site allows you to enter text plus things like Flickr Photo's and even YouTube videos to multiple blogs at the same time - should you have the need to - check it out I did.

Tags: writetomyblog, Darren+Kuropatwa, Terry+Frredman

**Class Blogmeister Account**
Following our troubles with trying to get blogs up and running in school. We have tried out a few including learnerblogs, all have given us problems in uploading or access, we have finally managed to get our Blogmeister account for the school up and running. My hope now once we have got some blogging going that I can use this to encourage others in my school to join the blogosphere. We have had some success already as one of the pupils who has taken our friend cuddly Kiwi home has managed to blog about it - all I have to do now is put a photostream together to show off Leanne's work...

Some interesting Web 2.0 Tools reviewed
1) Slide.com - I came across this great piece of software quite by accident ( which is often the case!). I have recently joined a couple of E-Twinning Projects , and the main administrator, a teacher from Italy uses slide.com to showcase photographs of her pupils at work.
I completed the simple registration process and began, the upload process is a little slow ( perhaps my impatience!!). Once you have uploaded your images, there are a variety of different slide show combinations to choose from, with some extras to add that bit of bling to your show!
Once you save your slide show it generates the code which you can then copy and paste into your blog post ( there is a short guide to help with this process should you need it.
All in all I personally found this an easy and rewarding piece of software to use.

2) The link to FON came via Ewan McIntosh's blog report. FON is social web based community ( many thanks for note Ewan) . When you join FON €29.95 you will be sent their 'social router', this is a 54Mbps router which receives 2 network signals ( 1 public and 1 private encoded)
*** However as Ewan's Comment states - at present they have ***2500 FREE*** which can be received when a friend (FONero) invites you to join the community.

"Starting December 21st Foneros in Europe and the USA can invite their friends to join FON and receive a free La Fonera! If you have an active Access Point you are eligible to participate in our “Fonero Gets Fonero” campaign.

Martin Varsavsky, founder and CEO of FON, regards the "Fonero gets Fonero" campaign as a gift to the Community:

"It is Christmas time and we want to thank our loyal FONeros and reward their trust and commitment by offering them the opportunity to give new community members a Christmas present. At the same time, it is they who decide which friends they most want to surf with. In this way, they enlarge the community with FONspots in sought-after locations."

It’s easy and your friends get a La Fonera mailed to them free!
Click here for details!

Update: In Europe you will receive 1 invite at a time. When your friend activates La Fonera your next invite will appear!" from the FONera blog December 2006

The whole idea is that the socially aware owner will agree to share his open signal with other members of the FON community, there are 3 categories of FONero.
a)Linuses - FON router sharers who can make free use of any other FON router they come within range of
b) Aliens - FONero's who choose not to share and as a result pay €3per day access to any other FON router.
c) Bills - these are business users whose aim is to make money from their FON access points ( they receive 50% of the money that 'Aliens' spend at their access point. They are also able to advertise on their access point homepage.
The idea is that as the FONero network grows free wireless access will be available to users. This will be very useful in major urban centres. I am not sure how it will go in rural areas, I checked on the FONero Map of my local area- there is a FONero in Abergavenny, but only one.
Another problem which I know they have plans to sort out is that it is at present for windows users only ( not mac compatible yet!!- oh YES they are!!!.
** alterations just go to show that the web2.0 community is alive and on the case apologies for inaccuracies - they also mean that it is something that I will now certainly consider - as I am such a fan of FREE!!!



The field of Web 2.0 software grows weekly, but if you keep your ear to the ground and are willing to try a tool out there are still nuggets to be found.

Day 2 of the Great Snow!!
Today the majority of staff managed to battle the weather and make it into school this morning. I arrived at about 8.45am and was the last teacher to arrive (17 miles of snowy hills and valleys!!). School was closed to pupils today, and the staff spent a few hours catching up on Staff Meeting business before we closed the school at 11.00am. I managed to take some quick photographs around the school before beginning the journey home. ( I finally arrived home on foot at 2.30pm having left my car at the bottom of our hill which was only passable in a 4x4 today). As I thaw out I thought I had better post these pictures...

Calling Tom Barrett - if any of our blogging friends read this post could you please ask Tom to contact me either by e-mail or skype. I have been frustrated with the Wordpress Comments section on his blog and I can't leave comments - I wanted to link up with his Year 3 Bloggers and Skype chats but have found contact impossible and very very frustrating - so pretty, pretty please can anyone help out!!!

You see Wales can look beautiful in the snow!!

Following the cancellation of school today, my daughter and I decided to take a walk around the back of our house, down through the woods to our local village - we aimed to be the first to walk on the new snow...

SNOW STOPS WALES !!!

Wales woke up to 3-8 inches of snow this morning ( it was forecast so we were ready with our boots and shovels ). Schools began to close from 6.30am this morning and it was 7.45am when my Headteacher rang to let teachers know that they shouldn't travel - we are working from home today ( so I will be out taking more photographs of the snow ( and working honest!!!!)
Here are some early pictures of the views around my house this morning ( not as impressive as Chris Harbeck's snow I know ).

I don't think that any teacher/education professional could find any greater advert for the effective use of skype in the classroom than this inspirational footage from Brian Crosby's 4th Grade Class in Nevada.

"Here is a moving example of how web 2.0 technologies can transform everything we have ever assumed about how education must happen. From Brian Crosby, a blogging 4th grade teacher in Nevada, comes a short video documenting the classroom inclusion (via Skype) of a child who cannot leave home because of leukemia.

Simply amazing." from ClassBlogmeister.com

** Skype contact made with Italy**

It was great at lunchtime today I made skype contact with Daniela in Rome (Lazio). Daniela is the co-ordinator for an e-twinning project about the way in which our children play and the toys, that they play with. Daniela had been having a skype conversation with another partner in the project Kylli in Estonia. It is still amazing to me that sitting in my own classroom my pupils and I can talk to people around the globe.

Before speaking to Daniela I had a chat with Allanah King in New Zealand and Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach in Virginia Beach, USA - and all without moving from my chair.
Daniela and I went on to try a skype phone call - unfortunately the link to Italy or our IT equipment was not good today and we had a great deal of echo on the line, we plan to try again on Tuesday of this week.

A podcast of my discussion with Daniela on Tuesday evening.

Many thanks to Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach who has invited a group of committed users of web 2.0 technology in education to act as e-learning mentors for a group of student teachers that she tutors at William and Mary University in Virginia.

I certainly feel honoured to be invited to join the group which includes many bloggers and podcasters that I hold in high regard such as Bud the Teacher, Jeff Utecht, Vinnie Vrotny and Allanah King among others.

I am sure that the enthusiastic input from the 'experts' from around the globe can only enhance the experiences of this group of students.

These are some shots of my Class as they completed their pictures of themselves- for our link partners around Europe. We really enjoyed the task, thank you to Daniela and her friends around the EU.

We had a brilliant afternoon on Thursday when we drew pictures of ourselves as part of our new link with schools in Europe.

** E-Twinning Project**
We now appear to have been invited to join a cross Europe project run by a teacher in Rome.
The project involves posting information about our pupils - the bubbleshare file is an example of the work we will be posting to our host's site.

** Sadly due to my inability to manipulate HTML the bubbleshare file appears at the bottom of this page near my sitemeter *** Sorry it's an age thing, the little grey cells not working well on a Friday evening.

News update - using Slide.com and the snippet of code given there I can now post in the main body of the blog - RESULT !!!!

Global Links

Our links around the world and at home here in the UK are really gathering pace now. We have exchanged e-mail addresses and skype details with Kenmore Park First School, and one of their Year 3 teacher Pam Williams. We hope to develop our project along the lines of giving each other instructions for making design technology 'Moving Monsters', we also hope to create for each other a 'mural' made up of individual jigsaw images showing the views and customs of our own areas.( found in British Council booklet 'Learning World' issue 14 January 2007)

Our link with Allanah King and Moturoa Class Appleby School New Zealand is ticking over even though the they are currently still on their summer break - back soon...

We have dipped our toes into the E-Twinning Project - this is a site which puts together schools all around the European Union- allowing them to develop links between classes and pupils.
We are moving towards links with 2 schools in Italy ( one in Lazio and one in Lombardy)who are working with Lower Primary aged pupils, The school in Lazio has been working with schools all across Europe looking at customs and the toys and games that the pupils in each country play with. The other school uses a traveling toy to discover how people live in other countries.

Art Rage 2 - Great news that, on Friday during my PPA Time, this is known as non contact Planning and Preparation Time for Primary School teachers in the UK ( known as my IT Technician Time !!!!!! ) I managed to sort out one problem that has been bugging me, or our reception teachers for some time now.

The 2 classes have been fitted with new Smart IWB's ( a long story of over 40 workmen arriving over a month long period to i) check and find asbestos in the ceiling tiles ii) get asbestos specialists in to drill holes in ceiling iii)IWB installers to find that holes in the wrong place - so go through ii) again. iv) fitters visit v) installers visit vi) configuration visit and Hey Presto 40 gentleman later the 21st Century arrives in the classroom. )
The only problem which remained after this process was getting my local authority IT people in to configure our laptops with the county based intranet ( We have been waiting many months ), on Friday I finally lost my patience and - taking a lead from a current networked PC plugged it into laptop and wall socket - Eureka it worked ( no need for a technician (or is that me ?)

I couldn't wait then to download Art Rage 2 to the laptop and show the reception teacher and her pupils (with a paintbrush - because it is a Smartboard) how easy it is to paint using the whiteboard - I just wish that you could bottle the look of amazement and sheer delight on their faces ( and that was just the teachers :) ).
Next step is to gather all of our staff in this classroom and show them all the wonders of the **Free** art package that is ArtRage2.
My thanks go to Allanah King in New Zealand and Tom Barrett in the UK for introducing me to the software package, it is great for kids of all ages!!
Thanks guys...

** Comenius Links within EU **

I have been considering for a while dipping my/our toes into this scheme, run by the European Community as a means of enabling schools within Europe to link or twin in order to help pupils and teachers learn more about the way in which another EU country/school operates.
To do this we need to find a partner school within the European Union with the same general idea - so this is by means of a plea to anyone viewing this blog within the EU to let me know that they would be interested in developing a link ( deadline for applications is March 2007, hence time is of the essence).
I also look forward to comments from anyone who has been involved in a Comenius Project in the recent past...

**Skype Conference Call Rules**

This evening at about 9.40pm (10.40am Wednesday in New Zealand) I had a very interesting chat with 2 teachers from New Zealand in a 3 way skype conference call orgnised again by Allanah in Nelson. The other participant today was Jane Nicholls who podcasts under the IT Ucan name ( I was obviously tired because I didn't realise that I have listened to Jane's podcasts for quite a while - so apologies if you read this Jane for not realising who you were!!!)The conversation was conducted entirely via Mac technology and we all used Sound Recorder to make a copy of the conversation ( Hence probably - 3 very similar podcasts of the conversation very soon... watch this space)
Jane is based very much south in Dunedin South Island NZ, while Allanah is up at the top of South Island in Nelson - I was the odd one out sitting in a cold and wintery Wales ( I could almost fell the sunshine, which was quite frustrating !!).
Spread across the world as we were made no difference to the meeting of minds as 3 committed users of web 2.0 technology discussed how we began with the technology and also how easy it has become to make links across the globe, and more importantly to use the technology as a means of not only extending our pupils experiences, but also to improve the quality of the work that they produce.
We also discussed how some of our pupils 'get it' and seem to treat the new technology as their own, often becoming able to teach teachers how to use the various 2.0 programs. We also touched on the fact that the pedagogy of the classroom has to change in order to use web 2.0, it is no longer the case that 'teacher hands down the facts' and child learns the facts. Often when podcasting or blogging or using wiki's we are all learning together. This is often difficult for less confident teachers to accept and use, as you have to give over some/quite a lot of control to the pupils for their own learning - I think that Terry Freedman would appreciate this as a mainstay of 'Every Child Matters' where the pupils take responsibility for their own learning.
The conversation will undoubtedly make it to a podcast very soon, thank you very much to Allanah and Jane for a thought provoking conversation, I look forward to this happening again in the near future.

Podfather's podcast

Give it a listen









Enjoy! -- Paul Harrington

It seems to be one of those days where bloggers from around the UK are beginning to warm to the task. Not only today did I find Ewan's blog fascinating, but then followed this up by following a thread to Tom Barrett's Blog.
Tom has for a while now been blogging about the 'seemingly' insatiable need for Interactive Whiteboards ( the dreaded IWB's - fed by The Powers from Above!!!) in education ( particularly noticeable if you have been to BETT over the past few years where IWB's are everywhere). I know that there are companies out there who can see the drawbacks. ( such as Promethian with their voting handset - and those advocating the use of a mobile wireless tablet as an input interface which can be out amongsat the pupils - not stuck at the front of the class!)
But if you watch Jeff Han's presentation to the TED conference in Monterey I am sure that your mind will immediately begin to see ways in which the touch sensitive interface which he demonstrates can be used within an education setting. It got me thinking immediately about its possible application in Key Stage 1 classes and in classes with learning/motor difficulties where I am sure it would prove extremely useful. I am very grateful to Tom for posting this piece, do take a look and make a comment on Tom's blog I am sure he would appreciate it. Thanks Tom

A big thank you to Ewan McIntosh ( follow link on Blogroll on the right ), for putting me onto Keith's blog . Keith who is based in/near Bristol has worked tirelessly to accumulate information on a range of ICT topics, including a wide and very easy to use -Links Section- (take a look), in addition to the thrust towards Digital Video work which Ewan mentioned in his blog this week from Film Street, who have information on their site for those about to get involved in dv work ( also worth a look for their resources and ideas)

** Look also at Ewan's Blog regarding the need for creating Networks of various types from your immediate local ( school perhaps ) network out to a Worldwide Network. It is also worth reading what Ewan has to say about an authority's need to be proactive in the use of New Web 2.0 Technologies in education. **

Many thanks to those who left comments re: yesterdays news!!!! ( now the hard work begins!!!)
Back to business, Pam our new link teacher in Harrow and I finally managed to make contact using skype between classes this afternoon when I, having just finished a year group meeting popped online at about 4.45pm, to find that I had a call almost immediately - after a few headphone issues, Pam and I were able to discuss some more details regarding our link project.
In addition to our general multi-culturalism discussion between the two schools, Pam has found a link regarding Craft, Design Technology and our joint 'Moving Monsters' topics. The idea from the US is to get pupils to e-mail sets of instructions to each other allowing their link partners to follow them and make a monster to their partners design. I think that this sounds like it will be a very interesting project to include in our inter-school link - we will keep you posted on how we get on.

News to my Blogging friends wherever you may be - excuse me for being a little tired at the moment (and behind with blog posting)- My middle daughter gave birth to her second child last night (12.45am GMT) a beautiful boy called Jacob. So, my wife and I find ourselves grandparents for the 2nd time in 12 months ( Jacob's sister is 1 year old today also!!!!)- and me not 50 YET!!!!

**3-Way Skype Conference Call**

For the first time yesterday evening (Saturday morning in New Zealand) 3 teachers, 1 in Harrow North London, 1 in Nelson New Zealand and 1 in Gilwern South Wales - held a 3-way discussion. It was completely unplanned, I had been using the Instant message feature of Skype, as usual to carry on a conversation with Allanah King in New Zealand, when Pam Williams a teacher new to Skype came online for a chat. Unfortunately in Skype when this happens and you go to a full telephone/video conversation each person is put on hold while the others are speaking. The way around this was for us to disconnect and then one of us to start a Skype Conference call and to invite the others in - Hey Presto - a 3 way conversation over Skype.

The discussion was wide ranging among the school topics we are working on at present - namely developing school links. It was a great improvement on the K12 online Skypecast the previous weekend where interference from visitors not linked to the conference is beginning to hinder the conversation. our conference call was secure and clear ( only interrupted by our own telephones and front door bells ringing).
We plan to carry out another conference call soon watch this space...

skype in education

Having just read Chris Fuller's comments re BETT 2007. I have to mainly agee with his conclusion. The show has for the past few years flattered to deceive namely that you will find what you need to remedy IT in your school within the confines of the show.
I first visited the show 3 years ago as the introduction of Interactive Whiteboards was taking hold - you couldn't move for the things, they were everywhere. It would have been easier to name those who didn't have them. This time I noticed in my 3 hour jaunt that Learning Environments are the name of the game along with complete packages ( at a price!!!) to solve all of your woes.

I am a great believer in making use of the 'free web 2.0' tools and was very interested as Chris was to see how the pay to use services stacked up against our trusty free tools - software manufacturer Softease have come up with an 'easy to use' podcaster Podium an interesting piece of kit but - at a price ( where there are sites such as Odeo and Podomatic and the like which are completely free -and have very large amounts of storage space)
I also checked out podcast hosting services such as Radiowaves who host podcasts in an education community - at a price - I discussed with them funding for a small podcasting club run in school ( the price £999 oh yes for the price apart from the hosting service - a recordable MP3 player plus microphone ) I think that I will stick with my £26 Logic mp3 player and the use of www.recap.ltd as a 'free' hosting service ( David Noble has also started a free podcast directory, in addition David Warlick also host EPN another 'free' service).

bett07

Cefn Fforest Primary School visit BETT 2007

On Wednesday 10th January - Four pupils from Cefn Fforest Primary School accompanied by Headteacher Mr Nick Gannon and yours truly were invited to attend an awards ceremony for the 2006 Making The News internet journalism Competition. The 4 Year 6 pupils won in the category 'Best Overseas Story', they had organised, filmed and edited an interview with a visitor originally from Nigeria ( it was very fortunate for the pupils that our school recently purchased an Apple MacBook - without it ( and using a PC laptop) the editing process would have been almost impossible within the time).
For their efforts the pupils were invited to London to be awarded their prizes by Warwick Davis ( the diminutive actor who played the lead in the film 'Willow' and more recently Professor Flitwick in the Harry Potter films ) - they received a cheque for £100 and a goody bag containing mugs, T shirts among other things. The more exciting day for the pupils was the chance to browse the exhibition floor collecting promotional pens, rubbers and other stationary ( each having gathered at least 40 pens!!!!!) - great sport for all.
From my point of view, I had the chance to do some networking of my own, I had arranged prior to the visit to meet up with Chris Fuller a well known blogger and podcaster in the mfl field ( Chris has most recently been in negotiations with the BBC over its online resources BBC Jam ). It was really good to finally meet up with a 'real live' blogger in the flesh, my pupils had the chance to have a quick chat with Chris before we all had to go our seperate ways and head home. Unfortunately I missed Terry Freedman on Wednesday but I am sure that I will bump into him soon. ( I did visit the NAACE stand Terry however you had not arrived )

Chris made a good point while chatting that he was surprised that there weren't more blogs about BETT 2007, I must admit that I haven't had time to check this out. I believe that apart from Chris, Joe, Terry and myself there must surely be others and I wait to be pleasantly surprised.

bett07

TES Magazine Article 'Scope for Skype' by Stephen Manning

I have to thank Joe Dale http://joedale.typepad.com/integrating_ict_into_the_/ for letting me know that the article was published in the TES Magazine on Friday 5th January ( I missed it as I believed it was to be published on Friday 12th - but received a pleasant surprise today ). The second reason for thanking Joe, is that having met him while using Skype, and having joined in a skypecast or two with him, it was Joe who mentioned the work that we were doing in school to Stephen Manning who then contacted me in order to write the piece - Thank You very much Joe, the desired effect hopefully of widening our colleague's understanding of the new Web 2.0 technologies.
I am in the process of listening to Graham Wegner's K12 online 2006 video podcast on why Web 2.0 is useful in the classroom and how it enables teachers to achieve using web 2.0 tools http://k12online.wm.edu/wegnerk12.mp4, in preparation for a skypecast this evening - Graham puts a very good case for the use of Web 2.0, explaining that it will only become more widely used if the technology is relevant to our colleagues.
This links directly to Skype as a tool, the connections that we have made is nothing new, teachers, classes and schools have been linking for years - it's the potential for linking and talking ( and seeing - using a webcam ) to people anywhere in the world via the internet that is an added bonus ( a much cheaper and less 'techie' method than going for full blown videoconferencing ). The K12 online planning wiki is at http://k12online.wikispaces.com/

What has Skype given us - number one from my point is that it has given the children in my class a voice, it has enabled them to frame questions, and ask them ( asking a person sat 13,000 miles away ), and responding to the reply they get and formulating a further question - so a big boost the speaking and listening in my classroom.

skype in education

** Well Done to Cefn Fforest Year 6 News Team **

We had excellent news this morning in an e-mail from Jeff Howson from Making The News ( an online news site - where kids post their own news articles including multi media pieces), in a hectic run up to Christmas some of my Year 6 news gatherers had commited themselves to entering a UK wide News Competiton ( entires had to be in before 16th December!!!).

With concerts, parties and many other distractions as we approached the end of term, our lunchtimes became highly charged with upils grabbing camcorders and still camera's, rushing off to film and then upload and edit their work within the tight lunch 'hour' ( I can safely say that through November and December I never had time to sit in our staffroom at lunchtime - so missed out on 2 months gossip)

As the deadline approached we had a perenial problem for schools operating within an intranet run by a local authority - we found it increasingly difficult and in the end impossible to upload multiple video films ( we had a problem as the articles went to a central competition space - I couldn't retrieve them for more editing ) - In the end the pupils were writing and editing video ( thank goodness we got an Apple Macbook in November otherwise our task would have been almost impossible using WinXP) saving items to flash drives and then uploading the articles from home ( this calls for quite a high commitment from the kids - but they did it.
We failed to enter all of the categories that we had planned and had some disappointed people who just failed to meet their deadline, but that's a fact of life I guess.
Following all of the hype and panic we sat back and waited - results were due to be e-mailed to us by 23rd December. School closed for us teachers on 22nd December, and I set off home with my fingers crossed for the kids....... and nothing........Christmas Day...... Boxing Day.... nothing.... I gave in and posted an article for the pupils to pick up saying "I guess that no news is bad news but keep watching....."
Today 28th December an e-mail in my in box from Jeff Howson from MTN, I must admit that I opened it slowly hardly daring to look in case it was along the lines of "sorry..... better luck next time....." But no it was notification that a story posted under the heading of Best Overseas Story has won in its category (Yippee!!! well done kids!!!).
The pupils have won and have been invited up to our big Education IT Show called BETT at Olympia in London on Wednesday 10th January where their prizes will be awarded by Warwick Davies ( Professor Flitwick in the Harry Potter films )

I must congratulate all of my pupils who entered stories for the competition, they overcame the odds and put together some very good work. The winning group followed up a visit we had to school by a Nigerian Diplomat and his son Kay, by arranging shooting and editing a video interview with Kay using a JVC Camcorder and our new Apple MacBook, they took the final cut away on a flash drive and got together to upload their finished article - I for one am very prod of the work they produced and the reward is much deserved for all of their efforts over the Autumn Term - ( and I for one won't mind missing the Staffroom chatter at lunchtime for a while I guess !!!) .

I have been blog tagged!!! by Chris Harbeck a Skype friend from Canada while I was not looking - gee thanks Chris!!. I have read a few of these by others and see that I am supposed to come up with 5 things that people may not know about me from my online presence so here goes...

1. I became a grandfather for the first time this year on the 17th January when my middle daughter Emily (18) gave birth to grandaughter Abigail on 17th January

Yes she is as wicked and as wonderful as she looks, and we have just celebrated her 1st Christmas, I won't need to tell any parents out there what this was like - enough said.

2. As I scarily approach the age of 50 next year, I find myself and my family deeply involved with life in our local town of Abergavenny. I still play field hockey regularly as captain of our 2nd XI side (currently 3rd in South Wales Division 3), I combine this with being club Chairman and Youth Co-ordinator( at my age I should know better!!!). The rest of my family wife and 3 daughters are heavily involved in local Amateur Dramatics ( of the musical type).

Mrs H and Daughters Sian (20) and Laura (16)

3. I long to own an MG sportscar again, I had to give up my previous Black 1979 MGB Roadster 5 years ago when we converted my garage into a bedroom for one of the daughters!!! - and I can't wait to have another one ( sad old ***!)

4. I enjoy cooking, nothing to ambitious but I cook our evening meals most days and could be found in the kitchen amongst the sprouts, carrots, potatoes et al during Christmas morning ( who said men can't multi task).

5. I have one big regret, that I haven't travelled around the world more - I am trying to make up for this now by making links with fellow teachers around the world. It is great to get responses from fellow education professionals from around the globe - it nearly makes up for not travelling ( though at present I am very keen to try to get to New Zealand in February for the TUANZ conference - where Shery Nussbaum-Beach will be giving the keynote and my podcast chum Allanah King from Nelson will also be presenting - sadly I am only lowly Welsh primary teacher and money doesn't grow on trees!!!) I also apologise to my aunt and uncle in Australia for being the only members of the family not to have visited them yet!!!

I hope that this gives an insight into my world.
Not wishing to be 'it' I now tag Joe Dale http://joedale.typepad.com/integrating_ict_into_the_/ , Allanah King http://www.moturoa.blogspot.com/ , Terry Freedman http://www.terry-freedman.org.uk/index.php , Joe Papaleo http://papajo.edublogs.org/

** SCHOOL'S OUT**
Finally after what appeared to have been an eternity the Autumn Term ended for our pupils on Thursday ( we had a training day on Friday - so didn't finish until 3pm on the 22nd) - the upside of a late finish is that we won't be back in school until 8th January. We had some relaxation time in the final week of term and my Year 3 pupils were keen to show off their dancing and singing - I used our mini dv camcorder to record their efforts ( I challenge you to view and not to chuckle a little) and posted the video's to our Making the News page on - http://kmi4schools.e2bn.net/wales_cefnfforestprimary/index.htm it is the article entitled 'fun in Year 3'. our carol singing soloist is posted on http://cefnfforest.podomatic.com ( and I apologise for me mumbling away in the background!!!!! sorry).

I wish all readers and fellow bloggers and pocasters a very Merry Christmas and a fruitful New Year - I plan to catch up with some Web 2.0 friends ( Joe Dale and David Noble ne Booruch) at the BETTT show in Olympia on Saturday 13th January ( I guess that as we hve never actually met we had better wear a red carnation in our button hole !!!! or have a secret password, joking aside, it will be good in this virtual world to actually have a face to face meeting in the 'real' world... see you guys

HAPPY CHRISTMAS to all

Friday 8th December - photographer from the TES arrived at 9.30am, I had gathered a small group of pupils together and we were ready to Skype New Zealand. All of the technology worked and we were soon chatting, that included the photographer who joined in our 13,000 mile conversation while he snapped away. Allanah and the children were very patient as we were posed and photographed,the conversation continued, however it must have been a very strange conversation from the New Zealand end, however all went well, the Skype line held up, and we signed off when the photo-shoot ended allowing Allanah to go the bed...Well Done everyone, excellent work.

Interest in the educationl use of Skype has come to Cefn Fforest. Following a conversation with Joe Dale, and participating in a skype conference last Sunday evening, I had a follow-up conversation with Stephen Manning from the Times Educational Supplement Magazine.
Our discussion was wide ranging covering issues such as the 'open access' to Skype debate that is currently raging in the US, where some university campuses have banned or blocked the use of Skype. My view is that looking from Key Stages 1 and 2 in the UK access has to be controlled, as we are responsible for who our pupils speak/chat with.
Our use of Skype is that we have pre-arranged as much as possible when we will be available for pupils to contact us - our ultimate goal is to have pupil to pupil chat ( we have planned to do this next Wednesday evening when our school will be opened for pupils to come back into class at 8pm - 9am in New Zealand for pupils to speak to each other directly).
Another point of discussion was cost, obviously Skype computer to computer is free ( I like free), hence there isn't a budget implication to the se of Skype used in that way.
The use of Skype more widely between institutions will hopefully give a boost to childrens Speaking and Listening, in addition to the aspects of PSHE and Citizenship which come from talking to people who live in other countries, it also gives a greater opportunity for pupils to ask more pertinent questions of guests and 'visitors' to the school.

Following the discussion Stephen seemed to think that this should be published quite quickly and has arranged for a photographer to visit our school tomorrow (Friday 8th December) to take some photographs of the pupils Skyping our teaching colleague in New Zealand... watch this space...

skype in education

Skype Chat to Podcast

Following a skype chat over the weekend, Moturoa Classroom at Appleby School near Nelson New Zealand and myself near Abergavenny in South Wales had agreed a time on Monday evening (8.30 pm Wales - 9.30 am New Zealand) for a chat.
The skype discussion was part of an ongoing e-pal link that we have with the pupils from my school ( Cefn Fforest Primary) and those 13,000 miles away in New Zealand.
With the time set I sat waiting for the call and sure enough along it came and I could hear the excitement in the classroom so many miles away.
Little did I realise the 'grilling' I was in for from the pupils in the class. They each in turn introduced themselves very clearly and politely asked their important questions - the range of subjects covered was wide, but I felt honour bound to answer their questions, as they had gone to the trouble of asking them.
the half an hour chat flew by as we chatted and all to soon it was time for them to return to their school work. Allanah King their teacher had recorded our chat and has now published it on her Podomatic page so it can now be found on http://allanah.podomatic.com .
The project continues as we plan to repeat the process from our school speaking to Allanah and 'grilling' her on a variety of subjects.
We are presently trying to work out how to speak to each other in 'real' time ( the 13 hour time difference doesn't help ), my guess is that we will have to have pupils in school at around 8pm in order to catch NZ at 9am in the morning -we will see.... watch this space.

** Thanks for your interesting questions kids **

** follow up to new MacBook, I am gradually becoming more confident in its use and have now started digital video work and podcasting using it more to come...

skype in education

Well, well what's this then. It looks very much as if Christmas has come a little early to this corner of Wales.

After a request to our 'Friends of the School' in early June - followed by approval - followed by the ordering process ( why does it take local authorities so long!!!).

The whole process wasn't helped by the only Apple Reseller in South Wales (AT Computers) re-locating to the Morgan's Arcade in Cardiff - and being unreachable over the telephone, causing some panic on my behalf, as I had no idea where they had gone. Panic over though as just over 3 weeks ago we re- established contact and the order was back on track.

A follow up e-mail last week and Damian the manager of the new store told me that the Macbook was on its way.

This was followed yesterday ( Friday 1st December ) by the messgae I had been waiting for - the laptop was in store and ready for collection...

The only problem I faced then was a hockey match today ( as Team Captain no way out of that ), but very thoughtfully our opposition cried off the match last night, unable to raise a side - as you can imagine I wasn't too upset ( yippeee!!!).
So up and off the 40 miles or so into Cardiff at 9pm this morning, I resisted the temptation to speed, and kept to a sensible speed.
I was in store at 9.45, introduced myself to Damian who searched around and found the box I had come for.


After all of the time waiting - eventually after returning home I set to work finding out how to operate the Mac machine.

I do have a question for experienced Mac users - I tried to import a video from a JVC DV camera with a firewire lead. I could control the camera - but could only see a blue screen - no import !!!! in suggests moving the imovie project to another file out of the home file - but HELP - Mac Novice - How do you do that ???? Any assistance would be appreciated.
I'm off to play now : )
( tee hee )

Phew!!!! it's over, what a nerve wracking day. It came time for me to make my first presentation to a room full ( 19) IT colleagues, at Ty Dysgu, Nantgarw. I had to follow some professional presenters from software companies oooooh! Then after lunch it was my turn I only hope that it came over a bit more coherently than it was going inside!!!! I think that I got over the main points of the site that I was talking about ( a very good resource for schools - and FREE!!) see yesterday's post for details. It was interesting to hear that NGfL Cymru have taken an interest in Making The News as well - more Welsh entries expected soon....
On the point of interest in web 2.0 technology, in particular podcasting and blogs - my fellow professionals confirmed my faith in them, they had heard of both podcasting and blogging and showed an interest in knowing more about * making a podcast * posting one on the internet - that was the great part of the day for me. So the chance of expanding the welsh edu-blogger wiki looks very promising. I knew that ESIS and Caerphilly would come up trumps - we can hopefully begin the revolution here.
Our only problem is going to be competing with the Kiwi rugby team at the Millennuim Stadium tomorrow afternoon !!!! We won't hold it against our friends in New Zealand though, and hope that it is a good game !!!!! Come on Wales

On Friday 24th November ( partly due to a diary error - as I believed it was 29th November!!!) I will be speaking to ICT Co-ordinators locally at a Co-ordinators Update Day at Ty Dysgu, Nantgarw.
The subject of my 40 minute piece will be to introduce my colleagues to a Social Networking service called Making the News it is run in partnership by the Open University and the East of England Business Network (e2bn).
The aim of MTN is to allow pupils to post multimedia news items onto the net through a thoroughly moderated site.
We have been using the service (free of course as all good web 2.0 stuff) this term with a group of Year 6 pupils who have become the Cefn Fforest News Team, posting their news items every lunchtime. One of the great parts of MTN is that pupils can post their news as a 'Guest Entry' from anywhere with access to the internet ( other schools have had pupils posting from internet cafe's while on holiday). It also allows parents, governors and others to view the work that is going on within the school.
I am really looking forward to showing my colleagues the MTN site, I also plan to use the opportunity to raise the profile of web 2.0 technology in my local area.
I will no doubt blog afterwards to let you know how I get on so keep your eyes peeled for my next post.

At last we have had our classroom blog un-blocked by our Local Authority, so a big thank you to those responsible at Caerphilly County Borough Council. Quite a coup then over the past few weeks, we have had Skype enabled in our classroom, enabling us to get into direct contact with our friends around the world, and now we are able to blog from the classroom on our learner blog. I now plan to allow all of my pupils to post on the blog over the next 2 weeks.
In another forward move I have just put in an order for an Apple Laptop, mainly for use in creative IT (podcasting using Garageband and digital video using iMovie)- perhaps this is all too much and Christmas really has come early !!!!! we will see.

Next Wednesday (29th Nov) I will be going to our local IT Centre to show other IT Co-ordinators how to use the Making The News resources. I am looking forward to this, as it will be the first opportunity that I will have to gauge the understanding locally of the new social networking aspects of the web. I will certainly check how many of my colleagues have been involved in podcasting and blogging.

On the podcasting front, through a contact at Research Machines, I have been offered a try out of Softease.com's new podcasting software called Podium it is reputed to be easy for pupils to use, and is due for release at the BETT show in January 2007. I will blog here on my thoughts on Podium so watch this space Primary Teachers in the UK.

I guess that this is probably enough for a Tuesday evening .... keep on blogging.

News of some exciting new software available as free downloads ( the downloads have some limits on use ), they are very good intuative art packages the first is ArtRage2 and TuxPaint they are very much worth a look I first found them through Allanah King's work on the Moturoa Class Blog where Allanah had tried the software out, great for creative work especially Art Rage. This was followed up by Tom Barrett who describes how he introduced the software to teachers in his school in an after-school session.

Back on the subject of podcasts and in particular our link school and podcast buddies in New Zealand, it seems that we have encouraged them to vodcast ( video podcasting) about their school take a look at Appleby Airwaves latest work, very impressive guys.

I have more to report following my conversations recently with Joe Dale who if you follow his most recent blog has been at a conference and training session run by Specialist School and Academies Trust with a podcasting workshop run by Steph Hopkins an Advanced Skills teacher from Southend High School for Girls. Steph has worked to produce a toolkit for bloggers and podcasters, Steph sees her role as passing on her experiences in the use of web 2.0 technologies.

In the MFL subject area, as Joe has said what a brilliant use of web 2.0 to gain a Skype link with a school where your language of study is spoken and pupils can converse in a natural way over the Voip system. This has agreat deal of potential for development in Secondary and Primary Education.

Wow - what a wonderful thing the internet is - a pretty cool place - Today in our classroom for instance -at 10am this morning 2 of my pupils were involved in a Skype conversation with Allanah King in New Zealand, the conversation was flowing well specially when it got onto one boy's pet subject of dinosaurs on which he is practically encyclopaedic !!! But that was the way it was he was talking over the internet via telephone as if he was speaking to his mum on the phone - the only difference - 13,000 miles and half a world.
This evening at about 10pm I logged onto our Podomatic account as it said we had mail, and found a podmail ( audio e-mail) from the e-pals that my pupils were sending the messages to this morning - how cool is that - pretty mind boggling actually, for an 'oldy' like me who still has to come to terms with snail mail!!!!

One thing is for certain this form of conversation using VOIP is certainly proving a boon in our e-twinning as replies are almost instant ( considering the 13 hour time difference).

'Real' school work took a bit of a back seat this evening as I had an interesting Skype chat with Joe Dale about creative IT projects in schools. He told me about the work of Richard Peace who has begun blogging on The Weather on a blog called Take The Weather with You - the blog has some excellent pod weather forecast embedded as mp3 files. Do check these out.
I tried out a new piece of software while online with Joe that is a Pretty May recorder this is a Skype ad-on which allows you to record and run an answering machine on Skype and more important in our e-twinning allows you to record Skype conversations as mp3 files, which can then be easily added to podcasts or simply run as mp3's.

I also found some welsh edu-bloggers in Newtown Powys ( at Newtown High School ) great to know that there are more of us weird blogging types out there in the wastes of Wales. Usually to be heard muttering about England and Elc's and lack of funding for projects in Wales - I got so fed up I decided to do it myself as I now have with blogs, podcasts and more recently a Welsh Edu-Blogger Wiki which I can only hope will grow to the likes of Scottish Edu-Bloggers, perhaps one day Welsh Podcasters and Bloggers will be able to meet up and chat about the things they are up to - we'll see that's a long way in the future I think .... and that all for now as Monday turns to Tuesday here and I still haven't done any work on my Planning File !!!!!!

Well, well, well I never thought I would say this but well done to my Local Authority - Caerphilly County Borough Council. This is because at the outset of this week and following the inspiration of K12 Online, I decided to install SKYPE on my classroom PC - the result - It failed to open or log on - very much as I thought that it would. I e-mailed our IT Helpdesk to ask them among other things, why couldn't I use Skype in my classroom ( I di have to explain what Skype was first !!!), the result of this was that one of the County IT Team visited school on Friday and following a brief discussion on the problem I left him alone to 'tinker' with the pc settings. 20 minutes later he told me that Skype had opened on the pc and that he could see my contact list.
It worked - I immediately noticed that Allanah King in New Zealand was online despite the late hour there ( it was already 11.45 am in the UK by then ) - so we Skyped her for a chat - and it worked perfectly with the obvious time lag.
by this time the class were getting excited and I asked them for any questions to ask about New Zealand or their school. Some of my brave pupils then carried out a conversation with Allanah even though she was 13,000 miles away chatting about Appleby School and the surrounding area.
I believe that we are certainly the 1st school in the authority to get online with Skype, I wouldn't like to say we were the first in Wales as I have no details on this ( there certainly can't have been many ) and there have certainly been videoconferencing contacts within Caerphilly CBC area.
But we don't mind we think Skype is cool and that our sister school in New Zealand is pretty cool too.
My cheers to Caerphilly will be 2 no the full 3 though as we still have the problem of our new class blog not being able to be accessed from within the school as it is being blocked by the word blocker !!!! we stil don't know why, so come on Caerphilly get your act together !!!

Technorati Tags: k12online06 k12online

I thought that I had better blog about today - the last day of the K12 online conference - the last official day - I am sure that the chat and discussions will continue for many weeks and months to come - The day has been taken up with hour long skype casts around the globe. I joined in at just after midnight gmt 4th November and was chatting to JeffU and his lan party members in Shanghai until about 3am!!!! ( not much sleep again). I leapt straight back in, catching Bronwen's chat this morning and joined Terry Freedman's chat at 4pm this afternoon. This evening the chat became more of a party - with a weird party atmosphere and the final hour was a bit surreal.
But it was all great fun, and a place to do some serious networking - I made many more skype contacts who I will look out for in the near future. the discussions ranged from the serious and stimulating to the downright farcical as we had some odd people who like drunks after a good night out wandered into the room to mumble and squeak before falling over and passing out!!!!
On the technical side I discovered skypecasts and how to find them following the link
https://skypecasts.skype.com/skypecasts/ongoing , also discovering the TappedIn discussion area at
http://tappedin.org/tappedin/do/RegisterAction? if you register here go into the chat area and the discussion on K12 online - if you register there you will receive an email if any of the other members posts anything about K12 and beyond. this is especially good as there is a plan to have another skypecast in a month to see how everone is getting on with aspects of K12 online - the moderators in the reception there are very helpful and will certainly sort out any problems you may have give it a go.
The people that I have been talking to today are far too many to mention- but one thing is for sure they were from all over the world - China to Australia, USA to Canada and of course the UK - it was good to chat with Terry Freedman, JeffUtech, Bronwen, Glenn, Carolyn (techno foote), Drew, Bud and Heather B - My thanks also to those such as Will Richardson et al who put the conference together - agin as Judy O'Connell says 'It's a small world after all' Thanks guys for a great day - we will meet again.

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Many apologies for the lack of blogging over the past week. It has been our half Term break this past week, hence the weird silence from Wales. Partly due to the fact that I wasn't in wales for 2 days this week I have been visiting my daughter who is in college 286 miles away in Carlisle Cumbria. So at 4pm yesterday Thursday 2nd I was stood on Hadrian's Wall, which for those who don't know was the wall which Emperor Hadrian (Roman) had built to show the edge of the Roman Empire - to the north being Savage Scots !!!! ( many apologies to Ewan, David Muir and David Noble ) It was bleak but beautiful up there as the sun went down on a crisp sunny autumn day. My journey home accompanied by my youngest daughter Laura ( 16 on Wednesday as she keeps reminding me!!!) was bleak and not very beautiful as we were delayed at Preston ( for 25 minutes)while a slightly 'worse for wear' gentleman was removed from the train - thus putting us all late for our connecting trains - we arrived back at home at 1.30 am instead of the expected 11.30 pm - journey time 6 1/2 hours ( car journey up at a steady 70!!! 5 1/2 hours ) - and they say 'let the train take the strain'.
Anyhow enough of my travel woes to business : I listened to the recording of Ewan's Fireside Chat the other evening and was very impressed and actually inted to try to join this evening's first chat of the final 24hours we'll see. Ewan's presentation I thought gave a welcome British feel to the conference as he made valid points as to why we should use web 2.0 tools in our classrooms - interesting also in his final few questions about the possible burn out of podcasters and bloggers ( wil we all continue to be as enthused as we are now when this technology becomes the norm rather than the exception - I'm certainly not sure on that one at all, I can only see at present the support of colleagues around the globe supporting us and vice versa as we push forward into the unknown.
Talking of pushing into the unknown, and the paranormal Halloween night 31st Oct was an interesting one. I avoided 'trick or treating' even though prepared with chocolate money!!! and was skyping, when I received a ping from Ewan who was at the Language Show in Olympia, at the very same moment Allanah King a podcasting buddy skyped me from her classroom in North Island New Zealand ( I could hear her pupils in the background ) trying to carry on parallel conversations is not a strong suit of mine and spelling/punctuation certainly disappear when trying to IM in a hurry - we were chatting for about 10 minutes before it got too confusing - but to be talking from wales to someone in London and a different person in New Zealand at the same time is one of the aspects of web 2.0 that really excites me a great deal - and thinking of how we can harness this for our pupils is also a taxing problem ( Allanah has had a go - by recording skype conversations and saving them to podcast).
I had a brief skype chat with David Noble ( Booruch) this morning, this time he was in class in Scotland - I gave him details of Allanah's podcast feed on Podomatic - so that he can have a look and listen to the great things happening in New Zealand. As a result this teacher certainly feels much more part of a community than I did when I began blogging a few months ago.
As Judy O'Connell would say ' It's a small world after all!!!' Which was also a great presentation , view it if you can - Wow now at 1.40 am there is only 20 minutes to the 'Fireside Chat'
Bye for now



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