Mr P's ICT blog - Tech to raise standards!

A couple of weeks back I wrote a post about the different ways you can stream a live assembly or performance within School - You can read it here. After trying numerous different methods I thought I would share how we have found each one. The first one we used was using the app    webcamera  to use the iPad as a webcam for my laptop. The iPad sends the video through the wifi to the laptop which then streams it on the internet. We used a google hangout to broadcast the assembly and chose the YouTube add on which allows the hangout to be streamed live to YouTube and then it is automatically saved as a video. Here is a link to the video: As you can tell the quality isn't great. The fact that the iPad has to send the video to the laptop to then send it over the WiFi to the hangout clearly affects the quality.  The next chance I had was to again use the Google Hangout broadcasting option to stream our first Advent assembly. The reason was to share it w...

After viewing numerous Teachmeets recently it has got me thinking about streaming some of the events in school. It is always hard for some parents to get time of work and so this may method may help them. Streaming an assembly or performance may give some parents the chance to join in with the school celebrations rather than miss them due to work commitments. As Christmas approaches there are going to be numerous opportunities to broadcast some of our celebrations with our school community. The first event that we are going to try and stream is the first Advent assembly we will have on Monday 3rd December. During December, our Junior department hold daily assemblies to remember the Christian tradition of Advent. We sing songs, read parts of the Advent story and light the candles on our wreath. I will be streaming our first Advent assembly to link with the  Global Classroom Christmas around the World Project that I have been involved in co-ordinating. If successful, I am h...

As part of my role I am testing different apps to see how effective and useful they can be in the classroom. I have been keeping a running list of apps I have used, the related subjects and links to the school blog with examples of how we have used the apps.

The prospect of having a class set of iPads is exciting, from getting the green light and shopping around to the arrival and unpacking all those brand spanking new iPads. My first piece of advice would be to shop around and try and find the best deal, its amazing how much you can save with a bit of bartering. So we purchased 40 iPad 2 with 2 Leba iCases (pictured) and a new toshiba laptop (used as the mother laptop.) The iCases seem the best idea as they are easier to transport from class to class which will be happening most days. They also sync as well as charge. My only concern was after reading up on using the iCart it said that was best used with a MacBook. However up to this point it seems to work fine with the windows 7 laptop. So five of the iPads were to be used as teacher iPads for the leadership team along with myself. The other 35 make up the class set. These were the steps I took in setting up all the iPads. Printed labels for all of the iPads "Teache...

This year I have been come out of the classroom to cover PPA right across the school. Being a big 2 form entry Primary School I wanted to really experience the scope and progression right through the school for my own development. As the ICT co-ordinator for the past four years, the Head wanted me to use this as the focus for when I am teaching. Using my expertise definitely impacts on the quality of teaching and I have done similar things in the past where I will teach PE for both classes in the year group as my parallel teaches Art. I think it is hard sometimes to have the same enthusiasm and drive for every single subject. I hold my hands up and say that I do not have a particular strength or desire to be a good artist. I often thought am I letting my children down by not being as good at Art as I am at PE or other subjects? I think with foundation subjects it is a good idea to utilise Teacher's strengths by letting them teach other classes. The quality of learning will always b...

Being a teacher and father to four is a very challenging job yet possibly one of the most rewarding. I was asked to write a guest blog for the website Multiples and More.  It was a great way for me to share the journey my family and I have been on for the last year or so. You can read the article here

I was asked by the Guardian after tweeting them on the subject to write a full response to statements made yesterday by the Prime Minister about sport in schools, you can read what he said  here I orginally tweeted this back -  Tweet I was then asked to write a longer piece demonstrating my view more this was published on the Guardians blog -  view here Some of my original article wasn't added to the blog however I wanted to share it for all to see so here is my full response - Would love to hear your views on this: After comments made today, I can't help but think that David Cameron has this issue totally wrong. At this point, I must state that I fully support competition in sport and feel children experiencing competition is vital in building essential life skills such as determination, courage and willpower that they can apply in many different areas as they get older. What I don’t agree with is that we need a complete change in culture and purely focus on co...