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

Just start by saying a massive thank you for the support with my first live stream sharing the SPaG songs through Augmented Reality idea . The feedback was really positive and so I have streamed another session tonight with more ideas linked to using Music in the classroom. It discusses the app Literacy Jukebox from  @MrACDPresent  as well as some other ideas. Here is the vlog - Here is a link to the old blog post about using Music to remember Math Facts ! Here is a link to the nine times tables rap. And here is the music video for the doubling machine song - and follow this link for more information about the courses mentioned - Upcoming Courses. Make sure you are around on Wednesday night for another live stream!

I am very excited to share my latest project with you guys and so decided to present it a little differently. With the latest update to Airserver, you can create a live stream to YouTube. I decided to give it a go, had a few hiccups, but got there eventually. Once I finished the live stream it was then processed as a video on YouTube so you can watch it all here -  As promised here are copies of the Trigger Word Mat sheets I created - UPDATE - 27th September There has been an amazing response to the video and I want to thank everyone for their kind comments! It is amazing to see how many people have already started their designs and ideas! Really appreciate the tweets and facebook messages! Theses were shared by @eLearning_Laura, follow here channel on Aurasma - elearningld and scan these brilliant designs!

Here is another fantastic idea from  @ghammondmaths , if you haven't already seen his previous work linked to Maths SATs revision guides please follow this link. Kids: Take Your Daily Maths Vidamins! Whether you are a teacher or a parent, you will always be concerned about your childrens’ maths “health”. Do they have a healthy appetite for maths? Are they improving, growing and exercising their mathematical brains regularly? Along with their 5-a-day fruit + vegetables, why not provide them with their 1-a-day maths Vidamin? These Vidamins (mini-videos) aim to build strength and fluency across different topics by providing a daily, short (5 minute) maths exercise and video solution.  This is a colourful and child-friendly PDF file containing hundreds of hyperlinks to Youtube videos on @ghammondmaths ’ Youtube Channel. In fact, there is one different Vidamin for every day of the year! The links could be used by teachers as daily starters in maths lessons or the f...

Before the new curriculum, poetry it seems had played a bit part in primary literacy lessons. Perceived as the poor relation, poetry was that genre of writing that always seemed to be reluctantly taught for a couple of weeks of the year and then quietly ushered away as if it wasn’t quite important enough. Old guidelines required teachers to teach very specific aspects of it in definitive year groups leaving them without much freedom to cater for the children in their classes. In the new curriculum however, all of this has now changed and changed for the better! ”Memorising and reciting are prevalent in all parts of the new National Curriculum, with poetry taking centre stage in English. From year one onwards children will have to learn and recite poems by heart while recognising and discussing different poetic forms.” Curriculum Vital Poetry is now an important and central pillar of the new literacy curriculum in England and Wales. Teachers have been given the freedom to explo...

I am delighted that the next book in the '50+ iPad lessons' series is almost ready for release. Following the huge success of the first book - 50+ iPad lessons for Exciting Sentence s - comes the next book focusing on enhancing non-fiction writing using the iPad. The book aims to help teachers utilise technology to inspire and engage children with their writing. In all my training, I discuss how using the iPad can motivate children to write if they know their writing isn't going to be left lifeless in their books but brought to life and transformed into a digital story. The new book aims to do that for a range of different non-fiction text types including- instructions, persuasion, non-chronological reports, recount, explanation, newspaper report, biography and discussion. The book also promotes the use of camouflage learning with each unit focusing on an interesting and engaging stimulus. Each unit consists of lessons that help students use the iPad to firstly d...

If you are looking at rolling out a class blog this year, I would advise starting by discussing the e-safety aspects of blogging. In particular, what information students should share and what they shouldn't. A great lesson I have done to demonstrate this was to create typography self-portraits of children using information about themselves that they would be willing to share online. Firstly, have the discussion with children why it is important to keep personal information safe and not share it online. List examples of personal information children shouldn't share - full names, names of parents and siblings, address etc. Ask the children to think about what information they can share - hobbies, football teams, pet names etc. The app we used to create our self-portraits was the fantastic Type Drawing , which I have used is so many other ways! Children used all the information they would be willing to share online as the text in their self portraits. Here is an example...