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

Firstly, this idea isn't mine, it was shared with me by John Murray , the fantastic reading and spelling trainer I work with. I believe he had seen this at a school he had done some work with, I will try and find the name of the school and add it to the blog post. The 2016 word of the year was... Post-Truth, this video explains the reasoning behind it: I believe there are a number of reasons why there seems to be such a disconnect from politics and news especially with the younger generation. One is the rise in fake news and the lack of education around the consumption of news online. I discuss this a lot more on my CPD sessions but there is a massive gullibility with people online. Generally, we seem to take things at face value if it fits our own beliefs rather than actually investigating the truth behind it. It is imperative we are educating young people to question and interrogate what they see online and demonstrate how easy it is to manipulate content to fit a c...

It has been a mad week! I posted a video a couple of weeks ago about "The Play" by Oxford Reading Tree. The reaction to the video has been unbelievable! It surpassed 1 million views on facebook, the Manchester Evening News reported on it as did The Mirror.  It was picked up and shared on facebook through the Mirror  and TheLadBible (although I had no control over the subtitles!) I think the reason why the video has been so popular is because of the iconic Oxford Reading Tree books. The books have turned 30 years old in 2016, which is an amazing achievement! They have put together a range of resources to help celebrate 30 years! Click the picture to see: The reason I made the video was to show how different teaching was back in the day (pre SATs, pre national curriculum) compared to the current day where things are very, very different.  After some requests, I couldn't help myself and so had a look at another book featuring our hero Mrs May. This time seei...

I had to share this amazing idea I came across on Facebook: So firstly, a massive thank you to West Elementary School  for sharing this idea! To do this with your class, all you need is a projector, an apple TV or laptop with Airserver and a tablet or iPhone. On the tablet or mobile device, download the app Jitterbug .  The app is made for cats, when the bugs are pressed on the screen they disappear, but I love how the app can be used in the way suggested in the video above.  So if you have the app open on your device and have this mirrored to the projector via airserver or apple TV, ask the children to throw balls at the wall. The teacher will need to then press the screen of the tablet if the children manage to hit the target on the wall.  I know I will be trying it in my next PE lesson!

Over the past couple of weeks, my digital leaders have been working hard creating their own videos to convince the Star Wars Galaxy to buy the Millennium Falcon. They have researched and noted all the unique selling points, considered the language to help persuade the viewer and used their voice to help entice you into the sale. Here is an example of their writing: Once the writing was completed it was time to bring it to life. We decided to multi-app and use the apps PuppetPals 2 and Doink Greenscreen. PuppetPals 2 is a great app which allows you to create your own animations. There is a range of setting and characters but also the ability to add your own backgrounds or add yourself as a character. We had a background video of the Millennium Falcon. As the app doesn't allow you to add videos as a background, we decided to use a greenscreen background. The students then recording their performance on the app and saved their effort to the camera roll. The students ...

My daughter came home with a reading book, 'The Play' of the Oxford Reading Tree series. I couldn't help but notice how vastly different the classroom scene was in the book compared to what I see in classrooms today. I felt compelled to share this and so created this video on my Facebook page. Would love to know what you think! In my opinion, Mrs May is an absolute hero! Child-centered learning with great parent communication skills. I came to the conclusion that we should all #bemorelikeMrsMay!

I sometimes find the best remedy is laughter! I constantly try and make or share videos to put a smile on the face of other teachers to try and see the lighter side of things. If we didn't laugh... we'd cry! This video shared by HammerTone  is an absolute cracker! A Star Wars Parody of the dreaded Ofsted Inspection is both hilariously funny, but also scary that so many teachers can relate to this process. Please enjoy! Feel free to share and subscribe to the channel! It reminded me of the other parody video I shared a while ago... Hitler gets the SATs results: