Northumberland NGfL: ICT Conference 2008

10.10 -10.55 Seminar Session 1 - choice of one of the following seminars:

Twisted Tails
Presenter: Vicki Cable, Shoofly

Develop your creative curriculum using two engaging animated books. Supporting resources explore traditional tales across the curriculum. Make 'Go Granny Go' mathematical game, learn about co-ordinates and map reading. Identify trees and follow the countryside code. Create 3D books, sing the 'Windmill' round and dance the Ji-Jaller Jig (but not all at once!) Twisted Tales is the County Site Licensed Resource purchased for all Schools but particularly relevant to Years 1 and 2.
Collect your copy on the day.

Audience: Primary

Asus Minibooks
Presenters: Pat Dempsey, Northumberland ICT & E-learning Consultant

This workshop session will feature reports of the innovative work undertaken in Northumberland LA pilot projects, and will feature a hands-on opportunity for colleagues to evaluate the Asus Notebook machines, and some of the software and resources available for pupils to use. The session will be of interest to all. Audience: All

Write Online
Presenter: John Liddle, Head of Services to Education, AbilityNet

	WriteOnline lets learners write online anytime, anywhere! It's a brand-new supportive writing tool for learners in upper primary schools, secondary schools and colleges. With WriteOnline, pupils can save their documents online so they can access them anywhere using their Asus Minibook or laptop. They can even write on the bus - if they are somewhere without an Internet connection, WriteOnline even works offline, too!
It's incredibly easy to personalise WriteOnline, so individuals can have just the right support they need, wherever they are - it has built-in tools for writing support and so is particularly useful for pupils with LDD. Pupils can use its integrated speech, word prediction, word banks and writing frames to help them write. Audience: Primary

RealSmart
Presenter: Richard Taylor, Northumberland Adviser for ICT & E-Learning

Realsmart is a development of SmartAssess, the online assessment for learning tool demonstrated at last year's ICT conference. Over the summer the software has been developed and now has additional tools including online mindmapping, blog and website software.

We are now beginning to roll this out to schools across the County – come along to this session, see the new interface, hopefully have some ‘hands on’ and decide if your school wants to sign up for a Realsmart platform.

Audience: All

Smart 10
Presenter: Sue Wild, Northumberland ICT & E-learning Consultant

Smart10 is the latest version of the Smart Notebook software and includes major new exciting applications. These include creating tables to which images can be easily added, cell shade to cover content, setting up themes for pages with set backgrounds and fonts, animations, shape recognition tool, automatic spell check, magic pens and fill effects to name a few. During the session participants will become familiar with this fantastic new version that will enhance the use of the Smartboard to support teaching and learning.

Audience: All

Ember
Presenters: Steve Robson, Northumberland ICT & E-learning Consultant, Christine Carruthers / Barbara Roper

Ember is database material suitable for pupils from year 4 to year 6 and uses paper databases and software to introduce pupils to the key ideas in an engaging and graphic context.

The software is available to all Northumberland Schools and this session will demo the resources and planning that is available.

Audience: All

11.00 Coffee

11.30 -12.15 Seminar Session 2 - choice of one of the following seminars:

Twisted Tails
Presenter: Vicki Cable, Shoofly

Asus Minibooks
Presenters: Pat Dempsey, Northumberland ICT & E-learning Consultant

This workshop session will feature reports of the innovative work undertaken in Northumberland LA pilot projects, and will feature a hands-on opportunity for colleagues to evaluate the Asus Notebook machines, and some of the software and resources available for pupils to use. The session will be of interest to all. Audience: All

Supporting pupils learning EAL using technology
Presenters: Karen Wilson and John Devlin, Northumberland Consultants

In this session, we will give a brief overview of the range of software to support pupils learning EAL, including Cricksoft’s ‘New to English’ module for Clicker, and Widgit’s range of supportive packages, including SymWriter.

Audience: All

Podcasting
Presenter: John Harbottle, Northumberland ICT & E-learning Consultant

Podcasting continues to become increasingly popular in schools as a method of ‘broadcasting’ sound files across the internet. It provides exciting opportunities to create series of news-style podcast, documentaries, revision materials, music performances and much more. Podcasts can be downloaded onto computers then transferred to mp33 players, 3G phones, PSP’s etc. This seminar will demonstrate how easily a podcast can be recorded and broadcast. There will also be discussion to investigate practical ideas and information to help teachers begin to use this technology in their own schools.

Audience: All

Adobe Connect
Presenter: Northumberland Adviser for ICT & E-Learning

Adobe Connect is an online training/meeting package that allows individuals and classes to work together online. The package utilises a simple webcam and allows you to share sound, video and whatever you are doming on your desktop with other online users – this could be in your school, partnership, county, country or anywhere in the world with an internet connection.

In the Autumn we will begin to make this resource available to schools – come along to see if you would like to help develop the use of this exciting resource.

Audience: All

Programming and Control (Robosapiens)
Presenter: Steve Robson, Northumberland ICT & E-learning Consultant

This session will focus on hardware and software that teachers might like to use to promote creative, engaging and challenging ICT programming work in their schools. The session will look at robots, ‘physical’ programming and also at some software which can stimulate work. Also under discussion will be the Northumberland initiative to promote creative programming, which schools may be interested in joining.

Audience: Middle and High Schools

12.15 Lunch

13.15 -14.00 Seminar Session 3 - choice of one of the following seminars:

Turning Point
Presenter: Sue Wild, Northumberland ICT & E-learning Consultant

Interest in the use of electronic voting systems within the classroom continues to grow. The Turning Point software links seamlessly with PowerPoint so teachers can set questions within a familiar environment. Throughout the year a number of First and Middle Schools have been trialling this resource. In this session participants will have the opportunity to use the equipment, see the results of voting in action and find out how they have been used in schools.

Audience: All

Asus Minibooks
Presenters: Pat Dempsey, Northumberland ICT & E-learning Consultant

This workshop session will feature reports of the innovative work undertaken in Northumberland LA pilot projects, and will feature a hands-on opportunity for colleagues to evaluate the Asus Notebook machines, and some of the software and resources available for pupils to use. The session will be of interest to all. Audience: All

NorTLE - Northumberland Teaching and Learning Environment
Presenter: John Harbottle, Northumberland ICT & E-learning Consultant

Learning Platforms are increasingly providing schools with a powerful range of tools to enhance delivery of teaching and learning within the classroom as well as extending learning opportunities beyond the boundaries of the physical school buildings. Northumberland’s Learning Platform, NorTLE, is a great way for teachers to manage their resources, set, assess and return work, enable students to engage with activities and collaborate and much more. NorTLE is available to all school in Northumberland and this seminar will provide an insight into what is possible, what is already happening in some schools and how you could become involved.

Audience: All

Speech Recognition Software
Presenter: John Liddle, Head of Services to Education, AbilityNet

This session will be looking at voice recognition systems and issues which are key to its successful implementation in schools. John will be outlining the latest products and developments in voice recognition software, including an overview of the speech recognition system built into the Windows Vista operating system.

There will be a brief discussion of the issues specific to school children using these systems including:Appropriateness: when, where and who
Steps towards speech recognition – building skills
Usage techniques for success – including delegated correction, creating your own enrolment scripts
Support for the struggling reader – speech feedback, ClaroRead and Keystone
Hardware issues – compatibility of computers, digital recording devices, microphones

Audience: All

Comic Life
Presenter: Rob Richardson, Tag Learning

Comic Life is licensed software available to all Northumberland schools. It enables the creation of comic masterpieces using images available on users own computers and can publish to images, movie files or web pages. It is a very stimulating tool not just for ICT but for Literacy or any application where information or stories need to be expressed. This session will look at the software, demo some of the support resources which can be used with it, and introduce some County based strategies to promote its use.

Audience: All

Programming and Control (Scratch)
Presenters: Steve Robson and Richard Taylor

Audience: Primary

14.05 - 14.50 Seminar Session 4 - choice of one of the following seminars:

E-Safety
Presenter: Dean Jackson, ICT Adviser for North Tyneside and John Devlin, Northumberland ICT Consultant

This workshop will give an overview of the implication for schools of the Byron review on Children and New Technology. It will also examine some of the latest resources available from CEOP, Childnet International and other organisations to use with children and parents when discussing e-safety issues.

‘One of the strongest messages I have received during my Review was about the role that schools and other services for children and families have to play in equipping children and their parents to stay safe online.’ Dr Tanya Byron, 2008

Audience: All

Smart 10
Presenter: Sue Wild, Northumberland ICT & E-learning Consultant

Northumberland Resources
Presenter: Pat Dempsey, Northumberland ICT & E-learning Consultant

Come and enjoy the new resources produced in house by the ICT Team or licensed for use in Northumberland - the Three Little Pigs interactive story, Religion video resource, the 3D painting tool Plopp, the exciting new Science Activity Builder and a range of new 2Simple software including Stories to Tell. Session participants will also have the opportunity to try out some of these resources on the Asus minibooks.

Using ICT in English classrooms to enhance teaching and learning
Presenter: Alison Walker Northumberland Literacy Consultant

This session will feature work undertaken by the National Strategy to develop and trial ways of incorporating ICT into effective Wave 1 English teaching. We will share materials developed by teachers that focus on aspects of the subject that are frequently seen as hard to teach.

Audience: Middle and High

Comic Life
Presenter: Rob Richardson, Tag Learning

Audience: All

Serious Games
Presenter: Steve Robson, Northumberland ICT & E-learning Consultant

Serious games are becoming a highly regarded educational resource to engage learners and promote learning. This session will look at two sides of the topic – firstly examine some of the materials that are available for pupils and teachers to pick up and use, and secondly at the possibilities offered by creating serious games software for ourselves.

Audience: All

15.00 - 16.00 Russell Prue: Time to Get Out of their Way

16.00 - 16.15 Conclusion, ice cream and distribution of free resources

Booking form

Click here to book your place and select your choice of seminars.

Please book your place at the conference and make your seminar selections by Friday, 13th June