Schoolstube - a free online video storage and sharing service from TAGLearning

Whilst the popularity of using digital video cameras and video resources in the classroom has brought many benefits, it has also led to many e-safety issues:
• Issues of being able to share videos on the internet safely and easily amongst teachers, pupils and parents
• Headache of safe storage and virus protection of large video files
• Accessing an online video service that isn't blocked by firewalls
• Directing pupils to free video sharing sites where there is a risk of inappropriate material being available

Delivered through www.schoolstube.com, this unique free online video storage and sharing service is specifically aimed at schools and guarantees a safe environment for pupils to explore and share videos.

By signing up, your school will be able to store unlimited video and audio files, broadcast and share files around the globe free of charge. The website is specifically designed for teachers to share lesson resources as well as pupils being able access video and audio content in a safe secure online environment, both in the classroom and at home.

With an existing and ever increasing library of video clips, teachers and pupils have access to a large bank of video resources for classroom projects. Unlike other video sharing sites, SchoolsTube is moderated to ensure that all public content is suitable for a young audience.

In addition your school can create a closed private video and audio channel so that only people within the school can view the posted material, meaning the privacy of content is maintained and supports a robust e-safety policy - and all these benefits come free.

Top Education City users

Congratulations to Saint Thomas More Catholic First School, Redditch, who are the top Worcestershire First School Education City users (3rd Jan 2011 - 16th May) with 7956 scores saved.
St Joseph's Catholic Primary, Worcester, are the top Primary school with a massive 58699 scores saved and Woodfield Middle, Redditch, are the top Middle School with 8360 scores saved.

As the pupils save their scores in Education City, reports are automatically generated to inform teachers of the pupils' progress and where they are encountering difficulties. The program is an excellent tool for assessment for learning.

A wealth of resources from NASA

NASA has masses of educational resources for use by teachers and pupils. Click here to find the index of what is available.

Teaching French and/or Spanish?

For all Clicker5 users, Crick Software have announced the launch of their 3-CD resource for teaching Spanish. This adds to their much aclaimed Clicker French set of CDs and other 'Powered by Clicker5' resources.

Both sets are a carefully structured series to teach listening, speaking, reading and writing in either Spanish or French and use high quality, professionally recorded speech from native Spanish and French speakers. Special Spanish and French speech engines are also used so that pupils' own writing is read back to them with authentic sounding Spanish and French voices.

In both sets, CD1 introduces pupils to everyday vocabulary with lots of listening and speaking activities. The pupils are also able to record, re-record and listen to their own attempts at the language. CD2 builds on the first, offering a further range of activities, with more complex sentence structure in a range of relevant topics e.g. holidays, sport, weather and much more.
The third CD contains three well known traditional stories and introduces new vocabulary not met before. The pupils become language detectives as they decipher the onscreen books whilst the accompanying activities extend and consolidate the new vocabulary and structures.

You can also create your own activities with special templates automatically set to speak in Spanish or French.

Each CD can be bought separately from Crick Software for £50 (single user) or £100 (site licence) or the 3-CD Set can be bought for £250 (site licence).
Contact IBSschools (01905 765175) for a discount on these prices.

Now that the better weather has come...

What better opportunity to engage kids with their learning in the great outdoors than to get them involved with geocaching?

No idea what it is all about? Have a look at geocaching.com as a good starting point. For a bit more info related to education specifically try GPS & GeoCaching in Education

No GPS devices in school? No problem, we have a set available for loan to Worcestershire schools. We can also come in and help you run a session. Give us a call if you would like to know more.

Corkboard

There are lots of 'post it' type sites out on the internet, but Corkboard requires no sign up or log in, but stores your work on a unique URL. Good for shared brainstorming as children can all use the same corkboard at once and see ideas beginning to develop. Useful for 'What have we learned?' plenaries as well... which can be revisited at the beginning of the next lesson.

UK children's Media Literacy Report just published

The UK children's Media Literacy Report has just been published by Ofcom and can be accessed here. There is a useful summary report as well as access to the full report and the original questionnaire, which could be usefully edited for doing your own inhouse surveys.