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We want to and will make it easy for schools to keep their staff, pupils, parents, partners, other stake-holders and wider community informed, updated and engaged.
Now, by merely typing in the text you can do it too!
It's so easy even 7 year old children can do it. If you are able to move a mouse, click a few buttons and string a few sentences together you can maintain a cutting edge site.
We'll give you all the training you'll need, support you on the phone or with email, all to make sure you get the best out of your investment.
Our killer features are:
Superb content management and blog software. Excellent Google optimisation.
An email to weblog interface, making updating your school blog a doddle.
Top draw support and feedback.
Try a demo or build your
Now, by merely typing in the text you can do it too!
It's so easy even 7 year old children can do it. If you are able to move a mouse, click a few buttons and string a few sentences together you can maintain a cutting edge site.
We'll give you all the training you'll need, support you on the phone or with email, all to make sure you get the best out of your investment.
Our killer features are:
Superb content management and blog software. Excellent Google optimisation.
An email to weblog interface, making updating your school blog a doddle.
Top draw support and feedback.
Try a demo or build your
30 day free trial
school website yourself. What will you write today's school news to be?News Departments
Archive page for Monday, 10 March 2008
Mo, Mar 10, 2008Virtual worlds, virtual education
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Sussex University Gets A Second Life: "Every user creates a virtual version of themselves, called an avatar, which they can transport to different locations, including the Sussex campus.Once they have arrived, they can fly around the university's main square to visit the library, attend online seminars, call into the students' union or the Meeting House or just admire the campus views."
This is interesting, for the future. I've never been to Second Life, plan never to go. There's a learning curve, which I don't want to downtime on.
However, the idea behind this is cool. Certainly, it's a VLE, potentially, on steroids.
No more homework anymore
Union calls for homework to be scrapped:
"Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) general secretary, Mary Bousted: "Middle-class children can go home and get help with their homework; disadvantaged children can't and then they get in trouble," she added. "I think it sets up a cycle of resistance to school because they don't have access to the cultural and emotional and learning support which middle-class children can get.""
Inspector evidence
Talking with one of my Heads, who leads a double life as an inspector, he mentioned, upon seeing how easy emailing 30 pictures truly is, that this was a wonderful way of collecting evidence for inspectors. With inspections dropping on schools so quickly, with little notice, schools have boxes of evidence sitting in in their classrooms.
"This would be a much better way of collecting and displaying evidence. It's all dated. You can just say to the inspectors, take a look at the website."
I don't know what he means. I'm not an inspector, teacher nor Head. But I do know databases and web forms. I know any teacher can send an email with pictures attached, and can do this with little fuss, pain, or time. Fastest is 30 seconds, slowest is under an hour, if they change the file names of the images to captions.
If I can make this whole process better, easier for you... It's my mission in life, why I'm here on Planet Earth.
What types of evidence do you need to collect?
Performance data
Indicators of pupils’ progress
Self evaluation evidence
Would you ask parents to fill in a web form for their views on the school?
Notes: I've read the New Relationship with Schools and can't see any requirement for 'boxes of evidence.' I do see the Self Evaluation Form several times.
I can add forms to any page. Perhaps you need specific news items for this with a drop box here, a tick selection there...
Perhaps you need me to add a survey for students, or for parents.
Perhaps you need an intranet for all this? And a way of grabbing a bit from the intranet and easily placing it on the public site? (An intranet is just an empty duplicate of your current site, email your evidence to here. Only a selected bunch of editors can see the site. You allow inspectors in, of course.)
Perhaps, you need just a new department to which you email in a selection of children's work? Or, if you need to raise standards in history, email in the areas you've been teaching. (I'm just guessing here.) Or, perhaps you need to do something about bullying. Perhaps, again a news department where you can add photos and stories written by the children from the school yard about the friendship bench. Pupils needing to learn about different types of work—again, another department? What about early reading, equality, working in teams, how you inform parents...
Al this is easy for me, once I know and understand your needs. But, whatever I do, it has to be easy and painless, and hopefully fun—for you. Else, if it's a chore, if it's hard, you're not going to do it, and I'll have done badly in this world.
Here's a quote from an inspection report, "Pupils use databases to produce graphs and pie charts, though there is limited evidence of its use to support investigations in science or surveys in geography or the recording of statistics in physical education. The cross-curricular use of information and communication technology is an area for expansion." Having children add news items themselves, with links to other sites or photos or screen grabs of their work seems like 'good evidence' to me.
A link to writing a good SEF (Word doc). Notes on filling in the form and a dummy SEF for a primary school.
"This would be a much better way of collecting and displaying evidence. It's all dated. You can just say to the inspectors, take a look at the website."
I don't know what he means. I'm not an inspector, teacher nor Head. But I do know databases and web forms. I know any teacher can send an email with pictures attached, and can do this with little fuss, pain, or time. Fastest is 30 seconds, slowest is under an hour, if they change the file names of the images to captions.
Help me!
So, if you know about evidence, if you're collecting it, if you need to see it in your inspections, if you can see the brilliance of emailing in 30 pictures of 'what you did in class today' either whiteboards, pupils' work, shots of the classroom displays, of the class with their heads down or hands up... If you have a box in the corner and think about it late at night...If I can make this whole process better, easier for you... It's my mission in life, why I'm here on Planet Earth.
What types of evidence do you need to collect?
Performance data
Indicators of pupils’ progress
Self evaluation evidence
Would you ask parents to fill in a web form for their views on the school?
Notes: I've read the New Relationship with Schools and can't see any requirement for 'boxes of evidence.' I do see the Self Evaluation Form several times.
Help you!
Here's a librarian keeping evidence in Australia, "She already has a portfolio stuffed with papers, everything from students' test scores to surveys to checklists, anything that will chart her vital role as a school librarian." Is this what's in your box?I can add forms to any page. Perhaps you need specific news items for this with a drop box here, a tick selection there...
Perhaps you need me to add a survey for students, or for parents.
Perhaps you need an intranet for all this? And a way of grabbing a bit from the intranet and easily placing it on the public site? (An intranet is just an empty duplicate of your current site, email your evidence to here. Only a selected bunch of editors can see the site. You allow inspectors in, of course.)
Perhaps, you need just a new department to which you email in a selection of children's work? Or, if you need to raise standards in history, email in the areas you've been teaching. (I'm just guessing here.) Or, perhaps you need to do something about bullying. Perhaps, again a news department where you can add photos and stories written by the children from the school yard about the friendship bench. Pupils needing to learn about different types of work—again, another department? What about early reading, equality, working in teams, how you inform parents...
Al this is easy for me, once I know and understand your needs. But, whatever I do, it has to be easy and painless, and hopefully fun—for you. Else, if it's a chore, if it's hard, you're not going to do it, and I'll have done badly in this world.
My research
I've found a course, I bet it's expensive, to 'Master your SEF.'Here's a quote from an inspection report, "Pupils use databases to produce graphs and pie charts, though there is limited evidence of its use to support investigations in science or surveys in geography or the recording of statistics in physical education. The cross-curricular use of information and communication technology is an area for expansion." Having children add news items themselves, with links to other sites or photos or screen grabs of their work seems like 'good evidence' to me.
A link to writing a good SEF (Word doc). Notes on filling in the form and a dummy SEF for a primary school.
Google video how to
Though you can email in small videos to your site, larger ones, and many cameras now are capable of effusively recording broadcast quality (640 x 480 x 30 fps) these smaller videos are generally only 5Mb big. Shot off a mobile phone, they last a minute or less.
Larger videos are 50Mb or more! Eeek! Don't email those to your site!
Better is Google video. I'd say YouTube, but there are size limits with YouTube. And with Google Video, there's a handy application with which you can upload many videos in one go. I generally add several at night, and come back in the morning to finish off adding the tags to my site.
First, you need to join Google Video. Fill in the form and then respond to the email that is sent to you to confirm your address. If you don't confirm, you're sill (apparently) allowed to upload video, but you're wasting your time (I know this from experience).
On the front page, there's a link (top, right) to upload your videos. There, you're asked to sign in or create an account.
Create an account, and respond to the emailed confirmation.
Then, decide if you want to upload one video, or download the application which allows many to be uploaded in one go. I'd download the application, especially if you're going to use the one machine, all the time. If you're going to be a hot desk uploader, it may not be useful.
Web form uploading
One at a time, just fill in the fields and add your video to the form, hit the upload button and wait... Or, go make some tea. It can take ages to upload one video of 50Mb size. Ages. And ages.
20 minutes? An hour? Depends on your bandwidth, how many others in school or in your street are online. Depends on the time of day, tea time being the slowest.
Once it's done... You can see the video, and to the right is a button to 'email and embed HTML' You'll need to copy the HTML code and paste it into your new news item description box. But there's a trick here...
Pasting HTML
You need to switch to source mode to paste the HTML. Then switch back to HTML view mode. Now, you can't see the HTML you just pasted in! Which is correct, though a little worrying.
If you don't switch to HTML mode and paste in your embed HTML, you'll see your HTML and all will look well, though the angled brackets have been munged (in the source mode view). And all you will get on posting will the be HTML, or rather what looks like HTML.
Uploading via the application
(My preference.) You need to hit the log in button first! And login. Then, add some videos to the application. Tick the box to certify the video is yours, then hit the 'upload now' button. And go to bed... At least this is what I do. I've no idea how long it takes, though I'm sure it's several hours to upload several hundred megabytes worth of several videos.
Again you're presented with a screen, which lists all your videos. One by one, you have to fill in a web form about each video. Which language, a description, a title... If you want it public or private. (I don't know if there's a downside to private. I always do public.) [Later:] The downside is that it's not embedable into your site, if it's private! So, always do public.
One by one, you have to copy paste the embed code into your news item(s). It's a chore. But worth it!
If you're pasting several embed codes into the one news item box... Be careful! It can get quite messy and certainly not for the faint hearted HTML novice. Far better to write a description, switch to source mode, paste your embed code below your text, switch back to HTML view and post the news item. Then, create a new news item for each video.
Formats
As with emailing in, any format will work with Google Video.
Larger videos are 50Mb or more! Eeek! Don't email those to your site!
Better is Google video. I'd say YouTube, but there are size limits with YouTube. And with Google Video, there's a handy application with which you can upload many videos in one go. I generally add several at night, and come back in the morning to finish off adding the tags to my site.
How to
Join upFirst, you need to join Google Video. Fill in the form and then respond to the email that is sent to you to confirm your address. If you don't confirm, you're sill (apparently) allowed to upload video, but you're wasting your time (I know this from experience).
On the front page, there's a link (top, right) to upload your videos. There, you're asked to sign in or create an account.
Create an account, and respond to the emailed confirmation.
Then, decide if you want to upload one video, or download the application which allows many to be uploaded in one go. I'd download the application, especially if you're going to use the one machine, all the time. If you're going to be a hot desk uploader, it may not be useful.
Web form uploading
One at a time, just fill in the fields and add your video to the form, hit the upload button and wait... Or, go make some tea. It can take ages to upload one video of 50Mb size. Ages. And ages.
20 minutes? An hour? Depends on your bandwidth, how many others in school or in your street are online. Depends on the time of day, tea time being the slowest.
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The embed HTML section found on the right of the Google Video screen.
Once it's done... You can see the video, and to the right is a button to 'email and embed HTML' You'll need to copy the HTML code and paste it into your new news item description box. But there's a trick here...
Pasting HTML
You need to switch to source mode to paste the HTML. Then switch back to HTML view mode. Now, you can't see the HTML you just pasted in! Which is correct, though a little worrying.
If you don't switch to HTML mode and paste in your embed HTML, you'll see your HTML and all will look well, though the angled brackets have been munged (in the source mode view). And all you will get on posting will the be HTML, or rather what looks like HTML.
Uploading via the application
(My preference.) You need to hit the log in button first! And login. Then, add some videos to the application. Tick the box to certify the video is yours, then hit the 'upload now' button. And go to bed... At least this is what I do. I've no idea how long it takes, though I'm sure it's several hours to upload several hundred megabytes worth of several videos.
;newWindow.focus())
Google video uploader application
Again you're presented with a screen, which lists all your videos. One by one, you have to fill in a web form about each video. Which language, a description, a title... If you want it public or private. (I don't know if there's a downside to private. I always do public.) [Later:] The downside is that it's not embedable into your site, if it's private! So, always do public.
One by one, you have to copy paste the embed code into your news item(s). It's a chore. But worth it!
If you're pasting several embed codes into the one news item box... Be careful! It can get quite messy and certainly not for the faint hearted HTML novice. Far better to write a description, switch to source mode, paste your embed code below your text, switch back to HTML view and post the news item. Then, create a new news item for each video.
Formats
As with emailing in, any format will work with Google Video.
Right from wrong
School is 'the last moral force':
"Long working hours, chaotic home backgrounds and a lack of positive adult influences in children's lives, meant schools were being expected to patch up social problems rather than focus on educational issues."
