Welcome to the Sheffield South CLC Blog

This blog is regularly updated with news about the CLC, write ups of recent projects with our partner schools, and useful resources and links for teachers.

For more information about what a City Learning Centre is, how to get to the centre and what courses and facilities we offer, please visit our website: http://www.ssclc.net

Sri Lanka Transition Project

A year 6 class from Sir Harold Jackson School spent a number of sessions at the CLC this half term to work on a transition project. The original plan was to focus on French and learn about Madagascar with support from Paula Lewis at Meadowhead, but after a visit from a Sri Lankan lady to the school, we changed the focus.

The idea behind the project was to learn more  about Sri Lanka whilst learning new ICT skills in order to present what they had found out. They began by finding images of Sri Lanka and using Picnik to edit the photos and add text. Students also researched the weather in Sri Lanka and presented their own weather reports, using the Green Screen to add backgrounds. Finally they created comic strips using Comic Life, to write mini-interviews with imaginary residents of Sri Lanka. By the end of the project, all the students were confident in using the tools and were showing the teachers how it was done. In addition to the work on Sri Lanka, each pupil created a Glog (multimedia poster) to reflect on what they had learnt.

Annabel Wales, the class teacher said, “The experiences of each pupil over the past six weeks have been individual and varied. They have been in charge of their own learning and while having a great deal of fun, have learnt some incredible and very impressive new skills. These skills while mostly linked to IT and geography have also been social skills and skills which will stand them in good stead for their transition to their secondary schools [...] Overall this has been an incredibly successful project for all involved.”

Paula Lewis commented, “This has been a fantastic experience all round for staff and pupils. I have seen the students gain in self-confidence through acquisition of new skills and using new applications [...] Incredible thanks from me to the CLC and to Mrs Wales and all the support staff from SHJ for making this happen, and huge congratulations to the Y6 students of SHJ who have been a total inspiration.”

MFL Conference – Creative Use of ICT for Spanish at Y5/6

I delivered a workshop at the Forward With Languages Conference, held at the Holiday Inn, Sheffield, on the 23rd June. My topic was Creative Use of ICT for Spanish at Y5 and Y6 - based on the work I’ll be doing on our Spanish summer school this year (see here for more details).  I prepared the presentation with Paula Lewis, the Primary MFL link teacher at Meadowhead School, who unfortunately couldn’t make it on the day of the conference.

Here is a link to the presentation I gave, which showcases a number of (mainly web-based) tools for supporting language learning – these tools could easily be used across all key stages and languages, but our focus was how they fitted in with the Primary MFL Framework at Year 5 and 6.

Creative Use of ICT for Spanish in Year 5 and 6

For notes on how to use Windows Movie Maker, click here.

Tutpup – Maths and English Games

Tutpup is a free online resource for children to play simple maths and English games against other children from all around the world. The beauty of the site is that every child chooses a nickname, based on a colour, animal and number, and therefore remain completely anonymous. A teacher can sign up and create a class code, so that their students only need to enter a minimum of information on the site.

Games currently on the site involve addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, algebra and spelling. There is a Hall of Fame which shows the members who have won the most games over the last 24 hours, 7 days or month, with the leaders having won over 1000 games in the last 30 days! It seems to be a really motivational site for students to practise key skills.

(Thanks to Tom Barrett for pointing me there.)

India Poetry

A year 4 class from Mundella School came to the CLC last week to create multimedia poems based on work written in school about India. We used Photostory to create the poems, which is a free download. The pupils uploaded photos to the program and added text over each one, they could then change the movement of each photo and add transitions. Finally they added music, which they could create within Photostory, to complement their poem. The pupils all really enjoyed using Photostory, as it is easy to use and they liked all the effects. Below are two examples of their poems:

done

done

Online Scrapbook / Yearbook

This may be relevant currently, as students are finishing the year. Scrapblog is a way of creating an online scrapbook or yearbook, using text, images, video and a large number of ready made graphics. You can choose one of their themes, or create one from scratch with your own designs. Addition – to start from scratch you need to buy the stickers, backgrounds etc. There are, however, a large number of themes that are free, and these come with a number of stickers and backgrounds for free, so it is still possible to personalise your scrapblog without paying anything.

We are already planning on working with a year 6 class on creating a virtual yearbook, and this may be the perfect solution for all their memories.

Once you have finished your scrapblog, you can publish it and share it with everyone, or choose to only allow your friends to see it (obviously we stress with young people that the latter is the option they should be choosing). All of this is free, the cost only comes into it if you’d like a printed version. They do three versions, with the cheapest at $9.99. The catch (and it’s a big one) is that the delivery to the UK will cost a whopping $71! Hopefully this will come down as time goes on. However you can download each page as a jpeg (see image below) and you can print these if you want a hard copy.

Click on the image to see our example (as you can see, all my students were photographed at Chatsworth House!):

Chocolate Glogs from Totley Primary

A Year 4 class from Totley Primary visited the CLC yesterday to present the information they had learnt about Chocolate. Initially their teacher had asked to use Publisher to create leaflets, but after seeing the possiblities that Glogster offered, she decided that chocolate glogs were a better, and more varied, way to present the information.

Before they arrived, the class took photos of their trip to a chocolate factory and their classroom display about the subject. They also borrowed some of our Flip Mino video cameras to record short interviews about their likes and dislikes, as well as jingles for made up chocolate bars.

The teacher had created an educational account on Glogster, with accounts for all the students. This meant that the Glogs remained private except to other members of the class. Each pupil created their own Glog, using text, images and video about Chocolate. They could customise the look of their Glog to suit their own personal taste, which they really liked. There is always a danger that pupils spend more time on the aesthetics than the content, but with close monitoring from the teacher, this shouldn’t be a problem.

The finished posters were excellent, and the pupils remained focussed all morning on the task. For the last half hour of the session they were allowed to use the inbuilt messaging application, to talk to their friends. This is an excellent way of providing feedback, both between the pupils, and from the teacher. It is also an opportunity to discuss how to behave online towards others.

The class teacher, Nicola Wileman, gave us some audio feedback. Please click here to hear it.

Summer Schools Programme at the CLC

We have now finalised our Summer School Programme for 2009. We have three different Schools running:

1. Learn Spanish through the Creative Use of Technology:

This is aimed at current year 5 and 6 students, and will run for 3 days. There are two possible dates (with the same content running each time) – 22nd-24th July and 12th-14th August. Participants will learn some basic Spanish using different aspects of technology such as film-making, animation, comic strip making and digital poetry. (No prior knowledge of Spanish required). For more details click here.

2. Music Video Summer School:

Aimed at 12-16 year olds who are interested in creating a music video, and it will run from the 27th-31st July. Bands from local schools will record the music and we’re looking for young people interested in all aspects of film-making and animation to create the video. This summer school is now full.

3. Web Station Summer School:

This summer school is aimed at students between 9 and 14 years old and runs from 3rd-7th August. The aim is to design and maintain a simple web-site with local and national news content. The content may be in  the form of short films, animations, music, blogs, interviews, digital photography. This summer school is now full.

To apply for all of these Summer Schools, download an application form here and return to:

Sheffield South City Learning Centre, by Newfield School, Lees Hall Road, Sheffield S8 9JP. E-mail info@ssclc.net.

Tel: (0114) 2587728 for more information.

Twitter – What’s all the fuss about?

Twitter has been about since 2006, but you may only just have become aware of it, with celebrities, predominantly Stephen Fry, talking about it in newspapers and on TV. This doesn’t necessarily mean you have a clue what it actually is, and why you should be using it.

So what is it?

Twitter is a microblogging service. It asks the question “What are you doing?” and you post your reply, using a maximum of 140 characters. It is very much like the status updates on Facebook. You can then search for people to follow – which mean you can read what they have been “tweeting”, and hope that some of them follow you back.

But why on earth is this useful to me in terms of education?

Very good question. Initially I hated the idea, I don’t feel the need to inform other people of my every waking thought and action and I’m really not interested in what Britney Spears had for lunch. Slowly though it became clear that this wasn’t its real strength and I now use it for the following two reasons:

1. To find out useful information and news as it happens. Teachers and educationalists post up useful links to stories and resources here. News stories often break on Twitter first, for example the landing of the plane in the Hudson River. You can search Twitter using keywords and see what other people are saying about certain topics. As an ex-MFL teacher I would have loved to have had Twitter in 1989 as the Berlin Wall fell.

2. To ask questions of my peers and get immediate feedback. Unfortunately this is more difficult without a good number of followers, but I can post a question on Twitter for my followers to answer. For example, if anyone has used a particular piece of software, or could recommend a website for a certain subject area.

It’s all about creating a Professional Learning Network (PLN) for yourself, and being able to communicate with the network in a quick and painless way.

Can it also be used in the classroom?

Yes it can. There is a good presentation here that details 22 ways it can be used with students. Not all of them may be practical, but I like ideas such as writing the first line and getting students to continue the story on twitter, or writing tweets in the style of a famous person from history or literary character.

The main drawback in using Twitter with students is the very public nature of the application, so do use wisely.

How do I get started?

Head over to www.twitter.com and sign up for an account. You can follow me, username camoore – I can’t promise fascinating tweets, but I may be able to answer any questions you have. You can also access this Wiki, created by students in the US, on how to use Twitter (thanks to @josepicardo on Twitter for pointing me there).

Addition: To find like-minded people to follow on Twitter, head to http://wefollow.com/.

If anyone finds any other good uses for Twitter, please comment on this post, or you could always tweet!

Daleks invade the CLC

Two Daleks and a Tardis arrived at the CLC 2 weeks ago, along with a class from Talbot School. The students had been learning about Conflict and the teacher used Doctor Who and the Daleks as an example. This led to two life-size Daleks being created plus a Tardis.

The class came to the CLC to create a video with the Daleks using our Green Screen facilities, where the biggest issue was keeping everyone to the space in front of the green screen. The final film was a success, with a Milky Way backdrop and Doctor Who theme tune, and it was shown at their assembly last week.

Count Me In – SEN Maths Materials

The CLC worked with staff from Seven Hills School last year to help create some maths materials with content at P levels and KS1/2 but with the visual and auditory interest level at secondary level, and accessible using switches and other accessibility options. The School received funding from Becta for their Repurpose, Create, Share project to create the materials. The activities are based on key skills (counting, missing numbers, ordering numbers, money and time) with the themes of animals, shopping, television, football and cars.

The activities and more information about the project can be found on the YHGfL website here.