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I am truly amazed that I had not mentioned this earlier. Especially as I've been using it to help me with this blog!
Windows Movie Maker for making short (or long) videos, is brilliant. It comes standard with Windows 7 (and 8) and is free to download if you don't already have it. It's easy to use, pretty intuitive, and doesn't require powerful hardware. To see some results, just take a look at the few I've uploaded for BeeBots and Scratch! 
It is also easy to take a collection of images and add simple effects and set them to music, and literally takes a matter of minutes to do. Additionally it can easily be combined with Powerpoint to make slides and presentations more interesting as a bonus! It's also a fantastic way of showcasing children's work at the end of a topic, or introducing a new one as well!
For obvious reasons, Movie Maker may appeal to visual learners, budding filmakers and storytellers, and is a fantastic tool not just for the teacher to use, but for pupils to learn and engage them in their work (the most obvious example being storytelling). Best of all, because it's free, students can easily take their work home to continue once they've been hooked in by the prospect of movie making! 
Definitely a great tool to add to any teacher's kit box.


 
Having been abroad on family visit for the weekend, I was fortunate enough to steal a little time with my young cousins (aged 8), and after securing two more laptops, was able to test a little bit of minecraft education. Below you can see some of the results. 
Having found their current topic was the Egyptians, we worked for two hours building a pyramid, albeit heavily influenced by pop culture and not particularly historically accurate (giant golden skull with flaming eyes?!), complete with all sorts of traps for would be robbers. It was a fantastic experience for me, and fascinating to see their ideas develop through discussion, questioning and teamwork. I would, however, have loved to have been able to put them in separate rooms and see how they fared communicating solely through typing, but was unfortunately too caught up in watching to arrange this. I was particularly impressed by how quickly they became independent in working and taking control of their own learning , designing almost everything themselves (Although the circuitry did take some assistance and direction).
Have a click of the images below to enlarge them, and feel free to comment with any suggestions.

Night view of the work in progress pyramid.
Daytime view of the almost completed entrance.
The circuitry behind one of the traps.
The first trap, disappearing floor (Part 1)
The first trap, disappearing floor (Part 2)
 
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Clicker 6 is a literacy tool used in a large number of primary schools to help develop the reading and writing skills of children of all ability ranges. Yesterday in Year 3, a small group of children who struggled with writing were using one of the program's predecessors (Clicker 5), to support them writing about Henry VIII and his wives during topic. The main feature they used was the word processor which assisted them by providing a list of the important/difficult words for each paragraph, underneath the text box, and reading back finished sentences to the children, allowing them to check for coherency. It was fantastic to see how the program enabled these children to work independently, and produce a higher standard of work, without relying on constant support and prompting from staff. My placement school has over 90% EAL children, so immediately these accessibility tools stood out to me as great ways of including and enabling children who do not speak English as their first language, or who otherwise have speaking or literacy difficulties. Though I have only managed to scratch the surface and take a look at some of this program's facilities, I am already impressed in how much freedom it can provide teachers in differentiating work for pupils, and tailoring activities to suit the work taking place in class.
Below are just a few sceenshots I found floating about the web, but if anyone would like to know more, I've added the below video review which gives some extra details.
Enjoy!

 
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I've dabbled a bit with scripting in the past; as a child, inspired by SquareEnix's Final Fantasy series, I was very fond of the program RPG Maker for making (or at least attempting to make) games myself. I was never very successful, and unfortunately have lost all of the games I had made, but that little time I spent has set me on good footing for this!
Scratch. Made by the guys at MIT, Scratch is a very simple programming language for just about everyone. Today I've given it a go, and wanted to show my first 15minutes progress experimenting with the functions. It's only a short video, but in it I have programmed a simple script to make the little dragon sprite move left and right when an arrow is pressed. It's nothing fancy, but it's the first step in learning about Scratch. One of the main ways I developed ICT skills as a child was through experimenting and teaching myself skills, problem solving, as I would go along. This is one of the great benefits of creative software such as this, as, if they're anything like me, children will not be satisfied doing the bare minimum for their project, they'll want to put in their own ideas. Perhaps if I was to teach them this, they'd want their dragon to jump to, or be able to fly, and it would be this natural inquisitiveness that would drive (especially the more able or engaged children) to experiment and discover ways to do things that we teachers may not have considered, or even known about ourselves.
Well, this is only the beginning, but it's great to see tools like this freely available for educators, and especially for the children to continue to use at home. Hopefully I'll have more to show soon.
Scratch is available from this website (and many more).

 
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I'm honestly surprised it's taken so long for me to make a post about this, especially as I've been updating my own blog all this time. Blogging is one of the best ways of implementing ICT education into classes. With so many great platforms out there offering free (or in some cases paid) hosting, domains and a variety of customisable features, setting up a school or class blog is a solid first step in developing children's digital literacy, particularly in KS2.
Boys Writing is something many teachers struggle with, and blogging has proven to be a great way to both engage boys in writing, and to improve the quality of their work. Having children post and comment on their class blog grants them agency and empowers them to take control of their learning; feelings of dis-empowerment have, in my experience been a major contributing factor in turning children (particularly boys) off certain subjects. The comments system in place on most blogs also allows children to self and peer assess, as well as work on communication skills, and grants a genuine audience for the children's writing, so that their writing for purpose really does have a purpose. Lastly, through collaborative blogs such as Quadblogging children can develop their skills in working as part of a greater team, and have the opportunity to work.
Of course, granting this level of control and freedom to the children can have its own risks, as allowing them to comment and work on the blog outside class means that as teachers we must be able to trust the children to be safe and sensible. Publishing on the internet to an audience that hasn't been, or cannot be as easily vetted is something that must be done with caution, and any blogs must be moderated carefully to keep the class safe. This does however provide a great segue into talking to children about E-Safety and educating them about the perils of online social networking.
I'm currently using the free blogging tools provided by Weebly, but have had great experience with Tumblr and Blogger in the past. Below are just some of the many great, free blogging platforms online:

 
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Some of you may have seen this post a while ago, where I discussed how I thought Class Dojo could be a great tool. Now, after my first 8 week placement, I have some experience with it and wanted to leave a few comments, a little review of sorts.
The first thing to say is that I overestimated the website/app. It records the merits/demerits of your class, and shows them in real time. Initially I had assumed there was a lot more to ClassDojo, but I was so caught up in the prospect of the idea that I assumed there was more to it. ClassDojo does what it intends to do well, however, in my opinion, it's utility is pretty dependent on teachers having the app to be able to update on the fly. Otherwise, when away from the board/computer, teachers must go back, perhaps switch through a few windows, and the merit/demerit is delayed, and loses effect. The app is available on Android and iOS, so most smartphones and tablets can handle it, although I only have a smartphone, and there is something very unprofessional feeling about pulling a phone out in the middle of a lesson. This pretty much restricted me from being able to use it during placement.
The app also does not allow you to make changes to your class, or your merits/demerits, which, although only a minor issue, did in fact bother me. Additionally you cannot, through the app OR website, change your children's avatars. This, to me is a big issue, as I feel ownership and customisation of digital avatars is one of their biggest draws, and most key features when using one. To me, not including this aspect (perhaps it will be present in a future update), is a real mistake on the developers part, but is not the end of the world. There is some small customisation, buying "cool" avatars, but I feel this could easily be expanded upon.
The data tracking and report generating facilities however, are great however, and their utility is obvious, especially when combined with the parent/pupil logins that can be created. These allow pupils to check in at home, and parents to easily see their children's progress at any time.Overall, it IS a useful tool to have, but for me, it is in need of further development before I personally being to implement it in class.
http://c.classdojo.com/img/logo2.jpg

 
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What can I say? I love to draw.
It has taken me a while to get used to using a Promethean board, as I am used to using SMART Boards, but now I have gotten the hang of it, it isn't too bad. I still prefer the SMART boards, for their functionality, responsiveness, the ability to use a finger rather than a pen, and the software itself, but each type has its own merits.
Just having an IWB saved a significant amount of time setting up before whole class teaching, and offers the best parts of a flip chart, whiteboard, and projector all in one. Plus Year 1 loved being allowed to come up to write or click to answer questions during whole class teaching. Of course, some of the smaller children needed a bit of help reaching icons near the top of the screen, but that's one of the many benefits of an IWB, being able to easily rearrange objects on screen. 
For me though, as little as it is, being able to add some personal flair to lessons with drawing (see below) and interactivity to help engage the children made a big difference. The WALT and WILF below were changed to aliens this week (we normally have ClipArt hedgehogs) and the children loved them. I found they referred back to the board rather than sitting waiting for instructions a lot more, and even spotted a few of them mimicking the orange alien and his magnifying glass to remind each other to check their work! Having been pushing them to work more independently for weeks, a few children making this tiny step made a big difference.
It really is no wonder that every school I visit seems to have invested in one. I only have the three pictures below, but hopefully I'll have more on my next placement!

A lesson WALT from our week on the book Aliens Love Panta Claus...
... and the accompanying WILF for the lesson.
A little treat I left during a free choice session, after the children had done some fantastic work based on the book Little Rabbit Foo Foo
 
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PICNIC on PLUTO is a simple game on the Phonics Play website that I've been using as an end of session plenary activity during whole class phonics sessions. The game is pretty simple, children are presented with words which they must decode; fake words must be fed to Obb, and real words to Bob. Word of warning to teachers with boisterous children, Bob's burping seemed to draw out a pretty crazy reaction from my class, and there were a few times I've "forgotten" to turn the sound on just to keep them a bit calmer.
I initially found it a bit pointless that the game featured nonsense words, however, realising that the Year 1 Phonics Screening Test that they will sit in a few months will also contain similar nonsense words, I can see why. Personally, after a brief read up on the Test, I am still unsure about its utility. I can imagine more able readers needing to sit it early, to avoid being "held back" so to speak, but I admit I need to look further into it. This is, however, a great example of how ICT can be brilliant for 

 
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When I found out that my placement school used Promethean boards, I was really looking forward to giving these a go, and seeing how children used them. Unfortunately the school has not gotten hold of a set yet, so I cannot comment with first hand experience. :c Fortunately however, I was able to have a quick test during a Science lecture which demonstrated how quickly these little gadgets can collect and visually represent the data on an IWB. It is quite a costly piece of kit, I'm led to believe, but fortunately does work with SMART boards too. I can see how it would be very useful in classes, but


 
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Just a brief post here.
I've been having a tinker with the interactive whiteboards at the University, and thought I'd post a quick video and picture. These things are brilliant, and a huge improvement on older, conventional whiteboards, and seem to be ubiquitous, popping up in almost every classroom I've been into in recent years. In the video I'm only showing a few basic tricks, but even these you can see would be fantastic for making lessons more interesting and bringing them to life.
It was also my first "Mr. Boakye", so it's a bit of a landmark moment for me, I'm so proud! Enjoy the video!