Author Archives: jf72
Brand new, FREE Digital Literacy Scheme of Work for Schools released.
This new resource adds breadth to online safety education by including strands on Digital Citizenship and Information Literacy, the materials covering a young person’s journey from Foundation Stage right through to Key Stage 4 & 5.
Based on the hugely successful Common Sense Media scheme in the United States, it brings together a wide range of resources not only from that scheme but also the highly-regarded Australian ACMA Digital Literacy scheme and European/UK materials, all carefully mapped to a set of UK curriculum opportunities.
The content is media-rich, engaging, informative and challenging and includes:
- Long-term and medium-term planning schema matched to age and key stage
- Detailed, pragmatic lesson plans for the busy teacher and
non-specialist - Video and whiteboard materials
- Printable student materials
- Parental letters & information packs linked to every lesson so families
understand their children’s progress - Track student progression with “Digital Passport”, a unique, online tracking
and assessment dashboard - iTunesU portal to distribute lesson materials to students’ own devices
This free scheme is a ready-made, robust solution for any school that wants to build resilience in it’s learners by developing an online safety programme that goes beyond a one-off assembly on e-safety. It has been designed to fit around existing curriculum and brings education around these “new literacies” bang up-to-date.
You can find the content at www.swgfl.org.uk/digitalliteracy available as individual PDF files or the whole scheme as a zipped download. If you have any queries about the scheme or would like to arrange training then please email hos@worcestershire.gov.uk
Oh, by the way … did I say it was FREE?
Graduates to be offered £20,000 to train as computer science teachers
Michael Gove announces new courses designed with help from Facebook, Microsoft and IBM to improve basic, boring school lessons
Schools warned over data protection after security issues
17 September 2012
One in five schools have admitted to having insecure email systems,the Information Commissioner’s Office has said, as it issued new advice to help schools tackle data protection weaknesses.
Having surveyed 400 schools across nine local authority areas, the ICO said awareness of data protection law was “generally good”.
But schools needed to pay more attention to complying with data protection laws, which if seriously breached could result in fines of up to £500,000.
95 per cent of schools were found to have provided some information to pupils and parents about what was done with personal information.
But the ICO said a third of schools with password-protected computer systems said passwords were not necessarily strong enough and were not changed regularly.
20 per cent of schools admitted their email systems were not secure.
“Whilst awareness of the law was broadly good, knowledge on how to comply with it wasn’t always there,” said Louise Byers, ICO head of good practice.
“In many respects that should come as no surprise – it’s not teachers’ area of expertise – and it is precisely what our report is aiming to address.
“I’d urge teachers and heads to take a look at our recommendations and make sure they’re complying with the law. The sensitive personal data that schools handle means it is crucial they get this right, and we hope the ICO’s report will help them achieve that.”
Google image search
Did you know you can use an image to search Google? See below an extract taken from the Google help pages…
Search by Image
Discover all sorts of content that’s related to a specific image. Just specify an image, and you’ll find other similar or related images as well as relevant results from across the Web.
For example, search using a picture of your favorite band and see search results that might include similar images, webpages about the band, and even sites that include the same picture.
How to search
- Visit images.google.com, or any Images results page, and click the
camera icon in the search box. Enter an image URL for an image hosted on the web or upload an image from your computer.
camera icon in the search box. Enter an image URL for an image hosted on the web or upload an image from your computer.How to enter an image URL
- On any webpage, right-click an image and select the option to copy it. In most browsers, this option’s name starts with “Copy image,” except Internet Explorer for which you’ll select “Properties” and then copy the URL that’s then displayed.
- Visit images.google.com, or any Images results page, and click the camera icon in the search box.
- Paste the copied URL into the search box
- Click Search
How to upload an image
Visit images.google.com, or any Images results page, and click the camera icon in the search box
- Click the Upload an image link
- Click Choose File
- Select the image from your computer
Tip: You can also drag and drop an image to initiate a search in Chrome or Firefox 3.0+. Simply click on an image, hold down the mouse, and begin dragging it toward the search box. You should see a blue box appear, and then you can drop the image into that box.
- Download a browser extension for Google Chrome or Firefox to search by any image on the web, simply by right-clicking on the image.
Tip: After downloading your desired browser extension, you can change the extension setting so that the camera icon appears when you hover over an image. Then you will be able to simply click on the camera icon and search by the image.
Search by Image is optimized to work well for content that is reasonably well described on the web. For this reason, you’ll likely get more relevant results for famous landmarks or paintings than you will for more personal images like your toddler’s latest finger painting.
How it works
Google uses computer vision techniques to match your image to other images in the Google Images index and additional image collections. From those matches, we try to generate an accurate “best guess” text description of your image, as well as find other images that have the same content as your search image. Your search results page can show results for that text description as well as related images.
Compatible browsers
Search by Image is compatible with the following browsers:
- Chrome
- Firefox 3.0+
- Internet Explorer 8+
- Safari 5.0+
The results page
When you search by image, your results will look different from your normal Images or Web results page. The biggest difference is that your results can include non-image results like webpages that seem relevant to the image that you searched for. The elements of your results page will change depending on your search and on the information that’s most relevant to that search.
Elements you might see
- Preview image: see a small version of the image that you searched with. (Note that if you return to that results page after a certain time, you may not see this image anymore.)
- Best guess: if our system can find a text description for your image, you’ll see it appear as a link to further search results. You might also see a few top web results for that text query. To change your search, edit or add to the best guess by typing in the search bar.
- Visually similar images: see a set of images that are close matches to the image that you searched with. Click the link to see additional images that are similar.
- Pages that include matching images: see web pages that show your image on their site
- Other searches related to this image: if our system finds more than one “best guess” description, you’ll see them as links at the bottom of the page. Click one to see full search results for that query.
Google’s use of user-submitted images and URLs
When you use Search by Image, any images that you upload and any URLs that you submit will be stored by Google and treated in accordance with our Privacy Policy. Google uses those images and URLs solely to provide and improve our products and services.
NAACE Primary ICT Co’s Course
Those of you looking for some comprehensive CPD reagrding ICT subject leadership may be interested in the above course.
We are exploring the possibility of delivering this with a local flavour to reflect the established ways of working and resources we most commonly use in Worcestershire, but the course outline, costs and sign up as offered by NAACE can be accessed HERE.
Promethean IWB users read on…
Have you signed up for Promethean Planet yet? If not click HERE
Promethean Planet contains thousands of useful resources in the form of flip charts, themed graphics packages, weblinks, etc. Masses of free stuff which will help you in planning for the new term, providing inspiration and ideas for engaging your pupils.
Moved schools? Now faced with a Promethean IWB and ActivInspire software? Click HERE to access the free on-line beginners’ course.
Smart Board users read on…
Smartboard users click HERE to access the latest EdCompass magazine. There are often some useful ideas, hints and tips for getting more out of your Smartboard and Smart Notebook.
Sign up for the Smart Exchange HERE to access teacher created content which could save you hours in preparation, or provide you with some ideas to stimulate your pupils’ imagnation or understanding