The Hour of Code had almost 20 million participants in the US, with overwhelming feedback from students, teachers, and parents.
‘I have NEVER, EVER seen my students so excited about learning’ – Teacher
‘One of the two best things that happened in 2013’ – 2nd grader
‘My 3 kids came home from school yesterday yelling about the Hour of Code. My six-year-old instructing me on how to program Angry Birds, my 10-year-old boy proclaiming ‘I am going to be a software engineer. It is the job I was made for. It is my DESTINY!’ – Parent
From March 3rd – 9th every student and classroom can learn how fun coding is in just one hour.
No experience or computers needed.
See here for teaching tips.
RiskIT – There’s still time to sign-up. 6th October and 19th October
RiskIt is a planned and structured period in school calendar, usually two weeks, when staff are encouraged to use ICT (hardware or software) they have not used before with students to deliver a lesson. RiskIT Week is designed to break the ice and throw teachers in the deep end but with safety net. It is a week or two where the whole school celebrates innovative ways of learning and teaching, also a period when schools can dust off all the equipment they purchased and hidden in cupboards.
RiskIT Week is an opportunity to change the school culture in the use of ICT and get ALL Staff working as one unit for the benefit of the children they teach.
RiskIT is not about getting the “Already savvy” teachers to use ICT as it is the case in most schools now, but it is about the whole school (all teaching staff, students and support staff). ICT is what pen and pencil have been all this time.
To understand RiskIT fully, please play the seminar video (found on the website below).
Over 40 schools registered to take part already in the October event, don’t miss out, register now and start changing the culture of your school.
Key RiskIT Elements:
- Working in judgment-free environment
- Trying new things
- Taking the fear out of technology
- Making teachers young again
- Mind over matter
- Taking control of the technology
- Learning new things
- Learning from students
- Not afraid of failure, but learn from it
All in all…taking the risk! – Mr A Benjeddi, Northfleet School for Girls
Find out more here http://www.riskitweek.com/
Artisancam – a partner of the regional grids, including LGfL has developed materials based on the work of Edward Bawden who designed posters using lino-cut in the 30s and 40s, his work featured on London Underground posters of the time that are now design classics.
Bring the world into the classroom
The Google UK Schools Site offers free resources for teachers to help use Google tools in the classroom.
Working with teachers, they have developed ideas for how Google Search, Maps, Earth, Images and News can be integrated into the curriculum to help bring subjects such as geography, history and citizenship to life.
The site offers:
- Lesson plans and student activity sheets for primary (cross-curricular) and secondary (geography, history and citizenship)
- A discussion group to share ideas on how to use Google in the classroom with other teachers
- A comprehensive guide on how to use Google Earth, including when carrying out fieldwork
- Links to information on how to use Google tools
- Tutorials for students on how to search well
- Useful “gadgets” for teachers that you can add to your Google homepage such as the latest news on education and schools
- Links to other Google projects for schools
With Christmas only a few weeks away now, lessons2go brings you a selection of festive activities for every age group. Some websites that provide further worthwhile activities are also included.
Login first then download the activities from
Some of the lessons2go activities have been adapted from those first published under the Becta Direct2U scheme. These activities carry an acknowledgement to this effect. Activities without this acknowledgement have been developed especially for ictopus.