Future of Technology in Education 2010

A Report from the Ministry of Truth*

The Future of Technology in Education meeting gave some great insights and ideas into – well – the future of technology in Education! (Some of the sessions were quite heavily focussed to Higher Education and didn’t appear to fit too well with primary schools, so this is a summary of a summary).

For some time I’ve felt that the lines between IT in the commercial sector, voluntary sector and education are blurring. The speakers today confirmed this – and also added the home sector in the mix.

Roman Roads on Leicestershire Warwickshire Border

A piece of history – any information board? No!

I saw a twitter request t’other day for any royalty free pictures of Roman Roads – as I live quite close to a major Roman junction I went out and had a look.

On the edge of the parish of Claybrooke in Leicestershire there is the crossing of 2 of the most important roads to the Romans.

The A5 (also known as Watling Street) ran from Holyhead to Dover, whilst the Fosse Way runs from Exeter to Lincoln.

also marks the division of these two –

              

John Wycliffe, his Bible and his church

This 800-year-old church stands in the centre of the town of Lutterworth, St Mary’s is on the site of a Saxon place of Christian worship.

This church is home to some incredible history. John Wycliffe was the rector between 1374 and 1384, and it is believed that it was during this time that he was most involved with the first complete translation of the Bible into English. This original Bible is no longer around – it would now be over 600 years old! – but a “Modern” version, presented to the Church in 1876, is on show as a memorial to John Wycliffe.

There are many other artefacts around the church related to John Wycliffe. These include:

 

The Wycliffe Memorial – a monument depicting Wycliffe preaching to villagers despite the objection of church seniors, above an inscription about his life.

Wycliffe’s Pulpit – the furnishing most likely to have been used by John Wycliffe himself. Although nobody can be sure of its age, it is clear that some parts of this pulpit are much older than others.

The font – this font is definitely ancient, but nobody can be sure of whether or not it was standing during Wycliffe’s time at the church.

all photos (C) www.sarahmcsharry.co.uk

The Hallaton Hoard

Many thanks to Leicestershire Museums and the staff at Harborough for the following information.

In 2000, Ken Wallace of the Hallaton Field Group discovered a collection of Roman pottery in a field just outside the village of Hallaton. The site was excavated with the help of the University of Leicester Archaeological Services, and the discoveries made were astounding.

The Roman finds

333 Roman coins (including the oldest ever excavated in Britain), an ornately decorated cavalry parade helmet,some glass eyes and a few brooches.

This is the oldest Roman coin ever excavated in Britain – believed to date to 211 BC.

 

This is the cheekpiece of the parade helmet. It shows an emperor on horseback with a winged goddess of Victory on his shoulder holding a laurel wreath over his head. Beneath the horse’s hooves a barbarian is crouching. It would have been a very high status item, worn by a cavalry officer (so therefore potentially not a Roman), silver gilt and all highly decorated.

 

The other finds include more than 5000 silver and gold Iron Age coins, pictured below. All of these items are available to view at the Harborough Museum.

All photographs © Leicestershire Museums

Free Maps?

Geography and ICT – just made for each other

In addition to BING having the OS links, the OS themselves have a direct website to their maps.

On Line Maps has a lower overall resolution than the best level in BING, but the cleaner interface may make teaching and learning easier. The page has ‘Crown Copyright’ stamped quite nicely in the bottom corner, so maybe I shouldn’t copy an example 😦

If you have a map on disply, scroll down the page to see –

Follow the link for education takes you to Mapzone

Mapzone may well be a post all on it’s own – it looks such fun (and it’s educational).

Easy Peasy Map Reading – follow that link and scroll down the page for class sets of this brilliant leaflet – here’s a snippet from it.

America blights its children

Obesity – another view

The children of the USA will have a shorter lifespan than their parents because of diet.  Unfortunately, where they lead we often follow.

Jamie Oliver delivered a stunning prize winning presentation at this years’ TED conference. (The TED stream can sometimes be a little slow – but you may just find that the wait is worthwhile).

Conservation – an International Perspective

Team Earth and Conservation International

(This blog post update November 2010)
Conservation International is an American organisation, established over 20 years and active all around the world. (This link is from John Dalziel’s blog).

They produce a stunning on line book, which looks like it may be pretty useful for year 6 PSHE – check it out .. Issue 6 is here

the organisation has some amazing resources, but I cant find how to navigate back to Team Earth from their main web site.

When you’ve clicked on the link above – you’ll see that the issue number comes beween ‘online’ and ‘index’ just change for a number between 1 and 7

Also – the download option worksvery well on a PC.

A Gameshow for Children

And I’m posting details about it. (I’m proud to say that I’ve never correctly answered a soap or game show question in a pub quiz!). The quiz may include an item from very, very close to our  office .. keep watching?

This is from the British Museum, explaining a joint project with CBBC

A History of the World is a partnership between the BBC and the British Museum that focuses on world history, involving collaborations between teams across the BBC, and schools, museums and audiences across the UK. The project focuses on the things we have made, from flint to mobile phone.

CBBC’s new specially-commissioned 13-part series, Relic: Guardians Of The Museum, will follow a group of children visiting the Museum at night to unlock the mysteries behind 13 of the objects featured in the Radio 4 series. They will be accompanied on their journey by Agatha, a mysterious and ghostly tour guide.

Schools can work with the project in a number of ways – by using the lesson plans that focus on a selection of objects from the British Museum; by suggesting and researching the students’ or teacher’s objects that tell ‘a history of the world’; and by uploading these on to the site.

The British Museum has chosen 100 objects from its collection, hundreds of museums across the UK are adding theirs – and now you can join in too. Help to build a digital museum by adding an object that you own to this website.

Just take a photo of something you own that you think tells about a time, a place or a community. What part does your object play in a history of the world?

Which is best – Google Maps or BING?

Or sit on the fence and use both? 

Here’s the scenario –  You’ve persuaded your daughter that yes – she can run a half marathon, and yes she can run the Rainbows Hospice Equinox* run in 7 weeks from now. You’ve even gone out for a 10.5 mile local run with her on a Sunday morning. 

So, how do you answer the question ‘How does that run compare with the actual run?’ That should be quite easy until you see the route notes supplied include descriptions like the following 

We’ll turn left out of the farm drive… up the dirt track and over Gravel Hill… might spot a trig point… turn left down a narrow lane… 

Preparing for Changes ..

The building blocks for the new National Curriculum

The QCDA have placed a very useful video on their site which overviews the curriculum and gives feedback from schools and teachers who have been involved in pilots.

It builds this picture up very well and explains the interactions fairly clearly (well, I understand some of it now!).

Video of new National Curriculum (the video may require you to install Flash to view it properly).