ICTeachers Ltd
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December 2009
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This month: free, explicit and teacher content
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Almost Christmas for those of you who celebrate it. Huzzah!
Primary colleagues, don't forget to line those gifts on the window ledge in view of the parents ; )
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Generation Green - Free resources for KS1-3
As we all know, from now until 18th December 2009, 192 member countries of the United Nations are meeting at the Copenhagen Summit to agree new targets for tackling climate change on a global level. The science behind it is complex, but the facts are clear - we all need to change to make a difference.
Generation Green – the sustainable schools programme from British Gas – has developed downloadable teaching resources for teachers to have as a topical item whilst the summit takes place. The cross curricular resources include an Assembly for 7-11 year olds, an Assembly for 11-14 year olds, a debate pack with world leaders masks and a campaign pack of fun ideas. They are fully supported with full teachers notes including regional curriculum links to: Citizenship, PSHE, English, Art & Design, Geography, Science, Maths and ICT lesson plans. www.generationgreen.co.uk/StaffRoom/copenhagen
Explicit content in Virtual Worlds
I thought this was interesting.
The US Federal Trade Commission has just released a report to Congress regarding virtual worlds and the risks that children will access explicit content in virtual worlds. A summary of the report is available at http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/12/virtualworlds.shtm and the full report may be accessed at http://www.ftc.gov/os/2009/12/oecd-vwrpt.pdf .
The FTC surveyed 27 virtual worlds including 14 child-oriented worlds. The FTC concluded that there was little explicit content on child-oriented sites, due in part to use of word filtering and monitoring. The FTC recommends these techniques to reduce the risk of exposure to explicit content. The FTC did find that some of the adult or teen-oriented sites could benefit from better age-screening or age-segregated content.
TeachMeet BETT2010
So, another BETT approaches and the hunt for decent freebies has come. Lots of the good stuff has dried up in recent years but lets hope that the promise of continued funding by the government if they get back in will ensure a decent supply of pens and mousemats for the classroom!
You may or may not be aware of something called Teachmeet, it's an underground event for teachers to er...meet and share good practice. I'm there helping this year. :)
When you get to the front page click on bet BETT teachmeet, but there are other events you might be interested in. It's all run by teachers on a voluntary basis. Reall bottom up stuff.
Family News
Well, immediate family news, we've made homemade christmas cards again this year using paper and www.elfyourself.com where i took a screen shot of us on the dance floor - kewl. I'm taking the kids to the panto tonight, not cos I like it, but Lizzie and John have been in an after school Journo club and this is the press night - oh no it's not, oh yes it is! John has his grade 4 piano exam at 9.30am tomorrow, he's been getting up at 5.50 each morning and practiced and again in the evening, could this be cos he didn't practice hard enough the rest of the year? YES I THINK SO!!! Lizzie is now officially a young lady with all that entails...and James has been enjoying his gymnastics every Tuesday evening. They wouldn't let him home the other evening as it was too dark...at 4.30pm!!! now that's scary. Fiona is thinking about getting back to some studies and guess what, I'm starting a PhD in Feb in e-research and technology enhanced learning, but dont' tell anyone cos I'm dead worried I'm going to fail and wondering how I'm going to get the dosh together to pay for it!! Bob-a-job anyone? Bye all, have a good hols! | |
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