Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Have your say, April 2010
Some free resources and opportunities for teachers and learners available this month.
Access Art is a website designed to support education in the visual arts. The charity runs projects in schools and communities and then shares the techniques, ideas and resources on the website. The website also hosts online workshops for teachers.
One of their longest standing projects is the promoting of the use of sketch books in schools across the curriculum to develop creative thinking. There are free resources to download to give ideas and support. There is a dedicated Sketchbook for schools website.
Beat Bullying is a charity which works to empower young people to lead anti-bullying campaigns in their schools and local communities. They provide a range of programmes which all have peer mentoring and peer activism as core foci. Central to their work is the Cyber Mentor website. The site has shared experiences of bullying and advice, resources and support for young people. The site is the only e-mentoring or social networking site to be endorsed by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP). There are also Senior CyberMentors (aged 18-25) online who are trained not only to mentor, but also to support CyberMentors in their roles. The cyber mentor programme trains young people to be online and offline mentors to support and advise other young people experiencing bullying. Each mentor has two days face to face training to prepare for the role and the dedicated website is moderated and supported by counsellors.
Such Tweet Sorrow is a new adaptation of Romeo and Juliet by The Royal Shakespeare Company. The show is not at a theatre but run in real time over social messaging sites including Twitter, Facebook and Youtube. The “show” will run over the next five weeks with over 4,000 tweets and six actors improvising the lives of the main characters through social networking sites. Sign up to follow Juliet or Romeo on Twitter and the story will unfold over the weeks ahead. Follow @julietcap16 and Wherefore art thou, @Romeo? Latest tweet from Juliet: If being 16 is this difficult then I wish I was 15 forever. about 1 hour ago via Three for free .With everything that's unfolded tonight I think I'm gna head to bed and sleep on my thoughts... I'll speak to you all tomorrow xxx about 12 hours ago via TweetDeck
Write buzz is a free website for under-16s to support creative writing and reading. The site allows users to add their own writing, review that of other people and take part in collaborative writing projects. It is free to all members. There is also a school membership for teachers to register their class to use the site.
Futurelab are looking for schools to take part in their research project on Digital Literacy. They are looking for schools (Key Stage 1 to Key Stage 4) who are already beginning to develop children and young people’s digital literacy to get involved with a new research project. By working with teachers and children through a series of workshops the research aims to understand teachers' and students' perceptions of the impact of digital literacy, and to develop ideas for linking children’s home and school digital literacy experiences.
Further details... To find out more about Futurelab, visit their website.
School science. co.uk has a series of competitions free for teachers to enter, to win useful equipment for use in science teaching and learning. The competitions are all free to enter, just by submitting your email address. The website also contains free resources for teaching and learning of science, organised by age and stage.