Tuesday, June 07, 2011
Have your say. June 2011
Free resources and opportunities available in June 2011
The Images of Migration competition has been launched by The Guardian newspaper in conjunction with the Migration Museum Project. Anyone and everyone is encouraged to submit an image resonant of migration to the competition website, with an explanation of 100 words. The 100 winning entries will feature in the weekend magazine. Current entries can be seen on the website, where this is also a teaching pack to support the competition.
Opal The Open Air Laboratories (OPAL) network is an exciting initiative open to anyone with an interest in nature. The aim is to create and inspire a new generation of nature-lovers by getting people to explore, study, enjoy and protect their local environment. The initiative has a grant of £11.75million from the Big Lottery Fund.; there are lots of exciting opportunities for learners, teachers and schools. There are 5 main nationwide surveys to take part in and competitions and activities on a regional level. The opal website is a good place to start. The organisations which form Opal include The Natural History Museum, The METT office and several Universities across England; it is run by Imperial College London. The Opal project will continue to run until the end of 2012.
Poetry Rivals is an annual poetry competition which is free to enter for all ages – including an over 18s category. It is easy to submit your poem online and then wait to see if you have been shortlisted for the finals which take the form of a poetry slam. The organisers say,” We are inviting entries on any subject and in any style from poets of all ages and all walks of life. Whether you want to dedicate your heartfelt poem to a loved one; walk down memory lane; bring out the lighter side of life in humorous verse or have just written what you’re thinking and feeling, we want to read it! “
More Dickens Competition: To celebrate the bicentenary of Charles Dickens’ birth in 1812, the Dickens Fellowship and the English Association announce the More Dickens Competition. A first prize of £500 will be awarded for an extended class project based on one of Dickens’ works. The runner up will receive £250. The competition is open to classes of all ages in primary schools in the UK and can be completed at any time during 2011. Projects may link with regular literacy and numeracy work and include other areas of the curriculum, for example, art, geography, history, music, science. The judges will be looking for originality and lively outcomes, but are also very much interested in hearing about the teaching and learning processes that are part of everyday good practice. Click here to enter.
Closing date 1st Jan 2012
Off by Heart Shakespeare is a new opportunity launched by the BBC. Following regional heats in the autumn of 2011, winners will take part in actor-led workshops and then compete in a national final. BBC 2 will also be making a documentary about the recital competition. Interested schools need to register to take part before July 2011, details, including the set list of speeches, are on the website.
Skype in the classroom is a new project designed to create a community of teachers on Skype who would like to share ideas and work in projects together. The service is free to use: each teacher sets up a Teacher Profile and can then search for other teachers and projects in their areas of interest. The site is open to all teachers and educators, provided there is no commercial gain in any projects they set up in the community. The site has a search facility for view current talking points and projects. “Skype in the classroom was created in response to – and in consultation with – the growing number of teachers using Skype to help their students learn. It's designed to help like-minded teachers find each other, collaborate on projects and share inspiration and resources”. Click here to get started.
Cool tools for schools. This website has been set up as a one stop site for all great ways of using web technologies in teaching and learning. The site is full of tips, tools and resources for using web technology. There is an easy to use search menu.
BBC Doomsday Project. In 1986 the BBC launched a project to record a snapshot of everyday life across the UK. A new website, Doomsday Reloaded, has been launched which allows users to have a look at the recorded information about their area and also to add updates to the recorded information. The project is open to receive online updates to the information recorded about everyday life in each part of the UK until October 31st 2011. Users can click on their area on the map and view the 1986 material and then submit new images and info for the Doomsday Reloaded 2011 version.
Prezi is a website with free online tools to create presentations. The presentations feature impressive zoom functions. Prezi allows students and teachers to have a free Edu Licence to create their presentations and download them to present offline. This is useful for students who do not have access to Office software packages, no software is required. The site has guidance videos and cheat sheets to get the best out of the Prezi tools. Visit the website for more information or to start creating your own presentation.
Edu Chat – Professional development on Twitter. The edu chat twitter feed started in the US as a space for teachers in the US to get together at a set time on twitter to share ideas and discuss current educational issues. There is now a UK version – introduced because the US based Edu Chat takes place in the early hours of the morning UK time. The UK version is between 8-pm to 9pm each Thursday. To see an archived version of some of the previous twitter discussions follow links below. To follow on Twitter use the hashtag #ukedchat