Enjoy your day – I’m sure those attending will enjoy your enthusiastic contributions. I’ve been receiving positive feedback about my recent suggestions on staff development days of the potential of the very easy to use, first level wiki, Drop.io.

I’ve been suggesting it as a possible ‘window into the classroom’ that can be made very quickly – even on the fly. The ability to drop in notes, pictures, video, sound, and follow-up links can paint a picture of classroom activity that no ‘home-school diary’ can achieve. It’s also a simple way for parents to feed home activity back into the classroom.

The simplicity, speed, and the fact there’s little for the teacher/parents to learn makes this very appealing. The user and admin password options makes this all pretty secure too.

I’ve been using it as an aide-memoir after CPD courses. http://drop.io/dougatstrath

Andrew – hope things go well. I’m looking forward to seeing your Scottish-based “did you know”! I thought it may be of interest to you that we’ve had some great feedback from parents following the Higher French revision podcasts series we launched in East Ayrshire in the run-up to the Higher exam. One parent commented on how she had been worried about staff shortages in French and the podcasts helped to put her at ease (link to comment here: http://coffeebreakspanish.typepad.com/higherrevision/2008/04/episode-1—hig.html#comment-115830214 ). We had other feedback from parents “in person” and they all seemed to be particularly pleased that the authority was making these attempts to get into the context of their children by using things like iPods etc. for revision. Hope this is of some use.

Just another thought – we’re also working on podcasts at the moment made up for a number of our secondaries featuring questions from p7s in the associated primaries and answers from the first years. Each p7 will get a copy of the podcasts on CD on their induction day to take home and listen to with their parents. HTs are seeing this as an alternative way of getting info to parents.

I think Mark Pentleton’s absolutely brilliant work on Coffee Break Spanish is a must. His ideas for questions and answers could easily be another use for the Drop.io wiki – without the need to burn CDs as MP3s can be dropped straight onto and listened to on a drop.io page!!!??

We need an event to brainstorm sometime, Andrew. Arrange it!!!

Alan

As one of the parents at the conference I just want to say thanks for the presentation. Since returning home I have watched Shift Happens on YouTube again. The whole presentation you gave scared me, excited me and made me feel wonder for the world that my 10 year old is going to inhabit. There is so much good that can be brought to education through the use of technology, you showed us that today, I only hope that all the kids in this coutry get the chance to use it fully. Thanks again

Alan & Mark – thanks for the suggestions – your timing was spot on!

Jim – You’re most welcome – it was a pleasure and privilege to deliver the session.

Mark – we did this last year for our P7’s coming up to high school, although via a ‘transition’ blog…
The parents loved it just as much as the kids.

Alan – it would be good idea to have another new technologies conference – there’s so much going on that people could have a play with (isn’t there always though?). I’ll mention it to John and Ewan

Didn’t mean to sound ‘bolshy’ – you know me!!! I just thought that with all this great ‘kit’ around we should try to bang some heads together. Not looking for anything fancy – perhaps an LTS delegation to Highland where I – yes I – could arrange it!!

With Glow so far away for Highland teachers I think we should be letting them see what they could be using NOW. I’m sure it’ll all be tidier with single login/authentication but there’s loads they could be doing in prep.

See the jpeg at the foot of http://drop.io/candleinthewind for a laugh!!!

Hi–please forgive the bleg–Becta has commissioned us to research the use of technology in education and we’re looking for feedback on what we’ve done so far. The blog is at http://newsfan.typepad.co.uk/kableht/ .

It’s a bit different to most edblogs in the sense that our focus is on the business processes of schools, rather than pedagogy or the curriculum. We’re looking at how innovation and/or technology can help staff recruitment/retention, how to simplify access to resources, that sort of thing.

If any of you have time to drop by, we’d greatly appreciate it.

Tom

[...] Link to Andrew Brown’s comment and resources from the New Technologies Workshop at the Confere… [...]

Hi – thanks for an interesting blog. I’ve just started a company that has a simple aim – involved parents in their children’s education. We do that by providing a secure picture & video sharing platform that encourages parents to get involved with their children’s education from the early years. As we all appreciate, its is these early years that really matter – for both children and parents.
The secure online service also provides a host of other features all bundled into one easy to use service. A online journal, secure sharing of pictures & videos with family and friends, hard-cover year books and a professionally produce (but low cost) privately distributed magazine branded by the children’s centre. We do most of the work in producing it and include essential reading as in children’s pictures and stories.
Anyway, if this is of interest do get in touch or check out http://www.connectedday.com/aboutUs.html

Garry
PS As a startup we are keen to give away free subscriptions to get some awareness of the service.

Thanks for commenting Garry – as a matter of course I don’t align myself to the commercial interests of others, so anyone else reading this please be aware of that. By all means have a look at what Garry is offering, but it’s without comment from me one way of the other.

For readers in Scotland, I’d obviously advocate Glow as the secure online environment for working with pupils and parents!