Children who use technology are 'better writers'

I was really pleased to read on the BBC website last month that "Children who use technology are 'better writers'"

A research survey was carried out by the National Literacy Trust: "Our research suggests a strong correlation between kids using technology and wider patterns of reading and writing," Jonathan Douglas, director of the National Literacy Trust, told BBC News. "Engagement with online technology drives their enthusiasm for writing short stories, letters, song lyrics or diaries."

Of course we at Kids on the Net have known this for 12 years. It's our raison d'etre that writing online not only increases digital literacy but more general literacy as well: increasing interest and skills in writing and reading. I will never forget the many instances of children I have worked with who had never liked or found writing easy before, but were inspired and enthused by the whole idea and concept and experience of writing online. Often these have been boys. Teachers have shaekn their heads and said things like "He's never written more than a sentence before!". It makes it all worthwhile.

So it's no news to me that "the more forms of communications children use the stronger their core literary skills".

Try reading some of our brilliant Kids on the Net writers and that's self-evident!

Competition for young film-makers (13-19)

Young people aged between 13 and 19 are invited to enter their own-made films, into the Open Access Award in association with BAFTA for a chance of winning a prestigious First Light Award that will be presented to them during our star-studded First Light Awards 2010!

Films of any theme or genre (e.g. drama, action, horror, animation etc) can be entered that have a maximum running time of up to 2 minutes in total. (Including opening titles and end credits)

The films will be shortlisted by BAFTA members and three best entries can be seen on the First Light website www.firstlightonline.co.uk at the end of February. We will then give the public the opportunity to vote for their favourite film. The film with the most votes will be announced as the winner of the competition!

All three shortlisted film-makers will be invited to attend the First Light Awards 2010 taking place 2nd March 2010 at The Odeon, Leicester Square, London, where the winner of the competition will be called to the podium to be presented with their prestigious First Light Award!

All you need to do to enter is to get 2 copies of your film on DVD and send it to us along with your completed entry form by 12 noon Friday 29th January 2010. Good luck!

Please visit the First Light website for Entry form and rules.

Regards

The Mediabox grants team

info@media-box.co.uk

www.media-box.co.uk

School Jotter - a quick way to create a school website

I recently came across School Jotter. It's an easy way to create an online presence for a school, class or group. Combined with a page or two on Kids on the Net you don't have to be an expert to have the school online. Using it is easy - it's like using Facebook, Twitter and other great web 2.0 websites.

Of course a lot of teachers nowadays can create their own websites, but do you really need to spend the time if there's a good tool out there to help?

1. School Jotter can be edited from any computer that has an internet connection - all you need is your username and password to log on.

2. School Jotter lets you create password protected pages. This means you can set up areas for teachers, governors etc. that only they can access.

3. School Jotter allows you to save your page as a draft to work on later.

4. There is no limit to the number of pages you can create. Your school Jotter website can have as many or as few pages as you require.

5. School Jotter allows you to redesign your site for free by browsing our gallery of new and exciting designs.

6. School Jotter allows you to insert e-learning modules such as weekly spellings & maths practice, phonics exercises and links to the BBC 'Bitesize' web pages.

7. Web stats allows you to see which pages of your website have been viewed and how many times. These can be viewed by day, week or month.

8. You can use keywords and descriptions on your webpages to make it easier for them to appear in all the popular search engines.

9. Online forms allow you to gather details from your visitors and communicate with them via a single click 'bulk email' option.

10. School Jotter's online vacancy option allows you to post job vacancies and then easily manage the details of multiple applicants.

More about School Jotter.

At Kids on the Net we're always interested to hear about other good tools for creating a presence online.

Curriculum changes

Interesting new developments in the curriculum for primary schools have been leaked according to The Guardian. Prescriptive rules about which topics and areas of history to study are being scrapped in a move which should lead to more creativity possible for individual schools and teachers, but there is bound to be criticism of the new emphasis on digital forms of communication.

No, primary school children do NOT need to learn Twitter! But they do need to be aware of the tools of communicaton. Though whether they need to be taught them is another matter - in most schools it's the children who are capable of teaching the teachers about digital literacy.

National Digital Resource Bank

At the recent NAACE2009 conference Jim Knight spoke of the role that NAACE members have played in the National Digital Resource Bank, stating:  

“A partnership with the Spanish Telecommunications and Information Society has been signed…..to develop a National Digital Resource Bank, to create, search for, and share digital content.  NAACE members responded really well last year with members from more than 100 Local Authorities agreeing to share publicly funded Digital Teaching and Learning Resources.

"The UK is renowned for excellence in ICT infrastructure, development of Digital Resources, and willingness to work with other countries and has combined these three elements in this landmark project.”    

There are plans to provide a huge collection of resources - to be downloaded, from a
central repository, hosted on the National Education Network, to school and college Learning Platforms.

There will be a number of press articles over the next few weeks as journalistic interest is very high in the project, most particularly as we are using an Open Source solution developed in Spain. The assistance of both JANET(UK) and Jim Knight were needed to get this agreement and the formal signing took place  a week before Government announced its wish to see more Open Source projects - so a genuine first!

An open source solution has delayed the project but provided substantial cost savings and will enable the project to grow and provide resources for education at minimal cost.  

Using video

Via tombarrett on Twitter: "Nine Interesting Ways* to use your Pocket Video Camera in the Classroom" http://is.gd/gXpf

Having just been shown a student video of (controlled!) explosions in A-level chemistry class. It was never as much fun when I was at school!

If you have a literacy related video do get in touch with Kids on the Net if you'd like us to publish it!

Videoed book reviews? Poetry readings? How-to videos?

Ways to access YouTube

YouTube is still blocked for access in many schools and colleges and I know a lot of people Joyce Valenza on the School Library Journal has posted (more than) eight ways to get round blocking of YouTube - some simple, some deeply ingenious. If you are a teacher who needs to use a YouTube video or two, here's how to get round that block.