As an example, I arrived in school today to find that Google Docs is blocked for staff.  When pushed the risk  was explained that private pupil data could be copied onto GDocs and shared.  I was offered the opportunity to have the specific url of my spreadsheet unblocked after it had been vetted. This logic seems to wipe out the use of the entire read/write web in my school Here is the sheet I am trying to share with my class, I think it’s use is fairly self explanatory: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pi_Ik07yjYQaT9yf5YdsIPQ

I can feel creativity and spontanaiety along with a wealth of learning opportunities being lost at every turn.

The school is investing in a VLE, something I am losing interest in as it will be a walled garden / fortress if everything else is to go by.

I would like to present an informed argument against this to those in power over these matters at school.  The obvious starting places seem to be BECTAs recent encouragement of Web 2.0 use in schools (also see Ewan’s take), and their guidance on safe use of data.  I believe that the former encourages what I am trying to achieve and the latter does not preclude it.

I suppose my plea at the end of this rather self-indulgent rant is for any other resources I could use to help my cause, further guidance, exemplary examples of pupil/staff on-line work etc etc.

Any advice is gratefully received!

EDIT: Just to make clear and reiterate: I don’t want to get into a moan about specific staff on a public blog, I do have a good working relationship with the IT department and senior leadership, I just need to change their ways!

On reflection the content which we need to deliver has changed little and so with some tweaking our previous scheme of work will suffice in structure.  This statutory change in the manner in which we deliver the content and offer opportunities to put the Maths in context, develop pupils personal skills and link in with other subjects can only be a good thing in my opinion.

There are a number of fantastic resource banks out there full of ‘rich’ mathematical tasks which we could use:

nRich: Hundreds of puzzles and investigations, updated monthly.
Kangaroo Maths: Particularly Using & Applying and Enrichment sections.
Bowland Maths: New resources designed specifically with the new curriculum in mind.
Defence Dynamics: Interactive resources / lesson plans based on real world scenarios from the MoD.

Of particular interest are the Bowland Maths resources, these have been produced by the Bowland Charitable Trust in conjunction with the NCETM.  To quote their site:

‘Bowland Maths makes maths fun for pupils aged 11-14. The aim is to help change pupils’ views of maths by increasing their motivation and enjoyment, which should help increase their confidence and their competence. A second aim is to help teach maths in a different way.

The Bowland Maths materials look very different from most maths teaching materials. They consist of innovative case study problems, each taking 3-5 lessons, designed to develop thinking, reasoning and problem solving skills – as in the revised Key Stage 3 curriculum. Each case study is different, but all provide pupils and teachers with problems that are fun and engaging, while also being a rich maths experience. The case studies are not remotely like answering questions from a book. For Portraits of the case studies, click here.’

As a department we will be reviewing a number of these resources and planning their integration into our teaching over the coming weeks.  I will add more in the future about any particular highlights.

Have you any other links to quality resources to enrich Maths teaching?  How is your department tackling these changes?

To quote:

Computers for Pupils

Computers for Pupils is a £60 million, two-year programme (2006–2008) aimed at helping some of the most disadvantaged secondary school children improve their education and life skills by putting a computer into the home and providing internet connectivity. It aims to narrow the achievement gap between those children and their peers. Up to 100,000 pupils in England are expected to benefit from the initiative.

108 local authorities are involved in the programme, with funding allocated through the Standards Fund Grant. Local authorities identified as having eligible schools and pupils attending in their area have been given funding to make this happen. They are also receiving help and advice covering all aspects of the scheme.

Our school has been allocated 270 laptops, which is obviously a fantastic thing.  However we have nearly 900 pupils so it has also become a somewhat divisive issue.  The allocation has taken into account a number of factors, including something of a post-code lottery.  Explaining to one pupil why they have a laptop and another why they haven’t has been awkward today.

With the possibility of  internet access also being provided in the near future this is overall great news.  We have been making good headway with online homeworks in Maths, using MyMaths and Achieve, and this will dramatically cut the number of pupils who cannot complete these at home.

I haven’t seen the machines yet, as ever with technology I suspect that had they will have missed the boat with the range of excellent low cost laptops that are seeping onto the market such as the eeePC.

Get rid of those pesky adverts:

Adblock Plus – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865
Adblock Updater – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1136

Shrink the menus:

Compact Menus 2 – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4550

Hide all the menus and toolbars:

Fullerscreen – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4650

Speed up that fox:

Fasterfox – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1269

Change the text size at the click of a button:

QuickZoom – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2540

Were this a personal machine I would probably add some others, but for pupil use in the classroom, this is my list so far.

Do you have any others you would add to the list? Please let me know in the comments.

Full Screen mode (F11):

Normal mode:

^{Thanks to Ewan Macintosh for the image.} 

So yes, the screen and trackpad are a tad on the small side, but they are quite usable.  The cost and speed saving build of linux works great straight out of the box, although the tech guys at school are finding it a little buggy to get hooked up to the wireless.  They are also avoiding altogether any attempts to access network drives etc for the time being.  Hopefully as uptake grows, so will support for these issues.

Initial impressions from the children are that they love them!  Hopefully I will have them all wifi’d up this week and will be able to start using them on a lesson by lesson basis. Our main first uses will be access to MyMaths.co.uk, playing online maths games as rewards, and I’m looking into copying the videos from our Mathswatch CDs onto them, might have to invest in some headphones for this.

More soon….

MyMaths.co.uk has been around for a couple of years now and continues to grow. When I originally bought it for my previous school it consisted of a series of excellent lessons with interactive elements for use on the IWB or a pupil’s individual computer.

Sample lesson:

There are also a wealth of excellent games focussing on all manner of mathematical skills.  These are tremendously popular with pupils and work brilliantly on IWBs.  A particular highlight of these are the leaderboards, showing the highest score of the day and of all time for all users.  It’s a great incentive trying to beat other schools!

Over the last year online homeworks have been introduced.  Each pupil is given an individual login so that their progress can be tracked.  All of your class and pupil details can be uploaded with a simple csv file.  This gives you the ability to set whole classes homework tasks and to monitor their progress online – no marking required!  These combine with the excellent ‘Booster Packs’ designed to move pupils on to KS3 Levels 4 and 6, and GCSE levels C, B & A*.

The Management Console where you can assign tasks etc:

Pupil Feedback:

Overall MyMaths is a comprehensive suite of lessons, games, homeworks and other tools that covers the entire UK National Curriculum for Maths.  The resources are well written and of a much higher standard than alternatives such as SAM Learning, it is also much easier to navigate than many of its competitors.  Our pupils now complete more homework than they used to and have been spotted playing on the games in spare time during other subjects!  A considerable number of pupils come back to the department during their lunchtimes to work through the Boosters.  I must add that this includes a number of pupils who were not greatly engaged with Maths previously and who are now excelling.

At a cost of £400 per year, MyMaths represents excellent value for money.  I am expecting to get much more use out of it now that I have taken delivery of 6 eeePCs for my classroom.  Initial tests show that the site scales well to the size of the screen and I expect pupils will use it in the majority of my lessons.

So a gushing review, but one that is deserved, well done to the team behind it and long may the improvements keep coming.

I’m planning on investigating it a little more in the near future, there are a wealth of mathematical possibilities for it from algebra, logic, geometry, probability etc etc etc.  However I’ve been thinking of a quick way in to it for my pupils, and Simon Mills work he has been doing with Logo got me thinking, why not use Scratch to emulate logo?  Below is a quick copy of the work Simon started on Logo, but using Scratch.

More to come on this when I have the time!

I’m still impatiently waiting for my 6 to arrive, they won’t be ordered until the school’s trial of Wi-Fi is underway and as with all things in school that is taking longer than expected

Jonesieboy’s trials have had me waiting even more eagerly.

Well I’m very excited, in a bid to trial wifi in our school, and spend some of our remaining budget I will be getting at least 6 new eeePCs next week. Initially they will be mainly for web access to the excellent MyMaths and other resources, but I’m sure they will become an integral part of the classroom in no time. I might even get the pupil blog/wiki off the ground at last!

Andrew Brown, one of Learning and Teaching Scotland new technologies team has made a little video here exploring the machine.

_{Photo from Matt Westervelt’s CC Flickr stream}