Microsoft Summer Camp

Nicki   August 18, 2010   2 Comments on Microsoft Summer Camp

Over the last two days I was lucky enough to be able to attend Microsoft’s Summer Camp held at their Reading campus. During our time there myself and the other “happy campers” spent a large amount of time sharing and discussing ideas with each other and learning about lots of fantastic free tools from Micrsoft. We spent the second day creating demo videos on how to use various Microsoft tools in the classroom. Existing videos (Innovids) can be found on the Innovative Teachers YouTube Channel and the ones we create will be added to these throughout the next few months.

Some notable pieces of software that were mentioned during camp are as follows. Many would certainly be excellent across a variety of different subjects:

  • Ribbon Hero – Add-on for Office that allows you to learn more about the office applications and test your knowledge, you can even link it to Facebook to compete against others!
  • Flash Cards – Web-based tool that allows you to create online flash cards which you can then share with students.
  • Zoom It – Fantastic little application that allows you to zoom into any part of your screen by assigning hot keys.
  • Bing Maps – Allows you to use various overlays/add-ons to enhance your experience of Bing Maps, some notable mentions include newspaper front pages from around the world and medical statistics in America, plus many, many more.
  • Photosynth – Online application in which you can stitch photographs together and share them online.
  • Deep Zoom Composer – Create pictures with hidden pictures inside which you can then zoom into. The best way to demonstrate this is to point you towards the Hard Rock Cafe website.
  • Office Web Apps – Online versions of Micrsoft Office applications.
  • True Space 3D – 3d Modelling software
  • . . . and of course one of my favourites, Kodu! I won’t go into too much detail about this here as you will find lots of information on past posts. Although I would like to just let you know that online booking is now open for my Kodu in the Klassroom seminar in December.

This is by no means and exhaustive list as lots of other tools were also discussed. For more information check out the following blogs:

Kodu in the Klassroom!

Nicki   June 2, 2010   No Comments on Kodu in the Klassroom!

Since my last post I have spent a lot of time playing with Kodu, with new versions of the Beta being release regularly by Microsoft, the most recent being 1.0.48.0. With each new version  the stability and usability increases significantly. The current version works really well on the PC with a keyboard and mouse although having now invested in an X-Box Flyercontroller this would have to be my preference. I picked up a wired PC one for just £14.99 from Play.com. This really increases the playing experience and I know the students will love this method (especially as they’ll be tricked into learning!!) I’m hoping to purchase around 15 next term so I will at least have enough for the students to share. I just need to put together a scheme of work and I’ll be ready to let Kodu loose in my classroom!

In addition to this, as part of my work as Lead Practitioner next year I am hoping to run a hands-on seminar, probably in Maidstone, on the use of Kodu (click on the picture to download a flyer!).  I’ll keep you posted on the seminar developments!

A Snapshot Tour of Kodu

Nicki   February 20, 2010   1 Comment on A Snapshot Tour of Kodu

kodu1I have recently been trying out some new games development software by Microsoft, called Kodu. Released on Xbox last year it is now available on PC as a technical preview from here.

The software is great as it allows users to create 3D computer games in a very simple and intuitive way.

 

To give you inspiration Kodu comes with a large selection of built-in worlds or you can create a new one from scratch.

kodu3From the menu at the bottom there is a  terrain tool to create a world, you can choose from lots of different textures or patterns and also raise or lower the terrain.

Once you have created the terrain you can choose from a vast array of objects to add to your world.

After you have added objects and characters to you can program them using the simple graphical interface. This works by assigning actions to events (WHEN x happens DO y). There is a great deal of flexibility here giving you a lot of scope to make the game exactly how you want it.

The example below show a program for the enemy character in a game. WHEN it see’s Kodu (the main character) it shoots at him. The + symbols can be used to refine the event or action:

kodu4

Well that was just a short overview of Kodu but I simply can’t do it enough justice by writing about it here. I would definitely recommend downloading and trying it out. I can see Kodu having a real impact in the classroom and am really looking forward to the final version being released. If you are interested in the use of Kodu you may find some of these resources useful too:

BETT 2010

Nicki   January 16, 2010   No Comments on BETT 2010

I was lucky enough to be given a day off to attend the BETT Exhibition again this year. I really enjoy going to this every year as it gives a real insight into the changing world of technology and allows you the time to investigate how new software can be used to enhance teaching and learning.

As usual a noticeable highlight was the Microsoft stand with lots of great talks running throughout the day. Microsoft Office 2010 looks particularly good, all applications (including Publisher) now have the ribbon-style menu layout and have features incorporated for collaborative working. One such feature that was demonstrated was using PowerPoint. A presentation can be delivered remotely by sharing the presentation online and giving users an access code to view the presentation while it is being delivered in another location. The Office 2010 Beta can be downloaded from here.

One interesting product that was demonstrated by one of the speakers was OneNote. With this students can set up a “folder” of notes in order to work on collaborative projects. As a teacher you can view each of your students “folders” and notes and leave comments and feedback on them. It looks like a great tool and certainly one I would like to explore further.

Another fantastic product being released soon by Microsoft is SharePoint 2010. We already use SharePoint 2007 in school as our VLE and although it is very good the new version promises a whole host of new features that make everything a whole lot simpler. For example, pages act more like wiki pages now and can be edited very quickly using the familiar ribbon-style layout from the rest of the Office applications. One particularly useful feature is that when opening Office documents from within SharePoint it actually runs a version of the application within the browser, meaning students who do not have Office at home can still use the features of the software from within their web browser. Fantastic!

Semblio is a product Microsoft have developed to allow teachers to create resources by bringing together lots of sources from different places, it appears to run as an addition to Visual Studio. I plan to look at this in the future and will hopefully post a blog entry once I’ve explored all of its features.

The final point I shall talk about regarding Microsoft is their large array of free software for teachers and students. As a teacher if you sign your school up to DreamSpark your students are given access to software they can then download at home, particularly useful additions being Visual Studio, Expression Studio and XNA Games Studio. I was given a demonstration of Games Studio, running form within Visual Studio, and it looks like it has a lot of potential, using the C# programming language it allows users to create games for Windows, Xbox and Zune. I plan to investigate this further at a later date.

Microsoft aside, there were so many stands of information to look at, several robotics retailers which I always find interesting (but I spoke about these last year so won’t repeat myself!). One new addition to the world of games programming that seems to have potential is Games Factory  by Clickteam. It allows users to build games in minutes using a huge library of graphics and an “events”, “conditions” and “actions” style of programming. The only downside to this is that it is £599 for a site licence with an added cost of £300 to be able to export to Flash format. The software does look very good but with Microsoft’s imminent and free release of Kodu Game Lab coming up I’m not sure I could justify the cost.

CaricatureOCR’s contribution to the exhibition was a free caricature for their visitors, this is how mine came out! Not too flattering but no less than I expected!

DellRobot

Finally, no trip to BETT is complete without a visit to the Dell stand to see the Dell robot (and receive sweets and other goodies!). I didn’t seem to find too many freebies around  this year, compared to previous years, but then I guess we are coming out of a recession after all. I did, at least, collect a few pens and stress-balls!

Well, that’s about it for now regarding BETT, please add comments to contribute on anything I may have missed.

ICT Seminar – OCR Nationals Level 3 for Beginners

Nicki   November 30, 2009   No Comments on ICT Seminar – OCR Nationals Level 3 for Beginners

seminarOn Friday 15th January I will be hosting another ICT seminar. This time it will based on OCR Nationals Level 3 and costs just £80. If anyone has started teaching OCR Nationals Level 3 or is thinking about it come along, as the seminar will include the following:

  • Overview of OCR Nationals Level 3 in ICT, what is involved, and assessment
  • Distribution of a wide range of teaching resources for units 1, 2, 4, 10, 16, 18
  • Specialist guidance on Unit 16—Programming for Computer Games
  • Afternoon session with a moderator

Click here to view the flyer.

Booking is made through Specialist Schools and Academies Trust here. Alternatively bookings can be made by fax using this form.

I look forward to meeting some of you there!