The Victorian Internet

Wired City of 1890

In ICT this Half term year 7 will be producing a radio documentary about the “Victorian Internet”. This morning they researched what is meant by the Victorian Internet and discovered that it refers to the invention of the electrical telegraph which allowed communication using Morse code to be sent internationally.

They used a website called Spicy Nodes to collate the information they discovered.

Semaphore and Morse Code

In ICT this term Year 3 will be concentrating on the ‘C’ for Communication. They have been looking at different methods of sending messages over long distances. In the first week they tried some semaphore and sent messages across the classroom. This week they had a go at transmitting messages using Morse Code. They had bulbs and switches set up with very long wires that meant they could send messages down the corridor and around the corner. Next week they will begin to look at a more modern form of long-distance communication – e-mail.

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Why should we be taught ICT?

In ICT I asked Year 8 to tell me why they should be taught ICT. Here is Jasmine’s response.

We should be taught ICT because it is a constantly developing subject. Also soon technology will take over the world and you will need to know a lot about ICT to get a job. ICT teaches you how to go on the internet this is useful because you can communicate to people on the other side of the world with social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Another reason that we need the internet is because there are now millions of education sites which teachers can use to teach there pupils such as linguascope or languages on line and hoodamath. ICT is also useful because if you go into the army you will need ICT to launch missiles, fly fighter planes, fly drones and drive the armoured vehicles that they use in hostile territory. Gaming is also becoming very popular with children and teenagers. In ICT it teaches how game consoles work. Also if you choose to make wii, x-box and ps3 games it will be very important to be able to use ICT.

 

And Your Specialist Subject Is….?

This morning in ICT Year 7 were researching and writing questions for ICT themed Specialist Subject Mastermind rounds. Some of the topics included Sonic the Hedgehog, Atari, Pac-Man, Nintendo and Space Invaders.

Here are some of their questions.

Atari is the Japanese for which word?

Which elementary school did Bill Gates attend?

Nintendo started their business in which year?

When was the Sega Dreamcast released?

Who founded Commodore Computers?

What is Steve Jobs’ middle name?

Who created Sonic the Hedgehog?

What is the name of the blue ghost in Pac-Man

Which key on the ZX81 is used to erase text?

How many of those questions can you answer?

Learning Without Frontiers Award

This week I was honoured to discover that I had been shortlisted for a Learning Without Frontiers award. I had been nominated by a teacher in another school and then a panel of judges put me through to the final three. These awards recognise innovation in education using the latest technologies and online tools. I have been nominated for some of the work I have been doing using blogs and Twitter such as the #1066Election campaign in which Year 7 campaigned on behalf of William of Normandy, Harald Hardrada and Harold Godwinson for the English crown. This project gained huge support outside of school and was featured on the BBC blog and led to a few of our children being interviewed for BBC radio. More recently some of our children joined in my #BooHumbug project in which we used the website Audioboo to create a collaborative online audio book of A Christmas Carol.

I am very proud to have made the shortlist and I will find out the result when I attend the Awards Ceremony next Wednesday evening.

Twit Twho

In ICT this week my Year 8 and Year 7 classes have been contributing to a project involving Twitter called Twit Twho. Yesterday Year 8 were researching ICT pioneers and then writing short clues to their identity. These clues were then published on Twitter using the hashtag #TwitTwho so that in this morning’s lesson Year 7 could receive the clues and then try and identify the person. Many other people joined in in creating clues and children from other schools also joined in.

Here is an example of one of the clues sent by Alex H

#TwitTwho I was born on August 21, 1973 I was born in the Soviet Union, I am worth an estimated 16.7 billion US dollars

Can you identify the “ICT Pioneer” he was referring to?

 

Computer Hardware

In ICT this morning Year 5 began to look at the different parts of a computer. We looked at this site http://www97.intel.com/scripts-tji/images/learner/flash/which.swf and discussed the different pieces of hardware. The children also got to see the insides of a computer and they were shown a range of floppy disks to see how they have changed over the past 30 years.

The children then went on to create their own labelling activities about the parts of a computer using 2DIY. Here is Izzy’s example.

Year 6 #console2021

In their last two ICT lessons of the term Year 6 have been designing the best selling console of 2021. They looked at information about the best-selling consoles of 1991, 2001 and 2011 and discussed how the technology has advanced. They then created posters for their consoles. Some of the best examples of their posters can be seen below.

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Year 8 Magazine Presentations

Over the past few weeks in ICT Year 8 have been developing ideas for a new magazine title. They have been working on a presentation to pitch their idea to a panel of “Dragon’s”. They had to consider their audience and how their magazine would make money. We looked at the circulation figures of some of the BBC’s magazines to give them an idea of their potential market and we also looked at how much it costs to advertise in these magazines.

This morning the first few groups made their pitches to a panel consisting of Mr Riley, Mr Silman, Mr Roberts, Mrs Farrow, Mrs Marsh, Mrs Budd and Mr Gray. The children did incredibly well facing some very difficult and probing questions from the dragons and Alex even managed to carry on even after the laptop crashed.

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Christmas Trees

I know it is still only November but Year 1 have started getting into the festive spirit in ICT and have been creating a Christmas Tree activity using 2DIY. I will then share these activities with the Nursery children when they come over to the ICT room nearer the end of term.

Click here to see Ned’s activity in action or have a go at decorating Ned’s tree for yourself here.