ICTeachers  - By the Professionals for the Professionals

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Newsletter Membership Almost 12 000 teachers from all over the world and growing!
November 2000

Contents:

Regulars

Message from the Editor
Tips for a Bumper Choco haul this Christmas!!

What's New on the Website
Five NEW interactive quizzes and a Harry Potter Cyberhunt!

Newsflash!  ICTeachers has linked with Centreparks to offer Teachers a FREE prize draw with each copy of training materials you buy.
This Month's Features

ICTeachers Xmas Website
Christmas links for teachers, email santa and great children's sites.  What more can you want?

Great Office97 TTA Approved Training Materials -
Terence Driscoll has developed these training manuals to be clear and concise.  I put them to the test and indeed they were!  I can recommend them most highly.  Take a look at the example modules and see what you think.

Active Village
A website specially for those who have a creative mind and want to give the children more than "face the board" work!  Mightily impressive work.

Digital Brain
This is WELL worth a look.  Offers schools lots of free stuff plus an online community.

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Welcome to the November (maybe December by now) 2000 edition of the ICTeachers newsletter. 

Who Are ICTeachers?

A bunch of practising teachers,we help other teachers by offering links and resources donated by colleagues from all over the country. We aim to provide services ensuring teachers don' t get ripped off. We generally try to help colleagues who have good ideas but little support

Please send us your suggestions, ideas and questions. We appreciate your comments! 


Message from the Editor

Christmas is coming... the teacher's getting fat!

TOP TIPS FOR XMAS PRESENT GATHERING!

How do you ensure you get maximum presents in the minimum of time?

First,  prime your children three weeks from the end of term with "Hmmmmm, I love MILK chocolate....yummy!" or "Of course, I particulary love MILK chocolate, NOT plain...repeat after me children!  MILK not PLAIN!  MILK not PLAIN!"

Secondly, as the presents begin to arrive make sure you put them on the window sill in full view of parents and children.  This has the dual purpose of being a constant reminder for the children that pressies are important to you and to the parents to remind them that their present WILL BE MISSED!!!!

Before you have a go at me, this tip was passed on to me by the head who, as with all heads, doesn't get the haul of choccy he once did.

Does this count as professional development?  I wonder if we could set a target using it.

Hey ho!  Happy Christmas and have a good one this year!!!!

Tim
md@icteachers.co.uk

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What's New on the Website

Two new interactive additions to the ICTeachers website have appeared in the
past few days.

For all those who would rather attend Hogwarts than their own mundane,
national-curriculum inspired primary school can visit the HARRY POTTER
CYBERHUNT and dream of wizards and fun! Go to http://www.icteachers.co.uk/   >
Children > Cyberhunts > Harry Potter
Children will love this - we expect a huge rush during the early part of the
week!

Why not send us a copy of your answers to info@icteachers.co.uk ?

We also have five new INTERACTIVE QUIZZES. We shall be adding new ones in
the weeks to come, but in the meantime you can pit your wits against the
ICTeachers super-brain and answer questions on Tudors and Stuarts and show
off your knowledge of three of Shakespeare's plays.
Go to http://www.icteachers.co.uk/ > Children > Quizzes.

Enjoy!

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TTA Approved Office97 Training Units for Word, Excel and Access

At ICTeachers we know how hard our colleagues in all schools work. As you would expect we are especially appreciative of those primary classteachers who are also ICT Co-ordinators. Over the past months we have worked closely with designer Terry Driscoll and are now ready to celebrate the launch of these quality Office 97 training Modules

To make our launch more exciting we are having a PRIZE DRAW open to the members of staff from the first 500 schools to purchase one or more modules:

First prize

A weekend break for SIX at CENTREPARCS to be taken in March, June or September 2001.

Accommodation is in a three bedroom villa.

Entry forms must be returned to ICTeachers Ltd PO Box 76 Manchester M8 0JY by 17th February.

Drisconsult's Training Units for Office97 are designed to take you from absolute beginner to expert in a range of widely used computer applications.

Units are available individually, in application blocks (eg all of the Word Processing units in one batch) or as a total package.

Our Prices are as follows:

  Individual (1 user) Site licence (up to 10 users)
Individual Units £9.99 £39.99
Application Blocks (eg Word Processing) £19.99 £79.99
All Units £24.99 £99.99

Click here to order your disks now

The following ICT training modules are available from January 2001 from Drisconsult. Click on the links for more information and screenshots.

Word Processing:
Word 01 
Word 02 
Word 03 
Word 04
 
Introduction to Basic Layout - Editing (full version)
Introduction to Text Entry - Spell Check - Styles
Introduction to Columns - DTP - Cut & Paste
Mail Merge For Professionals
Spreadsheets:
Excel 01 
Excel 02 
Excel 03 
Excel 04
 
Introduction to Basic Layout (full version)
Introduction to Charts
Introduction to Comments - Copying
Excel For Professionals
Databases:
Access 01 
Access 02
Access 03 
Access 04 
Access 05 
 
Introduction to Tables (full version)
Introduction to Queries
Introduction to Forms
Introduction to Advanced Forms
Introduction to Reports

Adobe Acrobat Reader version 4 is required to view the modules. This free program can be downloaded from the ICTeachers website. The modules are best viewed with a minimum screen resolution of 800x600 pixels and cannot be printed.

Terence has published such works as

Computer Studies & Information Technology (revised 1999)
With Bob Dolden
Macmillan Education

Technical Drawing For Today (reprinted 43 times)
Books 1, 2 and 3
Macmillan Education

Industrial Arts For Today (reprinted 27 times)
Books 1, 2 and 3
With Eric Hibberson
Macmillan Education

He latterly worked as a Senior Lecturer, University of Greenwich, attached to Business Studies and since 1999 has been writing Technology Training manuals full time.

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New www.icsanta.org.uk Website for Writing to Santa!

Well it is that time of year again.

The snow is falling and the carol singers are out rousing the spirits of the weary and good cheer is all around.

Well it would be if it were not for the floods, long working hours, global warming and the dreaded shopping!

Never mind, here at ICTeachers we ensure that the children forget all about OUR problems and concentrate on making Christmas fun, educational and still a special time. We also intend to help you, our colleagues, meet those curriculum targets by giving you ideas to use in this festive season.

Why now visit our Christmas pages http://www.icsanta.org.uk/ and learn about Christmas around the world?

At ICTeachers we have many ideas that YOU can use in the classroom to meet the needs of the curriculum. This year, as a special treat, you could let the children write an email to Santa and get a reply appropriate to their age group from Santa, or one of his helpers posing as Santa. (All Santa' helpers are rumoured to be renegade Primary School Teachers so you won't have to worry about security for the pupils).

Well that’s my planning for December done. Now I have to worry about the new year, (but not yet).

Don't forget to visit http://www.icsanta.org.uk/.

Merry Christmas and a stress-free new year!

Lee Beresford
Marketing Director
lee.beresfored@icteachers.co.uk

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Active Village

"Pokemon models out of toilet rolls! They created a sensation with the boys in my son’s Year 2 class, and set me up instantly as the local authority on all things “net”! A number of mothers asked me for my list of recommended sites, and the majority were amazed at what was available if you take the trouble to look for it. Many were also pleased to discover that much of what I recommended could be completed off-line and, indeed, away from the computer.

By this time I had accumulated a huge resource of sites, found whilst surfing for ideas to keep my two young children busy and looking for activities which would support and inspire their school work and general learning. I wanted to provide alternatives to the standard TV, video, and computer game fare that kids today are increasingly subjected to. When my daughter did a project on flags, I found images of flags with which I could create computer jigsaws – and her learning and enjoyment increased by leaps and bounds. When my son studied castles, I found some wonderful sites on castles for him to enjoy and a printable model of a castle which his whole class had fun assembling (some parents, faced with the intricate cutting and sticking, may disagree with me there!).

 From there it was a small step to the creation of Activity Village. Initially conceived as a means of distributing these discoveries to like-minded parents and teachers, I decided to develop original content as well, resuscitating my skills as an editor and in DTP in the process. Many of the features already on site – for example the teaching clock – were developed to help my own children. And I have discovered that “printables” are definitely the most popular feature of the Village. The site, now nearly 2 months old, is constantly evolving and expanding as I discover what my readership – from mid-Western American moms to English Language teachers in India and Japan to UK parents and teachers – wants to find. Any suggestions, feedback and contributions are positively encouraged! Most of all, we try to have fun!

Please join us at the Village at http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/   You can also subscribe to our weekly newsletter for news of updates at the site and season and holiday-appropriate site suggestions by sending a blank email to Activity_Village-subscribe@egroups.com "

Thanks!

Lindsay

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Product Reviews

Digital Brain

A Knowledge Exchange Portal is an intrinsic part of any Managed ICT Services environment.

Without the functional resources of the knowledge exchange "Web Top", any ICT network is simply a mass of interconnected hardware. Digitalbrain.com provides this knowledge exchange in a cost effective, easy to use, package.

 Summary of functionality and services:

  • FREE, editable, curriculum content covering KSI, KS2, KS3, and KS4

      • Strictly following the National Curriculum, providing course structure and objectives, and links to all the best web sites for each subject

      • All the content exists in a templated "PowerStation Wizard" format, making it easily customisable by teachers to suit their individual teaching styles

      • Includes the ability to attach notes to any part of the content directly through an online notepad

  • Knowledge creation and distribution

      • All users receive 25MB of free web space

      • Users can upload any type of file to their free web space

      • Both private and public online file storage

      • By using the "PowerStation Wizard" folder and file template users are able to create web pages (knowledge) by typing and importing media directly into their browsers. Every folder or file is a web page, and every web page is folder or file

      • The folder pyramid provides a navigable structure for the content

      • The ability to delegate the control of folders provides a hierarchical structure of web pages and edit control

  • Premium Content

      • Partnership opportunities for schools to work with digitalbrain to develop premium, chargeable, course material, and to receive a royalty on sales

      • Opportunities for schools to become local digitalbrain training partners

  • School/community "Auto Knowledge-Portal"

      • A portal site solution for every school in the community

      • Built on the same hierarchical folder principles as the content, where every user is a "contact file", existing within a "year group folder", and so on up the pyramid, so that every school is a sub folder of the community folder

      • Customised knowledge groups, or instant intranets, can be created easily:

      • Enables the implementation of a delegated, community portal site where every layer (and every page) is controlled its "owner"

  • Flexible server solutions

      • A community can choose to have an entirely online solution, supported from digitalbrain’s London Telehouse based servers, or to have digitalbrain provide a local synchronised server solution

digitalbrain.com Ltd
Head Office: 46 Crooked Billet, London SW19 4RQ
Tel: 020 8879 5300 Fax: 020 8879 7022

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This Newsletter is produced by ICTeachers Ltd
Contact: info@icteachers.co.uk
Copyright ICTeachers 2000