A wide range of Primary classroom activities, reviews and resources has been developed and published over the years originally by MAPE and, more recently since the merger in 2004, by Naace.

The Direct2U service was a weekly email service produced by Becta in partnership with Naace. The service was for primary teachers and offered lesson plans featuring ICT in activities based on six subject strands. The service is discontinued but you can view the lesson plans in this archive.

ICT Year 6: Creating Electronic Big Books

The Direct2U service was a weekly email subscription service for primary teachers from Becta, which ran during 2005/6. The scheme offered lesson plans featuring ICT in activities based on six subject strands. The service has now been discontinued but Becta have given us permission to use a selection from the plans in this magazine. A full archive of all the Direct2U activities can be found at http://forum.ngfl.gov.uk/direct2u

Introduction

In this activity, children work in small groups to design and create an electronic Big Book for the younger children in the school. They will take into account the reading age and interests of younger children and the format of Big Books, and test out their books and modify them if necessary. There is not room here to give full details of how to use Big Book Maker but it is well supported with manuals and guides http://primary.naace.co.uk/activities/BigBookMaker/

Richard describes the role of ICT in helping students with complex learning difficulties access literacy.

A fascinating question and one that teachers would probably answer with 'more knowledge than we have now!' That alone is reason to share this vast wealth of understanding in the world, and really begin to learn from each other. Knowledge and understanding are not learned in isolation for in collaboration we can achieve much more. Teachers cannot possibly know all the answers to the questions children ask but it is their responsibility to equip learners with the thirst, skills and opportunities to be able to find out - and not simply through a Google search either.

This article explores this approach with Key Stage 1 pupils in a Hampshire infant school.

This article will explore the use of blogs and other tools to support student teachers in writing reflective journals. The main context for this is the school (or college) experience of trainee teachers on the one year secondary PGCE. Blogs are also used in the first year professional studies module in the School of Education's BA Joint Honours programme. The approach and lessons learned are equally applicable to students on other programmes, and at other levels.

This Article looks at the Big Books on the Naace Primary website and the Big Book Maker utility which allows you to make similar books of your own. A new and much improved Big Book Maker is available from amongst the Naace Primary resources at http://primary.naace.co.uk/activities/index.htm
Full instructions for making the books are available on the site but I wanted to show you some of what is already available in order to illustrate the kind of thing you and your children might create and also to show how the existing books can be useful across the whole curriculum.
For comment or contributions, including any Big Books created by you or your pupils, please contact me at h.govier@btopenworld.com

Focus: Big Books

This is a special edition of Sharing Success which looks at the Big Books on the Naace Primary website and the Big Book Maker utility which allows you to make similar books of your own. We are delighted to announce that there is a new and much improved Big Book Maker available from amongst the Naace Primary resources at http://primary.naace.co.uk/activities/index.htm

If you feel that you could make a contribution to Sharing Success please contact me at h.govier@btopenworld.com.

Lydia Johnson describes how she used Windows Movie Maker with her Year 5 pupils to motivate learning across the curriculum.

Bridget Patel was awarded the Bill Tagg Bursary in 2004/05.
This case study focuses on the learner's experience of school-based educational multimedia in the context of their literacy development in an increasingly mulitmodal (the use of multiple modes of communication) world of communication. It explores the uses of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) with which Year 2 children participate in a 'typical' school day, during English and ICT lessons; and furthermore how children's perceptions of ICT are rendered in their on and off-screen work. Literacy (in the traditional and 'techno' senses), creativity and multimodality are key concepts. At a time when communication is shifting to the degree that warrants a revisiting of the English curriculum and the drawing up of policy guidance on digital content quality the relevance of rich, deeply detailed pupil data and pupil consultation is greatly significant.