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.

Focus: ICT Coordinator

In this jam-packed issue, the lead article looks at the use of Windows Movie maker to develop ICT and geography skills and on page 3 Jackie Lester offers advice on preparing for an Ofsted inspection. On page 4 Rhona Dick introduces two pieces of software for exploring moral dilemmas and finally we have a Top Tip for maths teaching.
For comment or contributions 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.

Doug Dickinson explains how modern technology can transform the perennial favourite - keeping weather records - into a dynamic and multi modal activity.

Creating a budget for a zoo is how many schools teach students to create and use a spreadsheet. It is an easy way to demonstrate how formulae can be used to calculate totals and work out how to make a profit. However, why study a place that does not exist and data that is probably made up? Alex Savage explains how such work can be made more interesting.

It is clear that technology has a significant role to play to inspire and motivate our learners. We all know that WWW stands for World Wide Web. However, many schools have yet to realise its true potential for bringing the real world into the classroom. Communication is literally at the heart of ICT. Sadly, students are often given tasks involving made up situations rather than being given the opportunity to communicate with a real audience for a real purpose.

This article describes how the school environment is used to develop science, geography, ICT and maths skills within the context of a 'weather' topic.

A teacher in an English schol abroad describes two activities which use ICT to make cross-curricular links.

This article describes an activity used with a Year 4 class when studying a contrasting locality. The school is located in a suburb of Swansea. The locality used as a comparison is the rural and coastal village of Oxwich, located some10 miles to the west of the school on the Gower Peninsula. The activity gave the opportunity to develop the children's geographical skills and knowledge whilst developing their use of ICT. As well as the use of the Internet, the activity integrated other ICT applications into the work, including a spreadsheet and wordprocessing/desktop-publishing package.