primary bytes

Virtual Teacher Trials

primarytech — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 17:06:15 +0000

A new out-of-school-hours service that allows pupils to receive homework tips from “virtual teachers” is being piloted in Clackmannanshire. Pupils at the school are trialling a new ‘vodcasting system’, vod standing for Video on Demand.

The system will allow students to get access to resources that provide homework help and lesson recaps. The trial will involve teachers recording videos and mp3’s on a variety of subjects.

The full story can be found on the BBC News website.

The schools website can be found at http://www.alvaacademy.clacks.sch.uk/

Steps towards achieving zero carbon in schools

primarytech — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:21:24 +0000

It’s with some interest and perhaps a little bemusement to read about the governments ambition for new school buildings to be zero carbon from 2016 - 8 years away?

According to a section on the DCSF’s website,

The Department for Children, Schools and Families has set out its ambition for new school buildings to be zero carbon from 2016, and has appointed a Task Force to advise on how this might be achieved

Robin Nicholson, who chairs The Zero Carbon Task Force, said: “The Task Force has now identified the key issues to be addressed if we are to make progress towards zero carbon school buildings. We want to know the views of the major players in the school, construction, design and sustainability communities.”

More immediate task?

Whilst this is a worthwhile exercise for new schools (in 8+ years), surely the more immediate task in hand should be to look at existing schools and how they can make more and bigger steps towards lower energy usage, use of renewable energy and extensive recycling.

Start now!

Here’s 4 steps to getting started:

1. Work out how you are doing right now - complete a simple audit. How much energy are you using, where does it come from and how much recycling does your school do at the moment?

2. Have a brain storm session - get the children involved (they can be the most innovative sometimes)

3. Put together an action plan, based on your session.

4. Do it.

Here are 5 IT-related ideas to get you started:

1. Turn off computers, monitors, printers, etc when they are not in use. (Talk to your IT people about a schedule for when computers should be left on for updates)

2. Recycle printer and fax cartridges and get paid for it!

3. Only use recycled paper and have seperate bins to recycle it after use

4. Check the settings on your printer - change them to use less ink if you are printing ‘draft’ type documents.

5. Replace CRT’s with LCD screens. They use far less energy.

We’ll be writing more on this subject in the future.

Shiny New Chrome Browser

primarytech — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 15:07:38 +0000

We’ve been dedicated users and keen promoters of the Firefox web browser for many years now, and so it was with un-due scepticism to see a new browser being launched. Un-due because having used Google’s ‘Chrome’ browser for a few days we are converts!

To download visit http://www.google.com/chrome , although there is only a windows version available at the moment.

What is particularly impressive is the error handling capabilities - it sounds a bit boring, but how many times has your browser crashed (and if running windows - your operating system too)? There’s some clever stuff under the hood that manages this and so far, so good.