I’ve just spent the last two days at the Drumossie Hotel, Inverness where I had the pleasure of talking with a considerable number of Gaelic teachers from around Scotland. There were delegates from Highland, Western Isles, Argyll & Bute, Glasgow, and East Dumbarton………..and probably some more.

I’ve been involved with various Gaelic teachers and advisors over the past few years due to the usefullness, in languages, of much of the software that we use in additional support needs. i.e. good multi-sensory, multimedia packages such as Textease and Clicker 5 which lend themselves to bookmaking, sentence construction, annotation, etc – and in any language you want. It’s so easy to record your own voice messages to these applications and teachers can use existing resources and make their own tailored to their own pupils.

I delivered 5 sessions on Textease – its use as a great interactive ‘blackboard’, how it can be used as the foundation and repository for ‘virtual topic boxes’ and its ease of use as a desktop publisher and presentation tool. Most teachers tell me that they had no idea the software could do all these things. A reflection of the prevelent notion that I often hear – that it’s a wee word processor for the infants!!!!!

My recommendation is that you take another look at this especially if you now have a digital projector in your classroom – you’ll not find a more flexible and easy-to-use package to prepare and deliver punchy teaching presentations.

The ’stuff’ I mentioned during the presentations can be found here.

The ATS Service has arranged a training day to help schools prepare for the inevitable increase in the number of pupils with Additional Support Needs who will opt to sit their exams using ICT.

Our friends at the CALL Centre, Edinburgh University have been developing this work with the SQA over a number of years now and have delivered training to large numbers of staff from schools around the country.

The Highland day is set for Tuesday 10th June and we hope to offer all our secondary schools a couple of places at this important event. The details of the course can be seen on the CPD Calendar but we’re targeting this at PTs of Support for Learning and SQA Co-ordinators.

Some of the schools who have been using digital question papers have begun to create interactive digital versions of other resources such as Prelims, NABs and worksheets and so we will look at tools and techniques for creating such resources.

The course presenters will be:

Paul Nisbet, Senior Research Fellow, Communication Aids for Language and Learning (CALL) Centre

Patricia McDonald, SQA Project Manager, National Qualifications Product Development

Margaret Dearman, Support for Learning, Buckie High School

Related links:

CALL Centre: http://callcentrescotland.org.uk

SQA Digital Exam Papers: http://www.AdaptedDigitalExams.org.uk

Books for All: http://www.booksforall.org.uk

Books for All blog: http://pauln.edublogs.org/

I’d like to flag up the blog of a music colleague, Alan Coady, from East Lothian. His website is also an interesting place to visit.

If you already know of Alan you’ll be aware of the the interesting flow of information that he provides on his sites.

One of his recent posts highlighted the wonderful Zoom H2 mp3 recorder. You can read the post and Alan’s helpful comments on the H2 here.

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This looks as if it will be excellent for recording on field trips, podcasts, conversations, choirs, ensembles, bands.

Its four microphones allow for a variety of stereo recording configurations.

Get full information about the H2 here.

The ATS Service had the pleasure this week of spending two days with staff from one of our special schools. We met with nine staff over the two days and made use of the excellent facilities and surroundings of The Storehouse of Foulis.

The time had been set aside to help raise ICT awareness and build confidence in deploying the various technologies in the context of teaching and learning for the wide range of pupils who attend the school. Writing about the days like this doesn’t reflect the buzz that existed as the teachers immediately saw the possibilities such tools could have for themselves and their pupils. I certainly left with new ideas as a result of the discussions and feedback we received.

All the teachers made voice recordings using Audacity software, took and downloaded photographs before making use of these in other software applications such as Jigworks, ChooseIt Maker2, and Softease Presenter. We painted using 2Paint a Picture and published using 2Publish+ from 2Simple software, looked at the benefits of click and drag software, Comic Life for picture story telling, and so on……..

The idea behind building confidence in these areas was to look beyond the keyboard and ‘through’ the technology to the opportunities for the pupils to express themselves and to give teachers a variety of tools to help build alternative resources – to change the way we teach and the way we allow the children to learn.

One teacher’s comments on the morning session.

[audio http://atss.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/review-of-storehouse.mp3]

There’s some discussion now to be had back at school then we aim to follow up, in more detail, any of the strands the teachers want to further develop.

While many of you may just want to do exactly what the title of this blog suggests – learn the basics (with the possibility of much more) of a language in small bite-sized chunks – my reason for flagging this up is more to do with possibilities it signals for teaching and learning. Thanks to Andrew Brown for the heads-up on this – read his more eloquent post here.

This series of podcasts shows just what is possible in terms of offering an ongoing, structured programme of learning via downloadable chunks of spoken information. This podcast has been picked up by millions of individuals who want to learn and have found a means of doing so. It’s such a good example of podcasting that Coffee Break Spanish is currently the second most downloaded series from iTunes in the United States, behind Oprah – and the guy who presents/teaches the course is a west coast Scot – Mark Pentleton. The podcasts are apparently recorded in a very simple studio at this guy’s house and they have proved immensely popular. But even at a simpler level than this it is now possible for us to provide texts/information for pupils to listen to, teaching support for those of us who need stuff repeated, materials for absent pupils, for disrupted learners, for encouraging parental involvement, sharing expertise in remote areas, using the materials anywhere, anytime, and much, much more ………………………….

My four year old son is picking up Spanish from watching and listening to Dora the Explorer and he was listening with great interest to the first couple of Mark’s podcasts as I was listening while driving to work. (A wee experiment is on the cards!!!)

The ease with which these high quality resources can be accessed and used by individuals or teachers must eventually convince ICT doubters that getting to grips with technology is a necessity and not an option.

So, as my son overtakes my lifetime’s achievement in languages, I’m only glad that I have access to teachers/sharers/contributors from all around the world – and from just along the road!!! – so that I can, at least try, to keep in touch.

Listen to the post here. [audio http://atss.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/coffee-break-spanish.mp3]

Preview of Coffee Break Spanish [audio http://atss.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/coffee-break-spanish-preview.mp3]

I’ve been using an ASUS minibook now for 3 months and its Linux operating system has posed no difficulty despite the fact I’d never seen Linux before. It’s fast, uncluttered and appears to be extremely reliable. I would continue to use the machine the way it is apart from the fact that it’s not clear how, after finding Linux versions of software, you actually install it.

While the techies are all getting excited about adapting the Linux interface to allow for the installation of more software I decided to take a more traditional route to the software we know and love??? by installing Windows XP!!!!

Armed with my external USB DVD drive, a fresh, legal copy of Windows XP(SP2 – essential), and my ASUS support disk I set about the task. The instructions were fairly clear and almost exactly accurate and the whole process went off without a hitch. It did take about an hour and a half to complete but the OS worked as it should, the machine still seemed quick and so I set about installing some software.

I popped our usual anti-virus software on first then installed Penfriend XP – one of our favourite prediction packages. I was becoming concerned that if I kept adding software to the default location that the machine’s remaining storage space would soon be full to the brim so my copy of Softease Studio CT was placed on the SDHC (8GB) card that I’d installed earlier. The card accepted the software and it all runs very sweetly. MS Office next?????

While all of this is exciting – especially in terms of portability – the additional costs of XP and the SDHC card added £100 to the machine’s original £199. As an experiment it was good but I think that at £300 I’d be tempted to go for a laptop with more capacity.

So unless a cheap pre-installed version becomes available – it’s time to learn Linux (Here’s a useful starter) and find new software I think – especially after reading these blog entries:

Jonesieboy and Doing Maths on an eeePC

I’m off to dig out my graphics tablet.

Honeycomb - Softease’s Web-based collaboration and creativity environment, which gives pupils a safe and educationally-useful way to make user-generated content.

If you’ve ever wished you could harness the enthusiasm and creativity that your pupils display at home on social networking sites that can’t be used in schools, this is the answer. Pupils can host multimedia content about themselves, their interests, their schoolwork!?!? in a genuinely collaborative way.

Very cool……

Captureatalk from iANSYST

CapturaTalk software reads text out loud that has been captured from a photograph or an electronic document – and it operates on a mobile phone (the award-winning TyTN Pocket PC Smartphone).

The speed at which it’s possible to capture and listen to significant chunks of text is impressive and the voices are good but it all comes at a price – £900 – £1000.

Developments are ongoing so that speech will be directly available within text messages – at the moment they have to be text files.

The software is available separately if you already have a high spec smartphone.

Definitely one to watch.

New to English from Cricksoft

This interactive software – based on Clicker 5 is a fantastic tool for teaching and reinforcing language for young pupils or those with English as an additional language. There are to be 3 packs to begin with: At School, In the House and In the Street.

The tasks are structured in small but worthwhile incremental stages, accompanied with good graphics, to develop word knowledge. The software also provides for practice of the spoken word.

Any school with pupils from other countries should have a look at this.

Interactive Whiteboard resources for Literacy and Maths from Cambridge University Press.

Mult-e-Maths provides teachers with a fantastic set of maths tools all on one screen to help present difficult visual concepts to pupils at all levels of the primary school. A site license is £375 – definitely worth a look!!

iRead,from the same software stable, offers a set of reading and literacy activities that provides teachers with the opportunity to develop their pupils’ awareness of literacy through creative use of multimedia and multi-sensory ICT.

The ATS Service will be demonstrating all of the software and hardware mentioned here in the very near future to schools in Highland.

HAPPY NEW YEAR from the ATS Service.

The BBC has produced a summary of some of the new technologies that are expected to impact on us during the coming year. The Asus minibook, that we’ve been using for a couple of months now, is one of the featured pieces.

1. The web to go 3. IPTV 5. Mobile VoIP

2. Ultra mobile PCs 4. Wimax

Read the full article here.

I took delivery of an Asus Minibook this week and so far I’m really impressed. I was browsing the Internet via a wireless network within minutes, listening to Internet Radio, using the pre-installed Skype, logging in to my FirstClass account and working on documents within Open Office. I’m even using it to update this blog and add information to my wiki.

School age pupils are going to love this versatile machine.

The model I have carries the Linux operating system but there’s a Windows version on the way. I sourced the computer from Research Machines and it cost £199. See the section of an article below.

ASUS Unites the Breakthrough Eee PC with Microsoft Windows

ASUS confirmed they will offer the highly anticipated Eee PC pre-installed with Genuine Microsoft Windows by end of this year. The ASUS Eee PC defines a new category of computing device that offers an excellent Internet experience on-the-go for work, learn and play. With the addition of Microsoft Windows, the Eee PC can now also accommodate educational and corporate requirements.

Check out the Asus Minibook website here.

[audio http://atss.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/asus-minibook2.mp3]

Watch Andrew Brown’s (LTS) run-through of the main features:

[blip.tv ?posts_id=503074&dest=-1]

Research Machines are just about to launch the MiniBook, which looks promising. It starts around £159.00, runs on Linux, and is said to be without moving parts.

I found this brief description on a website:

The RM Asus miniBook is smaller than an A5 pad, weighs less than 1kg, has a 7 inch screen and integrated webcam…wait…it’s an eee PC , isn’t it? With another badge and a student focus? Anyhow, it costs a paltry £169.00 for the base 2 GB solid drive model and is available from next month. We’re strangely attracted to its charms (especially with the optional 3G module, although 2.5 hours battery life is pretty poor – and this, apparently, can only be achieved on the 4 GB model at £199.00 with only 2 hours available with the base model!!).

The RM Asus miniBook is the perfect choice for students who want a genuine anywhere anytime access device at a startlingly low price. Smaller than a A5 pad and weighing less than 1kg and coupled with a host of features including solid-state drive and webcam, this device has everything a student requires from mobile computing. With its stylish looks, 7″ screen, integrated card reader and optional 3G module this notebook is ideal for those looking for the latest technology on their device at prices from £169.00!

See RM’s spec sheets and pricing here.

Download an Asus pdf information flyer here.

[audio http://atss.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/eeepc-1.mp3]