New Tech Tuesday

It’s half term and I’ve got a new toy. I wasn’t intending to go into work, but towards the end of a 5 mile walk with the dog I got a phone call from our friendly technician. He explained that a screen bought for the head’s office was now going to be going into my room, and I should perhaps come in because due to its weight it can’t go on the wall that was previously occupied by my SMART board.

So, it’s a 70-odd inch ProWise screen. 

It connects to my laptop via hdmi and USB (for the interactive features). Image is HD quality and sound level is easily comparable to the speakers I had for my smartboard.

The ProWise software seems to be a far more modern and beefier version of smart notebook. All the usual tools are there, including a handwriting to type feature, protractor, ruler and various backgrounds including isometric dots, grids of various sizes etc.  I love the fountain pen writing. 

As a left hander, I often struggle to write on smart boards, but honestly on this my handwriting was beautiful. 

An additional feature is the ability to search YouTube and watch videos from within the software and minus those pesky adverts.

The software also enable devices to “join” to play games and work collaboratively.

This is off a very quick “play” with the board and the software. I’ll be able to write in more detail after using it with my class. Plus, I had 2 hours after the technicians finished to sort out my classroom so that was the priority.

I’m really excited to explore this bit of technology further.

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Safer Internet Day

So, this Tuesday is Safer Internet Day. My school, like many others will be undertaking tasks to mark this (as well as children’s mental health week, which takes place this week also).

E safety runs as a thread through our computing curriculum and classes learn about e safety all year round.

This year I’m also delivering parent workshops about e safety, working alongside our school counselling service to support parents with their concerns regarding the internet.

I wanted to write about those pictures that have cropped up across my social media this weekend, asking people to share them so children can see how far a picture can travel.  This pictures are misguided, in my opinion. 10 years ago, it might have shocked children, but most children nowadays are digital natives, they’ve grown up in an increasingly connected world. They are used to seeing YouTube videos with multi-million views and comments in the hundreds of thousands from all over the world. They are far more savvy about the viral nature of the internet than I think most teachers are.

Where I think the teaching comes is with the idea that children don’t see the risks around content they upload; they don’t see that a photo of them uploaded along with their name can provide a window into their online lives, and with geo-tagging, a location as well.

its such a loaded topic, so complex, that it takes more than a day or week annually to go into.