Somantics - fascinating Autism research project

08/02/2012

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During my last "job" I had the pleasure of working with a lady called Wendy Keay Bright from the then University Wales Institure in Cardiff which is now called the Cardiff Metrolpitan University.

Wendy has a very cool career path starting off with the SuperTed cartoon series. We worked on taking a research based project to a commercial release that could help the project self fund. ReacTickles uses technology with kids with Autism to help them explore self expression, communication, and motor control amongst other things.

Here's a video I made about ReacTickles back in the day that gives you the general idea...
After a recent Twitter catch up Wendy told me about a new project on the go called Somantics which uses the iPad as the input device. Fascinating stuff and am hoping to attend a development day later on this year to get up to speed.

If you are interested in the use of educational technology you should definately take a look at the following links....

You can read more about ReacTickles here...
You can read more about Somantics here...
You can read more about Wendy here...
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I'm a bad man

08/02/2012

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Well it's been far too long!  Way too long - very poor blog keeping - a mortal sin in the world of geeky bloggy things. Sorry!

There I was tootling along with Made Me Look when the kind people from www.educationcity.com came along and offered me a nice contract which I am currently in the middle of. It's been a busy 4 or 5 months and we have gradually been getting some great work done including winning a prestigious BETT award and today we found out we are shortlisted for 2 Education Resources Awards. A very nice crowd of people with customer service at the heart of their company.
Still lots to do but things are going well.

If you dont know EducationCity.com it's a online learning service for Primary aged children which can be accessed at school or at home. With over 15,500 schools subscribing it's proving a huge success right around the world. You can learn more about it here.

Saying all of that I am still available for the shorter term projects and consultative services and have a couple of exciting projects coming up.

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Celebration of film making in schools

19/08/2011

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Here's an article I have recently had published on www.agent4change.net which is run by Merlin John, a journalist specialising in education technology.

It looks at a national school film making awards I have been involved in over the last 3 years that has been chaired by childrens tv personality, liberal democrat peer, and children's campaigner Floella Benjamin.

http://www.agent4change.net/events/awards/1095-storytelling-the-hook-for-schools-amazing-animations.html
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Multiplication methods as demonstrated by the children of Ashfield Park Primary School.

16/06/2011

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Yesterday I spent a day at Ashfield Park Primary School in Ross on Wye working with 4 pupils of different ages. Together we filmed 4 methods of multiplication that are used as a standard across the school. The purpose of the films were to enable parents at home to see directly how their children were taught in school. When it comes to homework time we should aim to achieve the same approach that the children acheive at school. If the feedback of the multiplication project is good we will look to extend to covering division, addition and subtraction and even some literacy topics.

I am delighted the school has embraced technology to improve communication with parents and the wider communty and it certainly seems to be having a good effect.

You can see the results of the work at
http://www.ashfieldpark.org/curriculum-blog.html
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Schools technology training courses now up on site

08/06/2011

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I am currently adding more info onto the site about the kind of stuff I can deliver. With a passion for technology used creatively with kids, I am pleased to have a new training course page up and live at http://www.mademelook.co.uk/training-courses-for-schools.html

All of the tools listed are ones I have worked with over the last 7 years and are engaging, exciting and educational.

I can offer classroom based, INSET, and one to one training, And of course all of this for individuals too who might want to get their creative juices flowing.
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Example of what I can do for school settings

19/04/2011

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Here's a site I created for a local school. The effect of having the blog on the front page has really driven web traffic to the site and communication between school and community has been significantly improved.

www.ashfieldpark.org

Originally the site had a static home page and while the school community showed initial interest as there was nothing obviosuly new to see the people coming back soon dropped off. A quick move of the home page and the school committing to adding news a few times a day and visitors numbers are significantly up with lots of repeat visits.

The next step we are working on is to reduce the amount of printed paper being sent home to parents and utilise the website and email notifications. 
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