Call for schools to register for aggregated tablet procurement by 6th May

The Department for Education is facilitating a procurement of tablet devices through the Crown Commercial Services (CCS) Aggregation team. The pilot procurement made a saving of 12% for participating schools.

The procurement will offer 4 tablet options: Apple iPads, Microsoft Surface Pro, LearnPads and a generic tablet, along with associated items eg. covers, security marking, charging trolleys.

Indicative timescales are April/May: gather school’s commitment and volumes, with delivery targeted in July/August.

For further information on this opportunity use the link below:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/register-to-buy-tablet-devices-for-your-school

It is not clear if this will include licences for management packages eg Airwatch MDM.

iPad Apps – Epic Citadel

epic-citadel1Many of you may already be aware of Tim Rylands, “an extremely gifted and inspirational teacher, with a love of the creative potential of technology and an excellent rapport with his pupils”. Tim really inspires pupils to be creative through the use of technology and you can see an example of one of his presentations on his website.

Tim is a great fan of using virtual worlds to inspire creative story telling and one of these worlds is Epic Citadel. This is available free on the iPad and you can see Tim’s use of it about 5 minutes into the Learning Without Frontiers presentation. The tools that the children used to make their presentations are also relatively cheap and really inspire children to learn.

If you are interested in using this sort of technology in the classroom but you are not quite sure where to start then why not contact me?

iPad Apps: Class Dojo

Actually, this is far more than an iPad app. Class Dojo is a website based classroom tool that helps teachers improve the behaviour in their classrooms. Many teachers use a reward points system, Class Dojo is one of those systems with bells on.

Once you have registered you can set up your class or classes. Each child gets an avatar (a character icon) to represent them. You can also set up behaviours, both positive and negative. At the beginning of the lesson you can go to the website, register the children as present or absent, and then as your lesson progresses you can add behaviour points to the children accompanied by a sound. If you have an iPad, iPhone or one of many other smartphone / tablet devices, then you can download an app so that you can add behaviour points whilst you are on the move. During the lesson you are able to let the children know what you are awarding them and show them a running total of their points. At the end of the lesson or day you can close the session and produce reports.

Another great feature is that both pupils and parents can have logins to see relevant reports and reports can be automatically emailed to parents.

There are a number of other features, and there are some ones that I would like to see. The people who have produced Class Dojo are working on adding new features all the time and you can make a request for ones you would like to see.

Perhaps the best thing about this tool is that it does work and it’s free!

Here are some comments I have received about Class Dojo:

“Perhaps it’s the note or the tone, but the moment that they hear the ‘ding’ of a Dojo point the children are suddenly the best behaved class in school.”

“It’s so good pupilx went home and set Class Dojo up for his teddies!”

Early Years – Profiling

2Simple have done it again! They have produced an early years record keeping app that will run on iPhones, iPads and Android devices. It is called 2Build a Profile and is described as:

“A simple and fun way to log children’s achievements against the EYFS profile. Every child has an individual portfolio of achievements. Take photos for evidence, then tag them with children’s names and Foundation Stage targets.”

The app is very simple to use, saves time and reduces paperwork. It is a finalist in the 2013 Bett Awards and like all 2Simple software it is “simply the best”!

More details about the app can be found on their website and you can try it free for 30 days.