GENERAL

Welcome back after what has hopefully been a relaxing and restful break and a relatively straight-forward first couple of days.

Access to OCN E-mail and Conferences

As you welcome new colleagues to your school this term, please ensure that they are made aware of the OCN, the ICT Newsletter and the various curriculum conferences which exist. Increasingly, this is the way in which information is passed to schools.

Every member of staff should be provided with an OCN username and password with which they can access their OCN e-mail account, the conferences and the Learning Platform, Digitalbrain. Colleagues from other Oxfordshire schools can be transferred to your school; colleagues new to Oxfordshire should have new accounts created for them by the school's OCN Administrator.

When creating new OCN user accounts please ensure that the Employee/Payroll number for staff and the Unique Pupil Number for pupils is entered accurately. This is crucial if schools wish to use the Course Builder functionality of Digitalbrain to generate virtual courses.

Attached to this newsletter is a leaflet we have prepared providing a brief description of the e-Communication tools available to all Oxfordshire teachers. Circulate it to ensure that all members of staff are aware of the range of facilities available to them.

Free OCN Admin Training

We shall be running some free OCN Administrator training at various locations throughout the county during term one. Sessions will be held as follows:

Wednesday 20 September Cricket Road Centre (9.30 - 12.00)

Monday 2 October Hanwell Fields Primary School, Banbury

Monday 9 October Wantage Primary School

Wednesday 11 October King's Meadow Primary School, Bicester

Wednesday 18 October The Blake Primary School, Witney

Thursday 19 October Barley Hill Primary School, Thame

All the sessions will be held from 1.30 to 3.30 apart from the session at Cricket Road which will run from 9.30 - 12.00.

Courses

The following courses are being held relatively early in the term and still have places available.

Delivering OCR Syllabus A - Tuesday 19 September, 9.30 - 12.00 (21/696)

Delivering OCR Syllabus B - Tuesday 19 September, 1.30 - 4.00 (21/697)

Using Digital Blue Creators for Stop Animation - Friday 29 September, 9.30 - 3.30 (21/698)

Getting Started with Digitalbrain Courses - Thursday 5 October, 9.30 - 3.30 (21/701)

Interested colleagues should apply to the Inset section at Cricket Road or use the on-line booking form.

Teachers' TV

The Teachers' TV schedule is changing:

· Monday to Thursday it will be showing CPD-related programmes from 1-7pm.
· Each weekday at 7pm Teachers' TV will dedicate one hour to a specialist area in education.
· Cutting-edge documentaries and popular series like Teaching with Bayley and Inspirations will be broadcast from 8pm to 1am on weekdays.
· Mondays and Wednesdays are now secondary days between noon and 7pm.
· Tuesdays and Thursdays are now primary days between noon and 7pm.

To see what's on, go to http://www.teachers.tv/programmeguide.

PRIMARY

Jakers

This website has information about story telling and provides an opportunity for teachers/parents to receive a free story telling pack which contains a free interactive DVD, teachers notes and planning information. It links with Literacy/Speaking and Listening/Drama activities. The website also has additional games areas for children, is child friendly and easy to navigate. There is also storytelling challenge with the opportunity to have BEN HAGGARTY, the acclaimed professional storyteller and a powerful advocate of oral storytelling, in your school for a day's workshop for you and your pupils!

http://www.jakers.co.uk/storytelling/

SECONDARY

2007 SPBs

Information on the 2007 SPBs will be on the DiDA microsite from mid-September. Follow the link for more details:

http://dida.edexcel.org.uk/home/news/2007-spbs.htm

Don't forget to check the DiDA Community calendar on Digitalbrain for details of forthcoming courses for all units and links to further information regarding the courses.

Forthcoming Edexcel courses for teachers delivering DiDA

Teachers new to DiDA or those preparing to deliver a new unit may be interested to know of the forthcoming courses in London, Birmingham and Bristol which are now posted on the Edexcel DiDA website:

Delivering Unit 1 - London - 3 October 2006

http://dida.edexcel.org.uk/home/events/6nna01_01.htm

Delivering Unit 2 - London - 18 October 2006

http://dida.edexcel.org.uk/home/events/unit2-1.htm

Delivering Unit 1 - Birmingham - 11 October 2006

http://dida.edexcel.org.uk/home/events/unit1-3.htm

Delivering Unit 1 - London - 8 November 2006

http://dida.edexcel.org.uk/home/events/unit1-6.htm

Delivering Unit 1 - Bristol - 13 November 2006

http://dida.edexcel.org.uk/home/events/unit1-7.htm

Delivering Unit 1 - London - 8 February 2007

http://dida.edexcel.org.uk/home/events/unit1-9.htm

Delivering Unit 1 - Birmingham - 7 March 2007

http://dida.edexcel.org.uk/home/events/unit1-11.htm

There is also a scheme of learning for the Multimedia unit to be found on

http://dida.edexcel.org.uk/home/learning-resources/edexcel/free-materials/unit2-sol.pdf

and finally….

Colleagues may have seen the following news item over the summer holidays.

12 August 1981

'IBM Corporation today announced its smallest, lowest-priced computer system - the IBM Personal Computer,' ran the press release 25 years ago this week.

'Designed for business, school and home, the easy-to-use system sells for as little as $1,565. It offers many advanced features and, with optional software, may use hundreds of popular application programs.'

The IBM PC 5150, weighed 25lbs, stood just under six inches high and had 64 kilobytes of memory and a five-and-a-quarter inch floppy disk drive. Initial sales forecasts expected 242,000 to be sold over five years, but the figure was exceeded in single month.

Best wishes,

The ICT Advisory Team

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