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| ICT Newsletter #283 |
19th March 2007 |
GENERAL
Courses
The following courses still have places available on them:
(Day 2 Thu 7 June Full Day)
Apply to the Inset section at Cricket Road or online at http://intranet.oxfordshire.gov.uk/links/intranet/oqsaapply
ICT Lego Challenge
On Monday 12 March pupils from eleven Oxfordshire primary schools gathered at the Cricket Road Centre to participate in the first annual Oxfordshire ICT Lego Challenge organised by the ICT Advisory Team. Using the LEGO® MINDSTORMS™ Technology, LEGO bricks and other elements such as sensors, motors and gears, pupils from participating schools had to conduct scientific research, and design, build and test a fully autonomous robot. The robot was programmed by the pupils to carry out up to nine different tasks in two and a half minutes and, on the day, pupils had to pit their robot against others in a friendly robotics challenge leading to a knock-out competition.
The theme of this year's Lego challenge was "Ocean Odyssey" and the tasks and other activities pupils had to complete were all related to this theme. Pupils had to program their buggy to deploy a submarine, conduct a transect mapping exercise and raise a number of flags, protect a pumping station by moving a protective structure to straddle the pump station and repair and service a pipeline. Pupils also had to program their robot to tag one species of fish from amongst a number of others, release a dolphin from a cage, recover an artificial reef and clean up a cargo shipping accident by recovering a shipping container and its spilled crates. Finally, the robot had to recover some artefacts from an ancient shipwreck.
As well as programming the robot to carry out the tasks on an eight by four foot table, pupils also had to give a presentation to a panel of judges on an issue related to the theme of aquatic ecology and they were also judged on the technical design and efficiency of their programs. Teams were also judged on the effectiveness of their interaction as a team.
The event was a huge success to judge by the pupils' enthusiasm and excitement.
The Batt Primary School with their team "LEGO - You're Hurting My Hand" won the robot challenge, the Presentation aspect of the competition was won by "The Water Warriors" from Whitchurch Primary School, the Technical Award was won by "The Sharks" from The Gateway Primary School and the Teamwork Award was won by "The Lego Legends" from West Oxford Primary School. The overall winner with consistently high marks in all four aspects of the competition was "The Ocean Busters" from Chadlington Primary School and the Judges' Special Award for the team which overcame considerable obstacles was presented to "The Valley Road Turtles" from Valley Road Primary School.
Watch out for the announcement of next year's competition.
World Book Day Design a Cover Competition
Just a reminder to schools that the closing date for entries is at the end of this week, Friday 23rd March 2007. This competition is only for Oxfordshire schools who are members of OQSA. Entries should be emailed to competitions@sds.theocn.net. Please ensure that the pupil's name, key stage and school is clearly stated on the email. Further details of this can be found at http://www.ict.oxon-lea.gov.uk/wbday.html
News from Naace: Funding Advice from Becta
In last week's newsletter Naace included an item relating to the publication of funding advice from Becta: Learning, teaching and managing with ICT: Funding guidance for schools and local authorities 2007-08. Becta's newly published guidance aims to help schools consider the ICT grants available and decide how they can be used strategically to achieve individual aims and to meet the Government's priorities for education.
You can download the PDF version from:
http://publications.becta.org.uk/display.cfm?resID=30274
There are, however, a couple of amendments that you need to be aware of:
Page 17
* Section 6.4ii - the figure of £6.58* should be £3.42
* Section 6.5 - the figure of £6.58* should be £3.42
* This was the figure for 2006/07 and not 2007/08
Page 27
* URL following the last FAQ in the Maintained schools section should be:
http://www.teachernet.gov/docbank/index/index.cfm?id=7862
PRIMARY
Global Gateway Project
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, which marked the foundation of the EU, a year-long project, Learning Together, aims to increase partnerships between the UK and other European schools, through programmes such as Comenius and eTwinning. Every school in the UK should have received a special free booklet entitled Learning Together with details and case studies about the programmes that can support EU based partnerships, which you can download from http://www.globalgateway.org.uk/pdf/LearningTogether.pdf
For more on the project, see: http://www.globalgateway.org.uk/Default.aspx?page=2478
SECONDARY
DiDA
The items below have been added or updated within the last seven days in the following area of the Edexcel website:
- D104 SPB0906 walk-through form
http://alerts.edexcel.org.uk/go.axd/12465
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- D103 SPB0906 walk-through form - minor amendment to strand (f)
http://alerts.edexcel.org.uk/go.axd/12266
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- D102 SPB0906 walk-through form - minor amendment to strand (f)
http://alerts.edexcel.org.uk/go.axd/12306
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- Truncated grid for Unit 4 - for assessing Level 1 work produced for a
Level 2 SPB
http://alerts.edexcel.org.uk/go.axd/12307
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- Truncated grid for Unit 3 - for assessing Level 1 work produced for a
Level 2 SPB
http://alerts.edexcel.org.uk/go.axd/11073
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- Truncated grid for Unit 2 - for assessing Level 1 work produced for a
Level 2 SPB
http://alerts.edexcel.org.uk/go.axd/12308
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- Truncated grid for Unit 1 - for assessing Level 1 work produced for a
Level 2 SPB
http://alerts.edexcel.org.uk/go.axd/11075
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0701 DiDA Grade Boundaries - 0701 DiDA results are now available to centres.
http://alerts.edexcel.org.uk/go.axd/12296
Best wishes,
The ICT Advisory Team
