Northern Grid for Learning - School Broadband, eSafety, Learning Resources and More
TeachersNorthern Grid - Broadband Update #211 May 2012
Northern Grid Awards 2012 Shortlist Announced25 April 2012
After several weeks of reviewing the award entries the judging is complete and the shortlisted schools have been invited to the awards ceremony on June 21st. Before the ceremony the schools will take part in an exhibition to showcase their entries. Book your free place now to attend the event; find out more about what these innovative teachers and creative students have been doing, celebrate their success and learn how you can do similar things in your school. This is Northern Grid's favourite day of the year, we always leave impressed by the confident and articluate pupils. It is an outstanding opportunity to be inspired and enthused about how technology can enhance teaching and learning. The event is open to staff and governors from all schools and local authorities. Visit the We look forward to working with BT to maintain and further develop our broadband and services. For more detailed information download the Press Release, get in contact with the office or fill out an Expression of Interest form For winning one of our Teacher Awards last year, Stephen Ainsley from Harton Technology College in South Shields asked for us to develop a mobile app (specifically an iOS app originally) for the school. Stephen wanted an app version of their school planner – in other words, a digital version of a homework tracker, timetable viewer and school information database. This article is intended to briefly cover the route we took when developing our first mobile application. Northern Grid has been working with schools to provide broadband connections since 1999. Many people don't realise that when it started there was no technical infrastructure in place and our priority wasn't to provide the regional network but to work with teachers and local authority advisors to look at how the technology could be used to support teaching and learning and make a difference in the classroom. This clearly demonstrates that Northern Grid's two priorities were improving teaching and... Cloud based storage and online synchronisation offers individuals many benefits, one of which is removing the need to carry flash pens and portable disks around. The question that needs to be asked is what issues are raised by this increasingly popular and free service. Google Apps and Live@Edu have storage space available as part of their email offering. An increasingly popular trend is synchronising online storage. Dropbox and SugarSync are currently two of the more popular. The services mentioned are all available at no charge but with limits be it limited storage, non-existent Service level agreements or limited control over the functionality or how it changes. The main concern with Dropbox is the significant risk of breaching the Data Protection Act. Staff wishing to store personal information should not use a service that does not comply with the EU Safe Harbor agreement.... On Friday 21 October 2011 at 15.45 I Skyped with TeachMeet Kentucky at the National Corvette Museum where around 300 delegates had assembled to share and learn from each other. Although my Friday was drawing to a close, simultaneously in Kentucky teachers were settling down at 9.45am to hear me speak about the challenges of communication technologies for adults who works with young people. The feedback from the session was positive and I enjoyed the experience although presenting via Skype is more challenging than... TED is owned by The Sapling Foundation, a private nonprofit foundation devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader and there are thousands of videos to inspire, motivate and engage. Some of the talks may act as springboards for teachers to develop and further their own ideas while others will engage and stimulate many of our learners in our schools. Young people, parents and teachers can now get information about Northumbria Police at the touch of a button after the launch of a new youth website. Called ebeat, it's been designed with help from school pupils and teachers and features... Yesterday I delivered an after school esafety session for the staff at Southridge First School in North Tyneside. Their thoughtful and perceptive contributions showed that they understand the importance of this area of safeguarding and are ready to work together to develop policies to support all elements of teaching and learning in a safe and supportive environment. Much of what I talk about during these sessions centres on how sharing of personal information and opinions is ‘normal’, and we shouldn’t be surprised if our learners and colleagues, on occasions, behave in ways that we would consider inappropriate. I have long maintained that the only way we will see a decline in inappropriate and bullying behaviour in the (social) media is by modelling positive behaviour for our very young children to learn and... A superb eSafety video from Northern Grids' ‘Protecting Adults Who Work With Children’ event. TED is owned by The Sapling Foundation, a private nonprofit foundation devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader and there are thousands of videos to inspire, motivate and engage. Some of the talks may act as springboards for teachers to develop and further their own ideas while others will engage and stimulate many of our learners in our schools. Subscribers to our newsletter were told about all of the benefits you can get from Northern Grid and the exciting upcoming opportunities throughout the region and beyond. |
Teaching & Learning |
Northern Grid has signed a 5 year contract with BT and will be providing new, fast, affordable and robust broadband connections to schools across the North East of England. The update reports are intended to keep you informed about what to expect during the installation process and the services that will be included.
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Northern Grid signed a contract yesterday (14th February 2012) with BT to provide broadband to Northern Grid schools for the next five years.
On November 29th schools from across the Northern Grid region came together at the launch event of the Northern Grid Leading Schools Network. Only 14 schools had been invited to participate in this network to work with schools which, like them, were doing exciting and innovative things with educational technology.
More about ebeat
3 October 2011
