Welcome to Innovicity Innovicity aims to help you to make the best use of digital technology within your learning environment, in schools, on-line or in the work-place. We have extensive experience of projects in a wide range of learning environments and we work with many different institutions including; telecoms companies, small businesses, corporate clients, primary schools, secondary schools, LEAs, school districts and government organisations. Projects that we have supported include small software deployments to enterprise-wide community learning systems. Many of our projects have a practical focus whilst offering the opportunity for rich, research evidence. Please feel free to discuss your project, in the strictest confidence, with one of our team by going to the Contact section of the web-site. Latest Innovicity developing innovative links with China.
Innovicity is developing an innovative programme of educational and cultural links with China. We are developing activities for both British and Chinese students to be able to interact and learn from each other through both physical and virtual meetings. See the International Section for further information. Innovicity assisting new BSF LEP Innovicity is helping form and develop the new Local Educational Partnership in Lewisham. Working with VT Group and Costain Group Innovicity have been helping with the development of ICT documentation, planning and professional development strategy.
New Stoke-on-Trent BSF schools opening and on-track
The first BSF school in Stoke-on-Trent has opened on time this term. Birches Head is a refurbished school with some new building work and an excellent ICT infrastructure that supports the innovative work that the school is carrying out.
Meanwhile, work on the first complete new build school, Sandon High School, is carrying on at pace and the school is likely to open later this term or early in the new year. Blue Amber - Heads up for schools of the future I attended and spoke at this event on Monday 26th June. The venue, The Brewery, was superb but the best bits of the day were the presentations from students - why don't we listen to them more? Anyway, as I was facilitating a discussion group in the afternoon I spent the morning jotting down thoughts based on my previous work and the issues that came up in the morning. he result was a rather rambling powerpoint presentation that we only managed to scratch during the session. You can download it by clicking HERE. Two into one does go – Apple on Intel – Identity crisis? What crisis? So earlier on I highlighted the move by Apple onto an Intel platform and suggested that it may lead to Microsoft WindowsXP appearing on Apple hardware. Well, it’s here, quicker than I had predicted, and I am writing this using Word2003 on an Apple MacBookPro. Does it work? Well yes it does. There are niggles, and I’ll be writing about them over time, but the Intel CoreDuo platform makes for blindingly fast performance and being able to switch between MacOS and Windows for different tasks has been so useful that I’ve dumped my trusty old Windows only laptop for the Apple MacBookPro. Look out for my notes about using the dual platform machine over the next weeks and months. Teachers 'risk failing computer-literate children' Schools are becoming "technically irrelevant" because pupils know more about computers than their teachers, a senior professor of education will argue today. Read more in the Online Guardian article and then discuss it in the News section of this site. The Open University builds student online environment with Moodle and more The OU’s expertise in supported distance learning has always meant it being a leader in developing the best technology to support its students. Now, The Open University’s Learning and Teaching Office has started a new programme worth nearly £5 million to build a comprehensive online student learning environment for the 21st century. Read more here.... Classroom Instruction: Whiteboard 'shootout' helps Forsyth County corral the right system for its needs Forsyth County School District, just outside of Atlanta, serves more than 24,500 students and employs 3,100 full-time employees in 24 schools. This fall, we completed the initial implementation phase of our 21st Century Classroom Initiative, through which we have installed interactive whiteboards in 1,500 classrooms district-wide. More..... Mobiles ‘essential’ in school
Portable devices like iPods and mobile phones will become essential pieces of equipment that every student at school, TAFE or university will need to own, rather than disruptive devices that should be banned from educational settings, according to a report prepared for the ACT Department of Education and Training. Homing in on ICT in schools
Pupils and teachers in Scotland are increasingly using information and communications technology (ICT) in knowledgeable and creative ways, but practice varies across the schools sampled. This is result of a final report from Scottish Executive Education Department (SEED), which provides further indications of progress, indicating that ICT is making an impact on practice, although some of the same problems that beset schools in previous studies remain. Building for the future
Extra government money gives schools a fresh opportunity to rebuild the UK's education system, says Andy MacLeod
7,000 Oregon Students Use Palm Handhelds in Classrooms
More than 7,000 students in eight Oregon school districts are using Palm(R) handheld computers this school year, thanks to a creative mentoring program developed by three recipients of a federal technology grant, Palm, Inc. You can read more here.....
Initially I was a little sceptical about this one but as you read more it becomes clear that they have identified some real learning gains.. "One area where improvement is already evident is in writing. "They are writing more than ever before. With Palm handhelds and keyboards, they do everything from brainstorming, outlining and developing paragraphs to editing and revising. One of our rural schools has a blended classroom of sixth, seventh and eighth grades. They do almost all their writing and editing on the Palm handheld. They upload the documents to a desktop computer and publish them in magazine format."
Eifel - e-Portfolio Conference
The conference allowed a distinguished and varied audience from across Europe and beyond to explore the use, design and reasons for e-Portfolios. I presented a paper on SPAN (an e-Portfolio / assessment for learning activity developed within Stoke-on-Trent LEA). You can see some reflections and download the presentation by clicking here..... Having attended the XChange2005 conference I have set myself some challenges. You can see the challenges and hopefully offer help here....
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