The 2014 BETT Awards winners will be announced next month so we thought it would be a good time to take a look at the free teaching resources, tools and apps that have been nominated in the Free Digital Content / Open Education Resources category.
Cambridge University Press, OCR and Raspberry Pi – Cambridge GCSE Computing
This is a massive open online course (MOOC) created by the Cambridge-based partnership of exam board OCR, Cambridge University Press (CUP) and the Raspberry Pi Foundation.
The course is based on OCR’s GCSE Computing curriculum and teaches students to understand how computers work, how they are used, and to develop computer programming and problem-solving skills. The course is open to everyone without any start or finish date and can be used as a computer science teaching resource.
If you haven’t heard of Raspberry Pi before then take a look at their site. Raspberry Pi is an affordable, credit-card-sized computer developed to teach and promote computer science in schools. It can be plugged into a TV and keyboard and it’s aim it to make computer programming accessible to children.
It’s really worth checking out if you have children interested in programming. www.raspberrypi.org
Edmodo, Inc
Edmodo is a social learning platform for teachers, students, and parents. Teachers and students can assign and submit coursework, discuss class assignments, collaborate in groups, talk to teachers and share ideas and resources. It’s basically a Facebook for schools and would almost certainly make communicating with students (and teachers) easier and more efficient.
www.edmodo.com
Microsoft – Kodu
This free tool is for designing and creating online games. It enables students to make computer games using visual programming tools, without needing to understand code. Students can create different worlds and characters and learn about narrative, story-telling, problem solving. It can be used on a PC and Xbox.
Royal Society of Chemistry – Learn Chemistry
Learn Chemistry is a rich online resource for teachers and students of chemistry. It’s a valuable free resource for all ages – from Primary to HE. It includes a searchable database of worksheets, handouts, chemistry demonstrations and interactive assessments. It has a collaborative Wiki page, forum and CPD pages to help connect, share and expand your chemistry knowledge. This is THE place to go for anyone learning or teaching chemistry. Inspiring stuff!
www.rsc.org/learn-chemistry
Makewaves – Makewaves App
Makewaves is the social learning environment that provides social media for education. It enables schools to create and safely share videos, podcasts and blogs.
The Makewaves app launched last year and it provides a way for students to create stories, videos and blog posts on the go within the safe and accessible Makewaves environment. Teacher’s can also add additional tools to the app so they can approve work and mark students while outside the classroom.
True Tube is an invaluable free resource for RE, PSHE and Citizenship at Key Stages 3 and 4. It offers access to videos, assembly scripts and lesson plans for these subjects.
As one teacher has said “TrueTube… presents a reliable replacement for some resources that paint an out of date picture of society today.” Andrea Keightley
It’s a well designed website with access to the key topics and themes within this subject area. TrueTube was the well deserved winner of the 2013 BETT Award.
www.truetube.co.uk
It’s going to be a tough call for the judges this year as there’s a number of excellent free tools out there! My bets are on Cambridge University Press, OCR and Raspberry Pi for Cambridge GCSE Computing but lets see for ourselves in January!
Last week Usborne Publishing published a blog post about my role at Teach Your Monster to Read. I thought i’d share the post with our fans too.
Teach Your Monster to Read has been created by a small, expert and dedicated team. My role within the team is Community Manager.
As Community Manager I talk to the parents and teachers of our young players and keep up to date with our audience. I help them with their queries and feedback and gain insight into how we can improve the game and the user experience for everyone.
Above: Me at my desk!
I run fun competitions, such as the latest ‘Dress Your Teacher or Parent as a Monster’ – where we’ve had some fantastic (but scary) entries sent in.
Above: Crawfordsburn Primary School dress up their teachers for Halloween.
I search, read and share relevant articles and news stories that our audience may find interesting. These articles could be about teaching, education, parenting, gaming or even just some monster facts (we love monsters at Teach Your Monster to Read)!
I also curate our Monster Pinterest page which features many monster related games and activities for children.
As Teach Your Monster to Read is a web based game, a lot of my work is done online, through blog posts, Facebook, Twitter, online forums, email and the Teach Your Monster to Read website. However, I also go out and about to educational conferences and Teachmeets throughout the year.
When the games go out to schools for testing, I also get meet our young players in person and hear their thoughts about the game, I even get to see some of their monster impressions!
Above: Our players and their monsters at Royden Primary School.
Above: Binyaameen at Snowsfields Primary School, testing the game.
The audience for the game is truly international – we have players in countries such as Spain, Hawaii, New Zealand and China. We learn a lot about the game from our players and I’m proud to say that the feedback we receive is very positive.
Our players LOVE the game!
Above: Arabella and Naeem enjoying Teach Your Monster to Read.
Above: Two of our US fans designing their monsters.
On a last note, I’m delighted to say that Teach Your Monster to Read has been nominated for a Children’s BAFTA. Fingers crossed for the announcement on 24th November. What a great honour for the team!’
For more information about Teach Your Monster to Read, you can contact me here [email protected] or find us online.
We had some fantastic entries to our Dress Your Teacher or Parent as a Monster competition last month – including headless heads, creepy zombies, monster mummies and devillish dads!
Thank you all for entering the competition.
Our judges, Ceri Williams and his student, Jack came to a nail-biting decision last week.
They decided to award the winning prize to Bryan Clark and his 3 sons for their amazing recreation of H.P Lovecraft’s monster Cthulhu.
Congratulations Bryan and the boys! You will receive £150 worth of Usborne books of your choice.
Here’s what Ceri said about the competition:
“We thought all the entries were absolutely fantastic and lots of hard work went into the costumes but in a photo-finish, Jack thought the fabulous Alien just about edged it.”
Runners-Up
Our runners-up have been decided too and £75 worth of Usborne books will each go to Lisa Waugh for her terrifying Zombie and to ‘monster mummy” Emily Morris.
Congratulations Lisa and Emily!
Thanks to everybody who entered the competition. We had a brilliant time looking at all the marvellous costumes. To look at all of the monster entries, go to our Facebook gallery.
They’ll be another competition early next year so watch this space!
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) announced the nominations for the 2013 British Academy Children’s Awards last month and we’re delighted to say that Teach Your Monster to Read: First Steps has been nominated in the Children’s Interactive category. What a great honour and reward for the game!
Teach Your Monster to Read was launched by the Usborne Foundation, a charitable fund set up by Peter Usborne and his children, Nicola and Martin, to support initiatives to develop early literacy.
The Children’s BAFTA ceremony will be held on Sunday 24 November 2013 at the London Hilton in Park Lane. The ceremony will be presented by Jake Humphrey.
Teach Your Monster to Read may win the BAFTA (that would be a lovely bonus!) but at the end of the day the team is really proud that Teach Your Monster to Read has proved successful, is really helping children learn to read and that they LOVE playing it.
We’re launching an exciting new competition for the best, most monstrous costumes – just in time for Halloween!
We would love to see some terrible teachers, repulsive parents, terrifying TAs and horrible Headteachers dressed up in all manner of scales, teeth, warts and claws!
We’re obviously hoping that our wonderful teachers and parent fans will involve the children in the design of their monster costume too (eek – this sounds scary!).
Long before the summer days kicked in (the best summer the UK has had in years it must be said!), we ran a competition to design a monster for the new game ‘Fun With Words’.
We received a whopping 500 monster entries to the competition, and after some hard deliberation by our judges, it was decided that the monster ‘Garbage’ drawn by Tanzina (age 10) would be featured in the new game.
Here’s Tanzina’s drawing next to the finished ‘Garbage’, illustrated by the fantastic Rich Wake. Wow! This monster can now be made by adding all these various body parts together at the beginning of the game.
Here’s a short time-lapse video of Rich bringing the monster to life. It’s fun to see the monster take shape!
Runner-up news!
Our competition runner-up Devlon has also been busy. Devlon created the brilliant monster Ogo (one of my personal favourites).
Here’s what Devlon said about the competition:
“I am really proud to be a runner up. My friend helped me to choose the books and Mrs Stephens (The Head Teacher) was really pleased as we need books for our new library. I can’t wait to play the new game!”
Here’s Devlon with Ogo and with his friend Angus – reading their winning books! Hooray!
To view all our amazing competition monsters then take a look at ‘The Monster Gallery” on Flickr.
We’ll be launching a new competition next week – just in time for Halloween. Watch this space!
The monsters have an exciting opportunity to announce!
We’re looking for teachers who can give up an hour of their time to talk about the game. We’d like to ask you what you like, what you don’t like and to show you a few new ideas for features.
We’re looking for some participants who can come to visit us (at the famous Usborne Publishing offices in London) and some from elsewhere in the world that can talk to us via Skype.
In return we can offer £150 of free Usborne books, a credit on the website, and we’ll cover your expenses if you’re travelling in to meet us in person.
So, if you’ve used the game, know it relatively well and would be interested in helping out, please get in touch with us at [email protected] and we’ll let you know more.
The monsters are really looking forward to meeting you!
Teach Your Monster to Read 2: Fun With Words has now launched. Hooray!
This game is designed for children who have mastered our first game: Teach Your Monster to Read: First Steps and takes your monster on a brand new journey through a spectacular kingdom of hidden treasure, balloon flights and spaceship rides.
Meeting new characters along the way, such as the Hungry Word Beast, the Space Pirates and the mischievous “Trickies”, the monster is on a quest to find his lost spaceship. Throughout his adventure, the monster will collect gold stars which can be exchanged for fantastic prizes.
And just like “First Steps”, the new game is completely free!
The game features the voices of Simon Farnaby from BBC’s Horrible Histories, and for the first time, Mr Thorne from ‘Mr Thorne Does Phonics’. Exciting!
Find out more
Compare the educational content of the “Fun With Words” with “Teach Your Monster to Read: First Steps Find out what the game covers in the full Game Overview (PDF) Play the demo How to play You can access the game through your usual Teach Your Monster to Read account – just sign in and follow the instructions.
Get in touch and let us know what you think of the new game, we’d love to hear your thoughts!
We’re thrilled to announce that our new game, Teach Your Monster to Read 2: Fun With Words will feature the wonderful Mr Thorne from Mr Thorne does Phonics!
Mr Thorne will be voicing the letter sounds and words in the new game, bringing his original, clear and engaging voice (and of course his enthusiasm) to Teach Your Monster to Read. It’s going to be an unstoppable partnership!
Mr Thorne is a UK-based teacher whose highly-respected YouTube site Mr Thorne Does Phonics contains over 500 literacy videos and has fast become an internet sensation.
His materials have been viewed in schools around the world, and his reading and spelling apps have been in the top 30 educational apps in over 50 countries worldwide. We’re very lucky to have him on the team!
The Parachute Game is an exciting new mini-game in Teach Your Monster to Read 2: Fun With Words.
Your monster holds tight to a parachute as he floats down through the clouds. While floating down, he has to collect the right letters and sounds to make up the word before he reaches the ground safely.
The monster is rewarded with stars which can be exchanged for clothing, equipment and food in the shop.
This game helps the player practise blending and segmenting of individual words.
Click on this link for more information about Teach Your Monster to Read 2: Fun with Words.
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