Dylan and the DLR

This week, being half term, I was able to spend more time with Dylan. He like his father has some sad obsessions, though sadly not Dr Who, his is trains and in particluar the Docklands Light Railway. Dylan is also autistic and doesn't communicate beyond expressing wants, he can be quite excitable, but his behaviour changes completely on a train journey. He becomes uber-calm and loves to look at therapidly changing detail that passess the windows. The Docklands is a great train in this respect as it is driverless and therefore one can sit in the drivers seat. We had to visit Great Ormond Street together last week and used a bus, a tube and the DLR, all of these short journeys were taken in the rain. For me they were quite automatic and my mind drifted beyond the immediate surroundings. However I began to notice how Dylan's eyes darted from building to building, and I realised afresh that to a child the view from a window can be exciting, despite the drab and drizzle of wet sunday in East London.

So why is all this important to a primary ICT blog then?

Following the trip I thought I could try to recreate it for Dylan In some way on the computer. So,of course I googled pictures of the train, but my biggest find came when I turned to Youtube, as there I found drivers eye view videos. (see embedded below)

I used Keepvid to download these, remembering to save them with the .flv extension. Usually though, I would play these back in SMART notebook, but I could not do this on my home PC as I haven't got SMART notebook intsalled there. So, instead I downlaoded an flv player, this must be the soloution for people who don't have SMART boards. This meant I had two videos in samll flv format, downloaded and ready for use. I was not reliant on my erratic wireless connection to stream the videos nor was I hindred by the hassle of having to search through Youtube.

In thinking about the DLR, I also came across an excellent video from Teachers TV, this showed a nearby Primary working with an artist to create print and images of East London with all it's contrasts. Very interesting.

Youtube CLIPS:

Blogger new features

Blogger has such easy to use drag and drop features and they have just added a new tool for video and I thought I`d give it a go. I have discovered TED Talks on You Tube recently and am beginning to become a bit hooked on searching for watchable and thought provoking educational content such as these and other videos. Though, as many of you have heard me say before it is hard to find such nuggets in amongst all the teenagers reenacting rap videos and people experimenting with coke and mintoes cocktails.

The new Video-Bar Feature

I have added a video bar to the side-bar and chosen ICT,Ted Talks and Robolab as my search items- the bar will use search and RSS functionality to display clips for clicking,without my public having to navigate away to You-tube.

Scroll down on the right hand bar to view the feature- also click on the TED TALK clip below to hear Ted Robinson talk on how education kills creativity- a controversial but entertaining talk

A must-see for every parent and teacher. Education guru Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining (and profoundly moving) case for creating an education system that nurtures creativity, rather than undermining it. Sir Ken Robinson is author of "Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative," and a leading expert on innovation in education and business