by The Editor | Mar 27, 2017 | Coding, Latest News, Programmable Technology
Fourteen teams from Midlothian’s mi:SPACE project came to Newbattle Community High School to participate in Midlothian’s VEX Challenge.
The Midlothian Challenge required teams to control and program robots that they had designed in school to carry out a series of tasks. All of our schools showed fantastic skill and team work when taking part in each challenge. Pupils worked together to problem solve, write computer code and perfect their robot design throughout the event.
Bonnyrigg PS won the programming challenge, Saint Luke’s won the controller challenge and Newtongrange won the design challenge.
The children also enjoyed experimenting with our new 360 degree RICOH THETA camera. The team photos can be viewed below.
Well done to all of those involved!
Stdavidsprimary #theta360 – Spherical Image – RICOH THETA
@neetongrangeps #theta360 – Spherical Image – RICOH THETA
Testing out our new camera at our Midlothian VEX challenge competition day ? #theta360 – Spherical Image – RICOH THETA
@sacredheart_ps #theta360 – Spherical Image – RICOH THETA
@stratheskps #theta360 – Spherical Image – RICOH THETA
@mayfieldps #theta360 – Spherical Image – RICOH THETA
@stmarysrcps #theta360 – Spherical Image – RICOH THETA
@loanheadps #theta360 – Spherical Image – RICOH THETA
@standrewstweets #theta360 – Spherical Image – RICOH THETA
@stobhillps #theta360 – Spherical Image – RICOH THETA
@bonnyriggps #theta360 – Spherical Image – RICOH THETA
by The Editor | Mar 7, 2017 | Coding, Latest News, Programmable Technology, Spheros, Teaching and Learning
Pupils were challenged at Moorfoot PS to create a code using MacroLab app which would show a sphero tracing a pentagon on the ground. For this activity, pupils had to work collaboratively to calculate the angles needed for the code. This is how they got on…
Drawing a pentagon with a sphero from Midlothian LTT on Vimeo.
by The Editor | Mar 3, 2017 | Latest News, O365
If you are a learner or teacher in Scotland, your Glow account details allows you to download Office 365 for free. This gives all Glow users the ability to download the full Office apps to 5 PCS, 5 tablets and 5 phones.
To access your free copies of O365, next to the waffle within your OneDrive, click on Office 365. At the top right hand side of the Office 365 screen, select Install Office 2016. 
by The Editor | Feb 27, 2017 | Glow, Glow Blogs, Latest News
Pupils across Midlothian are talking about blogs, are bloggers and share blogs but what are they talking about? How do they blog? Who can blog?
What is a blog?
The word blog is short for ‘weblog.’ It is a regularly updated website belonging to one person or a group that is written informally and can be shared with the rest of the world. Our LTT site is an edublog and so most posts are informal and follow a conversational style. Each post created is displayed in reverse chronological order so that the most recent entry shows first at the top of the page.
A blogger is someone who writes the content for a blog. In a recent visit to a Midlothian primary school, a child shared her cooking blog with me where she uploads videos, recipes and photographs of things she has cooked. Another child had a personal blog to document her learning about coding.
Anyone can blog
and there a variety of platforms in which this can be done online. Within Glow, there is a Glow Blogs Midlothian tile in which pupils, teachers and groups can create blogs which are safe to use due to Glow safety parameters.
Why should you use blogs in the classroom?
Glow blogs used in the classroom are a great way of pupils coming together and sharing their learning with the outside world as well as using it as an engagement tool in writing. Currently, Hawthornden Primary School use blogs for each class so that they can share their learning. Saint Mary’s PS recently created a blog about their Very Important Bear topic so that pupils could post about their experiences of taking their class bear home. BrainPOP have created a handy video explaining why you should use a school blog which you can watch here.
Who can see it? Is it safe?
If you create a blog using the Glow blogs tile, you can set your security settings. You can either make your blog completely private, accessible to Glow users only or accessible to all. I always tell classes to keep it completely private until we have the content and design up and running. This is also a good way of monitoring what the children are posting and sharing lessons on appropriate and inappropriate content. It should be noted also that teachers can set a class blog to approved posts only meaning only posts approved by the class teacher will show.
Examples of blogs
Hawthornden Primary School (P2)
Hawthornden Primary School (P3/4)
Hawthornden Primary School (P7)
mi:SPACE blog
Design Department @ Saint David’s High School
by The Editor | Feb 27, 2017 | Animation, Film and Photography, Latest News, Loanbank, Teaching and Learning
Primary 5 at Saint Mary’s Primary School have been learning about the V.I.B bear as part of their Interdisciplinary learning. In cooperative learning groups, they created animations using I Can Animate app and tripods. Here are some examples of what can be done using our animation kit from the Loanbank.
Stars of Fame Animation – Saint Mary’s PS from Midlothian LTT on Vimeo.
Pokeminion Animation – Saint Mary’s PS from Midlothian LTT on Vimeo.
FangGang Animation – Saint Mary’s PS from Midlothian LTT on Vimeo.
5 Bears Animation – Saint Mary’s PS from Midlothian LTT on Vimeo.
Teddy Bears Animation St Mary’s from Midlothian LTT on Vimeo.
by The Editor | Feb 24, 2017 | Coding, Coding Apps, iPad, Latest News, Teaching and Learning
Thanks to Nadia Kettles from Edinburgh’s Digital Learning Team, I have recently discovered free maths apps which are excellent. I will provide a screenshot below. Definitely worth a look.
