Totally Off-The-Wall ICT Ideas Wanted!

[richard.thomas]

We've got a similar setup here. We're running a flash presentation off a laptop onto a screen in the main reception... Hoping to get a bigger screen soon :P

[TechMonkey]

How about something like this
or leading on from that article any of these ideas.

Recovering robotic dogs and upgrading them sounds fun!

[Elky]

I've had a couple of schools in the past buy the components needed to build say 10 or 20 PCs then have an after school project where the kids build the PCs themselves. They then get the option to buy the PC at the end of it or it just gets stripped down and used for the next lot of kids to build.

[callumtuckey]

Why not make more of educational learning and learn them how to setup stuff like a domain GPO and more on them lines.
then when they have built a working domain or network then see if they can maintain the domain/network.
I think that would be fun for the kids to see what the job description
(Network Manager/technician ) really entails

[steve]

How about setting up your own youtube or bubbleshare type site.

Somewhere the pupils can safely share their creativity?

[maniac]

How about setting up your own youtube or bubbleshare type site.

Somewhere the pupils can safely share their creativity?

Along the same lines, I setup a PHPBB based forum for my last school, internal only of course. It was so popular we couldn't monitor it effectively in the end, so we had to ditch it shame really, as the kids loved it, and it was really funny reading some of the things they wrote on it.

Mike.

[tech_guy]

How about setting up your own youtube or bubbleshare type site.

Somewhere the pupils can safely share their creativity?

Along the same lines, I setup a PHPBB based forum for my last school, internal only of course. It was so popular we couldn't monitor it effectively in the end, so we had to ditch it shame really, as the kids loved it, and it was really funny reading some of the things they wrote on it.

Mike.

We did this a year or too back and it was great to begin with but we had the same problem as you and found it was a nightmare to monitor it and we had some kids writing really nasty stuff about others.

[GeorgeFaux]

I suggested this once but never got it off the ground:

If you have ever played an Xbox360 you will find that when you are playing a game, occasionally a little message will come along saying you have completed x achievement. These achievements are prolonging the life of games that kids were previously putting on their discard pile as they want to 100% complete the games and unlock every achievement.

This is the type of psychology we want to be able to harness in our schools. Many children' attitude when confronted with a game is... if there is an objective hit it, if there is a number, make it higher and they are quite prepared to spend hours to reach elite status even if the tasks are very boring and repetitive.

So why not use this in schools. Give every child a homepage with achievements to unlock. These can be for social, academic, healthy eating, homework, attendance etc. It doesn't matter but set them targets, make some of them REALLY hard so they are not all knocked out over the first couple of days.

Link the achievement to badges or medals and when a student has enough let them trade it in for something, cash off a school trip, extended lunch free food. Special trip to Alton Towers. Ask the kids for the rewards that they would want and start up a leaderboard. Make a public profile so that students can see how many badges each other have got and make it viewable over the internet at home.

Here are some ideas:

Start a school Forum and have badges for number of posts.

Link this to bitesize or some other educational tool, badges when modules are completed.

Have bleep tests at break times, kids can get a badge when they reach a certain level.

Have some 'fun' games that they can use to get past a certain points score on. (Bring on the hidden educational value).

Healthy food linked to your schools cantine badges for eating well.

Social action badges for recycling or answering questions on fair trade.

Badges for coming up with ideas for new badges.

The list is endless but I think if done well this could be something that really enthuses people.

And you did ask...

[mrcrazy04]

Why not make more of educational learning and learn them how to setup stuff like a domain GPO and more on them lines.
then when they have built a working domain or network then see if they can maintain the domain/network.
I think that would be fun for the kids to see what the job description
(Network Manager/technician ) really entails

Then try to hack it so you can send rude emails to your mates
Failing that, see what they blocked that you don't!