FronterUK's Blog

Fronter Oslo office and hosting centre update: business as usual

fronteruk — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 09:52:16 +0000

Business at Pearson’s Fronter office and hosting centre in Oslo has not been interrupted by the bombing.

Fronter service continues as normal.

Morten Hanshaugen

Extra Webinar! ‘Start of Year Process’ tomorrow, 4.30pm

fronteruk — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 09:03:02 +0000

The Fronter webinar team are running an extra webinar tomorrow, Wednesday 13th July, at 4.30pm.

This Start of Year session is being put on by popular request and will be a repeat of the webinar which ran last week.

Like all Fronter webinars, this session is free to attend and is open to all teachers at schools or colleges using Fronter.

If you are already registered, please use your existing login details to access the webinar.

If you are not registered, but would like to attend, then please go to www.fronter.co.uk and click on the ‘Free Webinars’ box -which will take you to the registration link.

See you there!

The Fronter training team.

Southend Champion Awards – a Great Success!

fronteruk — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 07:53:58 +0000

Richard Poth from Sacred Heart Primary School in Southend was presented yesterday with the Southend Fronter Champion Teacher Award. He received this prestigious prize from Justin Reilly, the MD of Fronter, who told Richard he had been, ‘An inspiration to many other teachers in Southend and beyond.’

Sacred Heart School now becomes the Champion School in Southend for the next academic year.

The Award ceremony took place at the Celebrating Success in Southend event, which also saw prizes being given to Fronter teachers and pupils in the Best Fronter Room and Best Fronter Page categories.

Sarah Imbush of Southend Girls’ High School and Nicky Barratt of Belfairs School, both received Ambassador Status on behalf of their schools.

Mark Lawrence of Southend High School for Boys won a special category prize for his Fronter room.

Congratulations to all the winners!

East Midlands Fronter Event Today!

fronteruk — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 09:04:06 +0000

A big welcome for delegates at the Fronter East Midlands conference which is getting underway with a stirring and inspirational presentation from eLearning evangalist Russell Prue.

Russell is talking about the amazing power of social networking and blogging and their collective impact on education.

Global brands are looking increasingly to Facebook for advertising and recruiting; Russell suggests that teachers could be more aware that this is the world their pupils are operating within. ‘Where schools create mutually workable Acceptable Use Policies, then Facebook can be safely accessible in school for pupils’ educational benefits’ he says.

Russell is also enthusing about the Harrison Primary School DVD – it’s a super twist on the usual sports day/drama presentation! http://harrisonprimaryschool.co.uk/

July 7 Scarborough Roadshow event

fronteruk — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 16:46:05 +0000

Just to let all North Yorkshire teachers know: the Fronter event which had been scheduled for today, 30th June has now been rearranged for 7 July.

Please see this note from Jon Farley:

The Scarborough Fronter Roadshow will now be on Thursday 7th July starting at 1pm. The venue is Schools ICT in Scarborough which is at Woodend Creative Workspace, The Crescent, Scarborough, North Yorkshire, YO11 2PW.

To book a place contact Schools ICT on 0844 875 7428.

Teachers’ industrial action: Scarborough Roadshow day postponed

fronteruk — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 10:19:31 +0000

Please note: tomorrow’s leg of the Fronter North Yorkshire Roadshow in Scarborough (30th June) is postponed.

This part of the Roadshow event will be re-arranged for another date. More info to follow.

Day 3 N Yorks Roadshow

fronteruk — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 09:26:40 +0000

Day 3 is here! The sun is shining in Escrick and the Fronter Roadshow is well underway.

Selby Primary is demonstrating their excellent use of Fronter and generating lots of interesting questions and comments from delegates.

We have also heard from the Yr 5 pupils at Embsay school again – via video this time.

Thanks to all concerned for making this lovely day of sharing ideas and good practice possible.

Fronter N Yorks Roadshow Day 2 – Children from Kirby Hill

fronteruk — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 09:28:38 +0000

Children from Kirby Hill school are presenting this morning, on Day 2 of the Fronter North Yorkshire Roadshow. This is what they have to say!

Royal Wedding

Pupils are telling delegates about their own ‘Royal Wedding’ which they held in school and are now proudly showing on their Fronter learning platform.

Year 6 Mentors

Year 6 children were ‘enlisted’ to help with the initial roll out of Fronter. They were invited to join ‘Fronter Club’ to help them to become familiar with the facilities available in the learning platform before they began to act as eLearning mentors for other pupils.

Messaging across the school

Kirby Hill made the decision to allow messaging throughout the school; they find it easy to manage and very beneficial for effective school communications.

Contrasting localities in Geography lessons

Setting up this aspect of the geography curriculum rolled along more quickly and effectively than first anticipated! The children become involved and engaged with the topic very readily indeed.

Fairtrade topic

Kirby Hill set up a room for the Fairtrade topic in geography, but found that an added benefit was how easy it was to add a link to their newly acquired Fairtrade School status.

Links to Brunei

Time differences presented no problem to North Yorkshire children wishing to communicate with school friends in Brunei. Children have been using Fronter to share learning tasks and activities, they use the vote tool to check each others’ opinions and forums to discuss their ideas.

After School Club

Activity news from the Kirby Hill After School Club has been well received by parents – they can keep up to date easily with what is going on week by week, and make sure their children have all the right kit for their activities!

Update / Reboot

Kirby Hill have found that like any resource in school, their Fronter Learning Platform needs to be kept fresh and interesting. So, last Christmas they organised a Nativity Quest which guided the children through areas of Fronter which they needed to be reminded about, as well as helping them to learn about the Nativity.

Created by Kids 4 Kids

Year 5 Children at Kirkby Hill have been given ‘ownership’ of some subject areas -they are creating pages for music, ICT, MFL amongst others. There are plans for more subjects to be added next term. Teachers also make subject areas and the areas work in parallel.

eSafety

eSafety is very important at Kirby Hill. Children are confident that their space is safe and they have easy access to excellent eSafety materials from sites such as www.thinkuknow.com

I like Fronter because…..

…….it’s like Facebook, but better

……we (children) can edit pages in Maths and English

……..it’s amazing

……you can learn computer rules to be safe

……it’s safe

……you can speak to your friends safely – it is locked by a password

………….you can learn things

A really super presentation children - thank you!!!

Fronter Roadshow Day 1

fronteruk — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 12:39:04 +0000

Fronter is pleased to welcome colleagues to the Skipton leg of the N Yorks Roadshow.

We’re watching some excellent uses of Fronter forums from Water Street Primary School – pupils have been writing very creative, reflective responses to a number of thought-provoking topics, including cup-cakes and penguins!

Thanks to Kate for her inspirational presentation of the great eLearning work going on in her school.

Fronter North Yorks Roadshow

fronteruk — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 14:33:14 +0000

The team is looking forward to visiting beautiful North Yorkshire next week with the Fronter Roadshow!
Come to meet us at:

Monday, 27th June – Skipton, Rendevouz Hotel

Tuesday, 28th June – Ripon, Highfield House

Wednesday, 29th June – Escrick, Parsonage Hotel

Thursday, 30th June, Scarborough – NOW CANCELLED due to the planned teachers’ industrial action

There are just a few places remaining on some of these sessions, please enquire for details:
email uk@fronter.com or call 0845 241 8090