Book Creator | DIGITAL LEARNING UPDATE

DIGITAL LEARNING UPDATE

JUNE 2022

CONTENTS

LAT EDTECH NEWS

Read about what is happening in the academies and other edtech news and updates from across the Trust.

You can connect to more LAT edtech info on our new microsite. Click the image above to visit.

Girls into Coding & Digital Tech Club

Digital Spotlight

Sharifa Khatun, Leigh Academy Blackheath

Our club is to promote more girls into Computing.

Monday lunch times are our favourite, with the Girls into Coding & Digital Tech Club. Our girls are buzzing with their hands-on experience of building robots with Legos and programming it to compete against each other.

One student, Aleksandra, was amazed at how bluetooth is used to connect to the Lego cars to program it to move a certain distance and in a specific direction. This has increased their curiosity about robotics and increased the number of girls showing an interest in the field.

Digital Media Centre on a winning streak

Digital Spotlight

David Milliken, Stationers' Crown Woods Academy

We are super pleased to announce that, not one, but two of Stationers Crown Woods DMC enrichment societies are up for national Media awards.

The podcast and environmental multimedia piece have been nominated for the national Shine media awards. This wide ranging podcast covered a range of issues such as anger management, the history of the trainer and the story of TikTok.

We planned to do a piece on the environment but the subject is massive, the ideas for combating the damage were many and the desire to communicate something different was there. So, a multimedia piece was born combining dance, film, poetry and a computer game (see below)

The computer games team came up with a hand-drawn, 8 bit style, 2D multiplayer game which allows players to discover and explore an extravagant world which soon is consumed by flames with complex monsters and bosses. The game involves cleaning the planet and making the polluters pay. The game they created has been nominated for an award by BAFTA – the category of Young Games Designer of the year.

Supporting Ukrainian students with digital tools

Edtech Hints & Tips

Daniel Bull, Head of Digital Engagement

Translating documents
In Google Docs there is an option under the Tools menu to translate your document to a different language. This could be used by the student to convert resources into their language, or they could write their work in Ukrainian and then this could be translated into English (See how).

You can also translate emails in Gmail which may be helpful when communicating with parents (see how).
If you wish to translate specific words or phrases without having to translate full documents, you can use the translate feature in Google Search. Here you can also click the audio button to have the word read to you (see how).

The Google Translate app is also very useful to translate words and phrases, but with this you are also able to speak into the app to translate it, or you can scan an image to translate the text. This can be installed on a Chromebook or mobile device.

Voice typing
If students are not able to write, they could use the voice tool in Google Docs to narrate. This is found in Tools, and they should change the language before starting. You are looking for українська (see how).

Text to speech
If you are working on a Chromebook there are some built in “Text to Speech” features. This means text could be read to a student in their own language if they are not able to read that language. If you go into the accessibility settings you can turn this on and adjust the settings. You should change the language to Ukrainian and change the preferred/natural voices. There is not a Ukrainian option for these, but choosing the Russian options may make this a more familiar tone (see how).

Ukrainian keyboard
The Ukrainian alphabet is different to the UK alphabet, so ideally a new keyboard would support the student if they need to continue writing in Ukrainian.
You can purchase them, but there are some online tools that may be of use. This site allows you to use a Ukrainian keyboard. This would work well using the touch screen feature of a Chromebook, and could then be copied to where it is needed.