aclJohn's Functional Skills Finds

Although The Plasma Screen & Whiteboard Room is a free website for practitioners in special schools it has many resources that can be used with all learners. It's a place for practitioners to share resources .There are a good range of resources that can be used in functional skills courses, some in Smart board format but many in PowerPoint.

Other subject areas included are...

• Science
• Geography
• History
• RE
• PMLD
• Art & Design
• Design & Technology and
• PSHE

Find out more by visiting http://www.whiteboardr...
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Niceletter is a free letter wizard that will enable learners to construct a letter which complies with writing rules, simply by filling in text fields.

No word editor is needed as the layout is handled automatically. In addition, many sample letters are available such as...

• cover letters,

• thank-you letters,

• complaint letters and

• business letters.

Practitioners can use these templates to discuss letter structure, content etc., with learners.

Find out more at http://www.niceletter.com...

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Ofqual, along with its regulatory partners in Wales and Northern Ireland, has published the criteria for Functional Skills assessments in English, mathematics and ICT.

Awarding organisations wishing to offer Functional Skills qualifications will need to submit proposals to Ofqual for approval and demonstrate how they comply with these criteria. Only those organisations and qualifications that are fully compliant with the criteria will be approved at this time, ready for first teaching in Se...

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LinkUp is a resource which requires learners to link words to categories. The resource works particularly well on an interactive white board (IWB) as the links can be dragged around the screen.

Triptico have added a feature which allows practitioners to save the activities they create.

How does it work?

Each game requires...

• two categories,
• each with six linked words.

Once a game is created, users can save the information for future use and/or share it with others.

The aim is to drag...

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Twurdy comes from a play on words with the question "Too Wordy?".

Twurdy, a search engine based on Google, was created to provide users with access to search results that suit their own readability level.

Twurdy...

• uses text analysis software to "read" each page before it is displayed in the results;
• gives each page a readability level;
• shows the readability level of the page along with a colour coded system to help users determine how easy the page will be to understand.

Twurdy's goal...

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"Visualizing huge numbers can be very difficult. People regularly talk about millions of miles, billions of bytes, or trillions of dollars, yet it's still hard to grasp just how much a "billion" really is."

The MegaPenny Project aims to help by taking one small everyday item, the U.S.A. penny, and building on that to answer the question: "What would a billion (or a trillion) pennies look like?"

Note: All weights and measurements are U.S.A. standards, not metric.

If you and...

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Harcourt School Publishers website, called Punctuation Campground, is an excellent interactive white board resource.

There are not many online Language sites, dealing with proper punctuation, that can be used effectively on an interactive whiteboard.

Punctuation Campground...

• does not require any keyboard input,
• is easy to navigate, and
• provides great feedback and reference material to help both the learner and the practitioner.

In the activity, a sentence is presented for the learn...

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Many Things is a website offering Functional Skills/Key Skills/ESOL/EFL/ESL etc., practitioners and learners an extensive collection of...

• Word games,
  
• puzzles,
• quizzes,
  
• exercises and

...other online learning activities.

Many Things provides materials appropriate for beginners through to advanced ESOL/EFL/ESL learners.

In addition to the games and quizzes, Many Things provides...

• listening activities made possible through the use of MP3 recordings.
• video lessons on speaking and wr...

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Learners often expect practitioners to correct their written errors!

However learners can learn a lot from looking for and correcting errors in written work.

Practitioners can provide learners with texts that may, or may not, have spelling errors. Learners can then be encouraged to look at the text carefully and try to find any errors. If they see any they should try to correct them. They can then copy and paste the text into SpellChecker and then 'Spell Check'.

Try it out at http://w...

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Teachers TV has a 20 minute film explaining the new Functional Skills (Numeracy, Literacy and ICT) which will be with us by 2010.The programme is an introduction rather than a detailed analysis.

There will be an eMagazine Supplement providing resources for Functional Skills after a workshop(s) later in the year.

The Teachers TV page also has suggested links for further information, visit http://www.teachers.tv/video/33488.

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