Technology Teachers UK Group Sites

Site Stats 2005

Tony Bell — Fri, 2 Mar 2007 22:00:00 GMT

Tech it Out UK
288,183 visits from 188,269 new visitors. Launched May 2001.
Edu Scan
48,000 visits. Launched Jan 2005.

Site Stats 2005

Tony Bell — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 22:00:00 GMT

Tech it Out UK
175,400 visits from 123,000 new visitors. 72,100 in 2005. Launched May 2001.
DT Scan
16,800 visits from 10,800 new visitors. Launched Jan 2005.
EduFacts
700 new visitors. Launched Sept 2005.

BETT Show

Tony Bell — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 08:00:00 GMT

I looked down from the Gallery at Olympia.
Whiteboards everywhere - piles of CD software.
Being a cynic, I put my hand on my wallet, It felt lighter.
Like other tax payers, I am paying for all this.
Just how do you find out what is good or bad? Who pays for the buyers/teachers mistakes?
I tried yet again to meet Merlin John from the TES. Magazines, Becta, Data showed interest and I talked with website who host link pages.
Very good response and feedback, nice when you work alone.

EduFacts now on a PC as well as a Mobile

Tony Bell — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 08:00:00 GMT

I showed my 12 Times Table Quiz to a Special Need Teacher, he asked for it to be available on a PC as well as a Mobile. As I write in full xHTML this was easy as I could use the 'Handheld' and 'Screen' attributes to produce two different layouts.
It took time. To see how its done, Look at the site on your PC - View - Source to see the code.
Websites from Technology Teachers UK.
Technology Teachers UK www.technologyteachers-uk.com - Teachers Site
Tech it Out UK www.techitoutuk.com - Everything for Design Technology Education.
DT Scan www.dtscan.com - Searches the best Design Technology Websites.
Edufacts www.edufacts.info - Educational Facts on your Mobile and PC.

EduFacts Launched Sept 2005

Tony Bell — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 08:00:00 GMT

EDUFACTS was launched on 4.8.05 to see what Educational Facts will be useful to put on your Mobile.
Speed of use of a Mobile is one of its main advantages. It takes less than a minute to connect to this site. The physical size of the screen is its major disadvantage but this can be overcome by creative design.
There is an area of educational use that is highly suited to the Mobile Phone. I have personal examples such as trying to find Conversion factors of Miles to Kilometres, Sin ratios, Stock sizes of planned timbers and many more I forget. How much simpler it would be to use your mobile instead of thumbing through books or cranking up the old PC.

Add DT Scan to your site May 2005

Tony Bell — Wed, 18 May 2005 08:00:00 GMT

DT Scan is similar to Google in appearance. Goto the Main Page and select 'Search' then type in your search word or phrase and hit the search button

If you have your own website, you can search directly from any page by adding the DT Scan Toolbar or an animated link graphic. Just copy the XHTML code from the 'Links' page, there are several versions.

Feedback shows that DT Scan is really helping students. For the first time, they can get a manageable quantity of quality results aimed at their need. 'Mild Steel' in Yahoo gives 316,000 results where as DT Scan gives 41.

Search DT Scan by 'Keywords' April 2005

Tony Bell — Thu, 28 Apr 2005 08:00:00 GMT

DT Scan is inovative in itself as there is nothing like it in any subject. What is far more interesting is its development of the new method of 'Keyword' searching.

'Design Technology has been broken down into 30 major categories; see 'Keyword Search'. These categories can be divided and then sub-divided again and again until you reach a single concept like 'Variable Resistors' 'Carrots'.

To search for a topic, you first look for the general area, tick a checkbox for the 'Keyword' and then search.

Classifying Design Technology is going to take sometime, your comments would be most welcome, contact me through 'About Us'.

How to Search with DT Scan. March 2005

Tony Bell — Tue, 08 Mar 2005 08:00:00 GMT

DT Scan produces a wide range of statistics. I can even find out who searched for a rude word. I have produced a list of search terms used over a two week period covering 1440 searches. This is sufficient to highlight the problems people have searching and I have also included the number of pages searched for each word or phrase.

# Search engines are not that clever. You have to understand how they work.
# How - is ignored. Only Ask Jeeves can answer questions.
# A, the, of, but etc are ignored if no 'Quotations Marks' are used.
# UPPER and lower case letters are all treated the same.
# All the words in the phrase - How beam Bridges were made - are searched separately generating 524 results.
# Too complicated and long phrases will often get no results.
# Put 'Quotation Marks' around two or more words to search that exact phrase. i.e. Product Design = 1278 hits but 'Product Design' = 37.
# Putting 'Quotation Marks' around words can unfortunately produce the result 'product, Design' Two sentences separated by punctuation.
# Try different combinations of words and the word order to reduce the number of results.

DT Scan Launched Jan 2005

Tony Bell — Fri, 07 Jan 2005 08:00:00 GMT

How DT Scan was born.
My major DT content site Tech it Out UK has over 200 edited links. To get one good website, I recon that I have looked at over 150, you can not expect pupils to do that.
Some interesting things emerged, the same websites kept appearing. In the end I was able to come up with a list of the best websites for Design Technology.
I started to use these websites when writing my own content. I soon got fed up searching each one in turn, so I converted my own internal search engine to search all these sites simultaneously. That's how DT Scan was born.
DT Scan now searches 1800 pages in 10 UK websites produced especially for Schools including the well known BBC Bitesize. I contacted the BBC and they immediately added a link on their site.
The list of search terms generated by the search engine will be a very useful source of information in the future. We will be able to produce information to match demand. This has never been done before.

NGfL approval sort June 2004

Tony Bell — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 08:00:00 GMT

To get onto the UK National Grid for Learning's list of approved websites, you have to submit it for their assessment. The application process looks at technical compliance and content suitability.
My first attempt showed up some technical errors. They advised me to check if my site was valid xHTML 1.0 using W3's Validator. This took many months and showed up a number coding errors. I used the HTML-kit editor from www.chami.com.
NGfL www.ngfl.gov.uk

Tech it Out UK Major Revision Dec 2003

Tony Bell — Mon, 16 Sep 2004 08:00:00 GMT

Tech it Out UK has undergone a major redesign. My original design started over 2 years ago. I have been more interested in the mechanics than its visual appearance.
I have taken the opportunity to use the latest web design language XHTML and all the pages comply with the latest W3 Standards.
You have to learn to write XHTML by hand as there are no suitable editors available yet. Do not use Word's editor and I doubt if Front Page is any good.
XHTML 1.0 uses Cascading Style Sheets CSS 2. It is a very powerful language which produces a very simple clean script separating the content from the layout requirements. You can lay text over pictures and position anything to the nearest pixel.
Drag n Drop programs are so easy. I use a simple JavaScript to produce a controlled animation.
To learn, all you need is "HTML for the World Wide Web" 5TH. Edition by Elizabeth Castro. Peachpit Press. 2003. ISBN 0-321-13007-3. Amazon.

Tech it Out UK The Mission - May 2003

Tony Bell — Wed, 30 May 2003 08:00:00 GMT

Tech it Out UK is a Free web site.
For use by Anybody, Anywhere and at Anytime.
# Create a unique information storage and retrieval system for Design Technology.
# Include a powerful internal search engine.
# Open source coding for others to use.
# Raise peoples' awareness by showing exactly what Design Technology is all about.
# Show that Design Technology requires a high level of practical skills as well as academic knowledge. It is a highly creative multi-disciplined subject.
# Raise standards by showing a wide range of high quality content in different media.
# Motivate self-learners by providing free high quality information and self-assessment.
# Provide information for students, tradesmen, teachers from beginners through to the advanced.
# Design Technology is a visual subject highly suitable to electronic media. It can harness the powerful technology of the computer's browser.
# The web site content can be altered in minutes. No book can do this.
# The Internet is a low cost method of distributing material.
# High quality free information is available to all, you do not have to rely on teachers, lecturers and academics.
# Questions can be answered by online call-centres, off-line by e-mail.
# Design Technology is the disciplined production of man-made 2 and 3D objects that are made for a purpose or need. Produced singly, or in small or large quantities.
# Whatever is produced must have a purpose or be needed and provide a benefit. The need can be real, e.g. a new smokeless Barbecue or imaginary, e.g. a new perfume.
# Design Technology combines many principles of other subjects, notably the Sciences, Art, History, Mathematics, English, Business, ICT, Psychology and Sociology. Many professions use Design Technology knowledge and skills.
# Tech it Out UK has taken 2 years to develop from its original website now used for teachers. The original site became far too complex and showed up the need for simplicity.

Tech it Out UK Launched April 2001

Tony Bell — Mon, 10 Apr 2001 08:00:00 GMT

Tech it Out UK was created to hold educational content and projects and it gave me an opportunity to design a totally different website

I taught myself to write web pages by hand rather than using an Editor as you learn what and how thing happen. The end result is your own creation and not one of those standard designs.

At one school I was asked to teach GCSE Electronics. The previous teacher had taken all notes, circuit diagrams etc. so I had to start from square one. Rather than produce any student notes, I wrote half a book on Electronics directly into my website. Students used this to make projects and write up their own notes. The major problem working as a supply teacher, I never went back the second year.

Technology Teachers UK Launched June 2000.

Tony Bell — Sat, 21 Jun 2000 08:00:00 GMT

Technology Teachers UK was set up to look at how the Internet could benefit teaching Design Technology.

It came about from my experiences as a Supply Teacher in various Secondary Schools in NW London. They ranged from the very good to 'I'll not be back tomorrow'.

After a while, it became obvious that it was impossible to cater for both Teachers and Students. The Student content was moved to a new site Tech it Out UK.

No work has been done on this site for a while.