Hi! We are the USW Digital Champions! We’re here to help with any of your digital needs, whether you are a school, student or a teacher - we're happy to help anybody!

In our monthly newsletters we’ll be sharing our Top Tip of the Month, updating you on our projects and showcasing our fabulous BA Primary USW bloggers!

If you have any suggestions of technology, apps or strategies that have worked well for you, get in touch! We’d love to hear your experiences and winning ideas! Contact us via our twitter account @USWDigitalChamp

We are currently working on a fantastic partnership project with Newport Museum and Library. The Museum are looking to attract more visitors through their doors and schools could be a great vehicle for this.

The Digital Champions will be supporting them by creating materials and resources that can be sent to schools and the wider community, to encourage the use of this amazing facility.

You can click here to check out our YouTube channel, but here's a taster of what we’ve produced so far...

Many of you will be aware of the #adechat, and in fact some of you regularly join it too! As of this year, the chat has been renamed #appleeduchat.

For those who haven't joined before, this is a Twitter chat hosted by the Apple Distinguished Educator community that takes place every Tuesday evening from 8-9pm. Those who take part in the conversation answer a series of questions using the hashtag #appleeduchat.

You may have seen that last November the USW Digital Champions hosted a chat with Mat Pullen. It was a fantastic opportunity to showcase our skills, share thoughts, develop networks and most importantly to ask the questions that help us grow as teachers. Educators from many different parts of the world regularly join in, so the opportunity to engage in a very different type of CPD is huge!

If you missed the chat, or you're keen to find out what all the fuss is about, why not read through at your leisure...

Looking for an exciting and engaging way of gauging learners’ prior knowledge?

Need a strategy that suits a mix of ages and abilities?

Well, a Kahoot quiz is perfect! You can devise and tailor your quiz to suit your learners and the concept is so simple that it can be used for any subject.

It can be used as a mid-point plenary too and, given AfL is such a vital element for learners, a Kahoot quiz can provide you with a great way of ascertaining what has been learnt. The results of a quiz can indicate gaps in learners’ knowledge thereby informing future planning.

Any of us Digital Champions will be more than happy to help you get started using Kahoot, but if you haven't used it before and need some extra support, check out this video made by our very own Louise Guy, which has reached an audience across the world!

How embarrassed would you be if you were mid-way through a lesson and your phone rang? How much more embarrassing would it be if your phone was connected to the screen at the time, and you were mid-presentation??

How cool would it be if it was all part of the lesson?

Mat Pullen has put together the video below to show you how to engage your learners by creating a 'fake FaceTime call' to build into your lessons!

The question is, who's going to interrupt YOUR lesson?

Each month we'll be showcasing one USW blogger, and this month it's the turn of Lucy Manley, a final year student with an interest in the 'flipped classroom' method.

In a series of blogs, Lucy documents her experiences of conducting her action research project in Doha College, Qatar. We hope you find the blog as fascinating as we do!

https://lucya1983.wixsite.com/mysite/blog/

Would you like your blog featured in our next newsletter? Or maybe you know a blogger you'd like to nominate? Drop us a DM on twitter @USWDigitalChamp

If you're enthusiastic, keen to develop your tech skills and willing to contribute in your spare time, why not become a Digital Champion?

Interested? Click here to express your interest and we'll be in touch!

If you're not sure or have any questions, get in touch @USWDigitalChamp - we don't bite! (usually)

This newsletter was produced with contributions from Scott Hann, Sarah Hawkins and Louise Guy