I received an email this week from Harry Cymbler, Director of Hot Cherry, the independent, award winning digital PR and social media agency in London who are promoting Oddizzi. I was very excited by this email and clicked straight away onto their website. I was instantly amazed by the resources made available by Oddizzi for primary schools.
What is Oddizzi?
Oddizzi is an exciting new website (just launched!) for primary schools that instantly brings the world to life in the classroom. It is a bright and refreshing resource full of clever features and games that encourage children to want to learn about their world.
The clip below is part of their online promotion; it is an amusing take on the popular 80’s game show Child’s Play hosted by Michael Aspel which challenged members of the public and a celebrity to work out what primary school children were describing. Sadly, I am old enough to remember Child’s Play!
In the Oddizzi clip, geography knowledge is tested among primary students from Holy Trinity School Richmond, London with some amusing responses: ‘Falafel is some sort of Anteater’, ‘In Greenland they eat Green grass,’ ‘Dead Sea is black and mouldy’ and ‘a Yurt is an upper class person saying the word ‘yoghurt’.
Created by former primary schoolteacher Jenny Cooke, Oddizzi is an online teaching resource that supports cross-curricular learning at stages EYFS, KS1 and KS2 and features a free child-friendly interactive map and news feed. In addition, there are 500+ pages of interactive content, over 1000 images, online ‘ClassPals’ that enables classes to link with each other nationally and internationally, geography games that test global knowledge, and a bank of creative lesson ideas and activities for teachers to use that take geography across the curriculum.
Personally, Oddizzi looks to be a flexible resource that offers many different activities and topics promoting geography within the classroom. It is a very well thought out resource where your comments as a teacher seem to be encourged to improve their site. Oddizzi is an innovative and interactive online resource that is using todays technology brilliantly but teaching the National Curriculum at the same time – not an easy task! Oddizzi provides an affordable online resource and will be funded by a subscription model with a launch price £155 a year. It is also available for a free 21 day trial. A bargain if I have ever seen one.
I would be very keen to hear from any schools that are currently or are going to use Oddizzi to learn more about the benefits it offers. Great stuff is happening out there online – keep it up geographers, together we can all work together to improve, develop and make sure geography deserves its place in the curriculum.