We’ve now been using our VLE for nearly a year. After a number of teething problems, things took off with gathering pace. About 6 departments now make regular use with classes of one year group or another, and others have experimented with creating materials. Getting pupils (and staff!) to remember their passwords can be a problem, but they can now reset these themselves using their school e-mail. As pupils progress through the school, and year 2 becomes year 3, acquainting pupils with the VLE environment will no longer be such an issue – they will have used it with other teachers, in other classes, in previous years.
Our VLE has been evolving and teachers using it as an innovation. We now need to start putting procedures in place to embed it more firmly into everyday teaching and learning. By next August, when new pupils arrive, departments will have used the system for a full academic session. The business of engagement will be over and we can start to improve and expand on something that already exists. I’m starting to look at how we can introduce new school pupils, who will be unfamiliar with the system, to the VLE in the most efficient way.
The new Curriculum for Excellence draft outcomes for technology doesn’t seem to have a discreet place for Computing below S4. As a Computing teacher I am dismayed, as I see the best way for pupils to be taught about ICT is by subject specialists. With my other hat on however, I can see the benefits of a more whole school approach. Asking different subjects to contribute in different ways to the ICT curriculum will help to embed e-confidence in their staff and ensure ICT is used in teaching across the school.
I’m sure a similar strategy to promote literacy by doing away with English as a discrete subject below S4 would never see the light of day though….





