Developing E-Confidence

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….

Where's Klaus

Last Thursday I journeyed up to Aberdeen for my ThinkUKnow training from CEOP (The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Agency). The 2 hours 40 mins travel time was very welcome as I got to finish of my S3 reports and try out the new demo of Football Manager 2009.

I first heard about this training on Ollie Bray's blog and was asked by my own school to attend at the end of last session.

A lot of the content of videos and demos is very hard hitting, not so much in terms of things you directly see, more in terms of the stories that are told.

A slightly lighter video, targeted at parents, was shown. It's from Germany and is called "Where's Klaus". See below (it's well worth the watch).



Next steps are to embed the resources from ThinkUKnow into our PSE program and to prepare for Safer Internet Day 2009.

SmartBoard Training

Found these sites recently via John's World Wide Wall Display. (congrats on new job too) :-)

http://www.teacheronlinetraining.com/courses/

http://smartboards.typepad.com/smartboard/

Due to the rollout we've done of SmartBoard over a number of years, the staff are all at very different levels and these are sometimes more difficult than it might first seem to categorise into groups for training (IT literate staff who have never used one before vs less confident IT users that have been using for a year or two). It would be great to have simply beginner, intermediate, advanced.

Last week was doing some 1 to 1 training with a user who has had their own SmartBoard in their classroom for a year. They've come very far in that year (almost to the limit of my knowledge) and are now looking for more subject specific training. Not sure i'm the best to deliver this though (i've taught Computing, Chemistry and Science) as i'm unlikely to be versed in their subject beyond the basics.

This got me realisng that subject specific IWB training deliverd during students PGCE/PGDE year might start to filter out this problem. At the very least new teachers would be coming in with some awareness of the system. However, our current crop of students at the school have not had any experience with SmartBoards and some were unsure what it was.

Free 2GB Memory Stick

It has been a disgraceful length of time since I last posted. I'm sorry, but i've been snowed under (i'm sure you can all relate to this). Tonight for example is the Tranny Halloween Disco which i've been shoe horned into organising (don't ask!).

However, I had to share this with you all:

Get a free 2GB usb memory stick at
http://www.memory4teachers.co.uk/
There doesn't appear to be a catch.

P.s. Tranny is short for Transitus (our primary 7), not the other thing. ;-)

Summer Holiday

No more posts for 7 weeks as the summer is finally here, and for most of it I won't have access to a computer. On Sunday we fly out to LAX for a driving holiday round south west USA. (Yes, I know I could take a laptop, but my better half wouldn't forgive me if I did).

On our travels we plan to take in LA, Santa Barbara, Carmel, San Francisco, Yosemite, Death Valley, Vegas, the Grand Canyon, Phoenix, Palm Springs and San Diego. Can't wait.

Have a good summer!

Review of the year

Well, this time next week we'll be on holiday and I'll have been here a full year.

Looking at my blog archive I'm pleased to see that I've posted a lot more list year than last (42 posts compared to just 14 in 2007). The main purpose of this blog for me is reflection and it's great to have your thoughts supported/challenged by the comments of others. New target: 100 posts by December.

The school year 2007/2008 has been a huge learning curve for me in my transition from classroom teacher to a more management/development role. It's easy to forget what things were like a year ago and only when I really think about it do I realise how much has been done (new website, staff training program, development plan for both schools, the VLE, preparation for the new MIS, and lots and lots of little tasks). Perhaps the greatest achievement has been a small culture change: in the last month 2 members of staff have come to me for help creating an HTML form for a questionnaire.

By far the best thing about the last year has been all the people who I've met/got to know better at Teachmeets, conferences, inservice, etc. See you all at SLF.

Islay High, a school of ambition

Congratulations to Islay High School on winning the Scottish Education Award for Ambition.  Also, thanks to Ian Stuart and colleagues for allowing me to come to their open day on Friday.  What I saw was truly excellent.  

Each child has a Samsung Q1 UMPC. This usually retails at £700, but it's now possible for educational establishments to purchase them on an "Education Licence" for just £350. These are significantly more advanced than the Asus Minibook. Key features include 2 batteries, a 6 hour battery life and a touchscreen which recognises handwriting.

They are a small school with only 29 staff. This has greatly aided staff training and quality assurance for the project. I questioned a few pupils and it seems that the laptops are used all the time (they don't sit at the bottom of bags unused).  

The key focus of their project has been "personalised learning" facilitated by the laptops. Notes are taken on the laptops and tags added to "useful bits for the exam". This builds up a personalised set of study notes for each pupil. (they predict this will have a high impact on attainment).

Evidence collecting has been greatly enhanced by buying 100 webcams at £2 each. The children use these with the laptops to video what they are doing e.g. video of a chemistry experiment. The SQA are increasingly willing to accept this sort of evidence over paper evidence.

They have used their polling system on parents evenings to gain feedback from parents about policy ideas and what they're doing

The technology is perhaps the thing that strikes you most immediately about the school, put it is really there to facilitate the other changes: a relaxation on age and stage, more choice in the curriculum (an excellent selection of vocational qualifications), personalised learning.  

Next step is to implement a VLE (Studywiz).  

I had a great day and learned lots from the experience.  It was good to catch up with John @ Sandaig (trademark it before somebody else does John) and also speak to Ewan MacIntosh and others.  

Thanks to Ewan for the above photo. I think the elevated view and the sun perfectly demonstrates how thinning I now am. You can see the rest of Ewan's photos from the trip on his Flickr here.

I now plan to write about Islay and what they are doing for my MEd project next year.  The difficulty will be narrowing down what to include (the Masters dissertation is supposed to be quite specific) when there is so much inspiring stuff going on at the school.