Just to prove that I am still working - EVEN THOUGH IT IS HALF TERM!
We needed an easily accessible resource to put up on our web site about bullying, so here is my Powtoon:



I didn't want to add sound as I felt the video should be simple and clean.  

Reflections on Day 5

Reflections on Day 5 

I thought that some of the videos that we watched were very valuable and could easily be used in the classroom (for pupils and staff).  I especially liked the video that looked at the impact of social media and the statistics that accompany its use Socialnomics. It seemed to suggest that we have to learn to use social media effectively because it is everywhere.  The choice isn't if we use it, but rather how effectively we use it.  This video would be a really good starting point for discussion in many subject areas.

The Sugata Mitra TED Talks  video about children learning through enquiry  - school in the cloud was also powerful.  In the light of his findings, do we try to teach too much? Should we put more effort into allowing pupils to learn? I loved the idea of bringing communities together through the Granny scheme (or was it Nana).  We undervalue the elderly in our society and they are a tremendous source of knowledge and, in this case, encouragement.

There were so many ideas that were suggested by the group.  The challenge is how do we reduce them to a more manageable number and put them into practice?  We need to have an overarching plan and need to continue to share ideas and resources and encourage each other.

Copyright flowchart poster

Wellbeing

Embryonic 1 Year Plan

Day Four Reflections

It was great to hear how successful people had been in their own working environments.  It was, however reassuring to note that everybody felt that they had insufficient time to implement new ideas and techniques to the extent that they wanted to. It wasn't just me then.

Some ideas were powerful and I could see how they might work in Lewis Girls' School.  I particularly liked the idea of us having an online student magazine.  I have talked to two NQT English specialists today and they have said that they would be interested in overseeing this student project - it ticks boxes for their NQT evidence.

With regard to the videos that we watched, I loved the idea of students working their way up through the ranks until they are the 'teacher' in the classroom. Whilst I am not sure about rewarding the students with money, I have found in my own experience that they thrive when you give them responsibility.  This is something that I will be exploring further.

The second video (PBL) was also inspiring.  As I have said previously, developing students' skills, sparking their curiosity and creativity and then standing back and allowing them to grow intellectually and academically is something that I firmly believe in.  Whilst it can be a 'messy' process and some pupils, without careful monitoring, could slip through the net - essentially doing very little for a long period of time - we are, through the use of this model, making our students more independent, and equipping them for the world of work. 

Last-minute Liz

My One Year Plan

It is difficult when you are trying to project what you are going to be doing in a year's time.  There are so many variables involved and some of the things that I would like to develop are either co-dependent (one project relies on the success of another project) or some of the decision-making process is out of my hands.  Having said this, here goes ....

Those of you who are eagle-eyed will spot that the plan doesn't extend beyond the Spring Term.  This isn't an oversight.  I would like to spend the first two terms introducing new ideas and listening to the opinions of the focus group; evaluate and reflect over Easter 2015; perfect and refine during the Summer Term 2015.  This is still not a year - at least not a chronological year.  The remainder of the year, August - October 2015 will be taken up by developing the ideas of the focus group.  There would be little point in having one if I didn't take their ideas into account.  

How will I know if any of this is successful? More people will be engaged in the use and development of ICT in Lewis Girls' School.  More staff/ students/ parents/ governors will have received ICT training. More people will be voicing their opinions. There will be no parental complaints.

Day 4 Reflections

While I felt somewhat tired at the end of Day 4,I did feel more positive than I did at the start of the session. I did feel rather negative initially and still hold the view that tools as in hardware are crucial for me to assist in improving Digital Literacy or Digital Citizenship. However, I guess I will just have to make do and get on with the job as is but do appreciate suggestions made and time permitting will explore those avenues. Given the general cohort of pupil that I am working with I have now decided on a change to my original plan. Where there was to be an emphasis on safe use of social media and the internet, I now want to move away from me appearing to be didactic to pupils as they encounter much of that already from me and visitors to the centre advising on matters such as the dangers of drugs, alcohol, anti social behaviour, domestic violence etc. I do not want to invite problems either for myself where 11 or 12 year olds are using Facebook or playing computer games with restricted age limits. My pupils are currently engaged in Equine Therapy which coincidentally happens while we are exploring the idea of making a Western style film perhaps using the film 'Into the West' as a reference. What I would now like to do is to have pupils record by audio their experiences with Equine Therapy and maybe present their findings to a class in the mainstream school. Pupils will also 'storyboard' scenes for the film and we will explore if there are any apps available to carry out that exercise. Suggestions welcome. Then of course there is the film itself where I would like to see one of our pupils create a blog looking at what is happening behind the scenes. We will also have to look at sourcing film equipment again as we have none. Caerphilly County Borough Arts Development have provided equipment in the past when it was not in use elsewhere but it would be great if we were able to have our own and properly introduce some of the pupils to the technical side of filming. That's the PLAN! Posted by TonyInclusion at 13:31 No comments: Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Pinterest Thursday, 11 September 2014

Day 4 Reflection

Oops forgot to add, the idea of project based learning has to be the way to go, after all in ICT it is what our students do for KS4 with CiDA/DiDA and KS5 with Applied ICT, just not for the other key stages yet.  If I can get approval to replace the school newsletter with an electronic eBook or Blog, our librarian who currently prepares it can instead co-ordinate a few student editors possibly with their own sub-teams.  Student ownership of the newsletter might genuinely result in it becoming re-vitalised.

Year 1 Plan - current status

Have created the structure for my after school camera club blog.
It's http://stcenyddcameraclub.blogspot.com
I've created a few pages although the tutorials and techniques page will need a lot of links to useful YouTube articles, no point in re-inventing the wheel yet although I am really tempted to get pupils to record their own 'how to' videos on camera techniques and tips and tricks, youngsters might engage with their ideas more readily.

Got a FlickR slideshow embedded on the homepage.  Only problem is that it points to some of my photography, will obviously re-direct this to the students photography when their photography and outcomes are more well established.

Since this Blog is quite specific I'm going to explore the possibility of replacing the school newsletter with a school blog or maybe look at creating an eBook equivalent.  Will be quite a saving financially as it's expensive to photocopy 1200 newsletters for all pupils every term, especially when you consider that a lot of these pupils just leave them them lying about anyway.  Also, a more animated multimedia product might encourage pupils to actually look at it !

1 Yr Plan to a Digital Revolution! (No guarantee)

Stu Sheen's 1 Year Plan

Where are we now?

As discussed yesterday we have set up a 'Digital Leaders' group in our school.  The group of pupils included pretty much took control of our initial meeting and almost laughed at my ideas and at my attempt to be hip!

So far pupils have divvied up job roles to take on ownership of the project and have completed some tasks towards creating a digital resource that can nurture and provide some light education/entertainment also.

The pupils involved so far felt very strongly about securing an identity for the group which allowed them to be instantly recognised and at the same time distance themselves slightly from school so that if felt completely pupil run even thought this will be for the 'greater good' of the school and will be featured on our front facing school site.

Where could we realistically be in 1 year?

I'm going to look at the outcome like this.  Wherever we will be in 1 year we WILL be in a better place than we are now.  Pupils are positive and enthusiastic so the question I need to answer is how well can we all micro manage our own elements of this project? 

Day 4 Insight

Very much enjoyed being back in the mix of thinking creatively about how we can engage learners in a positive way and I think this will be achieved mainly by harnessing the power of collaboration through the technology platforms (hopefully as neutral as possible) that we can realistically provide as institutions.

I agree with Janine in that only some of the tools will be useful to take back into our own institutions.  Maybe if we can share the resources we have gained via this course and the ones that we will no doubt continue to stumble across then surely, even if one or two are used, these are additional resources for learning and/or productivity that our colleagues and pupils may not have had before.

As a parting gift I would like to share this resource with you all:

http://cooltoolsforschools.wikispaces.com

My one year plan

Here is my one year plan in the form of a mind map.

In terms of where I am at the moment:

• I have set up a blog initially for pupils in a focus group.
• I then had a discussion with the SMT within my school about what they thought of the project, ways forward, how it could be implemented etc.
• I then asked form tutors to ask pupils to 'sign up' if they were interested in becoming a digital ambassador, I had around 30 pupils who wanted to join. I couldn't involve all these as it would be too much to manage so I chose an even spread of boys/girls and evenly from each year group. 
• I then undertook my first meeting, which basically explained what the group was aiming to achieve. We didn't get much further than that due to time constraints and the Blog was blocked for pupils. However, I have since invited the pupils to become authors of the blog and I am now waiting for Blog posts on questions I have posed to them which I hope to get soon.
• In the next meeting after half term with the group I aim to get them posting on the blog and I am going to each give them a responsibility for the blog, i.e creating a name for the group, a logo, pages etc. 
• I am exciting about this project and I think we could make real progress with it, I just hope I can get the pupils enthused and stay enthused :)

In relation to the videos we watched yesterday, for me personally, for my particular project I cant at the moment see a use for them, however, I can see a use more whole school wise, for example, to make better use of the Learning Resource Centre in my own school.

1 Year plan

I have created a brief but to the point plan of attack for the next year, I think that the tasks I have set myself are realistic within the time frame.



Day four insights

So,, today was day 4 of our Digital Leaders' course.  I got there a little worried that my project and ideas wouldn't be good enough or not developed enough but was relieved to find that I was not alone.  

I'm pleased to say that all my input was received with encouraging nods and comments... thanks guys!

Great to see the 'digi gang' again!

So what has the end of day 4 left me with?

Firstly, I was glad to see that the others were following, with interest, my Twitter project.  I am using Twitter as a learning platform - I've used it with two English classes - year 9 and year 10 - and it is interesting to see how the pupils embraced the idea.  I will have to monitor it in more detail to see if all the pupils have completed their homework, but the deadlines are not up yet.

After an indepth debrief, we were shown a video by a lady called Nichole Pinkard. 'Big Thinkers'.  This showcased the power of digital literacy in the youth of Chicago.  One thing that really stood out was the way the  youth embrassed technology - they, simply put, are not frightened of it!  Not in the slightest!  In fact, the most powerful quote, for me, was: '...kids are more digitally sopshticated than teachers'. Yes!  How true.  With age comes a sense of hinderance.  With hinderance comes a sense of uncertainity; what if I fail?  What if I can't do it?  What if I am not good enough? 

The youngsters don't worry about such things.  They embrace 'new'!

The project put the youngsters in control; they were the creators, producers and eventually teachers thus developing a skill set that is applicable in the world of work.  Very inspiring!

The another point of reflection would be the video we were shown on Project Based Learning - PBL.  This is another avenue I am interested in as I currently teach BTEC Media and just recently have been appointed as the Welsh Bac Co - Ordinator and the this qualification wants to embrace this in the classroom.  The thing that struck a chord with me is that when you give the pupils a 'role' they take responsibility of this and therefore they are more willing to engage in a range of different activities.  Instead of 'teaching'a topic or situation PBL gives the pupils the opportunity to 'live in the situation'' the topic takes on a life and it almost becomes 'real'.  What the video showed me is that, not only is this good classroom practise, but it also gives the pupils life skills that they can use throughout their lives; making connections with the material and the real world.  To me, this has the potentially be an empowering tool.

Dad-dancing

It's a widely accepted fact that kids know more about ICT and the 'cool' apps than teachers do. They have the time, the insight and the word-of-mouth recommendations to keep them ahead of the game (and their prying parents). Is that actually true, I wonder? Let's assume for now that it is, and that our learners really are the gatekeepers to all that is cool on the Internet. So, where does that leave us?

It leaves us in a very powerful position; we get to sit back, and let the kids do the work for us. We let them be the compass and barometer of our ICT lessons. We let them decide what to teach, and we let them teach it. Let them be the ones knackered at the end of each working day, instead of us.

What role do we have in our own lessons if we are as hopelessly behind the curve as we assume we are? We could just worship at the altar of our beneficent superiors, and let them run the show, whilst we watch on, impotently. We could play the buffoon to their straight-man, dad-dancing our way through our ICT lessons, embarrassing ourselves (and our cringing pupils) with our hopelessly out-of-date talk of MySpace, and this cool new 'social-networking app' (remember to do the air-quote thing with your fingers for extra cool-appeal) called Bookface. And why not? If we can't win this race, why even try? Let's just be content to support them as best we can, to try inject some actual guidance in the application of these tools, rather than try to keep up with them. They provide the tools and skills, we provide the ideas and pedagogical insight.

Year One Plan,

After an intense day with my fellow Digi peeps we were asked to come up with a year plan.  I think this is a great idea as, although nothing is carved in stone, it is a great way to stay focused and on task.
So here is my mindmap ...

Year one ICT development plan

Day 4 Reflections

The video clips were very interesting, and really highlighted the benefits of student-centred learning environments. This seemed like a highly effective way of engaging students, and it was interesting to hear about how the students were so invested in their work, they sometimes lost sight of the fact they were role-playing.

I particularly liked the 'pay it forward' collaborative approach to learning, where skills and time were shared. This method can only be beneficial to both learners and teachers, and can mutually empower and up-skill

Project plan

I have decided to change my project to focus on the learners. I will create a group of key digital learners who will create a resource to help me promote ICT and digital literacy in the school. I will train them in blogging, creating digital resources and let them choose the method they wish to use to express themselves. I will still develop a digital parenting micro-site, but this will be done in collaboration with the key digital learners.
At the moment, I have a core group of learners in mind, and will start this project tomorrow, and will update you as time passes.

Mind Map for year 1 plan

Day 4 Reflections: Round pegs and square holes.

The phrase I've used is something we often say in Special Education- we are constantly an afterthought in mainstream educational thought so we often have to adapt new projects and governmental orders to our context- e.g. Curriculum orders, Assessment for Learning etc- hence the round pegs and square holes comment.

I appreciate this whole project can't be SEN focused and it is tricky to translate some of the digital leaders content to my special school environment as our pupils are far from being independent learners or being able to access computers in the traditional sense of the word.

We are also as a school already involved in many focused and specialised projects - which I suppose in context and principle are giving pupils better access to the digital world- we are pushing the use of Eyegaze technology to our most severely physically disabled pupils to enable them to access content independently for example.

http://eyegazesen.wikispaces.com/home

Most of the emerging technologies we are also trialling have at their core a focus on increasing pupils' independent access to the outside world and enabling them to affect their physical environment- this is true of the Kinect, iPad, Leap Motion and Eyetracking work.

http://gesturesen.wikispaces.com/home

I see a large part of this as coming under the umbrella of 'positive use of technology and pupil created content'.  This fits in with our current focus in school on Rights Respecting Schools and pupil voice.

My plan is therefore to continue this work- although I am going to add two new elements:

I am going to encourage teachers to get pupils to create their own video content- first off our link class in Cwm Ifor Primary is going to make a video guide to Trinity Fields to share with the link school.  Also our head boy and girl are going to make a video themselves to put on the school website- this will be only gently guided by a member of staff.  The staff member will help with the technology but the content will be primarily pupil driven and created.

I would also aim to increase the breadth of information that the school shares with it's community partners and parents- so I would like to increase the use we make in school of online media such as videos and also Twitter. I would like the SLT to be able to tweet about the school day- but also the school council, the school choir, the head boy and girl, the cafe staff etc.  The first step in this is getting leadership approval, which is almost in place, the second is getting parental consent- which is the next step.  I have liaised with another SEN school in the UK that has already created a social media permission slip for parents to sign- so I will adapt this.  Then hopefully we can have more pupil created content.

Anthony Rhys
Trinity Fields School and Resource Centre

I have downloaded the research article Defining a self-evaluation digital literacy framework for secondary educators: the DitiLit Leicester project - R Hall et al 2014.  I need to look at this in much greater detail, but on first reading it appears to focus on many of the contentious issues that are raised in schools around supporting/ facilitating digital literacy.  Indeed, it questions what is a competent teacher in terms of digital literacy and asks whether we as educators have the necessary skills, practices and knowledge to support learners in this area. 

I was particularly struck by the quote from the Decoding Learning report (Luckin et al 2012) which says that 'teachers have a crucial role in ensuring that promising innovations do not fail in practice'. 

I agree that we need to develop skills if we are to use technology purposefully in classrooms and we are to be positive role models.  I think we, as a group, are going some way towards this but have concerns that the majority of our colleagues may not share our desire to acquire these skills.  If there was a shared, collaborative, social approach to CPD, as outlined in the report, maybe staff would be more willing to adopt the ever-changing technology available to them in the classroom.

The seven significant thematic areas of digital literacy, identified within the report, are an essential starting point.  All staff and students should:

• Be safe in a digital environment
• Find, evaluate and apply information
• Use digital tools
• Understand social responsibility
• Showcase achievement
• Have an awareness of digital identity 
• Collaborate - education, community and work life

Update - Liz Burrage

There is nothing like leaving things until the last moment and I don't think I could have posted this update any later.  
When I was reflecting on what I had been doing in anticipation of tomorrow's meeting, I have to confess that I couldn't remember what I had said I would do.  In the madness of school-life, everything else goes out of the window.

So, what have I done?

I have created a blog for staff and students.  The initial focus was the European Day of Languages (the lure to get people involved) and this blog has now morphed into not a general ICT lets-all-get-together-and-share-good-practice blog, but an MFL blog where the head of department wants to publicly praise her students.  This wasn't my initial intention, but as only 3 members of staff and one student accessed the blog I thought that it was better to support a colleague who actually wanted to use it.

YR13 Media students set up a blog for the Radio Station which they are maintaining.  They had their first celebrity interview last week - Callum Wright http://www.callumwright.com/ - so I'm hoping that this will spark interest in the general school population.

Our Art department asked for some help creating a web site.  They specifically want to be able to share the students' work in an on-line gallery and raise the profile of the department.  We looked at a number of options together and the front runner seems to be a Google Site combined with Cincopa.  This is now in the hands of the head of Art for exploration - I will pick up the project again once he has made some decisions.

YR11 Performing Arts students have been using Audioboom to reflect on their learning and to provide evidence to an outside provider who provided hardware for their project -see earlier post.  The students were happy to work in this way and the outside agency was complimentary.

YR12 Performing Arts students have been giving each other feedback and reflecting on their learning by using a Moodle Forum.  Whilst we use this in school as an ICT helpdesk for staff, we haven't explored this fully with the students.  In just one lesson, this generated 76 responses the vast majority of which were really detailed and valuable.

I also introduced a Moodle Forum for YR10 Performing Arts, but this time I asked them to reflect on their own learning and then I replied to their responses giving them some encouragement and suggesting an area of the project that they could explore further based on what they told me.

As a department, we are starting to use Google Docs for BTEC tracking.  No sensitive information is shared, but we are using a shared document to save some time with regard to e-mailing project information.  As a school, we already use Google Docs as a synchronised ICT room booking system.

I have been Tweeting - with mixed success. Quite often I find that I have omitted things that I should have included in a tweet. I haven't had a chance to explore Pearltrees or Powtoon properly, as yet.

So next:-
1) Inspection - I have to focus on e-safeguarding for our inspection on the 3rd November - any ideas welcome.
2) SLT have decided that we are not going to go with HWB+, but instead we have our own Office 365/ Outlook for staff only (at the moment).  Our current method of communication, Lisol, is on its way out and I have to support staff through this change.  Many are not used to using e-mail in work.
3) We are going to explore the possibilities of Lewis Girls' School having their own Moodle site as Caerphilly may not continue to support our old (and out-of-date) VLE.  This will require a substantial amount of time.
4) I want to set up a focus group of staff, parents, governors, students and anybody with a stake in the way that ICT is deployed in Lewis Girls' School.  I think that this will be a challenge based on the general apathy that I have encountered so far, but I do think that it is necessary if we are going to move forward.

Kyla Honey 3insightsand1actionpt

http://audioboom.com/boos/2576744-my-3-insights-and-1-action-point

SWGfL resources

I’ve been having a brief look through the resources on the SWGfL site, they look very good and I will certainly be using them in some lesson after our current phase of work has finished. I will also use some of the resources for years 3,4,5 and 6 as I believe that some of these could add real value to learners understanding, as well as being more accessible for lower ability learners. (Strong Password, rings of responsibility, the Power of words, You’ve won a prize

Personal Learning Network

I’ve been a little slow on the uptake on this one in recent weeks, due to personal and other professional commitments, however I’ll endeavour to take part in more online professional dialogue on a more regular basis, starting with the #edchat, #addcym, and #wkdigiedu

www.mrbotfieldict.co.uk - My Professional Website

Been building this website to establish professional online presence, check it out! www.mrbotfieldict.co.uk

Ronan's escape : Insights

A short but moving overview of the emotional distress and isolation experienced by victims of bullying, ending in devastating circumstances. Interesting to note the onlookers and by standers that did nothing to challenge the bully’s, or indeed help the victim.

There were several opportunities for adults to intervene, not only challenging and stopping the bullies there and then, but failure to provide support and assistance to the victim.

The PE teacher did not question what had happened to Ronan on his arrival to his lesson, late, dirty face and clothes, he should have intervened here, as he should also have helped Ronan to his feet after his fall. This is I believe an over exaggeration of teachers not noticing signs of bullying for the purpose of this film, but does however make me wonder how many more subtle signs I myself and many of my colleges have missed over the years.

The bus driver allowing bullying on the bus, and surly common sense would make you question an unscheduled and remote stop?

It is a sad reality of life that children will be bullied in school, but also maybe into adult life. In schools and other child oriented environments there are procedures and protocols to identify bulling, reprimand aggressors and support victims. In adult life in many working environments there are no such mechanisms, and that’s why it’s important that victims of bullying receive support, to enable them to cope with emotional distress, rebuild their self-worth, but also to build confidence and resilience and avoid becoming victims of work place bullying in the future.

It’s also interesting to note that a recent film
(2011) did not feature technology or cyber-bulling.

Christine Blower of the NUT said in 2012 “Children are not tins of beans and schools are not factory production lines” (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-17900053)
The danger of targets, performance related pay, continuously high and exhausting workloads etc. for teachers is that they can disengage from learners as individuals, missing key signs of not just bullying, but children whom are at risk, victims of domestic violence, sexual abuse, children who are child carers or whom have very complex and difficult home circumstances.

I think that this short film reinforces that education should be about much more that A*-C passes, it’s the whole child, their life, their future contribution to society.

Ronan may well have been More Able and Talented, he may well have achieved high examination results, he may have been targeted for being a C / D grade boundary, or targeted for having a positive impact of EAM Level 2, it’s all academic. Ronan wasn’t happy, would not have engaged in school as well as he would have if he was not being bullied and he paid the ultimate price.

I will make sure that Monday morning I’m paying that bit extra attention to every child that walks in and out of my classroom.

Task 1 - Digital Literacy resources

The SWGfl resources are excellent. The lesson activities challenge pupils to think critically about the way they use digital resources, and to think about the ethics of decisions they make. Activities for older pupils discuss issues such as propaganda, celebrity and privacy - all issues that are in the media at the moment and that young people need to be aware of. These resources would be very useful as part of the ICT and PSE curriculum at my school. The Youth and Media resources would be more useful for starter/plenary activities rather than as the core of a lesson or series of lessons. We teach digital literacy in a very traditional way a the moment; Year 7 make a leaflet about Internet Safety, all other year groups get an hour of Internet Safety per year through PSE sessions. These resources could definitely contribute to developing our current practice.

Update

A quick update from me since the last Digital Leaders Training in September.  I thoroughly enjoyed the last training days and have enjoyed reading the contributions from others on the blog. There is certainly a lot of food for thought in terms of what and how we use the Internet in education and beyond.

Unfortunately I haven't made as much progress with my project as I would have liked to by this point. I am mainly going to blame the Chinese Embassy for causing me so many problems with student Visas for the trip to China I've organised for half-term. Add to that a forthcoming ESTYN Inspection and an impending house move, and it's fair to say that things are a bit hectic at the moment!

I have had some success with the first part of my project which was to get pupils to use CamStudio screen recording software to share with others the skills they had learned during a lesson. Most pupils have done this as part of a plenary session in which they evaluate their progress; some pupils have created recordings as an extension activity. Year 8 pupils are currently working on a spreadsheet modelling unit and have created recordings showing how to use skills such as adding formulas/functions, creating charts and conditional formatting. Year 10 pupils have recorded database skills such as creating queries, forms and reports.

Pupils in both classes have enjoyed being a part of the project so far. Many have told me that the knowledge 'sticks' better and they are able to recall skills better in following lessons. Other pupils really enjoy the fact that the resources they make will be accessed by others and as such take a lot of pride in what they produce.

The next stage of the project will be for pupils to add their recordings, plus written description/evaluation to a blog. It took CCBC longer than I had hoped to sort out access to 'the forbidden sites' through my account and I lot a bit of impetus early on. After half-term I hope that once pupils are fully using the blogs then there will be a benefit not only for the pupils creating the blogs but also from other pupils using the resources on these blogs as an educational tool themselves.

Ian

Task 2 - evaluating a digital framework

Digilit Leicester Project
Contrary to what we are trying to achieve in the Digital Leaders, the main focus of this project was on needs of the educators, not the learners. This approach seems somewhat myopic and old-fashioned. I'm not advocating that flipped classrooms are the answer in every situation, but we must be open to the idea that our pupils might (in some instances, at least) know better or more than we do. There was an undercurrent of back-covering in this presentation, and of ensuring that teachers aren't left obsolete or unprepared for the digital classroom.
Secondly, a key theme that technology must be used to supplement teaching and learning, and not be an end into itself.  Whilst this is a truism, it still bears repeating. There must be a wider theme of investigation and problem-solving in our lessons, and not just mere skills acquisition.

Tweeting in the class room

Just a quick up date on the use of Twitter.  I have to say, I am really enjoying this app as a tool in the classroom. Currently, I am using it with a year 9 English class, a year 10 English class and two year 10 Media classes.
Although it is in the early stages I have had a really positive response from the pupils and this is really encouraging.

On the English side of things, I have used Twitter as a home work tool.  I've set year 10 a home work task where they have to tweet an article that is similar to the topic they are going to do a presentation on for their speaking and listening assessment.  Once that is done they have to retweet a fellow pupil's tweet.  They must use the hastag #ocsengcoops and tag my MrsCin43.

Similar format for year 9 only they have to tweet a description of a character from Romeo and Juliet.  Again they have to retweet a fellow pupil's tweet and use the same hashtag.  As a 'Brucie Bonus' I have asked them to take a photo of the storyboard/comic strip of the story line for the play.

Both classes were keen to participate in the activity.  I was discussing this with a friend in work and he asked  how I would 'police' this and check who has and hasn't done the home work.  Good question, right?  Well it is simple.  Each time I am tagged I get an email, I just tick the name in my planner/class list and I can easily see who has completed their homework.

The Media class is a little different.  We are currently studying Research and one of the pupils mentioned an on line questionnaire.  He did a trail run for me so I could see how it would work.  I have now made my own and tweeted it to see what kind of response it would potentially get.

I'll up date with the results ...

A must read...

If you've not already done so, I strongly recommend you all take a few minutes to read this blog. Some really powerful statements and plenty of food for thought...

A veteran teacher turned coach shadows 2 students for 2 days – a sobering lesson learned

Out of interest, I'm going to share this blog with my year 8 ICT class this afternoon, to stimulate debate and to see if it echoes their experience.

Task 1 - Digital literacy resources

I very much liked the resources on the SWGfL site. The tasks were clearly mapped out and signposted with the skills being targetted. I can definitely see myself using this as a bolt-on to my established scheme of work; perhaps as part of the work produced in the rotation of strands (CI, HI, M, etc.).
I particularly liked how the content avoided the familiar trappings of internet safety, and was directed towards the skills they need to have in this digital age.
The youth and media resources were interesting, and came from a different approach. I don't think I will use them as much as the SWGfL resources, but there are some nice starter activities in there.

Digital literacy resources

Hi all,

Having looked at the resources from www.digital-literacy.org.uk I think some of them would be very useful to incorporate into lessons, particularly at Key stage 3. They would also be useful for the digital literacy focus group I have set up as part of my project. I am going to aim to adapt some of the resources for use in this group and trial them to see if they are successful, I will then role them out to other classes. 

I have also signed up for emails from Common Sense Media, which I have to say is great, their Facebook page is also very informative, and after only being subscribed for a few days I have already got lots of interesting information which has inspired me for lessons with my classes. These guys are definitely  worth a follow!  

Janine :)

Using YouTube

One of the advantages of being a Digital Leader is that of now having access to YouTube and being able to use resources in the classroom. In a class on the Reproduction System, pupils were engrossed in Rolf Larson's 'Miracle of Life' as too were the staff. 'Miracle of Life' is a fascinating short film showing how fertilisation occurs and how a baby develops inside the womb.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9nzoQScgAM

Working with other professionals from around the world.

As part of the work that Trinity Fields has been doing on gesture based technology we have been in contact with many people while using resources for the Kinect sensor.

We had one usable program from Cardiff Met Uni that was in BETA phase and was developed for pupils with Autistic Spectrum Disorder- one pupil had used this program a lot and had great interaction an engagement with it.

But we needed more- to develop this interaction and also because every pupil is different we needed as many interactive programs as possible.

So I set about finding Kinect programs on the web and then contacting developers, programmers, digital artists and companies to ask if we could use their programs (for free!)

About 80% of people contacted responded very positively- and gave advice on installation issues and the technical side of things- none of these programs had been created for our pupils but they worked really well- they had started life as night club software, programmers showing what they could do or as art projects.

So we ended up having to thank:
Davor in California for Visikord (Night club program) Trent Brooks in Sydney for Noise Ink (art installation)Chris Riebschlager in Missouri for Kinect Art (programming business) Adityo Pratomo in Jakarta for Evil Twin and Rainbow Man, (programmer)Amnon Owed in The Hague for Kinect Physics and Flow (creative programmer)

My mother always used to say- if you don't ask you don't get!
So it's good to ask every now and again!
I'm still in contact with most of these people through twitter or email- and one of them is even developing their software further for pupils on the back of our work.
Also we have made links with a university in Finland that I have spoken on-line with at a conference. 

Anthony Rhys

Overcoming apathy

Two weeks ago, I introduced Remind across three year groups and their parents. I sent letters home to parents inviting them to take part in this useful and informative project that would be mutually beneficial. I targeted my form class (year 7) and four KS4 ICT and Business Studies groups. So, that's approximately 200 pupils and at least the same number of parents. As of the time of writing, only 13 pupils and 2 parents have made the effort to take part. Only 3.7% of the people I am trying to engage. Allowing for letters getting 'lost' on their way home and a proportion of people that don't have access to the internet, that's still a pretty poor show. At which point do I decide to not invest any further time in it? My time is limited, and I have plenty of other demands on it, both professionally and personally.

Having said that, it would be naive of me to think that everyone would readily embrace this scheme. However, it does raise some questions and concerns. Is it the idea of Remind they aren't connecting with? If not, why not? Do I need to raise my profile with pupils and parents, as I have only been at the school for 6 weeks, after all? Is it a case of having to keep trying new ideas and new initiatives, in the hope that a few will gain traction and lead somewhere? Won't that just irritate the ones that are on board, or further disinterest the ones that are uninterested? Perhaps the low level of parental uptake is due to the lack of digital transparency I spoke of previously. Do pupils see this scheme as a way of me establishing a direct-line method of contacting their parents, and they are eyeing it suspiciously...?

I'm going to give it more time, more nagging and continue using it as though I am speaking to a larger audience than the 3.7%. If you build it, they will come. I'm also going to spend more time reassuring pupils of my motives behind this app. I am not using it to 'tell' on them; I just want to start a dialogue and use this as a gateway to more fun and interactive things we could do.

This week I am starting my after-school ICT club, with the aim of developing pupils into Digital Leaders.  It'll be interesting to see how many pupils are engaged in this idea...

Radio in Lewis Girls' School

YR11 Radio Project

As part of the launch of our radio station, YR11 students were asked to prepare a show that would be broadcast on the European Day of Languages.  Each student was given a country and they had to carry out some research, script their set, find appropriate music, record their set, edit their set and ensure that it was transferred (in the correct format) for transmission.  Two of the students broadcasted live, on the day itself, using the material created by the class.
Usually, the evaluative part of the project would have been written by the students.  Some of the students find this a challenge so, in the spirit of this audio project, we asked the students to create audio evaluations.
Whilst the results vary in quality, every student participated enthusiastically  (with very little help from staff). They used Audioboo/m, set up and populated their own blog, added my introduction and embedded their audio evaluations. They sent their blog address to the group who funded the project and plan to add to it in the near future - their next task is a radio interview.
Feel free to listen to some of their comments (keep in mind that they are a mixed ability group).

lgsparadio.blogspot.co.uk

Software and apps used:
Audacity (PC)/ Hokusai (iPads)  Word (PC)/ Pages (iPads)  Google Drive
Excel (PC)/ Numbers (iPads)   iTunes   GarageBand   Dropbox
Radio Zara  Radio streaming software (sorry, I can't remember the name)
Audioboo/m  Blogger  - not too shabby for one project

Twitter - points to consider when encouraging use in lessons

I might have mentioned this to some of you in person, or in blog comments, but thought it worth a quick blog post:
If you are encouraging pupils to use Twitter, it will be a good idea to go through the following link:
https://support.twitter.com/articles/470968-families and design a lesson for your
pupils discussing good net-etiquette as well as privacy so that they are aware of their 'voice' online.

Also as Twitter is made up of lots of diverse communities of people, they need to be aware of not sharing 'personal information' like mobile numbers, locations etc. - particularly if they are young. This is all part of developing their digital citizenship - an important issue to address with pupils before they use these platforms.

As mentioned during our first 3 days, in the US , because of the COPPA (Children's Online Privacy Protection Act), many social platforms ask for a minimum age of 13. As far as I can tell Twitter doesn't appear to ask for a minimum age for members. However, my suggestion would be that they are at least 13 if you want to get them to use Twitter as part of your lesson.

Progress to date

Ive been looking into several different project ideas, but have become frustrated at the barriers to delivering them. I initially enquired with our technician into enabling social media platforms such as twitter, but was told it would not be possible to enable social platforms, due to our network being RM and using dynamic IP's. Fortunately since then I have found that I have access to twitter. 

The first area I am going to look into is game play in the classroom. I see that some teachers are using Minecraft, to be different I'm going to try survival craft. During the process of learning the game I hope that I can set learners up using a Wiki, so we can co construct knowledge, share game strategies and become familiar with game objects, objectives and vocabulary. I intend to follow up with a series of learner blog posts, outlining what they have done, what they feel they have learned from it and including some creative and extended writing activities. I'm also interested in teaching actual use of social media, and so far have access to twitter on my computer. I intend to get learners to tweet about their Survival craft experiences, and hopefully working with another teacher - set up a twitter chat where learners from two classes can talk to one another. This will then lead nicely into some work on digital citizenship.   

Roadmap - alpha

Contact developer of Survival Craft and ascertain if possible to play Survival craft online, or have installed on network for educational use - Free of charge

Draft letters to parents seeking permission for children to create Twitter Accounts for lesson use

All Wales Internet Filtering

Evening all

Yesterday Liz, Stu and I met with Neil James and Abigail Evans from Caerphilly Education IT, along with Ian from St Gwladys Primary, Bargoed (worth contacting Al - he's a very enthusiastic iPad trainer!) to discuss the Welsh Government's Proposals for an All Wales Internet Filtering Policy. WG have expressed an eagerness for all pupils in Wales to work on a level playing field when using the internet. There's a comprehensive list of categories of sites that were under discussion, with each one being allocated a suggested 'Allow' 'Block' or 'Decide on a Local Level' criteria. I'm sure that Liz and Stu will readily comment below to offer their perspectives but I felt that this was a very encouraging meeting. I think it's fair to say that everybody present agreed that we have duty towards our pupils to develop their digital literacy hand in hand with keeping them safe and that this involves opening up a far wider range of content than previously experienced. Once I get an electronic copy of this list of sites, I will post a copy here - Neil and Abi were genuinely keen to get as broad a response as possible to the proposals. Access to various elements of online content is to be categorised according to 1. Staff Access, 2. Primary Pupil Access and 3. Secondary Pupil Access. (This is far clearer on the proposal document!). In fairness to Ian, our primary colleagues will certainly have a different perspective when agreeing on filtering sites for pupils aged 4-11 than we might for 11-18.

The challenge ahead.

The main challenge presented by these proposals as far as I can see involves working with SLT's and more specifically head teachers. To be honest there were occasions when I felt mild apprehension at the thought of such open access to a wide variety of online content. Convincing your Heads, who hold the ultimate responsibility for pupil safety will be the main challenge. Sangeet's advice involving making small proposals that are explicitly thought through with sound supporting evidence will be crucial. As we know - for developing digital literacy put the learning ahead of the technology and prepare robust e-safety policies (in tandem with your behaviour policies) and when mistakes are (inevitably) made, look to learn from them without losing heart. By the way, Neil and Abi were more than happy to produce an exemplar acceptable internet use policy for schools to adapt/adopt. It was also interesting to hear Abi mention a school in the USA which dispensed with any 'E-Policies' altogether, relying instead purely on behaviour policies (e.g. rather than looking at cyber-bullying as a separate entity, deal with it as part of the anti-bullying policy; or treat defacing of Facebook walls in the same way as physical graffiti is handled). Perhaps some of you might be familiar with this approach, if so you might like to elaborate (or correct any of my misapprehensions!).

Chris Williams also popped in to mention his 'Digital Leaders Group' (essentially a show and tell teach meet for all Caerphilly Schools). The first one is Thursday at Ty Penallta from 1.30. On this occasion it will involve brief presentations from several Primary colleagues. Hopefully this will include some Secondary examples in the next session. If you haven't heard about this, don't worry - Neil, Abi and Chris all expressed frustration that emails might not always get to the right person in each school. As a result, I will ensure that they are made aware of the membership of our group so that messages can get to the appropriate person in future.

 Reading back over this post, I think I've captured the main gist of the meeting - although I don't think I've quite captured the sense of fun as I can honestly say that this was a very enjoyable two hour meeting. Which is refreshing!

Freaked Out Inset

Belatedly, here are some of the good practice and ideas that were shared as part of last week's Freaked out training.

Creating a culture of pupil Digital Leaders: 

• Develop a of expertise – digital wizards, digital leaders and digital learners. Pupils can keep their own blogs and Twitter accounts. Section on ddp and minutes. Publicise digital leaders 
• Digital leaders charter - what they will offer pupils and staff
• Every break of lunch create a Genius Bar for digital leaders to teach pupils and teachers
• Digital leaders appointed by digital wizards
• Change school website, where teachers can produce a weekly blog, to increase learner and parental engagement

Making our schools more interactive:

• All displays contain at least two interactive items
• Use aurasma to create interactive displays, or videos for pieces of equipment. Scan wall display and a video will play. Good for explaining and adding detail to wall displays. Use it to do book recommendations and reviews
• Qr codes in classroom, wall displays, targeted key areas. Linked to audio descriptions of newsletters, blogs etc.
• Using audiobook and qr codes to leave feedback for pupils
• Using Twitter to write stories. Using Twitter as a hook to interest. Using a Twitter account for historical figures and get them to interact. Use as class display

Changing our learners from consumers to creators:

Use explain everything to get the kids to do their own interactive learning guides

An argument in defence of the use of mobile phones in schools:

It is frustrating for us to not to be able to use a mobile device. If we need to know something,we'd immediately reach for our smartphones. Why do we deny this facility to our learners? Simon displayed a wonderful image (which I can't find online) comparing today's mobile phone with the plethora of devices that we used to use independent of each other (phone,l camera, video recorder, GPS, microphone, etc.). And most of us have access to this wondrous device, yet we never use it!

Why not allow them to use mobiles?? If we mutually devise a code of conduct, to give the learners ownersip and a shared sense of responsibility for their conduct, can't we create a culture of acceptance? Yes there will be problems; but if they are dealt with effectively, if the risk is managed, then we stand to gain so much.  He shared an example of w working code of conduct, where lessons are colour coded as follows: 

Red – no phones to be used in this lesson, keep them out of sight use

Amber – phones *may* be used, keep them close at hand 

Green – phones will definitely be used, but use them responsibly

However, Simon seemed at pains to acknowledge that this practice is fraught with pitfalls, and that patience and an understanding SLT is called for.  To give an example, if I may share a ribald anecdote, I discussed the issue of allowing mobile phone access with my Year 10 ICT, at which point, several class members (no pun intended) erupted. They then shared a story of how mobile phones and Snapchat had been used in the school toilets to share images of people using the facilities...

Plenty of ideas there to chew on, I'm sure you'll agree.