Little Steps towards Videoing and Twitter.

Updates on Projects

Things are slowly moving forward with the Digital Leaders projects.

Finally, after a Senior Leadership Team meeting last Friday I have the go ahead to create and get the pupils and staff to add to a school Twitter account- to network the school with the wider world, community and families and enable pupils to 'micro-blog'.  However it has to be with a 'trial' group of 6 of our Cafe catering pupils- I have to invite their parents in to discuss and get their permission and also I have to run it all past head of Child Protection at CCBC.  So that'll take two months to sort at least.

The video project is finally starting- the Head Boy and Girl and deputies will be making a 'Welcome to Trinity Fields' video all on their own- with one support staff as a guide.  Aiming for Christmas finish for this- only three weeks away really! I'm glad that someone on the staff team is running with this and I know they will do a good job and I hope they all enjoy doing it.

I've also been put/volunteered on a Post Grad Course in Educational Leadership at the Caerleon campus of the University of South Wales- had four lectures 4-6pm so far and have to do an essay on implementing a project- luckily I'm running an Eyegaze one as part of my Performance Management and as part of my Professional Learning Community so it should fit in nicely and give me that extra push.

I was delighted today to look through some videos of a young girl using the eyegaze this week- she has come on so much since I initially got her on it in 2012- she's now achieving her yearly targets using eyetracking video evidence.  Luckily we got the funding for another two eyegaze units which brings us up to five now.

http://eyegazesen.wikispaces.com/

The eyetracking project is entering it's second phase with our ASD pupils, results on the first phase are in and here:

http://eyegazesen.wikispaces.com/Eye-Tracking+Cognition+Project+at+Trinity+Fields+School

Also taking video evidence for a Video Analysis system we are trialling (like they use in sports at the moment). I went to the other lead school in Salisbury yesterday for a great meeting and have got another one in Cardiff Met soon- it's all going to get really running in the new year.

http://videoanalysissen.wikispaces.com/

and we're BETA testing some new eyegaze software, a new Kinect program, I got sent a Kinect V2 from Microsoft after a slight beg and am awaiting a super dooper laptop to run that and the Oculus Rift, and oh, we're also getting a Neurosky device to give EEG brainwave control of computers a go and the Xbox Kinect One is ready to go with a class as well with two games which may be suitable.


But for now that's it, I'm full up on projects for a while now- say till 2015 at least! I'm trying to keep up with my pupils too- we're starting our Christmas Sensory Story next week so I'm planning activities for that and some nice Christmas cooking activities and also getting video evidence for their ASDAN modules and their IEP records too, unfortunately one of them is really unwell again at the moment so we're all missing him and hope to see him again soon.

Looking forward to our next Digital Leaders meetings as well in the New Year.

Anthony Rhys
Trinity Fields School and Resource Centre