Kristianstill

Year 11 had their official leaving assembly this week, Animoto  again delivered a well received mini movie (unfortunately the lack of centrally located and filed photos let us down a little.) I was impressed again with the quality of the assembly and the over impact the assembly had on the students. I wonder how the Year 10s will now respond?

As a Department we still have to internally moderate the Year 11 OCR ICT coursework and prepare for the External Moderators visit. Vocational procedures have been a cross school issue and one that needs raising with senior staff. Staffing has dragged on, balancing expertise and cross subject requirements. In addition, we still need to finalise our IT Management structure and Learning Platform decisions.

On Tuesday we are holding a ‘Complete your OCR Coursework and Pizza’ afternoon. I am not expecting many, but it’s another opportunity for the determined students to pass their course. I am conscious that I do not want to create more marking for colleagues, but these students deserve the opportunity to pass.

Otherwise, half Term brings an opportunity to structure the KS4 Curriculum for next year, the internal verification and moderations procedures and even do a little learning for myself. I have been using Draw Plus to create some new school logos. I will post some of my favourites here for your review soon.

So today we took the work the students created in class and uploaded a range to AuthorStream. The motivation to get their work on the site was impression. I also learnt a few teaching points for E(ngage)-Learning and was left with one or two questions to reflect on;

1. Although I created a short presentation about using AS, actually creating an account needed a little more structure. Perhaps a slide or screencast. Even though we had talked about online safety, this must be reinforced.
2. The structure of the activity must be very clear, so that the work chould be completed and perhaps checked before going online, (emphase the size of the viewing audience, perhaps the ratings/feedback they receive might reinforce that point?
3. Tags, I forgot to explain the importance of tags. As yet you can not yet create groups on AS, tags would be a very good way to search for students work and create “groups.”
4. Q. How do you encourage students that dont want to post? We had one student who was less than positive.

I recently read about a new addition to the dictionary, ‘pizzled,’ An amalgamation of the words “pissed off” and “puzzled.” Well I was certainly pizzled this week! Not knowing what was wrong with my PC and internet connection, we finally managed to convince Virgin to send an engineer to visit. I felt vilified when he too could not find the solution to our intermittent and erratic internet connection and we have a senior engineer coming out on Wednesday.

On the plus side, I brought home my ‘work’ laptop and installed the TRIAL Serif software I requested / was sent by Serif. So far I am very pleased with what I have encountered.  I felt that DRAW Plus software very suitable, easy to understand and the products could swiftly created. I am sure that there is much more to discover and I hardly investigated the animation options, which look interesting. The tutorials would prove useful teaching aids, but I would like more screencasts as shown on the website. Overall 8/10, a reasonable friendly software option that and might prove useful not only for Unit 2 (Web Creation), Unit 3 (Digital Imaging) and Unit 23 (Digital Video) but also Unit 4 (MultiMedia Products). We might even use Draw X2 to help emphase the branding and house style required in Unit 1. It may also prove useful for Technology. Movie Plus was quite advanced, probably a lot more advanced than we would need at Level 2 but that’s not to say it is not appropriate. Given time, I will let you know what I think of the other products. In the meantime you can read more at the Serif website or email then at ocr@serif.com

I am again wondering if teaching ICT is the best way to educate our learners at Hamble College and the best way to seep ICT into learning. In the past two cover lessons I have been able to introduce a range of ICT tools that the students have, and will continue to benefit from. I was quiet surprised by their response if I am honest. My second thought is how do I share these resources effectively, I am not sure the College delicious account and news letter are kicking it!

Today in Year 8 French I introduced google translate, Oddcast’s audio translator and taught a handful of students how to create Polaroids in Powerpoint. The student were genuinely impressed with the translator and a few expected to use it at home. Finally today, I used picnik an online photo editing tool to help modify some images, now there is a lot more that can be achieved with that tool and the instant Polaroids look neat.

So back to the original thinking… how can best can ICT / E-Learning Director best effect and encourage the uptake of ICT skills for learning? In an ICT context or out in the trenches in the wider educational environment. Just image what could be achieved if we had a mobile IT learning unit! Eeeepck.

Currently we do not operate a help desk. Our IT office is exactly that, an office. Our staff do not really use the automated ICT reporting tab but its getting better. The question for me, is how best to provide an IT support service to both our staff and students? Young students banging on a windowless door is not the way to forward either.

If there are any Network managers out there that have opinions or advice on how to best move this issue forward I would love to hear from you. Currently I am considering sharing an office space with the IT Manager, create a hatch area for students to ask for support and using the closed area as a IT workshop, meanwhile stressing the online support to staff.