Kristianstill

This time next year I hope to be able to return to this post and see how we planned out ‘the new year’ and measure the progress we made. With just 4 weeks remaining, moderation completed, we need to ensure we finish this years coursework is moderated and tie off lose ends. This will may prove very difficult to achieve, staff need to be made clearly aware of their responsibilities to the students they are currently teaching in order to limited overwork / confusion next September. At present I have proposed an ICT morning for Year 9 and 10 groups, however I am sure this is a difficult task to organise.

So to planning ahead for next year,

KS4 Assignments for Unit 1, 7 and 4 need to be re-written/written and Internally Verified (INSET).
SOW for each Unit need to be structured, however each SOW will need flexibility as differentiated groups will progress at difference rates.

Internal moderation dates for Unit work needs to be identified and structured.

Importantly the availability of the NWLG OCR tutorials have given all students tasks they can be focused on in class INDEPENDENTLY.

ICT Noticeboards in each class need to attended to and key information posted.

KS3 My colleague is writing and the SOW – resources will need to be written to match and support these schemes.

Training needs to be introduced into the meeting to enable staff who deliver at KS3 to be confident. This means that we may need to organise team meetings on a fortnightly basis focusing on these two distinct sets of teaching staff. So far it looks something like this…

ICTAC

This is the area I have given least attention to so far, however significant changes in the Nework should have a big impact on the staff, the single domain and online registration are starters. Development of the college information system via the CMS Website, potential wireless coverage, UMPC integration and deployment and Learning Platform to follow.

Investment of time and well organised and structure training needs to be made available in to staff. This may be whole college, for groups. Preceeding this a staff audit needs to be undertaken and ICT training opportunities investigated.

ICT strategy group to be formed, ICT Network Manager, Administration Office Supervisor, SLT and Teaching staff?

We still need to complete the SRF and this will be raised again in September when the management structure has been outlined.

ICT Network

At present the college is looking at a hybrid system, of our technician and an experienced, support Network Manager. The focus is getting back to the Network Manager focusing his efforts on servicing the teaching and learning rather than pure Network Development. More to come here.

About 10 months ago I stumbled upon the National College for School Leadership (NCLS) online. Prior to this chance discovery, I knew nothing about this organisation. Now, I enjoy reading their quarterly LDR magazine, I often dip into their resource bank and I successfully completed my first online course.  Only when I was invited to present at an ALT conference at the NCSL Learning and Conference Centre in Nottingham, did I fully appreciate the size and scope of the organisation. I strongly recommend you take advantage of this great (FREE) resource.

This brings me to yet another fantastically thought provoking LDR post, ‘The Butterful Collector.’ Simply put The Butterfly Effect is ‘the effect of a very small change in the initial conditions of a system which makes a significant difference to the outcome.’ I will not spoil the article for you, but what small changes have you or your team made, that have in turn, made a significant difference to the outcome?

In first place, I believe that introducing the ICT Level 1 course will mean we have more students studying at an appropriate level, hence reduced class disturbance, an opportunity for ALL students to achieve and improved attainment of the most able students.

Second, recruiting sufficient ICT staff to teach the courses, although I believe we should be aiming for 4 staff next year.

Finally, although this is not a small change, the College investment in appropriate ICT technology and a ICT budget strategy will ultimately have a long term positive impact. Already the degree of vandalism has reduced, as the students have been able to work with less disruption. Now we must protect this high quality learning environment. We must keep the ICT Department in shape, minimise wasted finance and show we present a good investment.

‘Education changes very slowly, technology changes very quickly but children only get to be children once.’ (Doug Brown, Learning Technologies Unit)

‘Teaching students to do what?’

That was the phrase from a recent ‘Moving at the Speed of Creativity’ podcast (courtesy of Steve Wycoff) that really struck a cord. I don’t have long to write this post, so I will be concise, never a bad thing. Dr Wycoff’s point is that we should be focus on why we teaching our students, more so that what we are teaching. He positions a number of rather frank statements that raise concerns over the extent of unused learning, the fallibility of testing and finally the real responsibility of teachers. To that point I have borrowed a second key point raised

A teacher’s job is not to teach kids. A teacher’s job is to create meaningful, engaging work whereby kids learn the things we want them to learn. (Phil Schlecty)

Do we as teachers provide opportunities that give students time to grapple with difficult lessons, to really learn something? Or do we merely deliver a checklist of learning skills? It is the difference in knowing something and doing something that emphasised. Have you listened to Steve? Did I miss the point? In reflection, its what I do with this learning that counts….

Its not too long until INSET is upon us, I was thinking that I might use the themes presented by the penguins to look at how we might address some fo the issues in our department. Like the penguins I am a little impulsive but we are tight night.

Another blocked site by the Hampshire filters. Not holding back, we asked for agreement from parents and students to use photo hosting site Flickr to share their fantastic memories from this trip. The students from the Barca 08 trip have shown that they are comfortable with this technology have uploaded over 250 photos to share. We even have one of the students administrating the site. These images has been used to create mini movies, slideshows and scrapblogs, and as a consequence many of the smiles have resurfaced on the faces of both the staff and students.