Kristianstill

I continue to enjoy listening to Sir Ken Robinson speak about the evolution of education every since I first heard his TED talk a few year back. I hope that you will enjoy reflecting on his talk as the recipient of the Ben Franklin Award at the RSA.

In an ICT Department experiencing significant change (courses, staff and direction), here is my grouping dilemma for Sept 2008.

We currently have Year 10 students moving into Year 11 who have partially completed 2 Units in the OCR National (Level 2) course. Groups have made variable progress as teaching and delivery models have not been consistent. We are introducing a new member to the ICT staff team in Sept – now 3 in total. The fourth teacher is our Deputy Head.

Do we

a) Stream the half year groups into 4 classes of 28, 26, 24, 22 students in each class.

The benefits being that the able students will be able to complete Unit 1 in Year 11 (and are most likely students who have already completed Unit 7 and Unit 2). Any shortfalls in Units 2 and 7 can be met easily and therefore a number of students will be able to secure 2 GCSEs. The drawbacks are two fold, students now have to develop new relationships with new staff and second, we would be creating a low band group that is already disengaged and likely to pose a real challenge for any teacher?

b) Maintain the teaching groups.

This would clearly promote continuity, however the low band students are still unlikely to be unsuccessful and the able students are unlikely to complete 2 GCSEs. We may be able to put additional learning support into the low band set, but would this be enough?

Can this group (predominantly boys) be motivated to achieve? Would the Head permit us a caveat, a reward hook for achievement? Would these students buy into it? Any ideas would be most gratefully received.

Just a short post, the TES has collected some Olympic themed lesson ideas for all subjects and age ranges so delve in.

Look, I am very lucky to have a number of talented teachers to share ideas with, both within the department and through my PLN (Personal Learning Network) Who do you share ideas with if you are the only member of staff in your teaching team? Who hits the ball back?

Today I was talking with a collague and I learnt two very important lessons.

1. Don’t presume teaching staff know how and where to get connected. In this case a very talented and receptive member of staff, was keen to explore options of networks (NING and neeetz), wikis and blogs. I need to do more than just outline how and where she can access such tools. As the only Health and Social Care teacher in our school I need to help get connected.
2. We spoke about a range of tools to develop the topic of nutrition. We looked at nutrient counters and infosites such as nutritiondata and of teachertube. Yes, the humble teacher video resource. She was particular interested in how she could ‘get that video.’ Apart from merely playing it her lesson from the internet, she wanted to capture that video for her resources… (more of that later). So second I learnt that if the enthused are new to web tools like teacher tube, then I need to find a better way of sharing the ‘not so hidden gems’ of the information highway than I am right now.

I need to think about how I am going to share these tools more effectively next year! Yes, we need an ICT strategy team, but we also needs a 21st Century Resources team and a mega phone would be handy. My thanks to my colleague, I will make sure I support her future adventures.

I have used cross-platform media player VLC for some time now. It just plays everything. What I didnt know was just how versatile it is. Not only does VLC play nearly any file you throw at it can rip DVDs, convert files to iPod-friendly formats.