I am in charge of flexible learning days at our school. We are halfway through year 1, but am already trying to plan out Y2 and address issues from Y1. Due to a desire from staff to have more time with their option groups at KS4/5, I need some ideas for themed based days for KS3. So have ‘borrowed’ the Curriculum Catalyst idea from Tom Barrett and used google moderator as a way of geting ideas. So if yo have any suggestions please click here and add them to the list.
Today the very popular website wordle, was not available. Some bloke decided that using the name was a copyright infringement see freetech4teachers , #savewordle and pheinblog: Wordle is in Trouble to see the back story. Now, I like using wordle, it has created some excellent posters for my class. However, the world of twitter seems very quick to react to events now rather than reflect. I remember a ‘reaction’ a while ago about the injustice of a chap who got arrested for handing in a gun to the police that he had ‘found’. Twitter was in uproar, tweets were flying all over the place about how ridiculous that was… eventually the full facts came out and they weren’t as they were first portrayed. The same, albeit less dramatic happened with wordle. As you can see from the #savewordle link people (even now – 21.20) are tweeting about saving wordle, when if you click on this link you’ll see it is back up and running.
Now don’t get me wrong, I applaud the support that has been given to Jonathan Feinberg in supporting wordle, but aren’t we in danger of jumping on bandwagons too quickly without a bit of reflection first. Twitter, is very instantaneous, and when you have tweeted, it is very difficult to ‘untweet’. Maybe its just me, but a little reflection is probably worth it in the long run.
This link (ICT Strategy) is my quick thoughts on what Moodle, Mahara and SLG gives our school. This is stage 1 of sorting out a strategy to present to SLT to try and get the ball rolling again. If you have a look at it and think there are any obvious mistakes, omissions or you have any thing else to add, please do so via comments. Many thanks in advance.
Have spent the morning creating a simple(ish) tutorial, showing the basics of Mahara. Have used wink, because it is easy to use. Still not 100% happy with result, but think it will suffice for now. Found out a few interesting things whilst making the tutorial. The main one being that you need to be careful in the type of group you create. The one I created for the iMedia course was open access. This meant that anyone who joined the group had the ability to edit and delete the views I had created….ouch. So have now changed it so that I have to add the users to the group. This gives me to great features:
1. The students can only ‘view’ the content
2. They can submit their own views to the group for assessment.
The second option is great, although I now have to work out how work will be assessed. Do I continue to use moodle or change to mahara? I think I am more likely to stick with moodle for assessing key components of their coursework and get them (students) to submit ‘views’ of completed pieces of coursework. This work would be the final piece of work, after it had been assessed in moodle. Students would also be able to showcase key pieces of work as well.
I have finally got Moodle and Mahara working at school. (When I say ‘I’, what I actually mean is a very clever technician has got it working for me). I have been wanting Mahara ever since I first saw it years ago, but there have always been issues getting it to work. The newest version of Mahara and moodle seem to like each other a lot more and with some techy magic we have it. Now I need to decide what I want to do with it?
will it be for e-portfolios?
a school based social network?
a user friendly front end to moodle?
a web based and slimlined version of our shared network?
a staffpool of non-sensitive material?
web-based departmental areas?
or all of the above?
Personally, I want all of the above. But to achieve that needs a cunning plan. I need to sell this better than I did Moodle. However, Mahara looks and feels a lot better than Moodle. It has a certain ‘facebook’ look that quite a few staff are familiar with. Pupils should also feel more comfortable. So what to do….
Firstly, I have had a quick play and also downloaded the Mahara book from Packtpress. It is a good starting point. I have so far:
created an ICT Dept page for staff only - this will hopefully be a place to share resources, teaching ideas and also a sandbox to test different Mahara things.
created a front end to a moodle course – All the resources, videos etc are now in a ‘view’ with links to moodle to allow students to submit their work. This seems a tidier way of doing it and the pupils/staff will hopefully find it easier
saved key files to the site area rather than my user area. – I didn’t do this to begin with and was filling my personal Mahara user area up quickly. Have now created a simple file structure in the site area to enable me to save course based resources there. Getting other staff to do this will be tricky, and mat require some liaison with either me or the technicians.
added various artifacts including; RSS feeds, youtube videos, mp4s, slideshare presentations, files. folders and images. So far the main issues has been with RSS feeds and it may be related to our SWGFL filter (more investigating needed!)
So now what?
I need to get a select group of pupils using it and once I have some live data I then need to ’sell’ it to SLT. The added functionality of goals, skills, resume as well as the plugin to enable students to find out about their learning styles will also be a good selling point. I also need to sort out our school ’shared area’…talk about a dumping ground for crap! If Departments can create topic based groups on Mahara and link resources to it and also create a ’staff only’ area for more sensitive info, then the shared/staff areas on our network may well become surplus to requirements. But that is way in the future.
To develop the social side of mahara, will requre the Heads of Year to think about how they can use Mahara from a pastoral point of view. This can include year ‘groups’ and tutor ‘groups’ within Mahara as well as a student led pupil voice.
So once all of the above is done, I will be a happy man and can then think about the next challenge….. SIMS integration????
We are currently about finishing Unit 1 and Unit 20 with our first cohort of students on the OCR Nationals L2 ICT course. As it is our first full year through we have been a bit traditional and all their work is being printed out and to be honest I am shocked at the amount of paper we are getting through. So with a new scheme of learning created for the current Y9 and Y10 I am hoping to do away with paper versions of their work and instead create e-portfolios. My original idea was to do this using Mediator. It is a fantastic bit of software and all the kids can use it quite easily. However, storage is an issue at our school and the kids are forever running out of space. So I wanted a ‘cloud’ option. I thought Mahara would be an excellent option, but we are still having teething problems with getting it networked. All their work is currently being uploaded to moodle, where we can easily assess it but it’s not really an ‘e-portfolio’. So I am now at cunning plan number 3…Prezi.
Prezi has become available free for all educational establishments. It is a fun and unique way of doing presentations. But what it also does is allow you to upload work in the form of pdfs, images and videos(flv). Now I have a means for all the students to create funky , individual e-portfolios which are stored online, but which can also be downloaded as a flash presentation when completed.
The issues:
All students work needs to be converted to pdf. Not a problem if you have office 2007.
All videos need to be converted to flv. Youconvertit seems to work wonders
A 30 slide presentation on internet research takes a while to arrange in prezi.
Using the path tool in prezi to create a journey through the work is also time consuming
Here is an example of a Unit 1 e-portfolio prezi.
As you can see, it takes a while to go through all the evidence. However, I think I have a cunning plan for that as well…use something like wink to record the evidence rather than loads of screenshots. This can then be converted to an FLV and then uploaded. This way, the Prezi e-portfolio solution could be used for a variety of different units. So far I have managed to get my Y10 class to create the layout and design for their e-portfolios. Once all their work has been signed off and they are happy, I hope to get all of their work uploaded.
I have a few Y13 students who are resiting their Unit 2 (G041) paper in January (OCR Applied GCE ICT). They have been panicking a bit and wanted to do some past papers. The issue is that Section A is based on a case study and changes everytime, so lack of time means that’s out of the window. Therefore they can only practice the section B which is generic info about ICT and business. I have set up a small Edmodo group for them and have been sharing hints and tips for passing the exam as well as how to write the three main pre-release task. I also decided to create interactive past papers. These papers would enable them to answer different section B questions from past papers and click a submit via email button and I’d get their answers.
Having recently got from school a licenced copy of Adobe CS3 Master suite I had noticed a function called create form. Using Adobe lifecycle design I have managed to create a very simple and rustic interactive past paper. The video below will hopefully show how its done (although it seems to take an age to load! – was my first attempt at jing and think I made it too big – got carried away with my widescreen – updated now – used Camstudio and uploaded to youtube):
When the results are emailed back they come in an xml format. There have been a couple of issues with this…
my school email won’t let me open it
the opened xml file wasn’t the easiest to read
If you have a solution to either it’d be much appreciated… I’ll probably work it out if I RTFM but haven’t got around to that yet. Here is an example of a past paper that I have created. Jun07questionpaper
Hopefully this year I will be a more active blogger, but on past performances, I think it is unlikely. However to enable me to blog more effectively I am no longer going to focus on work related topics. I think that has been a stumbling block. This is usually because anything I have thought about writing about has invariably been discussed, blogged or tweeted about already and it then feels like I am just going over old rope. I have also decided to change the name and focus of the blog. Twenty ten, unoriginal but maybe I can now change the title each year I have also changed the tag-line… so many blogs and tweets I read are work related and therefore I am losing the balance between life (the important bit) and work (the bit you need to do to have a life!).
So I am also thinking about being more general in the posts. The concern with that is that it is psychologically easier to blog about ‘work stuff’ as you can keep it reasonably generic without it getting personal… the big step in blogging is being willing to put your thoughts and feelings ‘out there’ and know that it is likely to be scrutinized, discussed etc (if people actually read it!). I doubt that it’ll get too personal, I’m not that sort of person, but who knows?
This year I have a few personal goals that could fall under the ‘New Years Resolution’ umbrella, but I have always shied away from that…so will keep it to goals.
Get fitter – 2009 was the year of the belly for me. An injury prevented me from running and then when it got better, I didn’t have the motivation. So will be posting updates about that
Get organised – I am not the most organised and am easily distracted so need to really focus this year on getting my act together..especially with Flexible Learning Days – 10 days spread out throughout the year where the whole school is off timetable… Have done 3 so far and they are far more complicated, time consuming and stressful than I ever imagined. So many boxes need to be ticked, and as some of these ‘boxes’ have personalities it makes for interesting discussions… more to follow on FLDs.
Be more relaxed – As tiredness kicks in and the nights get longer and OFSTED looms I find that I become more reactive rather than reflective… It doesn’t lead to a healthy lifestyle. Am going to try and take a more relaxed approach and make sure I think before engaging the mouth!
Blog more effectively – the proof will be in the pudding!
not going to add anymore for now…will see how the above go.
So that’s it for now. We look at doing some posts on my fitness journey, FLDs, OFSTED (if they ever turn up), chilling and relaxing and making sure I keep to the idea that teaching is a Marathon not a sprint and I have another 28 years left!
A recent phenomenon has been sweeping the teaching twitter community – #movemeon. This is a concept created by Doug Belshaw to allow teachers to pass on hints, tips and advice via twitter, with the hastag movemeon as a way of consolidating the info. More info can be found at Doug’s Blog. The results are fantastic and visible tweets shows them off really well.
I was thinking that #revisontips might be another great way of sharing hints and tips, but this time aimed at our pupils. If we use it in the same way as the #movemeon tag, and have the same response….our pupils will obtain a fantastic resource.
A while back we had the pleasure of Jason Bangbala for INSET. He is an ‘expert’ in behavior management, although he wisely states that nobody can actually claim that status.
His delivery style is pretty much stand up comedian, with lots of anecdotal stories. The best thing about the whole day was that you didn’t feel like you were being preached too, but instead given a refresher course on behavior management and common sense.
If you decided to take on board his strategies it was easy to see how they could have an impact. Some of his statements were obviously going to make some staff feel uncomfortable.
For me the most powerful message he gave is below.
“The zone of influence are all those you can influence to have a positive impact on pupil performance like having positive relationships, establishing ground rules, having clear instructions, making lessons interesting and engaging, being assertive, praising, rewarding etc.
The zone of control are those things beyond your control that you have no influence on such as class sizes, time of the lessons, where they live, what their diet they eat, how long you have been teaching them, whether they have learning difficulties, what their family background is etc.
The most effective staff will focus on the zone of influence and look at things they can do to make an impact.
The least effective staff will look at the zone of concern as they will make excuses that the reason why pupils perform the way they do is beyond their control and has nothing to do with their attitude and skills.
For me the zone of influence is the key because in the vast majority of cases the same pupils with the same baggage will significantly perform differently from one member of staff to another. It is therefore our competence that is the biggest factor in pupil performance. This is where the quote of the teacher as the decisive element is the basis of everything.”
However, some of his other hints and tips are also powerful tools in dealing with behaviour management…
Praise, praise, praise and more praise. Do not underestimate the power of praise. Praise has a massive impact on behaviour management and pupil self esteem. You cannot praise too much. For some reason the British psyche is set up to be critical first….this is a shame. If your Head of Dept or Head teacher told you how well you were doing, would you like that? would you want it to occur infrequently?…its the same with our kids. Use postcards, stamps, tell them… but back it up. Kids aren’t stupid, make sure your praise has meaning and purpose
“What should you be doing?” – use this instead of “what are you doing?”..the second statement will probably get an honest answer rather than the pupil going back on task. I have used this lots and it works everytime
Maybe…but. Pupils making silly statements… Maybe that’s true, BUT I’d like you to get on with your work…
There are lots more..I will probably add them in time, but to be honest I do not do Jason justice. Your best bet is to get him into your school. It is one of the most influential INSETS I have attended. If you want more info go to his website.
I have also changed the tag-line… so many blogs and tweets I read are work related and therefore I am losing the balance between life (the important bit) and work (the bit you need to do to have a life!).