Twenty Ten

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:

1. All students work needs to be converted to pdf. Not a problem if you have office 2007.
2. All videos need to be converted to flv. Youconvertit seems to work wonders
3. A 30 slide presentation on internet research takes a while to arrange in prezi.
4. 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.

misterel Resources, Teaching & Learning

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…

1. my school email won’t let me open it
2. 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

misterel Teaching & Learning Adobe, assessment, education, ICT, interactive, past_papers

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.

1. 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
2. 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.
3. 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!
4. Blog more effectively – the proof will be in the pudding!
5. 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!

misterel Generic

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.

Its just an idea, thoughts would be welcome.

misterel Resources, Teaching & Learning twitter revisontips movemeon

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…

1. 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
2. “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
3. 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.

misterel Resources, Teaching & Learning Bangbala movemeon behaviour management

I have set up a twitter account for school: @BudeSchool. I used it infrequently to post info about school events but never really used it effectively. Also, followers were few and far between. However, twitters popularity has increased massively with our students and also the parents. (Twitter is now the second most popular form of communication with radio 1). So I have now revisited our account.  Still need to get the pupils and parents to follow us, but it is slowly increasing.

This time I decided to use the functionality of socialoomph (used to be tweetlater). I have now set up the whole school calendar to auto tweet, and the account also auto follows and sends a “thank you for following” DM.

One caveat, if students follow you, then you see their tweets. This has caused me a few issues.

1. Do I really want to see their thoughts about their lessons?
2. Do I need to see their creative use of language?
3. Do I need to know what they are doing?

I am also going to show the Head how to use it so that he can have the opportunity to update. The next question is, who else needs to have access?

misterel Teaching & Learning school, twitter

Having read Tomaz Lasic’s blog post on ‘Grow a moodle‘  I decided to have a go myself with Year 12 students who are back in school preparing to start their Y13 Applied ICT course.  However, due to the fact that I didn’t think my kids would leap at the chance to teach teachers straight away  I decided to adopt a slightly different tactic.

The students are following the OCR Applied ICT course and will be doing the Publishing Unit, the Web Design unit and the compulsory Working to a Brief unit.  Due to a cut in teaching time this year I had decided to combine the Web design and Brief units. The students, were slightly aprehensive and also seem to have a ‘fear’ of web design.  This is due to the fact that their experience of web design so far has been a tad hit and miss and their knowledge of the mechanics behind webpages was lacking. (As ICT Coordinator, I hold my hands up and admit that this shouldn’t have been the case!).  

I therefore needed a way to get the students understanding of web design, xhtml and css up to a higher enough standard to enable them to confidently complete the course.  They also needed to learn how to use Openmind BE (matchwares fantastic project management software).  So I decided to set them a task that would meet all their needs.

The task I devised was quite simple:

‘You need to design a course(topic) in moodle for year 7 students to show them how to create a website using html.

You will need to do the following:

1. understand moodle (youtube has loads of tutorials)
2. understand html (there are loads of great websites)
3. Project manage this task
   1. mind map
   2. gantt chart
4. create course
5. test course
6. evaluate course

You are in the ideal position to create a course that will work as you experience lots of different types of lessons….

Have fun, enjoy yourself and don’t be afraid to experiment.‘

Once the task was introduced I gave them all teacher status in a moodle course. They were then all told that they had control of one topic box and were shown some of the basics in moodle – how to turn editing on, the resources and the activities menus.  (Handy tip – assign the topic boxes to students first before they overwrite each others and my topic box).  Once they get over the joy of typing silly comments in their own box and re-ordering their postion within the course, they then started to have a play.

Their next lesson, then needed them to start mind mapping what they actually were going to do.  This included research, planning, designing, creating etc.  They have now completed a mind map and are in the process of preparing their gantt chart.  They have been very enthusiastic about the whole process and I think they like the fact that they have been given ‘control’ of part of moodle.  At the end of lesson 2 I also mentioned that once they have got to grips with moodle they will then be used to teach other teachers how to use moodle.  I was quietly pleased with their positive response. 

Now I have to wait and see how creative they become with moodle and also whether this has also meant that their confidence for web design has increased and that they can be up and running when I give them the ‘brief’ in September.

I would like to say that I will update as this develops, but I am rather useless as setting time aside to write up posts so it maybe a tad hit and miss.

misterel Teaching & Learning ICT, KS5, moodle, students, teaching, training, VLE

Twitter is fantastic.  Today, one of my Yr 12 students asked if I knew where he could get some Royalty free music for his iMedia coursework.  Normally, I would have gone to google and done the usual searches, or told him to do the same.  This time I tried twitter.  One simple request and over the next few hours I gathered a few very good websites.  The results I have posted below.  

These are all fantastic websites where you can either access free material or purchase large quantities of Royalty free music which can then be stored locally.  The only downside I have is that because most of these sites offer a download as an MP3 our Internet Provider (SWGFL) filters the download. So pupils have to access it from home and then bring it in.  This is irritating. 

Can I once again thank all the people/companies that responded to my quest.  As a weird side effect to the request, I have had a few new followers, all music related.  :)

misterel Resources Free music Royalty download twitter

I have been using Moodle at our school for about 2 years now.  I like it and have spent a lot of time learning how to use it. However I am finding it difficult to get the rest of the staff on board. I realise that time for training is an issue, but I also think that some of the functionality isn’t instinctive. The video below sort of sums up moodle at the moment (apologies for bad language at the beginning).

I have also just read the excellent article on different VLEs by @andykemp which can be found here . It raises some interesting questions regarding the VLE options as well as how best to integrate them into schools.

We went for Moodle, because we like to have control of the server, host locally and therefore be in control when or if it goes wrong.  This has meant that one technician and I have had to learn shed loads to make sure it all runs smoothly.  This is fine as long as neither of us goes… 

I am also seeing lots of other VLE options appearing that look at lot more user friendly and give a lot of tech support.  This will obviously come at a cost. But if staff can adopt it more easily and use it then it might well be worth it.

I didn’t manage to get the Moodlemoot09, so am so far unaware of the changes being developed for Moodle 2.0.  I am hoping that it is going to be extremely user friendly and less ‘boxy’.  When you have a VLE like edu2.0 saying ‘edu2.0 is like a Mac, Moodle is like a PC’ you have to wonder why.  There are also other great VLE options that are easy and simple to use. I quite like edmodo and if I was a Primary school teacher I would defintely consider using it. 

Frog, seems to be becoming the next big comercial VLE that people are talking about.  I haven’t seen a demo, but the website looks fantastic and once again it look easy to use and can be hosted locally.  So do you pay a technician to run moodle or pay Frog to run their VLE???? 

As a school we also use SLG to enable staff acess to SIMs.  This will also be used as our parent and student gateway.  I know that SLG has the potential to be a VLE. This may be a tad clunky, but at least the pupil info will seemlessly link with SIMs.  Our Moodle is not yet linked with SIMs annd our MIS coordinator would rather it did.  So would I.  It would be great to assign sets to different course and if a pupil changed sets, it would be automatically picked up.  Can moodle do this? Will Moodle do this?

So I am sort of sitting on a VLE fence.  Should I stick with Moodle now and persevere with staff training and induction or go for an alternate option like frog or SLG?

misterel Resources, Teaching & Learning moodle VLE Frog edmodo

We are in the process of re-writng SoL for KS3 ICT.  This is made slightly harder than normal as we have now gone to a 2 year KS3.  However aside from that, it is still a struggle trying to get all the necessary ICT into the time allowed. We have a 2 week timetable, and have 1 hour of ICT per week.  That gives us approx 6 -7 hours per halfterm.  With the introduction of flexible learning days it’ll proabably work out an hour less per halfterm.

This causes us a few challenges.  New software packages need to be taught and assessed.  APP is coming in as well as making sure that you include AfL, SEAL and time to reflect on learning.  I’m not sure that is possible, and still give pupils the opportunity to acess the higher levels.  All our classes are mixed ability so that adds another layer of challenge.

I also want to include as many ‘new’ technologies, opportunities to allow the pupils to experience a wide range of ICT apps that aren’t necesssarily Microsoft based.  We are using Moodle and the vast majority of students have internet access, so my first thought is to make the topics interesting enough to enthuse the students enough to want to do extra work from home.  I am also pushing for Google Apps so that we have access to collaborative learning and all puils have access to an ‘office’ style package.

To add in the assessment of pupils I have purchased GOAL online assessment (http://www.goalonline.co.uk/).  This gives pupils an inidicative level and target level and assesses 10 different strands of ICT. This gives feedback for individual pupils as well as classes, so that you can see if there are any knowledge gaps.  I am hopeful that this will enable a better traccking system for pupils and teachers.  The school is also looking at IamLearner (http://www.iamlearning.co.uk/)which is a games based revision package. This will hopefully reinforce the learning and help pupils retain knowledge that they sometimes forget between year groups.

So I think a medium to long term plan is needed:

1. More interaction with feeder primaries to develop a transition SoL and a better understanding of prior knowledge (this will only be effective if all Primaries are on board).

2. Very detailed SoL that contain various routes through units so that pupils are aware of the ‘levelness’ of tasks

3. The ability for pupils to track their progress on a unit of work and compare it to their targets, thus engendering a desire for improvement and motivation.

4. A decent SIMs based tracking system that enables staff to be aware of the pupils levels and targets (some form of traffic lighting – we have this in place now, but isn’t being used effectively)

5. Mapping of ICT use across the curriculum so that pupils can see where they are transfer skills.

6. Making sure that we use Moodle and other ‘web2′ tools effectively

This is purely my initial thoughts.  Any suggestions, ideas or Moodle based units of work already written would be much appreciated.

misterel Teaching & Learning KS3 Moodle APP ICT SEAL