Management

Leadership / Management / Reflections — No Comments
13
Sep 10

Parental Engagement is More than Data

Reading Government papers on parental engagement this afternoon, I am frustrated by the frequent omission of students in, what appears to be a superficial, data driven process. Schools post information, parents/guardians receive information, possibly converse, and that constitutes parental engagement? Finally, a post written by Gerald Haigh on Merlin John Online speaks educational common sense and includes strong cases studies that can be followed up. Whilst impressed by the two case studies, I would still implore schools to seek more input and reflection by the learner.

Our first step towards parental engagement is to extend our Moodle platform to include SchoolsICT’s ZiLink component, in addition to propagating our Moodle courses, students and timetable from our MIS, ZiLink will enable Hamble College to be share student information, academic, behavioural data, assigned tasks, extended study or homework with parents/guardians. Whilst this is a significant step forward, our next planned step is critical to reaching our shared perception of parental engagement.

SchoolsICT are including their ’Personal Learning Plan,’ or PLP component within Zilink and Hamble College has been able to engage with SchoolsICT’s development process. To SchoolsICT’s credit, they have steered the product beyond current expectations, towards an enriched mentor-student-parent conversation. In addition to displaying hard-data, the PLP has the potential to share soft-data (personal targets, school achievements, life challenges) but critically, opens the mentor-student relationship to parents/guardians and permit them to contribute. IMHO, this is parental engagement, not merely posting information and data, but facilitating dialogue, presenting a more complete school experience and a broader view of the learner – thanks to the application of appropriate technology that enables this conversation.

Popularity: 3% [?]

e-Tools / Management — No Comments
12
Sep 10

Windows Live Groups

Windows Live Groups is an online service by Microsoft as part of its Windows Live range of services that enable users to create their social groups for sharing, discussion and coordination. Wikipedia

This is not the most helpful or complete description of what appears to be a really useful feature of Windows Live. Not exactly hidden away but not the most publicised either,  Windows Live Groups has real academic application. With collaborative email, IM, calendaring and OneNote sharing, all in the cloud,  Windows Live Groups has real academic group project based learning potential. I felt that it was worth putting that hypothesis to the test.

a) We plan to put together a Digital Leader Group

b) SLT Year planner.

A small group of students at Hamble College meet weekly as part of the Digital Leader programme. I will be creating a DL Group and getting their first impressions. Second, newly appointed to the Senior Leadership Team at Hamble Community Sports College, I wanted to record key conversations / discussions relating to school planning and logistics. What happens, when, why and for whom. I am hoping that other newly appointed and experienced SLT might contribute as well as staff interested in the Windows Live Groups feature.

This is not a ‘How to,’ guide to using Windows Live Groups, but if you are interested in School Planning or newly appointed to SLT like myself, please feel free to join @ http://sltyearplanning.groups.live.com/.

Popularity: 1% [?]

L4L / Leadership / Management — No Comments
13
Jul 10

L4L 2015

Within 13 months we have made netbooks available to students in Years 9, 10 and 11 at Hamble College. The percentage uptake this year has not yet hit 50%, a little disappointing, but we have not received 100% of answers. That is down from 83% (final uptake) in year 1. That said, I am confident that this is a performance dip and not a cul-de-sac.

www.bennadel.com

We have tried to address observed and reported issues ready for our Windows 7 / Office 2010 roll out. The units are 12 months improved, already at our stockist and will be imaged before students return to school. Available from the first week of term we believe they will have the X-Factor, especially on the wireless upgrade. Our next major effort is to address the  opportunities for use in lessons and the teaching practices of staff. Our first step has been to redefine a School Improvement Group ‘Technology for Learning.’ This year it was a generic group of staff, next year an invited, select group of teachers looking to use technology in planning lessons and during teaching.

Finally two articles publish within an hour of one another, by two different journalists helped me connect the dots. Netbooks are now affordable, mobile, efficient information finding, data input tools. Tablets are definitely the next evolution, the form factor of school hardware 2015. The evolution is simple. Lightweight, mobile, efficient, information finding, reading and data input tools (and hand writing of course?).

Some analysts predict that close to 20% of textbooks sold in 2014 will be in digital form.

Students will be able to bring to class the entire encyclopaedia Britannia-pedia, all the classics, modern day blockbusers, e-textbooks, VLEs and ubiquitous internet access in the same space that once housed their notepads.

3 years ago I started to track netbook development, Asus eeePCs, MSI Winds, Toshiba NB100s. Within 12 months the netbook market moved away from Linux to Windows XP, costs had reduced by 35% and pricing finally dropped to a point where a 1-2-1 programme was affordable to the school and our students.

The now era. The Ipad, I-Slate, to generic tablets will start to appear from the US holiday season onwards, so look for more press released from October. Running Windows 7 (which has touch capabilities) to start with but Windows 8 (2013-14) will redefine the user experience? What of Chrome OS,  Linux and even possibly Android? Where will we store the data / software?

Steve Balmer believes we are

We are at an inflection point in technology history

Which roughly translates into ‘education speak’ as

How much is this new technology going to cost?, how long before its much cheaper?…. 2015 you speculate…. Phew.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Management / Middle Management — No Comments
24
Jun 10

GTP to NQT (PGCE)

I am very pleased proud pleased to announce that Liam Nicol, our GTP student, successfully completed his formal assessment with Reading University. This was my first experience of being a GTP mentor, having mentored PGCE students in both PE and ICT previously, and I just wanted to share a few reflections on the GTP and make some loose comparisons to the PGCE from a mentors perspective.

The GTP offered plenty of class experiences and in school training supplemented by University lectures. In this sense I would expect this to be fairly consistent with the PGCE. The key difference is that a) you recruit the GTP and b) they work at just the one school (apart from a two week placement). As a result it is imperative you recruit with care.

I believe Liam benefitted from the single school experience. He really did develop strong relationships with the student and we were more confident in offering wider mentor opportunities, parent conferences and extra-curricular experience. Of course, if the relationship were fraught, I can see this benefit quickly becoming a drain. Continue reading →

Popularity: 48% [?]

Management — No Comments
3
Jun 10

General Teaching Council Axed

12 months ago I signed a petition that challenged a ‘Code of Conduct’ written by the GTC. It would appear that the GTC is now the walking dead with some quite firm criticism from Education Secretary Michael Gove and the teaching unions.

My first introduction to the GTC was a letter inviting directing me apply. The second was a reference pointing me to a teachers Code of Conduct. A code that was supposed to help me ‘maintain reasonable standards’ and to enable me to ‘uphold public trust and confidence in the profession.’ Did teachers, parents, guardians, cares, governors, any of the education stakeholders, take that for granted? From the outset, I had little or no confidence in the GTC, as it certainly felt like they had little or no confidence in my professional conduct.

Apart from a yearly magazine (I think it was yearly) and a reminder to pay the subscription, I can not remember how I benefited professionally from the GTC.

In a statement, the GTCE responded saying it was created by Parliament to

work in the public interest to improve standards of professional conduct among teachers, to contribute to raising standards of teaching and learning and to raise the standing of the teaching profession.

I accept that the GTC may well have achieved that aim in many cases, in many schools, in many classrooms, but not in my classroom.

Popularity: 2% [?]

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