Having spent a week telling my year 9s it is all change from September, we now have an extra year… Good news for Y9 options evening next week.

Current CiDA, CiDA+ and DiDA all made it on to the > Department for Education’s list of non-GCSE qualifications which will contribute to headline measures (5A*-C and 5A*-G) in 2014.  This is confirmed as of yesterday (31-01-21) by Ann Weidman, Head of IT and Computing, Pearson UK – Schools & Colleges.

This means that we will be able to carry on teaching the current versions of CiDA, CiDA+ and/or DiDA next year.   The only change is that any of these qualifications will count as only one GCSE in the 2014 performance tables.  They are still worth their GCSE equivalents to the students though.

According to Ann “This is – I’m sure – almost entirely due to the testimonials provided by DiDA teachers… …who were passionate in their support for the qualification and argued  convincingly for its retention”.

Hurray… and good news for our students, and those of us who only have to worry about a new A-level next year.  At Key stage 3 we have been using Scratch for more than 3 years so we pass the #Gove test… 

Mike talking to Y12/13 ICT students

Last year, an ex-LLS student, Mike Hall, contacted me – his blogpost is here.  Today, we welcomed Mike into LLS to talk to all our Y12 and Y13 ICT students.  A big thank you for an excellent and interesting talk.  He will be writing an article for us soon, but here are the feedback comments from the students.

Megan – I think that the point made about how important time management is within any role, even a real job rather than in education is an important point. especially when preparing for when things don’t go to plan, it is important all time is planned for and used well.
Alex – I think the information that Mike gave about making yourself stand out from other names on a list was good advice, and definately something worth thinking about when applying for Uni’s/Jobs in the future.
Rob – he gave me and idea if i am going to do a sandwich course or just going to do a full degree and also how ict helps in the workplace.
Oli – The thing I liked about the talk was the advice he gave and one main one being: keep a log of projects. I think this was good because it showed me that I need to keep work I have done for the future with interviews etc.

I also like how it was planned and that the times were stuck to.
Jess – The one point that Mike made that was really useful to me was that he had created a database that was going to be used in his company, solviong a major problem that they were currently having, in a real life situation. I thought that was really useful becuase it was inspiration that what we’re doing actually is likely to be used in our future employment, and the skills that we are learning will make us stand out more in CV’s and interviews etc, and not just coursework to gain marks. Thank you for the talk.
Becky – To show enthusiasm  into the area of work that you want to go into by ringing companies, requesting for leaflets about specific areas. Also about being enthusiastic in reaching goals to get you into the job that you want to do. This will be useful to me in the future when i am looking for a job or work experience in a placement year.
Saskia – The one point that mike made, was that he uses databases in all aspect of his work placement and how they are widely used in industry. This worried me slightly as I still don’t feel very confident using databases. (I thought that we had seen the last of databases) I think I need to polish up my skills using things like databases and spreadsheets. But its good knowing that what we are learning now, will be useful in later life…..
Emma – the importance of experience, and how employers now look for more experience in the workplace rather than just education. He also pointed out how the things that we cover in ICT such as Databases and the project management Unit has helped him in the workplace and can help you get into the job that you want to do
Andrew – I have learnt a lot from the talk, the one thing I especially found useful was knowing that I should use my previous experiences from school projects and apply them to the role that I will be applying for.  Thank you for you Time
Mark – I found the fact that you have to start looking for work placements as early as just before your second year on a sandwich course was very useful as a couple of the courses I have appield for at university offers a year out in industry.
Connor – Thought that when Mike mentioned at the start, you need to set your self clear goals and outline what you want to do rather then being to vague on topics and take a backseat role. Was pretty important. In that you have to aim yourself for something.
Hannah – One point I will take from this talk was to keep a log of everything you do, like projects, that will benefit you in the future. I will rememeber this for my career path as I think it will help for job interview and placements.
Liam – I think that mike has made me consider getting a sandwich course as i believe that the expierience will prove useful in future job applications!
Jade – think that the time plan was important and how necessary it was to keep on track and use yout time the best
Josh – It was good to know that you have to put yourself above the competition! It is definatelly something to think about when applying for uni/jobs.
Abi – I thought the bit about time management was useful as he explained why it was good in real life as well as in a school project. It gave me an insight of what to expect from jobs after uni
Kieran – I found the parts about forward planning very useful, e.g. how a plan will come in increadibly useful in a working enviroment and not just in the classroom.
Alistair – I found the parts about planning forward and not always relieing on others intresting as I feel this is very relavent to later jobs.
Luke T – I found that the talk was very interesting and relevant to what I want to do. I have applied for a sandwich course and i felt that the talk was very helpful to what i want to do.
Luke K – I really appriciate the talk given today, I took out a lot of useful information today. I mostly enjoyed learning about types of targets you should be setting yourself and how specific they need to be so that you know where you are heading and know when you have achieved this.
Dan – I thought that the talk was presented very well and that mike definitely made an impact on the group about future uni choices. I found that the role that he has was very important especially when he mentioned that the production line cost £120 a second, this put the whole database he implemented into context for me personally.

I think, finally, that this #2012BETT, is the one that I sort of get a feeling for what e-learning might be in the future. Excuse all the fudging adjectives but who knows really…

My reasons are saying this far are as follows…

1. Annotating digital content

The real spark was www.redpentool.com, an annotating tool developed for MAPS, on the TAG stand. I have blogged on my photography site already about annotating electronic documents. In the same way that I have always used ‘typing an address label’ on a typewriter and sometimes easier than picking out one label on an 7 x 3 address label sheet, I have always been concerned about how teachers AND students keep track of their learning using electronic files.

Redpentool for me is a significant ingredient for the future, as it allows video, audio, highlighting and text comments in a transparent layer over any web-based document you care to mention. I say in the future, because again, Pearson and Fronter, are the furthest away from agreeing to use this product…

The exciting aspect of me is that I can see a Redpentool type tool allowing formative assessment on the fly for teachers and students…

2. Devices

Talking with Dawn Whitaker, on the Toshiba stand, when talking about digital leaders, I was introduced to the phrase, ” bring what you’ve got” (BWYG). The digital landscape in the next few years is not going to be one:one netbooks, nor tablets… this is just not affordable/manageable for many schools or students but it ‘could’ be whatever digital device students have… ie. BWYG. There were signs that this will become a reality in all sorts of ways – Fronter are updating their JavaScript, so fronter can be used on iphones and ipads; the products with penetration IMO are the ones that can be the simplest accessed…

3. Content

I talked with Autology, having tried their content search system up to a year ago. They have a new management team in place, and a much better idea of how published digital content can be affordable and deliverable to learners. I put forward the idea that any closed system has to have ‘hooks’ on the outside which will fit into an open system such as delicious for sharing links globally…

4. Communication/Collaboration

: having an iPhone this year at BETT changed the way I did BETT! Navigation around Olympia was a combination of stands/people I knew I needed to see; and recommendations via my PLN about things I wasn’t aware of – including for example, Redpentool. It should be changing the way that we run schools… and learn…

Conclusion

So my overall vision might be a BWYG to school mobile device; a framework of learning through some sort of VLE/shared cloud mechanisms for both collaborative and individual work; shared software; and communication tools including Redpentool for sharing of ideas…

With this in mind, I can now start working with colleagues and students (including digital leaders) on the small steps to move towards this… currently we have a VLE with some use across school; PC Suites; and nearly every student and teacher with a computer and Internet connectivity at home…

The elephant in the room with all of this of course, is assessment.  Will we have 150 very basic electronic input devices in exam rooms in the future?  Students are getting more and more adept touch typing – why will we be assessing their writing??  I won’t be holding my breath…

If anybody who has been going to BETT in the last 15 or so years knows, this is not straightforward stuff…

Would be very interested in what others think??

Updates about Fronter for my benefit and for others…

1.  Fronter won’t be disappearing soon…
Fronter just won contracts in Northern Ireland and Malta.  Confident that they are around for the long term – helps  that they are owned by Pearsons.  If I’m investing so much time and effort then I want to know that it won’t be wasted.  All the new modules are in new code so gradually the whole product id being updated.  They are not doing a totally new startup.

New tools in my order of significance:

a. You-tube embedder – from Monday
Not new you say BUT it now does NOT include the comments – just the video itself.  This has huge implications for use in our school and COULD mean that we unfilter youtube for teachers.  Implication: Teachers could show pages with youtube at school; students maybe not – but would be able to use at home…

b. New email tool coming later this year.
Integrated contacts list and groups with drag and drop.  Actually looks fit-for-purpose which current one is not.

c. Can upload internal link doc directly – from Monday
Previously you could only upload a file and THEN link to it… which meant gkhmc (according to Antony “God only knows how many clicks”).

d. New Page tools update this week: hide navigation bar / expand whole page / edit option has changed to a pencil

e.  From this week will be able to edit Fronter using iPhones and Ipads (JavaScript has been changed).  A new mobile app is in development.

f. From September onwards: multiple tabs / wiki tool from http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki (probably a cost associated with it – but I don’t see why as it is free open source??)

Everyone gets involved...

The last two weeks have been challenging for the ‘E-C collaboration team’. The team have had to make sure all the power points were completed and handed in to the hand in folders on Fronter so that the students can be paired up ready for them to exchange their presentations. This had to be done before the Christmas holidays. To begin the process Saskia put a reminder on the Bulletin board to inform the Year 7 students that their ‘About me’ power points would need to be handed in by the 6th of December and produced a blog to go into the school newsletter explaining the project to the parents of both the involved and uninvolved students.

Talk to LEA Adviser

The team also prepared a presentation of the project to a guest working for the local Authority who was interested in Quality and Improvement of ICT. All team members then presented this to the guest discussing each of their main roles in the project so far.
During meeting 11 the team decided that between Monday 5th and Friday 9th of December we needed to see the Year 7 class teachers to inform them of the students who had not yet handed the power points in and to let them know that the deadline was Friday 10th of December. Everyone was asked to attend service to show the year 7 classes the forums and explain that they should be used over Christmas to communicate with the Chinese students. To pair all the students up, the team along with the project sponsor came up with two options. One option was to print all the preference slides off and match them up or we could use a spreadsheet to do this. In the end we decided on a combination of both printing out the preference slides and using a spreadsheet, this method would allow the entire group to get involved in the process.

The next step was to print all of the preference slides off for the English and Chinese students. This was completed by the 12th of December. However a problem arose as some of the students from LLS had not handed the power points in. Many of the Chinese students had not included the preference slide in the power point. To overcome this problem Saskia, jess and Luke created a preference slide for each of the Chinese students from the information given in their power points.

The final task was to pair the students up. This was a big task and many problems occurred throughout the process. However due to good leadership from the project leader and teamwork we overcame these problems. The team was split into groups according to which year 7 classes they had been teaching in the past. Each of the year 7 students was now ready to be paired up with a Chinese e-pal. We paired up as many of the students as we could however not all the power points had been handed in and the remaining Chinese and LLS students did not have much in common according to the preference slide, this made it difficult to continue pairing the students up. Luke K formed a spread sheet showing the students in the Chinese classes and the LLS classes. This showed the students and who they were paired up with. This was a clear way of showing who was paired up.

One problem was that some of the Chinese students were not on the spread sheet of names sent by April so there were no Fronter email addresses for them students. This was a problem as it meant the LLS students wouldn’t be able to send their power points to the Chinese and therefore collaborate effectively. Another problem was that some of the Chinese students had sent other student’s power points as well as their own. This made the task confusing as there was no Fronter email for them and some of them were not on the spreadsheet. Each group worked hard to finish pairing the students up in the best way possible using the preference slides that were printed off and the spreadsheet created by Luke K.

Luke T then produced a template email to send to the LLS students explaining who they were paired up with, this included their Chinese ‘e-Pal’ emails address so that the LLS students could send their power points to their Chinese partner. The email also included a question about the Chinese New Year. This helped them to begin collaboration. We had a list of Fronter emails for all of the Chinese students involved to allow the LLS students to send their power points to the Chinese. We now need the students to say ‘hi’ to each other and start to communicate over the Christmas holidays through the use of email and forums. The project so far has been successful and we have met the deadlines set.

Showing a guest the Y7s emailing their ePals...

*Update*. At some stage of any project, things go badly wrong and team members need to step and help get it back on track. This has happened in the last week, when it came down to paring up the students. Becky makes it sound as if things were straightforward, but I need to publicly praise the whole team, and Saskia, Luke K and Luke T in particular, for working so hard on this in the last week. Now, at the end of term, all Year 7s have been sent an email with their epals powerpoint (if available) and contact details. The team went into each Y7 lesson to ensure students knew what to do.

Reminders have given on the parent’s newsletter, Y7 bulletin board and in Assembly on Monday.

The start of the discussion about food...

Two forums are up and running as well, and are starting to be used…

Rebecca Boak / Mr Sharples

21st December 2011

The last few weeks have been a busy one for the ‘E-C collaboration’ team and things have really progressed well.
All the team have been working hard with our three year 7 groups, 7X1, 7X3 and 7Y3 and they have nearly completed their PowerPoint presentations ready for the Chinese students.  We had anticipated the year 7 groups to be finished together but we had anticipated that some might be finished before others! However the team have overcame these problems by creating more ways for the year 7s to add to their slides.  In addition to this, Mark and Connor have been experimenting with sound, and we not only have a way for them to record English for the Chinese to listen to but they have created a tutorial to teach them how to do it.

We have managed to get new members onto Fronter – our 62 Chinese Pen Pals! April sent Andy a list of names and classes of the Chinese students and the group wasted little time and assigned the Lukes to get them onto Fronter. Thanks to the ICT technicians (and a little help from our Project sponsor, Mr Sharples!) they now all have a log in to Fronter.

The next thing our project manager wanted to do was to pair the Chinese students up with our year 7 groups.  With a bit of to-ing and throw-ing we cracked it. The class 7Y3 has 19 students which can be matched with the classes 3 and 7 in China; 7X3 has 21 who match with classes 4, 5 and 6. Leaving 7Y3 with classes 1, 2 and 8 with the 22 students they need.

Ellie and Megan have spent time making the forums for the online collaboration, with a forum for each of the collaborative groups described earlier and a tutorial in simple but brilliant detail. Speaking of tutorials, Jess created one after creating 6 new hand in folders for our year 7s and Chinese to hand in their completed PowerPoints, which as usual from Jess is perfect.

The team have also come up with their key tasks for the project which was derived from our ‘SMART’ objectives: Specific, Measurable, Agreed Upon, Realistic and Time-Bound. This was dependent on us creating our final agreed success criteria. “To allow all LLS Year 7 students to collaborate successfully with year 7 Chinese students using a range of digital tools during the Autumn term 2011”. To help us with our Chinese knowledge and understanding and with thanks to our project sponsor we have new personnel to consider in our project. Mr Josh Wong is a lawyer who regularly visits China and he will be taking part in the Forums with the Year 7s along with Miss Wu and Miss Mark.  This will help us a great deal as we have 3 people to help us with language, affairs, rules and other issues we may face in the future. As all projects go it hasn’t been all plain sailing, but we responded quickly to problems.  We have seen the rejection of Skype from the idea list as Emma and Becky have found it to not be feasible from LLS school and the Chinese firewalls. We also had to wait a while for our Chinese students to get onto Fronter because of matters which we could not control which we overcame thanks to our project manager.  We manage all of our meetings with Andy chairing and the rest of us taking turns with taking the minutes.  One of them was even without our Project Sponsor as he was involed with learning walks elsewhere in school.  We also found that tasks were not being ticked off on Zoho and so had to make sure that everyone was doing that.
The future is looking good for the ‘E-C Collaboration’ team. With Saskia Liaising with our client, Andy doing a brilliant job as Project Manager, tasks being done on time, effective communication and using suitable project software we hope to continue to do well in the weeks to come and succeed with the Year 7s collaborating successfully with their Chinese counterparts.

By Luke Kelly / Update 24th November

In response to an email from our Chinese client April, we decided to hold an emergency meeting to discuss the new information that we were presented with. The email from April firstly outlined why there had been no contact from her to our EC-collaboration team.  The reason for this was because her computer had broken and this meant that April had not been able to check her e-mails for a few days.   During the emergency meeting, Andy the project manager gave the rest of the group feedback on the rest of the email from April.  For example it was explained that April currently only had 30 students to participate as pen-pals.  From this information we decided to only use three of the Lady Lumley’s School Year 7 ICT classes, meaning that we had a total of 62 students available for pen pals (30 girls and 32 boys). The action that followed this decision was that Andy and Saskia were to email April to ask whether it would be possible to raise the 30 students to 62 from Shengyang so that it could match the amount of students in Lady Lumley’s School.  Similarly, we decided that the pairs were to continue their contact with the three Year 7 ICT groups; Luke and Luke with 7X3; Saskia, Emma, Becky, Connor and Jess with 7Y3; Andy, Mark, Ellie and Megan with 7X1. The final action from the emergency meeting was that Luke, Luke and Connor were to brief these chosen Year 7 classes and explain the whole project. They also introduced the preference slide that was created by Emma and Becky in order to highlight each student’s interests which will used later when pairing up the pen pals.

For our next meeting on 17th October – our last lesson of the half-term – our clear outcome for this meeting was to discuss and clarify all pair roles within the team.  To start the meeting, Luke and Luke gave the rest of the group feedback on how their briefing with one of the Year 7 classes went.  The outcome of this being that they realised that particular Year 7 class knew nothing about the project that has began.  However once it was explained all students seemed keen to get involved.  The Teacher Mr Lech assured them that the powerpoints from this class would be finished by November.  Following this, Connor than also gave feedback on how his briefing with another Year 7 classes.  Connor explained that the teacher Mr Wilks had not been briefed yet about what the project was and how it was working etc.  Connor explained in detail about it leaving Mr Wilks pleased with his description.  This however meant that the Year 7 class were not shown the preference slide made by Emma and Becky, and must be shown it next time Connor is in contact with this particular Year 7 class.  For the rest of this meeting, we went through each pair and discussed their roles, and bringing to like any concerns or ideas for improvement. For example, it was noted that the entire team were keen to have a confirmed end date; another concern was whether the Chinese students’ font would show clearly on Fronter or whether it would be presented in Chinese symbols.  From these discussions, the actions that followed were that Andy was to email April a copy of the power point presentation preference slide as well as other slide titles, so that April’s students could create similar presentations. After a discussion on each pair’s role, tasks were then reached to be completed by the next meeting after half term for some individuals and for every pair.

Update 31st October – by Jess/Mr Sharples

Assembly yesterday. I outlined why digital leaders are important. What will you talk about at a future Interview? What examples of leadership and teamwork do you have? What other examples of leadership in the school – Duke of Edinborough, World Challenge and Sports Leaders. I picture us as living in a new digital landscape, and concepts of leaders helping others to navigate fits well with DofE, and learning to teach small teams of students fits well with Sports Leaders.

If you volunteer as a Digital Leader you will improve your ICT skills; Leadership skills; Communication skills; Confidence; Teamwork;and Networking.

Possible Activities include – Learn to use a variety of ICTs;Regular opportunities to train ‘colleagues’ in your ICT classes; using new software; Support the use of ICTs in other subjects; Encourage more ‘digital homeworks’ in the school; Present at a conference next summer?

And then the competition results – Amazon vouchers for the 1, 2 and 3rd in the Wordle competition (34 entries) and the 1, 2 and 3= and 3= in the Glogster competition (24 entries).