communICTy

‘Raise the bar, narrow the gap’. This buzz phrase during the 4th iNet International Conference in Beijing had particular resonance in the city preparing itself for the next Olympics. For me, the main focus of the conference was sharing new ways to help all our students achieve their personal best.

Wherever the speakers came from in the world, the message was the same. If we want our school to perform better the main priority is not concentrating on what we teach, but who we are teaching it to. James O’Neil, Principal of Carmel RC Technology College summed this up really well. He explained that analysing student data is often like seeing the terracotta army. It is only when you view each soldier individually that you realise that every one is unique. At his school they have a consistent tracking system to build up a more detailed picture of each student’s progress in every subject. Students also have focussed conversations with their learning mentor to make better sense of their data and set targets for future progress.

One of the most important Olympic ideals is the need for team work to succeed. The students of Greenford High School are a shining example of this. Like all schools they have a Senior Leadership Team, but they also have a Junior Leadership Team comprising of students. Each member of the SLT has a JLT buddy and they have a wide variety of responsibilities including observing lessons and interviewing job applicants. New initiatives such as moving to a three year KS4 are also discussed with the JLT. In this way the student population not only have a voice, but are able to have an impact on the the whole school community to work together as a team.

At the opening ceremony of the Olympic games the athletes will march in as separate nations, each with their own flag. The closing ceremony brings all the participants together to unite under one flag. The iNet Conference promoted a similar message. Schools should not innovate in isolation. They need to reach out and become global enterprises. If schools are to become a model of how the world should be, it is vital that enable teachers and students to share ideas with their peers in other countries. It was therefore very encouraging to see the enthusiasm of delegates to seize the potential of the internet and websites such as www.elanguages.org to bring this about.

The motto of the Beijing Olympics is ‘One World, One Dream’. The iNet conference showed how different education systems and individual schools can come together to improve learning for all. It is now up to the returning delegates to make the dream a reality.

My presentation at the conference:
iNet07 – A powerpoint presentation that I gave
iNet07_handout – A handout of quotes and website links to go with the presentation

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My Resources Update
[slideshare id=149923&doc=going-green-1193737361217716-3&w=425]
Going Green.ppt is a presentation I’ve made with some useful global statistics and ways for students to act for change. Good as an assembly and/or wall display.
My School Life is a set of lesson plans for students to make a presentation about their emotions in different school situations. It has a series of blog posts that students can contribute moderated comments to. So far children in the UK, USA, India and Serbia have taken part.

Oxfam Website Relaunched
The new Oxfam Education website is here! With a fresh new look and new search options, it’s now even easier to find what you need to take a global approach across the curriculum.
Oxfam Education offers a huge range of free teaching ideas, lesson plans and online resources, including all of your favourite Cool Planet resources – plus a funky new look for our children’s website. It’s the essential destination for Global Citizenship teaching!

School Partnership Toolkits
Oxfam’s Building Successful School Partnerships helps you build equal, effective partnerships that have real educational value.
New eTwinning Handbook a great way to learn how to get started in an eTwinning project and to find out about some of the top projects from the 2005-2006 school year.
Partners in Learning draws on the practise of schools around the world and Development Education Centres in the UK . With an emphasis on global citizenship, it answers the big questions and practical issues for any school considering or already involved in a sustainable learning partnership.

VSO Global Educators’ Register
VSO’s Global Educators Register has over 156 people trained to support teachers in embedding a global dimension in the curriculum. All Educators are VSO returned volunteers, have lived in a developing country for two years, received full training in Global Education activities, and have knowledge of a range of resources. This is a free resource, which can help a partnership develop or make the most of an existing one.

Teaching Resources
Save the Children’s Welcome to My World pack explores the lives of children from Peru, India, Ethiopia and Vietnam. Real life stories are told through four short films and are used as the basis for activities for Key Stage 2 geography and citizenship.

Events
04/12/07 -The East of England Development Education Network are holding a FREE one-day event in Cambridge for teachers, advisers, ITE tutors, NGO workers and all global educators. To get informed of and inspired by the global dimension work happening across the region and to get involved in the plans for the next five years! For more info email claire.bennett@harambeecentre.org.uk
12/11/07-British Council National Conference, Involvement for All will give you the opportunity to share best practice and investigate new ways to bring a global dimension to the classroom.

Global Dates
12/11/07 International Education Week
01/12/07 World Aids Day
27/01/08 World Holocaust Day
01/03/08 World Book Day
20/03/08 Earth Day
22/03/08 World Water Day

I’m always on the look out for ways to bring more relevant themes into ICT. I’m also keen to bridge the gap between the ways students use computers in school and at home.

A project that my school is doing on SEAL (social, emotional aspects of learning) provided the ideal opportunity to update our first unit in Year 7. They used to create presentations about their family and hobbies, but this was rather dull and the content of what the students produced did not teach them anything new. Instead we used an emotions tree diagram with people showing a variety of different emotions and asked the students to create presentations showing which five characters best summed up their own personality.

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I needed to find a way to enable my pupils to share their ideas and use the best language to describe their emotions. The solution came in the form of edublogs.org. This free, educational blog site allowed me to quickly put up an idea on the web and then invite my students to contribute comments (see examples). This is a safe and easy way to use web2.0 as there is no need to generate accounts and the comments are moderated by the teacher before they go live on the Internet.

To add a global dimension to our research, I created a project page on elanguages.org. This DfES funded website enables teachers around the world to link up and collaborate ideas and resources. I soon had a response from Apeejay School in New Delhi. You can imagine the cries of excitement when my students were reading their comments and found phrases written by Nikita, Dhruv, Eashan and their classmates in India! They were also surprised to find out how similar they felt about school life in both countries.

Here are some examples of what the students wrote to describe the person who is scared to climb higher up the tree:
I feel like this person when I am in a class that I am not so good at, so I must cling on to hope that I will still get a good result! Krissi, UK
I feel like this image when I am feeling low, because then I feel helpless and alone in this world. Kavisha, India

Here are some examples of what the students wrote to describe the person at the top of the tree:
I feel like this person when I do well at lessons and get it right because I have tried really hard. Zak, UK
I feel like this person when I’ve overcome all the obstacles in my work and I feel on the top of the world. Ujval, India

There has been a marked difference in the engagement of my students in creating presentations about their emotions towards school life rather than their families and hobbies. I have also been surprised at how personalised their phrases are. I have realised that SEAL is an interesting theme to explore with my students. It also teaches them valuable lessons about positive attitudes towards learning and the need to understand themselves better.

Often in ICT, we concentrate more on how to create a product rather than the message that it is trying to communicate. However, I am convinced that allowing students appropriate time to generate quality content on a theme that is relevant to their own lives leads them into producing a better end product and consequently better progress.

Click here to view the lesson plans.

Resources Update
MyTree – I’ve made this unit to replace the About Me powerpoint project. The students are given a diagram of different emotions and they write phrases to descrbe how they feel in different school situations. They then share their ideas by contributing comments to a series of blog posts. Finally they create a powerpoint presentation about the different aspects of their personality (example).

9.2 Online Survey – This unit enables students to compare the lives of young people in the UK and USA. We are hoping to involve students in other countries too this year for a global survey. Students then analyse the data using pivot charts and write a report to explain what the data proves.

MyMoney – This unit enables students to research real current accounts for teenagers and do some market research into how they save and what they spend their money on. They create a series of products including a billboard advert, leaflet and an audio advert. This unit is currently under construction.

To visit our entire KS3 ICT SoW, some KS4 resources and lots more, visit www.communicty.wikispaces.com.

Training Videos
I’ve collected a number of useful videos from the CommonCraft Show on themes such as:
Social Bookmarking, What’s a wiki and RSS. I’ve also started creating my own short videos on various aspects of how to teach ICT. To view my first attempt go to starting an ICT lesson.

Events
I’m organising a SSAT Seminar with Ian Noble on practical uses of teaching ICT with new technologies including web2.0 and VLEs. The event is at the Eastern Leadership Centre in Cambridge on 15th November. For more info and how to book click here.

Websites to check out
MindMaps, FreeMind and Bubbl.us are three excellent examples of online planning and brainstorming tools. I have seen several schools using them very effectively to plan DiDA projects.

There are a number of versions of this video, but they all have the same message. Not only is the world’s population growing, so is the amount of information that we are producing. Therefore our ability to access this ever growing mountain of data and make sense of it will also have to grow.
However, what it does not mention is that the abilities that we continue to value are still interpersonal skills required to be creative with these new ideas and to collaborate with other people around the world.

Download Video: Posted by alexsavage at TeacherTube.com.

This week I am giving a training day to a group of ICT GTPs. We are going to look at a wide variety of classroom routines to give lessons a similar structure. This is will include:
How to set up a lesson before the students come in
Arranging a seating plan
Delivering a starter activity
Lesson aims and objectives
Giving instructions
Creating a lesson plan

The following video demonstrated I start every ICT lesson. I do not allow the students into my room until I am 100% ready. I stand at the door to welcome them in. They check the seating plan and log on. There is then an activity that they are able to do independently whilst I take the register and ensure that everyone is ready to work.

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All of my lessons use the same online lesson plan template that both the teacher and the students follow. To view an example go to MyTree. You can also view my complete online KS3 ICT SoW.

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Whilst in London for a SSAT conference with Joe Dale in June, we met Leon Cych at our hotel. He heard that we were in town and asked us to do an interview for his blog, Learn for Life. We managed to smuggle Leon’s camera lights and video equipment into Joe’s room (despite a lot of giggling and what must have looked like quite a dodgy sight!).

We chatted about how we use web2.0 in education. Including:

Spellmaster
Hot Potatoes
TaskMagic
Making PowerPoint interactive
PieCast
VerbCast
Ewan McIntosh
The Language Show
TES ICT Blog
Linguanet forum
MFLresources
Flashmeeting
Notre Dame High School blog
MFL blogs
Scotedublogs
Interviews
Skype
Pretty May
Flickr
YouTube
Keepvid
YouTube goes international
Moderating comments
Nodehill Bloggers
Breaking down the classroom walls with technology
How local blogs can create communities
Blidgets
Ning
Google Reader
Feedwhip
eTwinning Ambassadors