Sir Mark Grundy, Executive Principal, Shireland Collegiate Academy
Quite inspirational talk about creating a Learning Gateway, where there is a Family Portal as well as one for learning. The Gateway is content rich and a team of developers create learning materials in consultation with staff & students.
Students were asked how do you get people to do things they don't necessarily want to, they said create a league table. Spelling quizzes were developed reporting to a league table and students competed to be top of the league.
They have incorporated problem pages etc.
Developed with Sharepoint platform and now they support 127 other schools.
Thursday 10 April 2008
Jayne Bacon - e-learning manager Colchester Institute
We've been using sharepoint 2003 for some time , its been very successful especially with collaborating across college with the use of team sites. The strategy will be to migrate to sharepoint 2007 early 2008 allowing all staff & learners to have their personal space.
The College has a remit for single source of data & sharepoint will facilitate sharing all organisational data in one place.
I have been impressed in the amount of Sharepoint solutions Sir Mark Grundy's inspiring presentation has re-inforced my thinking that Sharepoint is the correct choice.
Technology Strategy - does it matter?
Jane Williams from BECTA spoke about the strategy paper.
Some themes:
base development round pedegogy
build technology into the heart of learning methodologies
technology improves student satisfaction, allows fast tracking through subjects, improves retention & acheivement
successful use of technology is when technology not that visible, a learner engages with learning provider before walking into the physical building
the key is look at teaching practice NOT focus exclusively on the technology, a partnership, which works
There is a need to change contracts for employment for staff - undertaking a contractual element for building IT skills
We need to train teachers on-line - people who come from industry & re-train to becomme teachers automatically use technology , as they are used to using it for business processes.
Some themes:
base development round pedegogy
build technology into the heart of learning methodologies
technology improves student satisfaction, allows fast tracking through subjects, improves retention & acheivement
successful use of technology is when technology not that visible, a learner engages with learning provider before walking into the physical building
the key is look at teaching practice NOT focus exclusively on the technology, a partnership, which works
There is a need to change contracts for employment for staff - undertaking a contractual element for building IT skills
We need to train teachers on-line - people who come from industry & re-train to becomme teachers automatically use technology , as they are used to using it for business processes.
student e-mentors
Been chatting to students from Oaklands College ( Carrie, Natalie and James) who are part of an e-mentor scheme.
In their lessons, they help staff if they can't get the white board to work, or connect up a data projector or access the VLE. They are not paid, but get HMV vouchers to attend meetings & of course put it on their CV. There are about 100 e-mentors at the College.
Chatted to Mavlin Fletcher Curriculum leader ICT / ILT at CoNEL.
She has been interested in the virtual learning spaces such as second life and others and is inspired by the way an on-line environment can encourage self assessment, and active, independant learning.
She is impressed with Mark Grundy's Learning Gateway, and will recommend that her own institution investigates using sharepoint as their learning portal to enhance & personalise their learner's experience. CoNel currently uses Moodle.
James Mortlock - MIT Manager Salford College
Our College has come a long way with Sharepoint & reporting services, this has enabled personalisation, coming here has allowed us to see whether we can take this to the next level. We may possibly merge and the learning spaces in relation to IT is of interest to me. The topics have been more relevant this year and we have had more discussion that is appropriate for the problems we currently face.
Mandy Hindley - IT Manager at Wigan and Leigh College
Polarised the opinion that we need to look at employer gateways in a different ways, not necessarily using our own web sites for employers but using tailored solutions.
The solution needs to include the functions of tracking, availability, access & information, not just a marketing tool, but allows employers to communicate with each other.
We have learnt from talking to collegues.
VIEWS FROM the conference
Robin Ghurbhurun, Director of Innovation, City College Norwich and Chair, AoC Nilta
We have been building on last years conference continuing on reflecting and representing the voice of the sector. The association with BECTA means that we can target a response to government. Since "Harnessing Technology" we finally have an e-learning strategy for the post 16 sector.
James W was very refreshing, honouring the ordinary, being pragmatic & "don't believe the hype" attitude... innovation doesn't have to be new, it could be a seasons new growth or a continuum.
Wednesday 9 April 2008
cyber society
Listened to some great guys from Preston College talk about their experiments with Second Life.
Some things to think about when we do our experiment:
It costs about £400 to buy some space (preston has an island Beat island) then about £80 a month upkeep.
Up to 100 users at one go can enter your space.
Currently only 2 users from one ip address can apply per day to SL.
When you join you have to do an orientation exercise, to train you to fly, dress yourself, drive a car, talk to others etc.
The sl project at preston is currently offered as an enrichment programme, media students are currently part of the project.
Sloodle enables interaction with moodle, so you could take moodle tests & blog in sl back to moodle.
E-safety is taught & students told if they are told to leave certain places they have wandered into they must immediately or lose their access to SL.
They have steered clear of replicating their college buildings and creating a virtual classroom set up with a teacher , white board etc, but want to look at different dynamic for learning.
Some things to think about when we do our experiment:
It costs about £400 to buy some space (preston has an island Beat island) then about £80 a month upkeep.
Up to 100 users at one go can enter your space.
Currently only 2 users from one ip address can apply per day to SL.
When you join you have to do an orientation exercise, to train you to fly, dress yourself, drive a car, talk to others etc.
The sl project at preston is currently offered as an enrichment programme, media students are currently part of the project.
Sloodle enables interaction with moodle, so you could take moodle tests & blog in sl back to moodle.
E-safety is taught & students told if they are told to leave certain places they have wandered into they must immediately or lose their access to SL.
They have steered clear of replicating their college buildings and creating a virtual classroom set up with a teacher , white board etc, but want to look at different dynamic for learning.
transforming spaces, transforming learning
look at building schools for the future
students fed back that physical environment helps achievement. James W tho' had argued that design of environments should not be the focus. some advocate that design, can shape some things, Victor Papanak & Oscar Newman
etc.... but thats the design historian coming out in me
students fed back that physical environment helps achievement. James W tho' had argued that design of environments should not be the focus. some advocate that design, can shape some things, Victor Papanak & Oscar Newman
etc.... but thats the design historian coming out in me
National Debate
" On-line Teaching is more relevant to the Digital Native than Classroom Delivery"
voted & 61% of delgates disagreed.
a general discussion centred around the phrasing of the question ..... on-line teaching rather than on-line learning......
some comments
Could be a book be seen as virtual learning
Learning collaboratively is a process nothing to do with technology
The key is to be able to offer the full range of CONTENT that technology enables, not to redefine the process or create an either / or aspect to it.
Students don't want us to enter their social spaces just as they don't want us to come down the pub with them (well not usually!)
Technology can support personalisation.
voted & 61% of delgates disagreed.
a general discussion centred around the phrasing of the question ..... on-line teaching rather than on-line learning......
some comments
Could be a book be seen as virtual learning
Learning collaboratively is a process nothing to do with technology
The key is to be able to offer the full range of CONTENT that technology enables, not to redefine the process or create an either / or aspect to it.
Students don't want us to enter their social spaces just as they don't want us to come down the pub with them (well not usually!)
Technology can support personalisation.
The Future of IT
Listened to James Woudhuysen talk about the future of IT.
Issues he raised were ideas around being too in awe of youth because of them being "digital natives" and having confidence in the understanding of strategies for teaching and learning. He supports the idea of research and development and advises caution about being diverted by Web 2.0 per say, as it may breed a feeling that there is no need for internal r & d or innovation in IT. He advocated getting obsessed with how IT influences productivity of your work place rather than being in touch with latest trends in IT in youth market. Maybe one can enhance the other though.
He also raised the issue of intergenerational differences, maybe that is not so great as previously.
Issues he raised were ideas around being too in awe of youth because of them being "digital natives" and having confidence in the understanding of strategies for teaching and learning. He supports the idea of research and development and advises caution about being diverted by Web 2.0 per say, as it may breed a feeling that there is no need for internal r & d or innovation in IT. He advocated getting obsessed with how IT influences productivity of your work place rather than being in touch with latest trends in IT in youth market. Maybe one can enhance the other though.
He also raised the issue of intergenerational differences, maybe that is not so great as previously.
Everyone is blogging
The devices have caused a bit of a stir here & everyone is now blogging. Check out S's Innovation Blog
We have 2 devices between 3.
Info
There seem to be a lot of these here, mainly supported through the molenet project funding
Waiting in anticipation
Hi from Loughborough, the sun is shining at long last, the conference is just beginning to warm, seeing the usual crowd, will keep you informed of events - S
Audience response systems
We have been given a voting keypad as part of our pack from:
http://www.ppvote.com/
It will be interesting to see how effective it is in this type of situation.
http://www.ppvote.com/
It will be interesting to see how effective it is in this type of situation.
Hello from the AOC technology Conference
We are about to get our delegate packs and will hopefully be able to report live from the conference.
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