The Graveyard of Ambition

I gather this document has been sent out to schools. I think it’s early, so should be repeated closer to the time, but it is a lovely piece of work. And it’s only four pages long!

For those of us who sometimes find our colleagues not as inspired by IT as we are, I think there’s a lot of relevant content, not just explaining the importance of IT to the Olympic Games. It also suggests lots of opportunities for effective cross-curricula uses of ICT to to with the Games.

I recommend this document be printed out and shown to all the teaching staff in every primary school, just not yet! It’s too far in the future for me to be making use of this right now, but I really do intend to use it. Hopefully, I’ll either remember it nearer the time and remember it was a NAACE publication, or it will be mailed out again.

As promised earlier, I’ve held a staff meeting and discussed coming up with a school vision for ICT. There weren’t as many parents as we’d have liked and we haven’t involved the children (not sure we want to), but I presented an edited list of bullet points from a previous post and we went through and got rid of what we didn’t like, edited, added and so on. The results are the points below. The next step is to (hopefully) get some feedback from other people (eg, you!) before turning this lot into paragraph form. So, feedback through comments would be very, very welcome!

Technology for learning should:

• promote social interaction and collaborative working
• support inclusive and innovative approaches to learning
• allow learners access so that they can study at any time and anywhere, e.g. using a range of devices and/or wireless technology
• provide access to high quality learning materials
• provide a safe environment, preventing access to unsuitable material and preventing inappropriate use of systems
• motivate children who lack enthusiasm for traditional methods of learning
• enable opportunities for work to be produced, submitted and marked electronically
• enable learners to track their own progress
• enable parents to engage with their child’s learning.

Technology for teaching should:

• ensure that all staff are motivated and skilled in the use of technology
• enable a culture of continuous development of technical skills
• enable teachers to access a wide range of multimedia and digital resources
• enable technology to be used in a wide range of learning spaces in the school and with variety of different group sizes
• enable teachers to create, use and adapt teaching resources created by themselves and others
• involve the use of virtual learning environments for sharing planning and resources with other educators outside school
• support work planning and monitoring, for groups and individuals
• enable planning and assessment to take place electronically.

Technology for management should:

• be secure and integrated with curriculum and student recording systems
• allow for efficient administrative and financial systems including electronic filing and cashless financial transactions within the school
• provide for electronic subject-leader portfolios
• provide access to achievement and target-setting data for individuals (including data about lesson attendance and behaviour)
• enable the aggregation and analysis of data to provide information about course effectiveness, staff and learner performance
• enable the use of pupil performance data to inform decisions about staff development and deployment
• enable the use of video recording evidence as a means of self-led professional development
• support communication with parents about students’ attendance, behaviour and attainment
• enable secure transfer of data with other schools, local authorities, and children’s services
• be accessible to all who need to use it – including school governors.

Creating an acceptable-use policy? If you follow Becta’s advice, you’ll be presenting your children with a list of examples of IT use and asking them to arrange them into piles:

a) Acceptable activities/things we can do (green background)
b) Unacceptable activities/things we can’t do (red background)
c) Activities which need further consideration before making a decision (amber background).

I tried this last year, and became quite unstuck because the correct pile for an example was so dependent on context. There were many clear-cut examples which were obviously unacceptable, but the majority of the examples were entirely variable on the situation and could be argued as either unsuitable or suitable. I felt the resultant message was something like, “You definitely can’t do this or this, but most things are allowed if you ask me first,” which isn’t particularly helpful.

This year, I’m drafting a rough acceptable use policy myself, usin guidance elsewhere on the Becta site. Sometimes it is entirely appropriate to say to children, “This is what you can and can’t do. Now, get on with it.” And that’s the approach I’m going to err on the side of this time. I do, however, intend to discuss the draft policy with the staff, and then with my class (the oldest children in the school), before coming up with the finished product. And, of course, it will be a forever working document which I/we will adapt as things change.

I’ve been considering buying the AVG security suite for the school’s computers, but today came across something which looks even better value. It’s called Panda Cloud Antivirus, and it’s free, which is great news. It’s even got some good reviews, comparing well with the household names in anti-virus, which often seem a little expensive to me.

It operates from the cloud, which means it needs to be connected to the internet to function properly. I’ve just installed it without problem on my laptop, at school, so see how I get on and maybe even try installing it on a few of the kids’ machines.

I’ve been looking at some research on the Norfolk schools website, into using a multi-sensory approach in KS1 maths. I’ve got a research background myself, and, although it had nothing to do with educating children, I think I’ve got a solid grasp of what good research looks like, and I feel the need to caution other teachers into reading too much into this research project.

There are a number of concerns I have: firstly, the alarmingly low sample-size, just 43 children. Statistically, this means the finding can only be taken with a pinch of salt. Secondly, any improvement observed during the study cannot be solely attributed to the techniques being investigated. In fact, it may be possible that simply playing music in the classroom would be just as effective. Thirdly, this research has not been peer-reviewed.

I have nothing against the mechanics of the project. I am sure the teachers involved did nothing wrong and that even the lead researcher acted in best faith. And, as part of a larger research project, this research might prove significant. But in the absence of any of the above concerns being mentioned within the report, I must advise all teachers and LA advisors to treat the findings with caution.

I’m not going to comment on that particular project further, as it would be unfair to the participants. What I would like to say is that I think it is about time that teachers and schools stopped putting so many initiatives into practice, without first looking for reliable evidence the initiative is the best tool for the job. Brain Gym was a classic example, with numerous headteachers falling over themselves to bring it into their schools, unaware is was simply pseudo-scientific claptrap they were spending tax-payers money on.

Earlier today I was contacted about building someone a website which they could access using Adobe Contribute. I have it on my PC as part of Adobe Creative Suite 4 but have never actually used it. The aim of the software is to be able to update websites, blogs or not, through the Contribute interface. This is the first post I’ve written using the method, so this is more of a trial than a post, but so far I’m thinking it is going to be a lot quicker posting through Contribute than through the WordPress back-end.

I mentioned somewhere how important I felt it was that change is monitored and reinforced regularly for it to happen. This is the second staff meeting using the local authority’s tracking tool that we’ve had in two terms, which suggests the headteacher feels the same.

The tracking tool we are using consists of a suite of spreadsheet macros, which work through a standard spreadsheet program. You open the files just like any other Excel document, for example. Unfortunately, some of the functions are unavailable when using OpenOffice Calc, as the macros have been specifically written for Microsoft Excel.

For someone like me, who loves data, there’s plenty to get stuck into. This afternoon, I was setting level targets for my class. Having their past performance data in front of me was really useful and it has resulted in me raising my targets for some children, where, for example, they have shown a dramatic improvement last year, or where, children’s personal circumstances have since improved.

A boon from using this tool with the whole staff is the amount of ICT it involves, particularly addressing the assessment area of the ICT Mark. A year ago, we weren’t using tools like this because the headteacher and the assessment leader weren’t confident enough with IT. I’d used something similar in Hertfordshire, but needed support to introduce it; fortunately, I’ve not even had to help do that.

The next step is to ensure the teaching staff make good use of it and don’t just look at it during staff meetings. The headteacher is keen for everybody to reap the benefits and with OFSTED looming, it can only be good thing…

I tried this myself a few weeks ago, when I wanted to quickly make a .pdf file available for the children in my class to download from the internet. It was one of those beautiful moments…

Screenshot - copying the link from Dropbox

All I did was go into the My Dropbox folder on my desktop and copy the document into the Public folder within. Then I right-clicked on the newly copied file and selected Copy Public Link, before simply pasting that link onto the school website. How simple is that!

A couple of days ago, my headteacher wanted to do something similar, so I showed him. His response?

Nice!

Yesterday I posted some information I’d found on the Becta site, concerning creating a school vision. I really liked the material, which consisted of a number of statements. Well, this afternoon I managed to prise the headteacher away from interviewing for a new secretary for a few moments. After some discussion and a close concensus of opinion, here’s what we’re going to do:

1. I’m going to take those bullet points from the Becta site (see my original post).
2. Leaving in even the ones we don’t like, we are going to add a few more, including some which we don’t want ourselves, such as:

All pens will be replaced by electronic alternatives.

3. Then, on the first day back, after half-term, we’re going to use the morning of the inset day, and invite in a couple of parents and a few governors (the staff will be there anyway).
4. The headteacher and I are going to say, “Right, this is what we think the school should be aiming for in five years time. What do you think?”
5. Everyone will discuss it, probably whittling down the list and adding a few more.
6. Then, the headteacher and I will write a vision, in paragraph form, from that, with the detailed bullet points below that.
7. Lastly, we’ll get the staff and governors to check over it, tick a few more boxes, and then we’ll be there.

How’s that for a plan?!?

I’m working my way through the Becta Self-Review Framework and am looking to address the fact our school doesn’t seem to have a real vision for ICT. I’ve copied the following from the Becta site (Leadership and Management > Vision), which I’ll then change to suit our school and the attitudes and beliefs of the staff.

EDIT: The next paragraph is in response to a criticism from Gareth at Advisory Matters, (who got the wrong end of the stick…):

I’m not actually going to copy the material from the Becta site, edit it, grab a couple of opinions from the staff and sign that off as the school vision for ICT. Even with the other millions of things to do, that’s not how I do things. I take my job seriously and I don’t do things half-heartedly – I prefer to do things properly, or not at all. It’s unfortunate I need to explain myself like this, but clearly someone holds me in such poor regard, that leaving some things left unsaid is not an option here. Enough said – perhaps next time they would do me the favour of commenting on this site?

Technology for learning should:

• promote social interaction and collaborative working
• support inclusive and innovative approaches to learning
• allow learners access so that they can study at any time and anywhere, e.g. using a range of devices and/or wireless technology
• provide access to high quality learning materials
• provide a safe environment, preventing access to unsuitable material and preventing inappropriate use of systems
• enable work to be produced, submitted and marked electronically
• enable learners to track their own progress and set their own goals
• enable parents to engage with their child’s learning.

Technology for teaching should:

• ensure that all staff are motivated and skilled in the use of technology
• enable a culture of continuous development of technical skills
• enable teachers to access a wide range of multimedia and digital resources
• enable technology to be used in a wide range of learning spaces in the school and with variety of different group sizes
• enable teachers to create, use and adapt teaching resources created by themselves and others
• support work planning and monitoring, for groups and individuals.

Technology for management should:

• be secure and integrated with curriculum and student recording systems
• allow for efficient administrative and financial systems including electronic filing and cashless financial transactions within the school
• allow for integrated personnel, timetabling, cover and associated arrangements
• provide access to achievement and target-setting data for individuals (including data about lesson attendance and behaviour)
• enable the aggregation and analysis of data to provide information about course effectiveness, staff and learner performance
• enable the use of pupil performance data to inform decisions about staff development and deployment
• support communication with parents about students’ attendance, behaviour and attainment
• enable secure transfer of data with other schools, local authorities, and children’s services
• be accessible to all who need to use it – including school governors.

EDIT: I really think I will find the above information useful to use as a backbone for creating our school vision. The headteacher seems keen and might even find time to discuss it tomorrow, before we can introduce it to the other staff and then the governors.