Thanks to Royce, Joe Wilson and particularly Dave, SAMS has worked beside Southwell in one ICT contract or another for the past 5 years. So what have we been trying to do?
We want to do: first and foremost to excite our people (staff and students) about learning and to authentically engage them in it. We regard e-Learning as a major motivational component of that
Secondly we want eLearning to help us to open the doors to life-long learning in accord with our vision statement –
Thirdly we want to maximise the time that we spend on learning
Fourthly wherever we can we want to use eLearning to lift the achievement levels of our students
To use the experiences of other schools to share good theory and practice, to explore opportunitites and of course - to network
To share what we ourselves have found to be effective
To have access to a wider range of quality PD that the collective strengths of the cluster enable us to do more readily
Our small school gets to be part of a wider community of learning
Integrated e-Learning tools and strategies are now a major component of our teaching and learning programmes and growing all the time
There has been a major strengthening of our infrastructure and admin systems – communication – easy access to student information, school-wide processes etc. etc
We are a small school (under 200 students) and so while there is always a tension for all schools between vision and implementation for us the tension is very tight
Engaging all staff to up-skill themselves and to change their practice Getting all staff to upskill themselves independently
Getting our vision across to our school community and obtaining the buy-in to our vision. We’re getting to make some in-roads but it has been a challenge
We have developed a specific plan that helps us to keep our vision to the fore and to keep us on the correct path
Our teachers now widely use e-learning tolls and and strategies to enhance teaching and learning e.g data projectors connected to laptops in every classroom Use of flip videos to record and assess student learning and extensive use of cameras in all areas. All classrooms and most students have blogs to publish work on-line and most students have them as a record of their learning Growing usage of Google Docs including survey forms Extensive usage of web-sites used to enhance learning. Big growth in teacher capability e.g. uploading of pictures and videos to the net
Where to next in the plan?
To continue to support and upskill our staff in the use of e-Learning tools and strategies to improve their teaching and learning
Always more machines to needed to replace older ones Development of a cycle of replacement
We are preparing now to Integrate our LMS, SMS and web-based assessment resources We are preparing to make use of our LMS to track student learning progress
And finally preparing to establish a use of portfolios as a record of student learning and progress throughout their time at our school.
Development of Skype communication More interaction with with global learning communities
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