I Should Be Marking

Back in September, the school found out there was some funding available via an organisation called LSIS for a project to raise achievement at KS5. One of my English colleagues approached me and proposed a more engaging VLE-type experience as his students sometimes find Moodle a little dry and institutional.

We’ve now got the go ahead, and some funding, to implement something. Having had a sit down with my visionary colleague, he’d like the students to see a classroom with, say, a bookshelf where all of the books link to resources and the posters link to activities, etc.

Options? I could create a simple HTML or Flash front-end that would point to Moodle activities or resources. This would be pretty obvious and I think the students would see through it fairly quickly.

At the other end, I could code my own CMS from scratch. By mid-January. In my spare time *fnarr*.

Somewhere in the middle I could choose a simple CMS and skin it to hell, or maybe even try with Moodle. Necessary features would be:

• Login (for tracking use)
• Resource hosting (textual & multimedia)
• Student communication (either a forum, IMs or both)
• Web conferencing capabilities (almost certainly linked to a 3rd party, maybe DimDim)
• Setting and Uploading work, ideally with the capability to provide feedback

I also considered Edmodo, which would meet some or all of the criteria above – but isn’t customisable in terms of appearance and therefore doesn’t provide the GUI that is required.

Thoughts? Ideas? Opinions?

A colleague of mine in another school wanted to start an extra-curricular club involving a media project. As this could easily hit a number of cross-curricular themes, one of the Deputy Heads suggested he go and see the Head of English, Head of Drama, Head of ICT and the G&T Co-ordinator.

This got me thinking. And looking around. We have a number of school clubs. The ‘traditional’ clubs – sport, music, drama – all seem to have the usual cohorts of the very sporty, the very musical and often the more disenfranchised, respectively. But the other clubs all seem to draw almost if not exclusively from the G&T register.

As a teacher, there are advantages to this – you get the more able students, the more enthusiastic students, the more independent and hard-working students. This means that the outcomes are likely to be better and there will probably be fewer side-issues to deal with.

It seems to me though, that excluding the 90% of students who aren’t on the G&T register is a little unfair. Yes, the majority of those 90% would probably exclude themselves – but at least that is their choice. Why should only the academically gifted be given the best opportunities?

Drama is a case in point. Some of the students that struggle academically, and often those amongst the most challenging students we face suddenly thrive and find a place to participate and add value, both to their education and to the school, in the Drama department’s productions.

I have no doubt that targetting and stretching the more able children is important, but I just can’t help but feel a bit eliteist if I support the idea of G&T only opportunities.

Today I took a trip up to Newcastle for my official ICT GCSE 2010 session with OCR (and am still on the train back as I type this up, so my thoughts haven’t had long to formulate yet). On first glance I was equally taken with the WJEC and OCR offerings and much less impressed with AQA and Edexcel. My HoD had similar thoughts and expressed a preference for OCR – so off I popped.

The course leader was not an OCR salesman as I expected, but was a teacher from the chalkface who is employed by OCR (so yes, still a salesman – but not the detached type I was expecting).

I won’t go through the finer details, but the session had positives and negatives for me. Amongst the positives were a clarification on what is meant by ‘controlled assessment’ (I’ll comment on whether I think what I learned was positive in my next post I think, but the fact it was clarified is good) and a little more detail on each of the units that will be run. Amongst the negatives, I didn’t learn *much* beyond what was in the documentation already available. The course leader appeared to be explaining what was already there with a few insider tidbits – so a course for the moderately pro-active really.

There was quite a bit of discussion from the delegate side of the bench about the 2nd exam (B053 for those in the know) which apparently is being organised by the examiner of the current OCR Spec B course. As such, we will get a pre-release document each September in preparation for the January and June exams that will have a bullet point list of areas to explore (10 on the exemplar provided). The exam will then expect students to have researched those topics, but if you have a different interpretation of the somewhat vague bullet point (e.g. the use of Web2.0 technologies to facilitate the creation of shared resources) then your students could find themselves in bother. A couple of people described the exam papers as being ‘off the wall’, while the course leader described the examiner as a ‘blue sky thinker’ (I can already hear the grumblings from the TES forumites).

Overall – I like that there is a coding unit. I like that we won’t have to do 4 identical (but different) coursework projects, that we will be given problems rather than having each student invent their own and that whether you choose Multimedia or Coding – you don’t have to do the whole bloody course in MS Office (or OOo).

Sadly, there is still coursework I mean ‘controlled assessment’, which will almost undoubtedly require oodles and boodles of screenshots (the course leader was quick to point out that is states ‘evidence’ – but it’s hard to see what other evidence OCR and QCA will be willing to accept). But then, you can;t have everything…

I remember that as part of my PGCE I had to write a document to describe common misconceptions that students have in ICT lessons. I don’t remember what I wrote, to be honest, but I’m sure that I wrote it from my perspective and didn’t actually ask the kids – just based the document on my own observation.

Fast forward a couple of years and I started using the (free & excellent) Yacapaca KS3 assessments to baseline our Year 7 students as they entered the school. I used this to generate an apporximate level for each student – but didn’t delve too much into the specifics.

Fast forward another couple of years and I finally decided to delve a little deeper into the question-by-question analysis that is available. 20 minutes later and I had a list of common misconceptions based on the students’ answers, rather than my own ubsubstantiated observations. For every shocker listed below there was another question that was answered well and I haven’t included particularly difficult or unfair questions (such as how many managed to identify the correct HTML syntax for a mailto hyperlink).

Before I show you my findings, what does this mean? Well, first of all it is not meant as any kind of attack on our Y7 pupils or on the primary sector. It is what it is, and I am sure that my school is far from unique in our results. We are a very successful school with a largely affluent intake (>99% of students have an Internet-connected computer at home), so there is no shortage of access to equipment. I see it as an indication of the level we need to be aiming at as we start KS3.

Next time you tackle a spreadsheet unit, think about your language. If over 70% of the class don’t understand the term ‘profit’, then how can you expect them to create a formula to calculate it?

So here is the list:

18% of students thought the best way to copy a real photograph was to cut and paste.

54% of students thought that a table of data would be a better graphical aid than a colour coded diagram.

66% of students misunderstood the differences between cut & paste and copy & paste.

22% of students thought a database is a program for writing documents.

18% of students thought that a DTP package would be suitable for sending emails.

16% of students thought a joystick could be used to copy a photo onto a PC.

60% of students were unable to identify ‘fields’ and ‘records’ in a database table.

36% of students thought that a search engine would find files within their own workspace.

56% of students thought that the word count, spell checker or grammar checker would be a useful tool for improving the layout of a page. [Correct answer: print preview]

44% of students thought that a printer, scanner or speakers were required to access the Internet.

49% of students thought that a spreadsheet, word processor or database would be used to design a flyer [11%, 27%, 11%].

67% of students were unable to recognise a decision in a flowchart.

48% of students thought that ‘including lots of animation and music’ is an important factor in web design. [On a personal note: AAARRRGGGHHH!!!!!!]

Only 22% of students thought that most important way to ensure that a business website will be useful would be to obtain a list of requirements from the staff.

Only 41% of students correctly identified that a web designer would need an Internet-connected PC. 25% suggested a high quality printer, 21% suggested a plotter and 13% suggested datalogging equipment.

68% of students thought that a flashing light, buzzer or monitor was an input device.

72% of students failed to identify that the primary benefit of a financial model was to try different prices.

38% of students thought that too much text or too many hyperlinks would significantly slow a website down, rather than too much multimedia content.

50% of students failed to identify which fields to search in a database table.

79% of students failed to recognise formulae as a spreadsheet tool used to make predictions.

76% of students were unable to identify the definition of ‘profit’.

52% of students failed to identify a database as the best tool for storing details of inventory.

25% of students thought that the total costs and income would need to be calculated BEFORE being entered into a spreadsheet model.

This week I have done a lot of thinking about eBooks, have talked to a few people on Twitter and enjoyed a really good discussion on the subject at EdTechRoundup.

Lots of things were said about the pros and cons of various device;

• Doug Belshaw [I think] said that when £20 phones from ASDA are stable platforms for eBooks then they are truly ready to be embedded.
• Tony Sheppard wondered why a single-use device like an eBook reader would be preferable to a multi-function device.
• Several people have mentioned that various new eBook readers are due out early next year, which should cause prices to drop significantly.

And a long discussion about the pros and cons of using electronic textbooks was very interesting (blog posts by Donald Clark and John McMillen were pointed out to me, and the comments in Donald’s post in particular made for very worthwhile reading).

But having gotten a bit confuddled and started waffling, Nick Dennis gave me perhaps the most sound advice of the evening: “I think the principle we need to think about is what are you trying to achieve? Then ask will the PDAs help?”

I had certainly taken the initial idea and thought “What can I do with this”, rather than the other way around. Tail wagging the dog would be the apporpriate phrase I think.

And what I want to do is to get students reading. Simple as that. How? Buy 2-4 devices, select students from my form group,  load the devices up with free books and stories for a start. Possibly show students how to take online text and package it up in a format suitable for reading and definitely discuss acceptable use (e.g. must bring it on certain days, must look after it, no porn, not to be used in other lessons [as per school policy]).

I would need to decide on a policy regarding installing additional applications, clear the project with SMT (am reasonably hopeful on that one), decide who gets the devices (Reluctant readers? Control group? Random selection?) and also decide on some method of measuring the success of the project.

So lots still to think about, but I feel like I’m making progress – at least in my own mind.

We’ve discovered an interesting trend at school. Although results have consistently gone up and the students are generally good at written work, they’re not as strong when it comes to reading – particularly whn required to analyse what I would consider to be fairly basic chunks of writing. I could rant about spoon-feeding, league tables, a culture that is afraid to allow students to fail and so on (and, to be honest, I have. At lenght. And frequently) but instead I’m looking at methods to improve the situation.

Required Reading

It’s long been a school rule that tutors get their form group to read, silently, for 15 minutes in morning registration once a week. In practice, I know that in some groups this works well, and in others it really doesn’t. My Y11 form seem particularly resistant, with even the bright and usually willing pupils complaining that they would prefer to read in their own time.

Audio Short Stories

A solution to this that is in the pipeline is to take short audiobooks (e.g. Roald Dahl’s ‘The Landlady), give the students a printed copy of the text, play the story through and set some simple multiple-choice questions as a group quiz or competition. I quite like this idea, although I can see it getting old quite quickly if over-used.

eBooks

Now this is the main point of the post. Back in June I attended the Achievement Show, and saw a presentation by Rising Stars relating to the use of eBooks in school (KS2 & 3). There are a couple of ideas including reading books on mobile devices (becauase they are inherently more appealing than reading from paper supposedly, although that’s a whole issue in itself), students turning their own stories into eBooks (a fairly simple process) and potentially even using the device itself to perform some task – writing a review, annotating or highlighting parts of the story, using a built in dictionary to explain the words, all sorts of things.

I’m quite keen to have a deeper look at the practicalities and benefits of such a scheme and have put together a small mind-map outlining my thoughts.

Without wanting to repeat myself too much, I need to consider the pros and cons of various devices. I already use a smartphone for reading books, and SUMSonline are offering a good deal on refurbished Dell Axims with their maths software already onboard – but the screens are going to be quite small.

Sony eBook readers are lovely devices, but are pretty bulky, expensive and can;t do anything else (this is could be a good and a bad thing depending on your point of view).

The DS and PSP option is similar to PDAs, but with more opportunities for blurring the lines between entertainment and education (see comment in parentheses, above).

We have a class set of Asus EeePCs (7″, 4GB versions) which may be rendered obsolete in the next upgrade cycle. Again with the plethora of distractions and the bulkiness, but they are already networked and have a keyboard for performing some of the comprehension/reviewing/discussing type tasks.

So. Lots to think about.

Any ideas?

And so the first week of the new school year is over. Low points included trying to teach 21 A-level students in an ICT suite with only 18 computers and high points included some small but really positive steps with some very challenging students.

I’m not one for waiting until New Year for resolutions, but I do have a couple of targets for myself this year:

• To be less quick to lose my temper/snap at students.
• To be better at promptly checking and chasing up homework at KS3.
• To avoid doing *any* school work at home before putting my youngest to bed on a workday

So far I’ve not had a chance to test the middle target but I’ve done well on the other two. I’m quietly hopeful for a good year,

For the first summer since becoming a teacher I managed to really relax. While that’s marvellous, I’ve done the teacher equivalent of ‘forgetting how to write’ over the summer and have forgotten where I was with APP, what tweaks to the KS3 SoW were planned, how to blog, even my attendance at ETRU and my use of Twitter are taking a while to get back up to race pace.

I have had a PD, a working school day and a Year 12 ICT lesson. And we have the biggest cohort of AS ICT ever in the school (2 more than we have computers in one of the ICT suites) plus a reincarnated A-Level Computing class (following a 12 month hiatus due to a lack of willing students). So it’s looking good and I’m enthusiastic about the next 11 months!

I’ve taught the Edexcel GCSE ICT every year since I started. My first mentor told me to do coursework unit after coursework unit until the last half term and then to bang through the theory as quickly as possible.

Being an NQT, I did as I was told. And the results have been pretty solid (>90% C grade or above last year and expect to do well this year too). It does create a bit of stress though, and students do worry about the theory side of things.

So in one of my free periods a few weeks ago I put together a broad Scheme of Work in which one of the 5 lessons per fortnight is dedicated to theory – and split the Learning Objectives from the syllabus up into good sized chunks.

I’m now sat here starting to plan each theory lesson (or at least the first term’s worth) and  can’t decide if I’m doing the right thing. Our results are clearly good. The students DO pick up bits of theory during the coursework – I do actually teach them something! And this is going to be a hell of a lot of work to plan many more lessons in a very independent learning style – especially when you consider that this is the last cohort due to the new GCSEs the following year.

I think that it would be a really worthwhile exercise and potentially a very interesting way of tackling the course – but is it worth all that effort to totally rewrite all the SoW and resources for one year when the current method is clearly working? I’m very tempted to say no.

What to do, what to do… Sleep on it I think. Thoughts and opinions, as always, are very welcome.

Although this is primarily a post about Twitter, it has implications in a whole range of online communication tools.

There has been a sudden rush of teachers protecting their tweets for a number of reasons, and it’s worthy of considerable thought before making a decision.

Advantages of protecting tweets:

Only people I approve can read what I am saying.

Recently two pupils from school have followed me, and I have blocked them both. One of those pupils is clearly still reading my tweets (presumably from the website – twitter.com/mwclarkson) and keeps dropping hints to that effect. I have had discussions with the pupil about why I have blocked them and about whether it is appropriate for them to be reading my tweets. I have to accept, though, that there is nothing I can do to stop him.

People who do use the website to follow me only ever see my half of the conversation, with absolutely no context whatsoever. If tweets are protected it limits that very one-sided view.

I don’t know who’s watching. If readers have to be followers then there is some accountability. It’s not impossible for someone to use a false name, but creating a persona, gathering followers and making a ‘real’ account is a hell of a leap for someone who just wants to see what I’m up to.

I don’t have to worry quite so much about what I say. I’ll still be posting in a technically open forum – my posts can be retweeted and some of my exisiting followers may be some of those I am trying to isolate myself from by protecting tweets.

Advantages of an open system:

Anyone can read my tweets. As a point of principle, I like that. I’m not ashamed of what I have to say and hope that a wide range of people would find it useful.

When I get followed, I like to look at that person’s tweets before making a decision to follow or not. This means that I might lose out on potentially valuable additions to my network.

As I said at the start, a number of teachers have protected their tweets recently. And I confess that I thought this was largely a knee-jerk reaction to a certain Scottish news story. I dislike knee-jerk reactions, often do the polar opposite indefiance and left mine open as a statement of “Look, it’s fine. I’m confident that what I am doing is right”. Now the knee-jerk reaction has died down I’m haveing a serious think.

I haven’t made a decision as yet, but it is a serious concern. Where will stand if I do end up in front of the governors? I don’t think I’ve done/said anything wrong but will those that don’t understand Twitter agree with me? Will my union back me up?

The same argument applies with my blog and my TES postings. Hopefully my blog is more carefully considered than my tweets (as that’s the point of it). I initially started both under a pseudonym that has been repeatedly worn away to the point that I swapped out the ‘HH’ references for ‘mwclarkson’ in the About page, above.

So if my tweets do become protected, at least you know why – and that I’ve considered it carefully.