MANAGING ICT Working together


Dave Wright discusses the links his school has developed


across the world. He looks at how ICT has helped the process and offers his advice to other educators


use our ICt outside school. Like many other schools we wanted to extend learning so it moved outside the constraints of the classroom and was available 24/7. We did this using our learning platform and a range of online tools for collaboration, communication and administration. teachers or pupils can create their own communities


B


on the learning platform. that might be a year group, a group of schools, or a special interest group. they can also use social networking tools for blogs, wikis and forums which are useful in our links with other schools. We started small – with a forum in the library where


pupils could share ideas about reading and books they had enjoyed with one another.right from the start, they


radon Forest school in swindon is a medium-sized mixed 11 to 16 comprehensive with about 1,100 pupils. We have always had excellent ICt facilities in the school and our pupils are highly competent and enjoy using technology.


about six years ago, we wanted to find ways to


liked the fact that other people from different years or groups could join in and see what they had done. Blogging came into its own with our partner primary


schools. We have 25 primary schools in our catchment area and some of our specialist teachers will go out and run masterclasses in Pe or drama, for example. the problem is that when they have left, the impetus can die. they started to blog so they could leave a record of what they had done with primary classes with some ideas for follow-up work. Wikis also proved to be a good classroom tool. For example, one class created a wiki on business


Master Travel Study Tours


ownership. they found out about companies in their local area and found examples of partnerships and sole traders. It was a really valuable resource and there was no way one pupil could have gathered so much information, so they all knew what a great tool it was for collaborative work.


Moving further afield


We were given a great opportunity when our learning platform provider introduced us to schools around the world that are using the same system – as far afield as Hong Kong, singapore and the Usa. We have also worked with a school just outside Canberra inaustralia. thanks to our provider, we got an invitation to send


a teacher, parent and pupil to a conference in texas. science teacher Pete Lemin went as well as rosanna, a year 11 student, and her father. rosanna and Mr Lemin posted blogs on the learning platform each day. all of this meant that we started to move from local


links to looking overseas. We wanted pupils to find information but also to be involved in dialogues too. Ghana was one of our first links Head of the pastoral team at the time, steve Bond,


EDUCATION IN CHINA


31 March – 14 April 2012 “An extremely well organised


and delivered trip in China with a superb balance of visits to


‘tourist sites’ and to educational establishments”


Anne Randall, Retired Teacher,


participant on Education in China April 2011


“All the visits were excellent and gave an excellent insight into


the education system in China... memories I will never forget!”


Jill MacLaughlan, Headteacher,


participant on Education in China April 2011


Shanghai – Beijing – Xian – Guilin – Yangshuo Get a fascinating insight into the Chinese education system as well as visiting iconic Chinese cultural sites en route.


For a full brochure and itinerary, please telephone Master Travel


Freefone (UK only): 0800 58 77 329 or direct lines +44(0)20 7501 6740/1 or email your name and address to tours@mastertravel.co.uk


had personal contacts in Ghana so he arranged to go and visit. Internet connectivity was a real issue for them so we started by creating a forum on the learning platform where pupils could put questions for which they wanted answers. the curriculum areas were geography and PsHe but the aim was to ensure that pupils learned what life was like in another country. We linked up with a school in Peru next. that was


through a twinning connection: Wiltshire is connected to Pisac, a Peruvian village, and one of our teachers,rachel Crerar, went out to teachenglish in the summer holidays. again, real-time connectivity was limited, but she


was able to show the pupils what our school was like. Because we use a lot of multimedia, she could show video clips from our learning platform. this was important because the pupils in Peru had very little english, so they needed visual materials. We have two more recent links: India and trinidad


and tobago.a group of key stage 4 pupils went out to north west India last easter with our head of religious studies and acted as teaching assistants in schools, working with children aged five to 18. another group is going this easter. they used


the learning platform for planning, co-ordinating and fundraising for their trip. our work with trinidad and tobago was set up


through the British Council. our pupils created a wiki with lots of info about our school and local area. there were different themes: transport, famous people from our school, sports, music, television, so it was not just about school life. It showed what it is like to be a 14-year-old living in north Wiltshire. We focused very much on the theme of the


olympics. Cherryll Birchwood Uzoruo, headteacher at Goodwood High school on the Island of tobago, along with Peter Wheeler thabiti, chair of the school’s International Partnership Committee, visited us to find out about life at Bradon Forest. again, connectivity at the other end was a problem


so Ms Birchwood brought lots of paper-based materials when she came. Goodwood has been researching the olympic history oftobago and has worked with students from Bradon Forest to share information about the differencestobago students have in everyday school life. all tutor groups at Bradon Forest have been assigned a country to support for next year’s olympics and year


10


Making friends: Students in Ghana chat online to their peers in Wiltshire


10, who have trinidad and tobago, spent some time with our visitors giving them a presentation on all aspects of Bradon Forest. We are now planning further ventures between the two schools.


The benefits


It is important that children learn to understand worlds which are not their own. Youngsters can be very insular, despite being fairly well travelled. some of our pupils do not think of themselves as British but as coming from our local area. even though many have been abroad on holiday, they can have little understanding of other ways of life. PsHe asks children to empathise and develop an


understanding of what life is like in other parts of world and the students have learned so much from asking questions and making videos.


Lessons learnt


We found that other schools are not as lucky as us in terms of ICt equipment and so you must always have a back-up when working in schools overseas – paper- based, videos or photographs on a memory stick. Multimedia resources must be in different forms:


even if they have computers they may not be very high spec. Furthermore, Web 2.0 is a great tool but as yet it is only widely adopted in the english-speaking world. despite recent criticism of the ICt curriculum in Britain, our pupils have excellent ICt skills. this is not so true of most pupils in other countries. and the language barrier is very real. We can be quite arrogant and assume people will understand english but a few words in the local language soon break any barriers


Advice


Here are some hints and tips for staff in other schools who want to do similar projects: • Funding is still out there, despite cuts: we got funding for our tobago link and for India too, so look around. there are a number of organisations which can help, including the British Council.


• Make real links. Visit, if possible, or use technology to make some sort of “face-to-face” link.even with schools in our local area, we know the pupils are much more engaged if they have met their peers either face-to-face or via skype.


• If you cannot visit in person, use a webcam or video-conferencing. see what facilities are in your school or authority. skype is very useful and free!


• Go for a multi-disciplinary approach – do not just involve the PsHe staff. In Ghana we had geography and english teachers. In India humanities teachers and in tobago we obviously involved Pe staff because of the olympics theme.


Conclusion


We have been very lucky. our pupils have links right across the globe now and through our learning platform they have gathered information and interacted with their international peers– not just dry facts and text, but exciting multimedia and personal records to show what it is like to grow up in other countries.


SecEd


• Dave Wright is head of ICT at Bradon Forest School in Swindon which uses the UniServity learning platform. Visit http://uniservity.com/


SecEd • March 1 2012


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16