My Headteacher trusts me! How do I know? Well, I know because after following a discussion on Twitter, my Headteacher told me that if I felt that attending both the Handheld Learning Conference in October 2010 and the bMobLE on 20th May 2010 would help develop a long term plan for technology at HeathfieldCPS, I should attend both
Now I could write a blog post entirely on trust and how good it feels to be trusted in this way! However, along with this trust comes a very important decision, a decision that could be extremely important o the development of ICT at HeathfieldCPS. This decision also includes an iPad! For me to make this decision (which will in essence could cost the school £700) I need to eliminate the ‘iCarrot on the stick’ and make this decision purely on the value and impact to school. This is where 140 characters in Twitter is not enough – hence this blog post.
I need your help!
My objective will be to find out the things I don’t know about handheld technology (I know very little!) as I want to be in a position to plan the development of ICT at HeathfieldCPS for the next 5 years and the role that handheld technologies may take. Questions I would like help in answering are in respect of the Handheld Learning Conference:
How long should I attend for?
Where can I stay? (if attending for more than one day)
What can I expect to see?
What talks should I attend?
What advice can I gather from people who have been before?
I’m really excited to have this opportunity to attend such an event! If you can help me answer any other the above questions or you have anything constructive to say about the event please leave a comment. I am going to use your comments to make an informed decision about whether to attend an if so, how long for.
Thanks for your time and I really appreciate any comments left.
Twitter is unblocked in Bolton LA and even before it was unblocked I unblocked it at my school as I have been given filtering access/control by the LA.
Twitter is regarded by many educators as the best CPD available and it is free. I follow 300 people (exclusively people linked to teaching and ICT) and I am followed by around 550 people. This access to my instant Personal Learning Network (PLN) gives me opportunities to share ideas, gain ideas and discuss issues that face Teachers/Leaders around the country and the world. I have led training for the LA and included my experience of Twitter which has led to more teachers in Bolton using Twitter as a professional tool.
As for the impact on the pupils, I use my own account solely as a professional tool. I do not follow any celebs (not that this matters!) but I use my account to tweet updates about My own personal blog and the Year 6 blog that I am in charge of. My Year 6 class have their own Twitter account: @Year6Class and I also tweet their updates about their blog. I will allow them to tweet soon but I am the only one who knows the password which make it as secure as I make it!
One example of how Twitter was used is from today! My Year 6 blogged about the features of a letter:
And I tweeted the address out to my PLN. Within 5 minutes we had 7 comments saying how great it was. Two of the comments asked the children to clarify some of their features which allowed the children to reply a comment which expanded their point. All this was done through moderation by myself (TOTALLY SAFE!)
that we tweet updates to parents. We have about 50 followers (not all parents – some LA advisors interested to see what we are doing!) We also plan to tweet football updates live during our next few matches for those parents that can’t attend!
The possibilities are endless and it is as safe as the person in charge makes it! The most secure setting makes your tweets protected which means that NOBODY sees the tweets unless you have agreed to let them. We started like that but we opened our accounts up so we had a wider audience. None of the children can tweet from our accounts as they do not know the log on details!
If you fancy having a go a Twitter, Ian Addison (@ianaddison) has produced a really simple and easy to follow guide for you to get set up. It even lists some useful contacts to follow! See his post here.
Why not give it a go? You have 10 minutes to lose but so much to gain! It is by far the best professional decision I have made to date!
If you use Twitter or know of other blog posts about it please leave a comment with a link!
I led an INSET training session with staff at my school on Blogging today. My plan was to:
1. Explain what blogging was
2. Try to convey how important it is from the children’s point of view
3. Show some examples relevant to each year group
4. Allow time for staff to look in detail at relevant blogs to their year group
5. Some basic information on how to get started
6. A few tasks to get staff making posts that involve the children posting comments
7. Those who had a little blogging experience to have some free time to develop at their own pace.
I didn’t show all the link sot the staff, they went off and looked at those relevant to them.
Well, the proof will be in the pudding. Our main blog page is: here
You can view each class blog from the menu on the left. I hope that with time given through staff meetings, little reminders, celebrations and encouragement we will have a very active powerful tool that has been so successful in Year 6 for the last 3 months!
I had to limit the amount of links I showed each year group (two) so I apologise for missing many blogs off, however, I plan to show many more in future training sessions!
I was very concerned about recent developments in the House of Commons and our New (or should I say old?) Primary Curriculum. I looked online to see how my local MP voted and he was one of the 66% that didn’t turn up! Just like many people in my PLN, I emailed my MP. This is what I wrote:
I am writing to you to express my disappointment that you were not present at the Digital Economy Bill that was discussed on 7th April. As a Deputy Headteacher this is of upmost importance and as only 36% of MPs turned up I had hoped that you were one of them! The Rose Report cost so much money to produce and the resulting New Primary Curriculum was very much welcomed in Primary Schools as our current National Curriculum is a Secondary School model and DOES NOT work in the Primary school setting.
I am an undecided voter at present, however, I did vote for you during the last election. I’m very passionate about Education, so much so that this will be the issue I vote about! As the Government had launched the new curriculum I thought I knew what to expect should Labour win. However, I don’t know now! Could you please find out for me what the situation is now? What will Labour do with the Primary School sector should you win in May?
Many thanks
David Mitchell Deputy Head Teacher Heathfield Primary School
Within 10 hours I had received his reply:
Dear David Mitchell,
I was in at the beginning of this debate, but travel difficulties meant I had missed the start. The SoS was not taking interventions by the time I got there, so I could not put to him the 2 specific points constituents had raised with me. There was not a vote on 2nd. Reading, and I had to return to Wigan for Thursday am, so could not be in for the subsequent votes. The debate can be accessed on the parliamentary Hansard report. It received extensive scrutiny in the Lords, over 4 days, and amendments were made to cover most concerns raised.
I am not an expert on IT, and do not know the detail you ask. However, in Wigan I do know that a Labour Government will rebuild every Primary School, as well as those in the Secondary sector under Building Schools for the Future. Canon Sharples, Westfield, Woodfold completed, Beech Hill under construction already. You may remember that before 1997, teachers were required to have a bucket collection. Not to raise money, just to catch the water from the leaky roofs. Labour will continue to invest, the Tories will cut education spending, as “the Public Schools have nothing to fear from a Conservative Government”.
Hope this is helpful,
Best Wishes,
Neil turner MP Wigan
Didn’t really answer my question but did raise the fact that many MPs are not ICT experts! We knew that! All the same, it was nice to get a response so quick and at least an explanation as to why he wasn’t present!
I also sent Mr Ed Balls a tweet and a Direct Message (because I can!) asking him to now clarify the situation about the Rose Report and the New Primary Curriculum should Labour win the Election. This was his reply:
@DeputyMitchell: answer is that we will revive the legislation straight after the Election. Tories wont
It was nice to hear from him as I know he must be very busy. He also replied to a few other people too that are in my PLN! It’s nice to be heard!
Anyway, I have had a totally relaxing break from work over the last two weeks! Completely neglected my blog (on purpose!) and am now about to hit the ground running for this next 1/2 term!
If you have information of any events that you think teachers involved in ICT, Technology or Web2.0/3.0 might be interested in, please place the details in the PrimaryPad below. this will help people like me keep up to date with events and I might not miss things in the future! Please place any information in chronological order! If you wish to view this PrimaryPad full screen, please click here:
What does my letter of application tell you about me?
I got the job! However, looking at this creative way of evaluating my letter, it looks like I should be including more of the children! Overall, it is quite an accurate picture of me: ICT, Children, School, Leadership, Team, Development!
Two words I can’t see are ‘Blog’ and ‘Learner’! I think I might have changed quite a bit from 1 year ago – when I wrote that!
Many of you who follow me on Twitter or visit this blog regularly will know that I am a huge fan of’ ‘Coveritlive‘ software. This software enables you to embed a window of tools that allows you to run an online session with children. You can show children: videos, links, polls, sounds, pictures, UStream video streams and many more things.
Heathfield Primary in Bolton where I am Deputy Headteacher has received quite a bit of positive press about how we use this in our teaching. I am one of the presenters at TeachMeet YH 2010 in Doncaster on 26th March 2010 and as far as I’m aware, my Year 6 pupils will be the first pupils to be involved in a presentation at a TeachMeet!
Pupils will be joining me on stage ‘virtually’ through the school blog and through Coveritlive. I only have 7 minutes to showcase what Coveritlive can offer so it will prove to be a tricky task! the pupils are really looking forward to it and I’m in no doubt they will do the school proud! If you want to keep track of events ‘live’ I have added the Coveritlive coding to this blog post enabling you to watch the session as it happens from 7:15pm tonight GMT.
I spent two days on Nets this week with my Year 6 class. We used 2Simple Online Tools that are now available through our Learning Platform (VLE). This means that the children can access this resource at home. I was really pleased to see how easily the children made changes to their net whilst looking at the 3D models that were displayed on the screen simultaneously. This concept is something that I have always struggled to teach and now it is really easy!
Please take 5 minutes to view the video that shows the children making them and displays the finished products.
I’ve been playing around with various Web2/3.0 technology over the last 6 months and have found Voicethread to be such a success in the Primary Classroom. The children know very quickly how to use it, select identities and record, annotate and video themselves within Voicethread. It is as if it has been made to be embedded within blogs! We have got things running so smoothly now at Heathfield, that so long as the VT has been created before hand, the pupils in Year 6 can fully complete one within 15 minutes as part of a plenary during Literacy. I can’t think of another Web2/3.0 resource that is so simple to use which gives such fantastic results!
Please take 5 minutes to listen to some of our writing after 8 lessons on higher level VCOP work. We have been inspired by some amazing wildlife photography. Some of which can be seen in the montage below. Look out for adventurous vocabulary, adverbs used as openers, carefully selected connectives and Level 5 punctuation.
We still have plenty of spaces available at our children’s holiday club Bolton at Heathfield Primary School. Hours available are from 8am – 6pm and prices are extremely competitive!
Please contact Heathfield Primary School for further details: 01204 333595 and ask for Gemma Pugh.
We play a great game in Year 6 called Bing Bong Zong. This is a great game for developing mental recall of multiplication facts in a fun way that the children love!
Here are the rules:
You need 2 players.
Face each other and tap your legs with both hands say ‘”Bing Bong Zong.”
After you have said “Zong” display a number with your hands from 1 to 10. (You are not allowed to display 0).
As both children will have displayed a number each, you must multiply the two numbers and call out the number.
The person who calls out the correct number first gets one point.
To simplify, you can just display a number on one hand so the highest calculation will be 5 x 5.
Below is a video of pupils in Year 6 playing Bing Bong Zong. We hope you enjoy playing this game as much as we do!
“Trust me! In three years time, people will be coming to HeathfieldCPS from all over the country to see what we have done to improve!”
These are the words I am desperate to convey to the staff at Heathfield Primary School. I have been Deputy Head Teacher at Heathfield since September 2009 and have loved every minute of it. The question I need to answer is: Have I earned the trust of ALL staff to say the above statement and ensure people not only believe me, but will support the school on the journey it must take to reach its potential.
I was lucky enough to attend the Bolton Leadership Symposium on 25th -26th February 2010. I tweeted updates from the event (these can be found using the hashtag: #boltonsymposium) or you can view this link). To use the analogy of Chris Pickup who spoke during the first morning…
HeathfieldCPS is on a journey, there is a destination sign on the front of the bus which says very clearly where we are going. My Headteacher is driving the bus with our staff are sat in certain seats working extremely hard but where is my seat?
Are all the people sat next to the window happy with their window seats or would they prefer an aisle seat?
Have they ever tried an aisle seat or a window seat?
Have the staff that sit near the back ever sat near the front?
A good leader will ensure the right people are on the bus! A great leader will not only ensure the right people are on the bus but in addition, ensure that each person is sat in the right seat!
I believe we have the right people on the Heathfield bus, my challenge has been and continues to be – How I gain the trust and respect, to lead and share the driving of the bus with the Headteacher?
We have begun the journey of making ICT the vehicle to drive change at HeathfieldCPS. If you have been following our progress, you will know that we are using Web 2.0/3.0 technologies to assist learning and Year 6, 5, 4, 1 and Reception are now showcasing their learning though class blogs. Within a few weeks, Year 3 and Year 2 will launch their blogs. I can not convey enough how much blogging and the use of Web 2.0/3.0 technologies has enthused the pupils in Year 6. You only have to visit their blog to see what fantastic things are taking place. Just listen to their most recent Voicethread on why blogging is so great:
We have only been blogging and using Web 2.0/3.0 technologies for 8 weeks now. In that time, Heathfield have already developed a strong reputation in the world of ICT and our blog is rising up the ranks of search engines. Teachers that are searching for Literacy resources are being directed to our blogs from all over the world. We have over 500 comments in 8 weeks from all over the world too! Things are definitely happening here!
I predict, that in three years: the name of Heathfield will be displayed at the top of many Google searches, ICT will be woven through a new creative curriculum, children will be even more enthused and switch onto their learning right from the 1st day in Reception up until their last day in Year 6, visitors will be coming from all over the country to see first hand what changes have taken place at Heathfield to bring such success and most important of all, children leaving HeathfieldCPS will be prepared for the challenges that they will face in the future.
Mrs Spencer and I were able to spend a significant amount of time talking during our 2 days at the Bolton Leadership Symposium and we both agreed, Awards and high SATs results were not the driving force of future developments, but the need to prepare our pupils for a future that we can’t comprehend. If awards and high status come our way, of course that will be enjoyed by the pupils and staff , however, these are not being sought!
My Headteacher knows where the bus is going! We have the right people on the bus! Me? Well, that’s easy! My aim is to give my Headteacher every opportunity to drive the bus, I’m sat with Mrs Spencer but I can keep my seatbelt off! I can nip back and check if people are in the right places and enjoying their seat, I am able to sit at the front and at the back, at the window and in the aisle!
So, I return to my original statement at the top of this blog post… When is the right time to look staff in the eye, place my hand on their shoulder and say, “Trust me”?
I don’t think I have ever been as proud in my professional career as I am now. Year 6 have only been blogging since the last week in December and after teaching them the basics and after watching me making a fool of myself at the front of the classroom most days, the energy has shifted from the Teacher to the Student! I receive on average about 4 posts per night at the minute. Not all of them are worthy of the blog but many are!
We recently embarked on using PrimaryPad resources to write collaborative to produce two non-chronological reports, one on Haiti and the other on Earthquakes. This fitted in beautifully with our Literacy projects and the pupils produced something that they are very proud of! You can see these here and here.
So…my Year 6’s are motoring along with just a little guidance from me. We would still like more comments from people who view the blog as this really is the key to maintaining enthusiasm. Whilst I can now leave the Year 6’s to embark on their own blogging experience, I am turning my concentration to another year group (Year 4).
Our Year 4 teacher is energetic and has just clicked with what blogging is all about! She has been keen to meet during lunchtimes, after school and informally in the corridor. Her class blog is now really beginning to take shape. you can see her blog by clicking here.
Something very exciting could be about to happen this weekend. The pupils in Year 4 have been following the progress of Andy Murray in the Australian Open this week, as a result, we have set up a PrimaryPad on Y4 class blog for a collaborative match report to be comepleted on Sunday. Nicola, Myself and Mrs Spencer will be on-line during the match to take a look at what is happening on the blog. The children in Year 4 are REALLY excited and we are hoping that this excitement transfers to their learning in the class with the blog propping up the learning giving the children a real purpose for their writing.
With Year 4, Year 6 and Reception now running successful blogs, 2 further r Teachers have signed up for some training! Watch this space for Year 2 and Year 5 blogs taking shape! Both of which will be a HUGE success!
These are not just exciting times for me but more importantly really exciting times for the school and the pupils!
For many years I have been one of YouTube’s biggest fans. I had contacted Bolton LA on numerous occasions over the years to try and get it unblocked or to ask what their future plans could be with regards staff use. It was only recently that Bolton LA asked me if I wanted to have full control over Heathfield’s internet filtering to which I immediately boiled the kettle and asked what time they could get here! The ICT Dept. at Bolton have been fantastic, they have supported everything I have requested and sent people up to school to ensure changes have been made as quickly as possible!
The first thing I did was unblock YouTube for staff. I had dreamed of being able to share some of YouTube’s little gems for years with my class. I just find that Year 6 children really respond to visual learning. I just love the results after showing the pupils a video of a setting and then asking them to describe what they saw. I also use adverts to show the children persuasion in its full glory! The CentreParcs adverts are classic for this! Persuasive language, lighting, gestures, music, camera angles and expressions. The pupils just ‘get it’ when they see it!
Bolton LA have been working very closely with Bloxx to create a filtering video hosting site over the last 6 months. I was shown this last Thursday and I think it is brilliant. It is totally reliant on teachers submitting video links from YouTube that they think would be useful to other teachers. These are tagged and categorised and when another trusted teacher watches and approves it, the video is available to watch. It is very much still ‘work in progress’ but the feel of the site is good! I know there are many other ways of downloading videos from YouTube but to many teachers they will not bother doing that and opportunities to inspire our learners could be lost. The way I look at it is that whenever I find a gem of a video that tick my boxes for my lessons then it is instantly available for any other teacher to view and use too!
I was asked by Bloxx to be interviewed by The Times about why I was so passionate about the use of YouTube in classrooms. I obliged and here is their article that was printed today:
The discussion this article prompts is valid and needs to take place, however, their article is grossly inaccurate! The price structure will not be any where near the prices listed in the article (So I’m told from the horse’s mouth) and this service requires teachers to submit their favourite videos and categorise them to help future use. I for one will be a contributor to Bloxx hoping that people will share the videos they find too.
Please use this PrimaryPad below to input any ideas to help KS2 teachers/leaders to use online lessons for specific targets in numeracy. The previous PrimaryPad was such a success it seems a natural sequel! I for one find creative thinking about Literacy much easier than numeracy. If people feel the same, then this PrimaryPad will be really useful for people who want to support their pupils in this way.
If you can not see the whole pad, scroll to the bottom, scroll to the right and you will see a ‘full window’ button. That should help!
If you prefer to work on this document full screen please use the link to go direct to a full screen: PrimaryPad5
We had quite a bit of interest from schools, the LA and the Press about our online learning classes this week. The Bolton News sent photographers to on of my pupil’s house and my house to take pictures of these classes taking place and here is the article written on their website (minus pictures.)
After the huge success from yesterday’s online lesson for children stuck at home due to the snow I embarked on a better 2nd attempt this afternoon. I still used Coveritlive as I was really impressed with what it offered and its simplicity. I will add meat to this post later tonight but you can reply the session by clicking on the play button below:
I have been asked by a few people in my PLN on Twitter to write up my experiences of my first online ‘live’ lesson whilst the school was closed due to the snow. So here goes…
The threat of severe disruption led me to excavate (steal) peoples thoughts and ideas on what schools or teachers could offer in the way of using learning platforms or blogs to exploit learning opportunities whilst children are at home due to school closures. I set up a PrimaryPad and embedded this in my blog: Click here
I then went onto Twitter and asked my ever growing network of professional friends to visit and record their ideas. This request was swiftly retweeted across the globe leading to 40-50 visits from people I had never met from all over the world all willing to share some ideas! The ideas kept on coming and before long I also noticed 6 members of my own school staff reading and contributing too. This for me was a highlight as I could see they were impressed to see how Web 2.0 technology was being used. It was only at 11:30pm last night that I was on Twitter speaking to @HGJohn when he mentioned that I should look at Coveritlive as a method for delivering something like I was planning. I spent a good couple of hours after that using their testing feature. this allows you to run the software without actually publishing anything. I got to know the features very quickly and was impressed to say the least. I set up a session to begin at 9:30am the next day and was content enough to sleep!
First thing in the morning I texted the parents of the Year 6 children to inform them of the online lesson and the time it would start using: Teacher2 Parents (our texting service provider). With 30 minutes to go, there was already 10 pupils online waiting for the session to begin and this grew to 17 by the time it started. Not bad for a class of 30! I had told the children that this was a learning experience for me as well as them and so the journey began.
One of the many features that Coveritlive offers is the ability to run a poll. I set the poll to ask ‘How deep is the snow where you live?’ and set 6 options for answers. As children vote, these are then displayed as a percentage – A great numeracy link! We discussed what people had been up to over the break and even had a parent come online from work. She was able to post links of snowmen that her child had created! That to me was a sign of even more potential. Another activity we did was to think about what the newspapers would say about our school being closed but ‘virtually’ open. This sparked a number of responses that could be followed up in school or for real by contacting the press. We had done a big writing project using the world of Pandora from the hit film Avatar, see here and here. I wanted to see if I could play a video live online so I used the Youtube link and played the trailer for the film to all 20 particpants. This again made me understand the power of this tool.
During our discussions about what the children had been up to during the break, I directed them to our Reception class wallwisher that is about posting what you have been doing during the holidays. See their wallwisher here.
About 10 minutes from the end of the session I invited some of the teachers I know on Twitter to have a look at the session to see if it something they feel could be used in their school. The feedback was very positive. Although the content wasn’t sensationally advanced, this was a learning journey for myself mainly but also the pupils. I will ask them once we are re-open about their thoughts and how they think it could be used in the future.
After about 90 minutes I closed the ‘live’ session and although exhausted, I found the experience one of the most enlightening experiences of my professional career to date! I hope you can read this post and get something from it. Please direct people to this post and the replay of the resource which is just below. I’m thrilled to say that this is just the beginning of some very exciting times at Heathfield Primary School and I am very happy to be a part of it. Please take a few minutes to replay the ‘live’ session below:
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