School Websites

Sometimes I should just stop and let things roll as they are, but I do find it difficult. Recently I made a proposition to the Head that I would be willing to get involved with the update, modernization and maintenance of the School Website. Whether this turns out to be a good or bad idea, only time will tell. The Head loved the idea though!

Although usually aesthetically pleasing, a school site has so much more potential than is generally used. As well as this, there is outdated information and the photos rarely get updated. A site would get more views if the information was updated on a more regular basis.

After viewing so called "award winning school websites", I was not entirely impressed and realised that the focus was generally on image rather then content. I believe that a site should be aesthetically pleasing, yes, and easy to navigate. However, it should also be regularly updated and it should aim to focus on three areas:

1.    Making the current website a better advert for the school (both to current and potential parents)

2.    Improving communication in school-related matters between teacher-pupil, teacher-parent and pupil-parent

3.    Widening the use of technology to facilitate teaching and learning across the school curriculum

Some ideas I came up with to help in these areas are as follows:

·      Password protected links to class and subject based websites. There are currently many of these already in use, but it would be much better to have access to all of them from one location.

·      A drive to produce departmental/class websites as platforms to implement technology in the classroom as well as communication.

·      A weekly News Bulletin done in video format, as well as paper based format. I believe this would get viewed a lot more than the current bulletin and the pupils could run it. Any news could also be pushed automatically to parent’s computers, smart phones or iPads.

·      A link to Green/Environmental Awareness Information, videos and resources.

·      Downloadable, pupil-written iBooks. Why not make full use out of the technology we now have and encourage projects to create iBooks? The children’s work could be uploaded to the iBooks database and be downloadable by parents from the Grange Website.

·      As part of the push for modernization, Twitter and Facebook could also be used to disseminate information and discuss/share new school projects within the community.

 

iBooks and iAuthor

To be honest I don't even know if the application is called iAuthor, but everything is an i these days so I can't be far wrong.

A teacher asked me the other day if I knew a free web application for making the students stories appear online. So I started to research and came to iBooks Author. This has now opened up a flood of ideas into my small and spongy brain.

We have just bought some ipads to use in the school library, their main purpose to be used for iBooks. So why not utilise the ipads and publish the children's stories direct to iBooks and thus the iPads?






It seems like a simple process.
It is using the latest technology.
The parents will be able to access their children's stories.
The stories can be shared.
The stories should look great AND have the ability to be interactive.

This idea has potential!

So, I'm thinking that the children could combine their stories onto an iBook of short stories, publish it on iBooks and make it available as a free download.

If you have done anything like this before, I'd love to hear about your results.

On the same theme, I have shared this idea with a colleague who loves to write philosophical literature. He has toyed with the idea of publishing on his own blog or on facebook. I think this looks like a fantastic way of unsigned and budding authors to get their work out into the world.

Google Apps Ninjas

You wanna fight???? Fight me!

But not like a fisty cuffs fight, a fight where the winner knows most about google apps.

By writing this blog I am forcing myself to look around for new ideas and I have just come across this nice idea by Jeff Utecht from his thinkingstick blog (by the way this is a fantastic resource). His idea is to encourage students to better their knowledge of Google Apps, through independent learning. Well, this is kind of the idea, the way I read it was that it is more a way to get students to 'learn how to learn' and carry out research tasks on the computer.

To be honest with you, I would like to learn more about Google Apps as it has a tonne of useful tools that I am sure I don't fully utilise. But I'm a teacher, an adult, I know that this will better my interaction with mail, calenders etc and thus speed up my organisational tasks and administration activities. How could you possibly get students interested in becoming Google Apps experts? Tell them they could become Google Apps NINJAS!

The idea is brilliant. They have training material followed by tests. If they get 80% or more they get a new Ninja Belt. White being the beginner, black the expert. Now wouldnt we all like to be black belt Ninjas?

I would absolutely love to first, complete the activities myself to become a Google Apps Expert/Ninja, and secondly us this idea myself to encourage learners to get more involved in ICT and improve their self learning and research skills. I'm not sure that I could use the Google Apps as a resource as my students are 11-12 years old. But I will recommend it to the senior school ICT Teachers.

If I eventually come up with an idea for myself then I will post the results, or perhaps someone could give me some suggestions?

http://www.thethinkingstick.com/become-a-google-apps-ninja/