Supporting Your Child Through Effective Use Of IT

1. Supporting Your Child Through Effective Use Of IT

2. What is a VLE? • Virtual Learning Environment • Managed Learning Environment • Universities and colleges push most of their work through these (blackboard) • Many workplaces use an intranet • We will be giving our students these skills that are transferable

3. Edmodo? • Easy to manage… unlike some other VLEs • Good communication tool • Individual…groups and students • Personalized for staff, students and you • Not complicated…bonus! • Free!!!

4. What is Edmodo? • Edmodo provides teachers, students and parents a secure place to connect and collaborate, share content and educational applications, and access homework, grades and class discussions. “Our goal is to help educators harness the power of social media to customize the classroom for each and every learner.”

5. What can it offer you? • Edmodo promotes anytime, anyplace learning. • Functionally: it allows teachers to post messages, discuss classroom topics, assign and grade classwork, share content and materials, and network and exchange ideas with their peers - but in reality, it is so much more. • You can get involved with what your children are doing in school.

6. Parental forum • To join the group e mail Mr Ward at a.ward@millthorpeschool.co.uk • You will have to join as a student and the forum will be removed after a month. • If there is enough people wanting / using it I will set up a permanent group

7. What does it look like • http://millthorpe.edmodo.com/home • Very similar in colour / design to the dreaded facebook! • Very user friendly • Students know how to use it

8. Concerns? • Students can be blocked and made read only or simple deleted from the group. • Once a class has signed up to the group it can be locked so that nobody can sign up to it. • We do monitor who has signed up: you can only sign up if you have a code. • Staff will monitor who is within the group • You can monitor what your children are doing

9. RE and IT at Millthorpe School • School website currently contains…. • Y7/8 Homework tasks • Powerpoint presentations for all Y9-11 lessons • Y9-11 revision materials

10. RE and IT at Millthorpe School • http://www.millthorpeschool.co.uk/departments/re/re.html

11. RE and IT at Millthorpe School • Edmodo currently contains…. • Two groups; one for Y11 short course (187 members) and one for Y10 full course (18 members)

12. RE and IT at Millthorpe School

13. RE and IT at Millthorpe School • Libraries for each GCSE unit that contain powerpoint presentations of all lessons as well as revision materials and copies of past exam papers.

14. RE and IT at Millthorpe School

15. RE and IT at Millthorpe School • Quizzes for each GCSE topic including missing words, true and false exercises as well as sample exam questions and full exam papers to answer.

16. RE and IT at Millthorpe School

17. RE and IT at Millthorpe School

18. RE and IT at Millthorpe School

19. RE and IT at Millthorpe School

20. RE and IT at Millthorpe School • It is also possible to have group or individual conversations with students which is useful during revision periods for exams.

21. RE and IT at Millthorpe School

22. RE and IT at Millthorpe School

23. RE and IT at Millthorpe School • Parents can have access to Edmodo as well – using your parent code you can monitor what your child is – or isn’t – doing.

25. RE and IT at Millthorpe School • From September 2012…. • Separate Edmodo groups for Y7-11. • Resources to be taken off the website and put onto Edmodo. • All groups will include a library which contains powerpoint presentations for each lesson, homework tasks and exemplar materials for each task.

26. RE and IT at Millthorpe School • All groups will have pdf copies of worksheets and documents added to their library. • Students (and parents of students) who are absent, ill or on holiday will be able to access the lessons they have missed, and all the associated resources, through Edmodo from home.

27. RE and IT at Millthorpe School • Homework tasks will be set from Edmodo and the software enables us to send out the task, and deadline reminders, via e-mail direct to students.

28. A possible future for IT at Millthorpe School

29. Universities leading the way Virtual Learning Environments Online submission of assignments Online examinations Information overload Discrimination versus data collection What is the future of learning?

30. VLEs Personal mobile devices Online textbooks Access anytime anywhere Apps and data in the “cloud” Affordability How would it work in school?

31. VLE – virtual learning environment

32. Personal mobile devices

33. Online textbooks

34. Apps & Data in the “Cloud”

35. Anytime, anywhere internet

36. Affordability – the present • 5 PC rooms, 300 PCs, 5 servers, cabling etc • Decaying • Total capital £250K • Annual replacement *should* be £30K • Infrastructure needs major update

37. Affordability – new model • Two PC rooms, 150 PCs, 3 servers • Annual replacement *should* be £15K (half) • Wired network boosted in capacity (£50K?) • Wireless access points (£30K) • Cost to parents around £10 per month

38. Summary • Anytime, anywhere learning • VLE for learning resources & assignments • Online textbooks • 1-to-1 mobile devices • Need the network to be refreshed

39. Discussion…