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Hannah Y12:
1. I am thinking about going to university and the visit has helped me. Leeds Met is one of the unis I am considering applying to and the course I want to do is on the same campus that we were at today. I think the timing is right for Y11 as it can help in A-Level choices.

Going to Teesside was something that helped me choose to do ICT as a fourth A-Level.

2. ICT will always be a helpful addition to any career as technologies are always changing and ICT is used in almost every job you apply for.

3. I am not considering taking ICT as a degree but the visit has helped me learn more about the university, what is it like and what facilities they have for the students to use.

4. I think that the talks given were useful as they did focus on the course in ICT but also some of the information could apply to all courses.

In addition, I think we all realise the importance of increasing your skills for job applications and taking advantage of opportunites, so there is an equal split between girls and boys.

…thank you Hannah for a thoughtful and considered response. – Mr S
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Current Status of DL Projects:
Presentation to SLT – Weds 25th March – see above
Flash – Isaac and Jem – Weds 25th March for trainers led by Mr Lech, then all DLs Weds 2nd March supervised by Mr Lech
Evaluation of Edmodo – social networking site – Matthew – ongoing – will need DLs to moderate this
Evaluation of Evernote – TBC
Proposals on subject use of ICTs – on hold
Paint.net – led by Daisy – done 19-22nd March – continue using.
Diary competition – presentations 1st March – Mrs Methley /
Blogging – developing the new LLS DLs blog – Rosie and Toria – Ongoing
Autology – Matthew – All DLs – continue using.
Electronic Diaries – Mr S – done – see competition – all DLs to keep updated from now on
Prezi Training – 6th-15th December – continue using.
Setting up DLs with forums on purpose and ways of working together
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LLS Digital Leaders Meeting 18, 19th April 2012
Big organisation of ways of working in the future;
– Fronter Digital Leaders
– email to check every Friday
– Use Blog to publish articles
– need a networking tool – edmodo?
Teachmeet in June; Presentation to SLT next Weds; learning about Flash.
See latest on Projects above
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LLS Digital Leaders Meeting 17, 29th March 2012 Mrs Laycock visiting from Richmond Methodist Primary School
Food and drink as reward for all the hard work this term.
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Plan for Lesson 2 on Paint.net on the Year 9 ICT Fronter page
Dates
Group  /  When  /  Led by whom
9X4 CJS / Monday 19th March p.1 / led by Matthew
9X1 KFL / Monday 19th March p.1 / led by Lauren W
9Y2 CJS / Monday 19th March p.1 p.1 / led by Lauren B
9Y3 KFL / Tuesday 20th March p.2 / led by Toria/Shona
9X2 CJS / Tuesday 20th March p.2 / led by Will and Ollie
9X3 KFL / Wednesday 21st March p.4 / led by Beth/Ali/Jack
9Y4 CJS / Thursday 22nd March p.1 / led by Hannah, Jess, Jem …
9Y1 KFL / Thursday 22nd March p.3 / led by Becky

I was able to take the opportunity this half term to research other schools where digital leaders are having an impact. One of the best examples I’ve found has been Long Field School and some great resources explaining their progress by Ben Solly. in fact, checking back in my notes I can see that Paul Hynes recommended them when we first talked.

Ben Solly explains how his school has embraced and harnessed the expertise of their students as Digital Leaders. I particulary like his quote

This might be a frightening concept, but the reality is unless we harness the expertise that exists within the student body and embrace their technological capabilities, we as educators will always be playing catch up. More

LLS Digital Leaders Meeting 15, 8th March 2012 (24 attended)
– Discussion of Blog
– Discussion of URL for DLs blog
– This term’s training will be building on Daisy’s training for DLs on Paint.net.
– Mrs Phippen inviting DLs to lead Year 9 whole day project on WSCD on Thursday
– Toshiba tablet arriving soon – will be available for use at lunchtimes
> Rosie and Toria to set up DLs blog
> Diary winners to post first 3 articles about their diary entries
> DLs voted for www.llsdigitalleaders.net
1. All DLs to make a poster with different layers for photos and text. For next Weds lunchtime training.
2. Continue to think about main aim (and update on the Team forum) of your Team’s ideas for improving TWO subjects using ICTs
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LLS Digital Leaders Evaluation – Tablets 23rd February 2012 (23 attended)
– Dawn from Toshiba came with two tablets for us to evaluate.
– we chose to investigate  science prezis / Geography Autology / Fronter Digital Leaders page.
1. What were our first thoughts about using tablets in lessons?  We have a forum to collect these ideas.
2. We are incorporating these ideas into how we work with teachers in subjects – one computer/Interactive Whiteboard in classroom or group use of Tablets or PC Suite or home use… More

LLS Digital Leaders Meeting 14, 1st March 2012 (24 attended)
– welcome to Mrs Methley, ICT consultant for York
– Teams worked together on their plans for using ICTs in subjects
– £10 Amazon vouchers awarded by Mrs M to Hannah, Lauren and Toria for having best diary entries (so far)
1. Continue to write on the Team forum your Team’s ideas for improving TWO subjects using ICTs
– Digital Tools – Fronter Tools (forums, pages, links, videos) / youtube / Autology.
2. Update the Tablet discussion forum
– good things / bad things
– how could these be used in lessons?
– what would be the best number in lessons?
(3. Diary: use notes MUST ALWAYS be up-todate) More

Last year, an ex-LLS student, Mike Hall, contacted me – this earlier blogpost is here. Today, we welcomed Mike into LLS to talk to all our Y12 and Y13 ICT students. A big thank you for a well judged, interesting and relevant talk. Below are his reflections on the visit, along with feedback comments from the students.

Talk reflection
Two weeks ago I visited my old Secondary School, Lady Lumley’s in Pickering. A series of E-mails had triggered this visit into precipitation in which Chris (my old ICT teacher More

Since the last blog entry our team has been very busy and we have completed the project as far as we can in the time available. Starting from where the last blog entry ended, this is a summary of the remaining meetings that we held.

As a group we decided that it was important for members of our group to go into the year 7 students that were involved in the project’s class and check directly with them over whether there had been any contact between then and the Chinese students over the Christmas holidays. The result of this was negative in that no emails had been sent by the Chinese students in reply to the English students ‘hello’ email. This further meant that because the communication between the students had not occurred like we had planned, only 97% of the project appeared as completed on Zoho, our time management software.

When we realised that there had been no substantial contact over the Christmas holidays, we agreed to email April, the Chinese student’s teacher to let her know that there had been a communication ‘breakdown’ on the forums and that there had been no communication from the Chinese occurring. When we discussed why we think that this may have occurred as team, we thought that maybe the emails had not made it to the Chinese student’s mail box. To test this, and with the help of the project sponsor, the project manager Andrew logged into one of the Chinese students Fronter accounts to check that the email from their pen pal had been successfully sent. The email was there, along with the introductory powerpoint from their Year 7 penpal but was unread. So we guessed the Chinese students had not yet logged on to Fronter.

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So halfway through the year, and completed a set of posts of progress made so far…

Some things I hoped for:

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