Oct 6 2011

Manchester Open Day

The course I would like to do at university is called Information Technology Management for Business (ITMB) and having been to the Manchester University open day, it is now my first choice.

Whilst I was there I met Andy who was in his second year of the course. He explained how much of the course was group work and working in a team to solve a problem for a business. I told him that I am currently undergoing a Project Management unit in my ICT A Level course where we split up various tasks between a group depending on the skills of the individuals and this seemed very similar to what Andy was describing. I also highlighted that in the ICT course, we work with clients to solve problems for them or analyse their IT systems. He told me that businesses work extremely well with Manchester University and in particular with ITMB. He used examples such as IBM, Land Rover and BBC coming to Manchester’s ITMB students with problems for them to solve. Andy also mentioned that in his year of Industrial work that comes with the course, he will be going to work with Accenture, a huge business in the world of IT. The fact that the course gives you the chance to work with all these world wide known businesses and the chance to make these contacts was a huge selling point to me.

He said that by listening to me talking about the ICT course I have taken at Lady Lumley’s School, I will be very well equipped to do well in Information Technology Management for Business at Manchester University.

Mark R. Williams
Y13 ICT student at LLS
2011-10-11

By • Career ICT • 0

Sep 14 2011

Digital Leaders – Introduction and competition results

Assembly yesterday. I outlined why digital leaders are important. What will you talk about at a future Interview? What examples of leadership and teamwork do you have? What other examples of leadership in the school – Duke of Edinborough, World Challenge and Sports Leaders. I picture us as living in a new digital landscape, and concepts of leaders helping others to navigate fits well with DofE, and learning to teach small teams of students fits well with Sports Leaders.

If you volunteer as a Digital Leader you will improve your ICT skills; Leadership skills; Communication skills; Confidence; Teamwork;and Networking.

Possible Activities include – Learn to use a variety of ICTs;Regular opportunities to train ‘colleagues’ in your ICT classes; using new software; Support the use of ICTs in other subjects; Encourage more ‘digital homeworks’ in the school; Present at a conference next summer?

And then the competition results – Amazon vouchers for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd in the Wordle competition (34 entries) and the 1, 2 and 3= and 3= in the Glogster competition (24 entries).

At the meeting 17 students added themselves to the new Y9 Digital Leaders room on Fronter and listed who was in which ICT group – I am hoping for at least two per group. I explained to them that I had been to a Lecture at York University last night and listened to Steve Wood, Vice President of Strategy for IBM (annual turnover $100 Billion) give a talk about 100 years of IBM. I asked him afterwards if he had any encouragement which I could pass on to my students the next day: He said “Your set of skills is important, not your job” and “Learn how to Learn”.
So, their first task as LLS DLs is to collaborate on two forums:
1. An inspiring Digital Leader needs
to develop these personal skills… and explain why…
2. An inspiring Digital Leader needs to develop these technical skills… and explain why… (include examples of software as well if you can).
I look forward to seeing what they come up with…

By • Digital Leaders, KS3_ICT • 0

Jun 27 2011

Growing a VLE not a VTE…

Introduction to Fronter at Highfield House, Ripon – 27/06/2011

You can browse our subject rooms on the  Lady Lumley’s School Fronter site:
Pls go to http://fronter.com/northyorks
UN =guestuser1 PW =lumleys123

Please respect any copyright and ask permission before downloading any materials.

All the materials shown in the talk are available with read access in the room ‘ICT Skills’ – scroll to the bottom and click ‘Link to examples of Fronter at LLS‘.  Choose the drop down box to see all the subject rooms available.  We have blocked off the staffroom as we are now using it for discussions and staff information that is not appropriate for public access.

By • Conference, VLE / Fronter • 0

Feb 4 2011

Deep Learning for after you leave school…

One of the really lovely things about teaching is having feedback from students after they have left school and are making their way in education and the world of work afterwards.

I have had several emails recently – two in the last two days.

Just after Christmas I heard from a student of 4 years ago, who is now doing an ICT networking job he enjoys. He asked me to pass on that you sometimes have to do rubbish jobs before the right one comes along!

Yesterday I had another email from a student who is regularly updating me on his ICT course. I will share this with the Y12s on Monday because his point is that doing CiDA and the AS database unit has really prepared him well for his current unit.

Best of all is the following email from Mike. We all (Mr Lech and I included!) find independent working and motivation difficult at times. Mike saw the light in Year 13 of his ICT course, gaining A grades in units when the year before he was getting Es and Ds. I have asked his permission to pass this email on – which he was very happy to give. I hope it gives you some encouragement in the next few week with difficult timescales with coursework. It is worth it later on… 😉

Mr S

“Hello!
It’s Mike **** here from your GCSE and A-level class a few years back! not sure if you have this as my current e-mail or not but i’m sure you’ll remember me!

Basically I just decided to send you a quick email in response you your earlier requests for feedback from the course as i now feel in a much better position to do so!

One thing which I am especially grateful for is the amount of experience I got from the project management module in particular. I am now applying for placement year jobs at various companies and the same questions pop up on every application.
I am doing a Vauxhall one as we speak with these questions: (I’m on the 3rd stage of their application process so if i pass these questions I will get an interview!)

1. Describe how your personal planning and organisation resulted in the successful achievement of a specific project or task over and above your normal duties.

2. Tell us about a time where you have used your initiative to make a change or improvement. What did you do and how did you do it?

3. Tell us about a time when you have been involved in a team decision. What was your role and how did you contribute?

To put it bluntly, if i hadn’t done the project management course I would have nothing at all to write about (like most people I am competing against) whereas now I struggle to pick out the best situation from a bucket full!

If i had one piece of advice for your current students it would without a doubt be to keep a log of all problems, solutions, personal and team projects, any solutions YOU came up with and the end outcome because these will be like gold dust when applying for jobs and will give anyone a HUGE advantage in applications and interviews and you WILL forget half of the things you did a few years down the line!

I hope that was abit more comprehensive than I was able to give last time!
Just abit of an update, I’ll soon have finished my second year of my automotive engineering degree and will be hopefully going on placement to a company this summer for a year. I’ve now decided the career path I want to go down is that of automotive journalism so i’m trying to find free journalism classes around my uni but will keep you posted! I’m trying to push the Malton Mercury into letting me do an article as well!

If there is anything at all I can help you with in the future don’t hesitate to drop me an e-mail!

Hope all is well

Mike
“

By • Career ICT • 0

Nov 24 2010

E-learn – We learn – 25/11/2010

Effective uses of modern technologies in learning Conference at the Pavilions in Harrogate.

You can browse our subject rooms on the  Lady Lumley’s School Fronter site:
Pls go to http://fronter.com/northyorks
UN =guestuser1 PW =lumleys123

Please respect any copyright and ask permission before downloading any materials.

All the materials shown in the talk are available with read access in the room ‘ICT Skills’ – scroll to the bottom and click ‘Link to examples of Fronter at LLS‘.  Choose the drop down box to see all the subject rooms available.  We have blocked off the staffroom as we are now using it for discussions and staff information that is not appropriate for public access.   Sorry…

Books mentioned in talk are in the Books to read section on the right…
Software mentioned is linked from the top navigation bar…
All my links of the last 2 years are accessed throught the delicious links on the right… although I use the Diigo add-in to bookmark in Firefox.

contact me via email – csharples[at]ladylumleys.net
or twitter.com/gr8ict.com

Carole has kindly offered for people to log on to the King James’ Fronter Site:
Pls go to http://fronter.com/northyorks
username: dhallis20   password: guest123

“Pls look at the L and T Fronter room for links to see how teachers are using forums, Twitter etc
with their classes.

You will see the links at the top to staff centre and to staff home .
The building is very much underconstruction but it enable syou to see
how we have set things up. The staff centre (and a student equivalent)
will be the route through to subject and course/year rooms and from
there to individual teaching rooms where appropriate. See science-
biology- and then the link to my Y13. The idea being, which seems like
LLs, is to drive people in through main pages and we plan to have permanent rooms and /or folders for each teacher’s classes and enrol the members (rather than ‘enrolling’ the resources
into CMIS generated rooms). My Y13 room stays in place each year.

As at present the subject pages are not developed, other than the links,
but we plan to use then for homeworks and also to involve students to
make them more interesting and dynamic. A good example already underway
is DT- Y8DT. We are putting resources into the shared rooms that
teachers and/or students need to access from home, hence the folder
structure which you can see by clicking on ‘science resources’ at the
bottom of the science home page. We also plan to have L and M rooms- see leadership and management- data for example. “

By • Conference, VLE / Fronter • 0

Sep 5 2010

using an IPhone for personal organisation

I’m now at the stage of being very satisfied with my personal organisation software on my iPhone (currently iphone 5s).  This functionality, for me, is one of the primary reasons for having a mobile device.  All the following apps and recommended software can be found on iTunes and my delicious links links at the top right hand of this blog.

Calendar – I use Pocket Informant on the iPhone and the regular Contacts App with Microsoft Outlook on my PC.  I use gSynchIT for synchronising my lessons and school calendar from Outlook via PI online.  I have a Microsoft exchange account as part of my gr8ict domain so all my emails and contacts update in real-time.

Tasks –  I use Pocket Informant and Toodledo apps on the iPhone, and then the Toodledo website with a pro account, synchronised together.  This means I can multi-edit my tasks on the web version and then sync on my phone.

Notes – I tend to use google docs for all notes now.

Twitter – Tweetbot on iPhone and Tweetdeck on PC.

Sensitive Data – I use key pass on my laptop and desktop with mini-keepass on my iPhone.  They all use a shared datafile held in my dropbox.

Favourite Contacts – Reordering:
http://theappleblog.com/2009/02/12/separating-your-iphone-favorite-contacts/
Reordering – http://ipod.about.com/od/phonefeatures/ht/reorder_iph_fav.htm
Summary:
Friends; Family; Work.  Create a new contact for each. The first name field FRIENDS and then a bogus telephone number has been created.  Then make sure to favorite these new contacts to add them to your list. Once in the list, move your new separator contacts to the top of the ordered categories you previously decided on (edit > the 3 barred icon).

Voice Memo App – used for memos in the car

By • #wellbeing5aday, iPhone, Time management • 0

Apr 22 2010

Presentation at Fronter UK National Conference 2010

Books mentioned in talk are in the Books to read section on the right…
Software mentioned is linked from the top navigation bar…
All my links of the last 2 years are accessed throught the delicious links on the right… although I use the Diigo add-in to bookmark in Firefox.

I am indebted to Chris at Nower Hill School for allowing me access to his site last year and I am continuing the trend this year…

You can browse our subject rooms on the  Lady Lumley’s School Fronter site:
Pls go to http://fronter.com/northyorks
UN =guestuser1 PW =lumleys123
Choose the drop down box to see the rooms available.  We have blocked off the staffroom as we are now using it for discussions and staff information that is not appropriate for public access.   Sorry…

contact me via email – csharples[at]ladylumleys.net
or twitter/gr8ict.com

By • Conference, VLE / Fronter • 0

Jan 17 2010

BETT 2010 – things I found out…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I work as a head of ICT in a large comprehensive school using Fronter as our VLE.  Therefore you will see a bias towards the following topics:

Home Access from Becta
eSafety
Fronter
ICT Strategy and CPD
Miscellaneous findings

Home Access from Becta 

– www.homeaccess.org.uk/
– The government’s made a grant of up to £528 available for low income families with children living in England; it’s targeted at those without access to the internet.
– Years 7-9 for secondary school
– the pilot was a huge success – 90% take-up
– Learn from pilot schools what level of engagement you require
– Eligible parents get a visa card with £528 to spend on a suitable system at approved suppliers such as Comet

eSafety 

Having run eSafety days for year 7 and Year 8 in the last month, needing to do something for older students, I was interested in what Childnet and CEOP to say.
– Safer Internet Day 2010 on the 9th February
– new materials ready in the next week
– new Know-it-All materials will be streamable off the website (Hurray!)

Fronter
– new parent portal – I liked the simplicity and the colour coding
– New look Fronter coming in the style of the new goal tool that they have available
– Investigate the following
– open/edit/save function
– Page tool
– Change language on page
I am not the only one to consider it very clunky at moment…

ICT Strategy and CPD
– I liked the new Vital website for ICT CPD

Miscellaneous findings
– Use Ofcom data in future eLearning assembly
– live@edu – free e-mail solution / online storage for schools from Microsoft
– semblio – free multimedia authoring package from Microsoft
– Office 2010 – look for plugin to offer alternative to ribbon…
– New Casio Projectors – 20,000 hours due to new laser/led technology
– www.ict-register.net/
– www.ictcpd4free.co.uk/

Hope this helps,

Chris

By • Conference • 0

Oct 29 2009

Password Management Software

Everyone has to join websites these days, using an email and a password to access the site.  But how to remember which email and which password you have used?  The easiest solution is to use a password manager.  I used to use the free whisper32 but when I started using a ppc mobile phone and synching it to my desktop then I paid for codewallet.   With a bit of recent investigation I have now found there is a Opensource PC app called KeePass for keeping a secure list of your passwords on a range of computers – Windows, Mac and Linux.  More, including help links, here.

By • Digital Leaders • 0

Mar 19 2009

Time Management and Personal Effectiveness…

Introduction
I have been waiting for a long time to do this post.  A year ago I committed to creating a training session for our PGCE students, and having put that together today, now is an ideal time to publish my thoughts on the Web.

“We are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” Aristotle, Greek philosopher, (384-322BC)
(This also fits with recent brain theory and myelin – see The Talent Code (read 2016) – Daniel Coyle (Author)

In other words, there is hope for us all.  I know that using the knowledge and skills which I outline later, I am far more effective and enjoy my work far more than I did a couple of years ago.  Some of this feel-good-factor is making the most of ICT tools to help me be more effective – I will do a second post about these in the future.

Above all, time management is a misnomer.  you can’t manage time of course.  All you can do is make choices about what you do and when.

Of the many time management books I have bought, and of the smaller number I have read, I will recommend three four (2014:

Eat that Frog (Read 2014) – dealing with Procrastination.  We avoid the the most important things we need at a cost – deal with the most unappealing things first

Get Everything Done and Still Have Time to Play (Read 2012) – Mark Forster – The best book on the nuts and bolts as it is realistic and deals with being effective in an achievable way.

Getting Things Done (Read 2007) (GTD) – David Allen – used to think it was better than I do now, as I find it creates longer lists than I can cope with…

7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Read 2000)– Stephen Covey – The best book overall.
Just the best book for dealing with what is important.

 

Introduction
There is just too much stuff around.  To concentrate on the important things in life you need to ‘declutter’ and be disciplined to prevent any more unnecessary infiltration of unwanted clutter.  As Peter Drucker said “Efficiency is doing things right, Effectiveness is doing the right things” and I would add “at the right time”.

GTD gives a start, although to my mind deals too much with efficiency.  However, I like the three main strands, which are:

1. CAPTURE all the things that need to get done
2. CLARIFY Next Steps
3. REVIEW Regularly

This basic flow chart of the GTD work flow gives the ideas, and will allow you to efficiently deal with your in tray.  If you like more detail, try this advanced flow chart. (both from http://www.davidco.com/ )

However, I rate Mark Forster much more highly for Get Everything Done and Still Have Time to Play for a short book, some blinding commonsense, and really good ideas.  For example, here are some of them:

1. You can do anything, but not everything.
2. The value you give to something depends on your values in life.
3. Learned to look at your list of tasks and sort them with Must do, Should do, Could do.
4. Learn to say ‘No’

Finally, I must give credit to a book I have gone back to time and time again since first reading it in 1999 and that is Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.  I have found all seven ‘habits’ very powerful ideas.  I particularly recommend his descriptions of:

1. Keeping the balance of P and PC (Overview)
2. Circle of concern / circle of influence (Habit 1 – Be Proactive)
3. The importance of quadrant 2 activities (Habit 3 – Put First things First)

In fact, I quoted from it as recently as the weekend, to use the idea of the balance of P and PC (the balance between the golden egg (production) and the health and welfare of the goose (production capability).  If you were to work in a school where more and more gets squeezed out of you, it may work in the short-term, with increased exam results, but in the intermediate to long-term your capacity for good teaching becomes less, and the quality of product – your relationship with your students and colleagues, and your ability to inspire – reduces… obvious really…  😉

Chris

By • #wellbeing5aday, Time management • 0

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