making glow happen monday2330

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Making happen How lessons learned from deploying a smaller scale authority-wide web publishing system in East Lothian schools may help. David Gilmour, East Lothian Council

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Slideshow used for "Making Glow happen" talk atr SLF2008

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Page 1: Making Glow Happen Monday2330

Making happenHow lessons learned from deploying a smaller scale

authority-wide web publishing system in East Lothian schools

may help.David Gilmour, East Lothian Council

Page 2: Making Glow Happen Monday2330

What is edubuzz.org?

•A learning community

•A window on East Lothian education

•A web publishing system

Page 3: Making Glow Happen Monday2330

What’s the connection with Glow?

• Creating a learning community

• Improving sharing

• Modernising learning

• Removing barriers

Page 4: Making Glow Happen Monday2330

But what did we do about…

• Staff who “don’t do ICT”?

• Staff who don’t see the possibilities?

• Schools afraid to be different?

• Suppression of innovative staff?

Page 5: Making Glow Happen Monday2330

Where are we now?

Page 6: Making Glow Happen Monday2330

eduBuzz is popular• Every school

is involved• Up to 10,000

visits per month

• 1000 web sites

Page 7: Making Glow Happen Monday2330

We’ve real evidence of benefits.

HMIE “Good Practice” at Law PrimaryEffective Use of ICT

– Staff wanted to be more innovative in their use of ICT. They created a school blog to provide information on all aspects of school life and to encourage a regular dialogue between home and school. Staff worked closely with the local authority ICT team to set up the site and then took on responsibilities for maintaining it.

– Pupils were given a key role in providing the content. Pupils at the upper stages displayed and gave an account of their achievements and the range of activities that they had taken part in. Across the school, pupils used the site to provide feedback on school events. At P6 and P7, a pilot programme for homework was introduced with homework tasks and links to helpful educational sites posted on the blog.

– The blog also helped parents to keep in contact with their children who took part in the P7 residential trip and let them know about the daily activities. Development and use of the blog has helped to promote pupils’ language, ICT and independent learning skills. It has also proved to be a highly effective way of highlighting and celebrating pupils’ achievements.

Law Primary Inspection Report, HMIE, Sep. 2008

Page 8: Making Glow Happen Monday2330

How might this help with Glow?

Diagram reproduced from the encyclopaedia of informal education [www.infed.org]

• Similar problem situation

• Possible transfer of lessons learned

Page 9: Making Glow Happen Monday2330

How did edubuzz

start?

• Research to improve learning in East Lothian

• A need to stop re-inventing wheels

• The idea of an online learning community

Page 10: Making Glow Happen Monday2330

Early research

showed we had to…

• Avoid “deficit model”

• Start from where people are

• Avoid the usual “initiative approach”

Page 11: Making Glow Happen Monday2330

What lessons have we learned?

Page 12: Making Glow Happen Monday2330

Lesson 1: Train

colleagues together

• Avoid training disparate groups off-site

• Train whole schools or departments in school

• Provide plenty of informal follow-up support

Page 13: Making Glow Happen Monday2330

Lesson 2:Don’t just automate existing

tasks

• Look for where technology enables new potential benefits

• Be aware of the risk of being constrained by existing thinking

• Why are newsletters monthly?

Page 14: Making Glow Happen Monday2330

Lesson 3:It’s not

an initiative

• Top-down initiatives generate push-back

• Avoid invoking the initiative “frame of reference”

• Focus instead on benefits by supporting “bottom-up” ideas

Page 15: Making Glow Happen Monday2330

Lesson 4: Reduce

barriers to adoption

• Train to create simple products

• Tailor support to individual teacher’s needs

• Consider training the students

Page 16: Making Glow Happen Monday2330

Lesson 5: Take time to explain benefits clearly

• People will adopt technology when they perceive it to be easy and helpful

• Look for problems technology can help individuals to solve

Page 17: Making Glow Happen Monday2330

Lesson 6: Focus on benefits

• Recognise the risk that benefits can be missed

• Don’t “Do Glow” for the sake of it

• Stories of real benefits achieved will spread and engage others

Page 18: Making Glow Happen Monday2330

Lesson 7: Encourage evolution

• Look for organic growth

• Nurture new ideas

• Learn by doing• Don’t over-plan

Page 19: Making Glow Happen Monday2330

Lesson 8:Create a support network

• Encourage links between schools

• Exploit the network to provide inter-school support

• Trust people with the rights they need to be able to help

Page 20: Making Glow Happen Monday2330

Lesson 9: Exploit transparency

• Make it easy to see what other schools are doing: and steal ideas!

• Peer pressure helps change “the way we do things”

• Creates healthy competition

Page 21: Making Glow Happen Monday2330

Lesson 10:Establish

continuous improvement

culture

• You can’t get it right first time!

• Encourage open feedback and ideas

• Small improvements can provide large benefits

Page 22: Making Glow Happen Monday2330

Stay connected

David GilmourEducation & Children’s ServicesEast Lothian CouncilEmail: [email protected]: 01620 827114Blog: http://edubuzz.org/blogs/david

edubuzz.org/blogs/eastlothianglow