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Digital Divide

Did you read this report from the BBC yesterday ? The article refers to the recent British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA) report that found that there was a big correlation between those schools with poor use of ICT in the classroom and the UK's broadband 'not spots' as identified by Ofcom. The article stuck a chord with myself as I'm finding internet connectivity is still a problem in most of the schools I visit. I was recently delivering an twilight meeting with staff at a school, demonstrating a web based system for pupils and teachers. A maximum of 12 people in an ICT suite, 'hard wired' into the school network (not WiFi) and still many of the pages were taking an age to load or not loading at all. What hope has this particular school got in the short term in driving ICT forward? 'Cloud computing'? No where near it. Forget mobile devices around the school when they still have 12 PCs struggling to load a web page.  "In today&#

A New School Year and A New Enterprise!

The start of another school year and for me the start of a new enterprise! For the last 11 years I've worked as a local authority ICT advisor but in July I finally made the leap into education consultancy. So Gareth Morgan Consultancy Ltd. has been formed to help schools get the most from their technology investments; providing ICT / Computing curriculum advice, guidance, training and courses. It's still early days but it looks like there are lots of opportunities out there to work with schools  - so at least my family won't starve! I'm currently trying to involve myself in as many projects as possible - working with C-Learning on a digital classroom project run by a large international technology company; about to continue working with the Welsh Government on the curriculum and other projects; beginning to set up and run my own courses ; ICT Mark assessments ; and in school support through INSET and twilight meetings. I think I may need a nine day week! ;-)

Online Real-Time Collaboration Between Primary Schools

As some of you may know from previous posts I have a strong interest in the use of cloud computing technologies in education. In particular Microsoft Office 365 or Google Apps for Education . So it was with much interest that I found myself this afternoon observing some online real-time collaboration between pupils from two primary schools from Newport using Google Apps. Mount Pleasant Primary School have been using Google Apps for some time at the school, creating an excellent literacy/numeracy framework pupil tracker for teachers using Google Sheets and a utilising Google Sites for cluster transition work . They've also previously done some online work with their students, where I was invited to observe and interact remotely on the work pupils were carrying out, from the comfort of my office! Glan Usk Primary School have recent 'gone Google' , signing themselves up to Google Apps for Education, with I believe the intention of using the various tools to support o

E-Safety Links for Pupils, Teachers and Parents

I've recently been updating my e-safety links for an e-safety awareness raising session with parents. Here is a list of the resources I've gathered that could be suitable to share with children, teachers and parents. I'll try my best to keep the links active and update when I can :-) *Last updated 7th December 2016* Parental Controls (Gaming Consoles) Microsoft Xbox 360 - Parental Controls Microsoft Xbox One -Family Settings Sony PS3 - Parental Controls Sony PS4 - Parental Controls Nintendo Wii U - Parental Controls Nintendo Wii - Parental Controls UK Safer Internet Centre - Parental Advice on Gaming Devices Video Games Common Sense Media Games Reviews for Parents Ask About Games PEGI Games Ratings Online Gaming Parental Controls (Operating Systems) Apple OS X Yosemite Apple OS X Mountain Lion Apple OS X Mavericks Setting Restrictions on iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch Microsoft Windows 7 Parental Controls Microsoft Windows 8 Parental Controls Microso

Getting Value for Money

Over the weekend I read a post from Tom Bennett (@tombennett71) called " iPads in the Classroom - are we machine gunning emus? " In it Tom argues that iPad adoption is an expensive exercise with "little evidence that iPad adoption has any discernible effect on the educational outcomes of children whatsoever."  Adding, "however shiny and groovy they are" they aren't necessarily the answer for under achieving children. His thoughts very much resonated with myself, as this an area of concern that I've had for a while. In 2011 I wrote a post called " They Want A Shiny New One ", which outlined similar concerns about the way some schools were approaching the buying of what is an expensive piece of kit without any real vision about how they were going to use them. Over the last three years, since that post was written, the purchasing of iPads by schools has increased considerably, and this is now being exacerbated in Wales with money availa

BBC Wales Reports

Isn't it funny the way the press report things as if it were fact? Take yesterday morning's report from the BBC called " Wales' schools left behind in digital age, experts claim ". The article is basically saying that if we don't implement changes recommended in the ICT Steering Group report then we will be falling behind England where the changes come into effect in Sept 2014.  What caught my eye was the statement six lines in which says: "a similar plan will not be introduced in schools in Wales for at least four years." Four years? Where did this figure come from? I haven't seen anything announced by the Welsh Government saying that this is the predicted timescale of a new Computing PoS. Searching through the article I thought something must have been announced, but no, nothing. So who is it that's saying four years? Why not say 6 months, 1 year or 10 years? Four years seems to be an arbitrary figure, plucked from the ether by someone.

Sutton Trust - EEF Teaching and Learning Toolkit

If you are wondering about ways to spend your PDG effectively have a look at the Sutton Trust EEF Teaching and Learning Toolkit. It provides guidance for teachers and schools on how to use their resources to improve the attainment of disadvantaged pupils. You'll find a wide selection of approaches that a school can take, along with the estimated cost, the availability and the quality of evidence, and finally the average impact expected estimated in terms of additional months progress pupils might be expected to make as a result of that approach being taken in the school. We can see from this screen shot of the tool kit that Digital technology approaches are high cost approaches with moderate student progress, which is supported by extensive evidence. Whereas Collaborative learning approaches for instance is low cost that produces the approximately the same student progress. Certainly makes me think. 

PDG - "What really works?"

Welsh Government have just released some follow up Pupil Deprivation Grant (PDG) guidance for schools. "What really works?" is a useful guide intended to give practical advice to schools on appropriate approaches that will help poorer pupils overcome the additional barriers they face that prevent them from achieving their full potential. I must say I'm surprised and shocked to the core......not one single mention that buying 30 iPads with the grant is an approach that will help these pupils! #sarcasm

ICT and Numeracy Day

A very good day looking at numeracy and ICT at Clytha Primary School last Friday. One of the intentions of the day was also to focus on getting the most from resources that the school has. The school had purchased 2Simple's Purple Mash , so I looked at many of its tools that can support aspects of numeracy. The staff particularly enjoyed using LOGO, talking about shape and angle. Lots of good discussing between them to work out how to complete the challenges I set. In fact, I found it difficult to get them to go for their coffee break! We then looked at using databases (2Investigate) and opportunities for graphing with 2Graph and 2Count. In the afternoon my colleague Steve Singer gave an excellent introduction to 'Scratch' and finally we finished the day off with SMART Notebook tools that can help support the teaching of mathematics. Building procedures in LOGO Getting to grips with Scratch

Digital Literacy: Across the Border

In my previous post about Digital Literacy I attempted to set the context of what is currently happening in education in Wales with regards to the recommendations from the ICT Steering Group report.  These recommendations included the changing of ICT to the new subject of Computing, and the introduction of a statutory Digital Literacy Framework that would sit alongside the current Literacy and Numeracy Frameworks. The Welsh Government in their response to that report explained that Digital Literacy would now become part of a statutory Wider Skills Framework. Currently Professor Graham Donaldson has been tasked with reviewing education in Wales and one of his remits is to look at the ICT Steering Group report and recommendations. His review findings should be released at the end of 2014. It was was important for me to try and look at the definition of digital literacy. I personally feel that there is some ambiguity about the term, which I will come back to at the end of this post. Fo

Digital Literacy: The Context for Wales & Definitions

At a time when England have introduced digital literacy elements to their new Computing PoS, and with the recommendations from the ICT Steering Group report for a digital literacy framework alongside the new subject of Computing, I’ve been attempting to look closely into what exactly is meant by the term ‘digital literacy’, and ultimately what this could mean for primary and secondary schools in Wales. I intend to put together a series of blogs on the topic, mainly as a way to help me with my understanding around some of the current thinking in this field, but hopefully it will still be of interest to teachers and others. I'd welcome any of your thoughts or comments on this topic. The Context In June 2012, Leighton Andrews, the then Minister for Education and Skills, announced “an additional £3m of funding over the next three years to support a range of measures to improve computer science, digital literacy and ICT in schools and colleges across Wales.” This announcement came

British Pathe YouTube Channel

Some really good news, British Pathe have now launched a YouTube channel. Users now have access to 85,000 historical films, about 3,500 hours of historical footage. Definitely an excellent resource for supporting history in the primary and secondary school. Hopefully your local authority hasn't blocked YouTube for use in school!! I've just been Chromecasting the videos to my TV, but they can obviously be embedded and shared in the usual ways. They also have separate channels focussing on War , Vintage Fashions and Sporting History . British Pathe have created some playlists under different themes to help you explore some topics. A couple fo examples are shown below. World War I Greatest Sporting Moments Vintage Fashions

Digital Literacy, Fakebook & Twister

For the last couple of weeks I've been trawling through the internet looking for resources, articles and research around the topic of digital literacy (or should it be digital literacies?) Lots of good things out there and I now just need the time to sit down and go through what I've gathered. Much of what I find is being curated on this page  which maybe useful for those of you wanting to find out a little more about this area. This morning I landed upon a page titled A Guide for Social Media in the Classroom . What particularly caught my attention was a link to Fakebook and Twister. In my opinion these look like a good opportunity to talk to pupils about issues around e-safety and the use of social media. But it also looks like another useful literacy tool to help pupils communicate information about a class topic or area of research. Watch the 90 sec video showing the making of a Fakebook page for John Lennon. The Twister page also includes many examples of Tweets (Twists