Head in the Cloud

Gareth Morgan Consultancy has now been going for nearly 7 years, providing advice, support and training to primary schools across Wales. Where did that time go? Throughout those years, I've always had an ICT skills ladder that I've offered to schools. It's been updated continually throughout those years with quite a change in focus when the Digital Competence Framework (DCF) was introduced and with the ubiquitous use of Hwb and its related cloud based applications and digital resources. Initially this skills ladder was paper based and at one stage I had four versions of it as the example activities were focused around specific applications e.g., Google for Education / Purple Mash or Microsoft 365 / Just2easy. The problem I found was keeping these documents up to date. Applications would change or I would have new ideas or web-links would die or change.  So a couple years ago I moved everything online and created The Digital Den. Schools could buy into the platform for a ye...

 I think it's fair to say that the Welsh Government have 'bottled out' on this important decision . Grow some balls for goodness sake. Disappointing but possibly not surprising.

 I mentioned in my last post that I was creating a new online course platform called The Digital Learning Den. This is due to be launched very shortly with schools. At the same time I've also been using the same Thinkific platform to build an online course area for Collective Learning . Collective Learning is a fantastic organisation who provide education focused courses to schools across Wales. For the same Covid related reasons as myself, they recognised the need to be able to offer to schools an online version of their courses that are traditional carried out face-2-face. The building of their platform has involved the design and build of the user front end and then supporting colleagues in the design and build of their online courses. It's been great to be able to sit with primary curriculum experts over the last month or so and support them in the construction of their courses. If you'd like to see the website or are interested in courses and resources currently being...

I haven't posted anything about the Covid 19 pandemic. To be honest I was afraid that most of it would just be too negative and whining therefore my silence on the matter. However, here's something that been a positive over this difficult period. I've been spending my time building a brand new online course delivery platform! 😀 The reason being that I need to prepare my business for all eventualities in the future. Currently it looks like in-school support and face to face courses are going to be few and far between this side of the new year. No one can predict what's going to happen week by week at the moment and things could possibly get worse again before they get better. Therefore the need for the platform to help me to work with schools and teachers at a distance.  To be honest I've been doing this for a couple of years with my Digital Den platform . Primary schools who have subscribed get access to a structured approach to delivering DCF skills and coding fro...

I really look forward to listening to the Making Sense podcast from the fantastic Sam Harris. If you haven't heard it could I suggest you look it up and download. Brilliant guests and always calm, thoughtful and considered in his questioning or commentary. Wish I could be more, Sam Harris. Just started listening to podcast #207 'Can we pull back from the brink?' and had to stop and post this wonderful statement in the opening 2 minutes about social media: We've all been enrolled in a psychological experiment for which no one gave consent, and it's not clear how it will turn out   This is a must listen to podcast. A podcast that Sam has found extremely difficult to post during these deeply troubling times. 

Update on my dumbphone v smartphone 'experiment'. Looks like the smartphone won. A couple of weeks ago I had to revert back to my Samsung 8+ and put the Nokia 105 back in its box. It just became too difficult to manage both phones and realised that in order to do my job and day to day activities, I needed the smartphone. Sending messages on Nokia was painfully slow and frustrating and I really needed quick access to my calendar and often to my emails. So what did I learn from those two months? I learned that it's very difficult to completely break away from a device that has become integral to my working life. As I said in an earlier post, it was quite easy to use the Nokia over Christmas when I wasn't working. However, as soon as I was back working with schools it became more and more difficult to work effectively. I also appreciated how difficult it most be for our young people if we are asking them as educators to limit the amount of time spent on their smartphones ...

Not only was the new Curriculum for Wales  released this week, today I noticed that Digital Competence Framework (DCF) had been updated too. The older version had a very nice online interactive tool to filter through the framework and view classroom ideas, not so with this one yet. From what I read this may appear later in 2020. Can only be accessed via a spreadsheet which can be downloaded here . Spent a couple of hours copying and pasting the new Curriculum for Wales version of the DCF against the previous. What are the headlines? statements placed into 'Progression Steps (PS)' as per the new curriculum. PS1 (nursery / reception), PS2 (Yr1, 2 & 3) and PS3 (Yr4, 5 & 6). statements written in the format of "I can....". The previous said, "With increasing independence learners are able to...." or "Learners are able to.....". There are some changes to the new. From my initial view the statements appear clearer and easier to understand.  ...