Head in the Cloud

For what seems like 'forever', I along with two of my colleagues have been working our way through the new Science and Technology area of learning and experience. Only focusing on the primary school related Progression Steps (PS) 1 to 3. Actually to be more accurate, I've only focused on the last 'What matters' statement related to Computer Science and my colleagues have been looking at their respective areas of expertise in Science and in Design and Technology. For several months we have been pulling together a long term progression document that we hope will help schools in the design of their new curriculum. Basically, we have been looking at the Descriptions of Learning (DoL) for each of the first three PS and then trying to work out what we think would be a suitable progression to address that end of PS statement. As it says in the Science and Technology guidance , the expectations are " framed broadly so that they can sustain learning over a series of yea

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.