Had a great morning today, training another member of staff how to use various parts of the school website.
I went through how to log in and post an article through the Typepad interface, as well as logging into wikispaces to add lesson/topic resources. I also discussed, and demonstrated, in detail the "Online Tools" that we make available to pupils.
I actually didn't realise just how much content we make available for pupils to access at home;
- Sherston Crystal Channel: with access to full online versions of many of Sherston's ICT related software (plus lots of additional features and resources)
- Sherston Gogglebox Channel: 27 online Humanities based areas - each with around 6 topics, and each topic contains a video, multilevelled research notes, quiz, practical task, discussion and written task)
- 2Simple Online Tools: 10 titles that pupils can work on both in and out of school
And it was whilst going through one of the 2Simple titles - 2Design and Make - that the teacher I was training suddenly saw the potential of it.
At the moment in upper school the DT work is creating moving vehicles - planned to be from wood. However, after seeing what 2D&M could do, the planning is changing so that the children will be using the software to design prototype car / truck designs first, look at colour schemes for it, print out the net of it, and create their 3D prototype. Once this is done they will be building a chassis (from wood still) and then using a printed net of their design to place over the chassis.
So, not only do I have another member of staff who is now posting to the school website, I'm also really looking forward to seeing just how this unit of work progresses.
