saltash.net - Community College

Mr H didn't win an award but we need to remember that he was shortlisted and got here in the first place which is a fantastic achievement. Ollie Bray won an award as did Mandeep Atwal both representing the UK so well done to them and they will be looking forward to attending the worldwide event in Brazil in November.

See you soon!

In a bit of a daze right now! Did my keynote presentation this morning and it went really well. Thank you to Francesca Bryce and Jake Allen who talked to the audience live in Vienna through a webcam, they were fantastic! Also thank you to Isobel Bryce and Dave Garland for answering questions from the European Innovative teachers. The presentation was an amazing experience and went very smoothly, I didn’t want to stop. You can see some pictures of this on the blog. I did feel a bit nervous especially when I think about standing and talking where people like the Queen and Arnold Schwarzenegger have done before me!

You can also read the Twitter Trail that was going on as the presentation happened as a PDF document here! (You need to read it from the bottom of the page up as the latest blog is at the top.)

Today after my presentation we have been working on a collaborative project I have been working with a group of teachers to produce a video on the horses of Vienna. We have teachers from Portugal, Northern Ireland, Austria, Estonia, Germany, Cyprus and Hungary – you can view the video of our work here.

Well got to go but stay tuned to hear how Mr H does at the award ceremony this evening. The winners will be announced at the Gala dinner tonight that we are having on the rooftop terrace of the palace.

Where is the Saltash.net cap?

• James Kent

• Mandeep Atwal

• Ollie Bray

• Sarah Payton

• Kristen Weatherby

What a fantastic day yesterday – we started at 9am and finished at 7pm Mr H and the rest of the UK team were shattered at the end of the day and had been working really hard. Mr H met and discussed his project with his main judge and he seemed to really like it so it is very promising!

Today we have been in a great presentation by Future lab about enquiring minds and are now in a workshop working on a collaborative project with other teachers across Europe – It is a competition. Last year Me and Mr Garland’s group won so we need to make sure we win again. Me and Mr H are in different groups too so that should be interesting. For more information on Enquiring Minds you can look at the Innovative Teachers website or look at the PDF file here.

I promised yesterday I would mention Mandeep and James who are the two other teachers here representing the UK. I will upload some video clips of them talking soon.

Mandeep Atwal role is Head of Religious Education and Young Voices coordinator at Shireland Collegiate Academy which is an 11-18 Trust School categorized as ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted in September 2006.

The main aim of her project is to provide students with an online virtual platform that would generate awareness beyond the classroom walls and hence promote community cohesion. Students are able to through the website reach a much wider audience e.g. families, communities and the Academies partner/ link schools.

The goals are:

• Understand cultural and community diversity, in both national and global context, and why these should be respected and valued.

• Develop a range of techniques for communicating by different means. And understand how and when to use them.

• Achieve high standards of competence in handling information and communications technology and understand the underlying processes.

James Kent is Head of Geography and Social Science at Croesyceiliog School which is a mixed 11-18 comprehensive school in the county borough of Torfaen in SE Wales. His project is about the Asian Tsunami. The goals are to be coached into the ‘mechanics’ of this new software and to be given the opportunity to create a lesson/sequence of lessons in which this software is employed

• To give students the opportunity to ‘peer teach’ using new software and ‘coach’ fellow students how to use new software

• To expose the learners to new software (one note) that they would be able to use collaboratively to produce a high quality document

• For these students to then act as ‘coaches’ to others throughout their peer/year group in order that the benefits of this project are shared

Here is a closer look at the venue:
Hofburg Palace & the Innovative Teachers Forum 2009

Well the conference has started! There are 42 different countries represented here and over 75 different exhibits so that is 75 innovative teachers. The theme for the conference this year is the European Year of Creativity and Innovation. We have just listened to a key note speech by Jan Muhlfeit who is the chairman for Europe Microsoft Corporation.

I met up with Tom Jackson who has brought teachers from Northern Ireland with him here as part of the completion. (See his video clip on the Saltash.net YouTube Page)

One of the teachers with Tom is Navanna Doherty. Her project created an Online History GCSE Revision course to act as a revision tool to assist students in their exam preparation. The focus of the project was to develop an online learning course which would be used by students to revise for their exams through a ten week extensive revision course. The main focus of the VLE was that students would develop revision techniques and strategies, the revision of course material and that students would collectively build up a bank of worthwhile and meaningful revision material. There are some good ideas that we could do with our VLE at Saltash!

Also her other colleague David Stinson is using creative ways to use portfolios. “Pupils generally record information and ideas in a static way typically using handwritten or computer generated words and drawings. This traditional approach does not cater for the recording of more dynamic aspects of pupil activity/learning such as discussion, role play, brainstorming and group interaction.

Capturing and using these more dynamic aspects of learning can add a further more holistic dimension to formative assessment and importantly stimulate further cognitive development.

In 2006 he piloted a video log based e-portfolio with a single Year 8 class. The video logs were taken during each week of a model bridge building project. The outcome was very successful as pupils appeared to benefit from reflecting over the previous weeks’ work. This stimulation of ideas intrigued me as I could see how the pupils enjoyed it and that there is clear evidence that this class performed better than other non e-portfolio based classes”.

This is having a massive impact on the number of students taking Design Technology - particularly girls. Could we use this model with some of our subjects? Would our students like this?

We have managed to have a look at some of the other entries. We met up with Ollie Bray who is a fellow UK teacher. Ollie's Virtual Classroom Tour is called Guitar Hero Transition and was designed to help improve pupils' transition from primary to secondary school. In this project, students work in groups using Guitar Hero for Xbox as a context for learning across the curriculum. One of the things that impressed us most about the Guitar Hero project is how it is now being implemented across other schools in East Lothian.

If you want to read more about him or his project then check out his blog;
http://olliebray.typepad.com/

Wow our first main day!

Last night when we got to our hotel we were blown away it really is 5 star and really funky! Bedrooms are amazing although a little hot as me and Mr H both have penthouse suites (Well we are in the attic!)

Last night we went to a traditional Austrian restaurant which had amazing food – so me and Mr H both tried the signature dish of Veal Wienerschnitzel which was lovely but a little on the big size! Being seasoned eaters we managed the lot quite comfortably!

I didn’t sleep too well last night so got up for a light jog in arctic conditions to see some of Vienna in the morning. Can I keep this up all week?

We had an early start and arrived at the Hofburg palace about 5 mins walk from the hotel for 9am as Mr H and the others on the UK team had to set up their posters! It all went well! The palace is amazing, what an incredible venue we can’t wait for it to get started. Have a look at the video or pictures of the main room it is a wonderful building and it is where I will deliver a keynote on Thursday mmmmm getting nervous now! I will be standing where other great men have stood like Churchill, Kenedy and the Pope, oh well not that tough to follow. It is lunchtime now so I need to nip off for some food.

Will blog later!

So we have just made it to Vienna airport…

We are sat having a refreshment at the airport waiting for some others to arrive! It has been 885 miles from Bristol to Frankfurt then we had to run for aprox 2 miles across the airport to get to the connection in about 5 mins. (Ok slight exaggeration!) Just as well we had a pace setter with us, one of the teachers - James Kent from Croesyceiliog school Cwmbran. He is Head of Geography and Social Science at Croesyceiliog Comprehensive School and is now in his 5th year in this post.He has spent a large proportion of his work time developing a range of ICT opportunities and resources within his subject area whilst sharing this practice with colleagues throughout the school.

Croesyceiliog Comprehensive School is an 11-18 mixed comprehensive school that serves the town of Cwmbran in the county borough of Torfaen in SE Wales.
He is one of the UK finalists and the only one representing Wales. James has completed a VCT on Tsunamis! It is also his birthday – 31 today! You can see him one of the pictures below at a well known burger outlet in Bristol.
Mr Henderson is a little green still after very strong turbulence. We are all very excited about the competition tomorrow. The plane we arrived on was a Boeing 737 300 (James is also a bit of a plane bore! I mean expert.)

Stuart Ball from Microsoft is also with us as you can see from the pictures. He also escorted Dan previously to Zagreb and Hong Kong.
We have just been joined by Sarah Payton from Future labs who is doing a talk on enquiring minds.
To find out more visit: http://www.enquiringminds.org.uk/

Speak to you tomorrow

Dan