Archives
Tags
Meta
ICT and Functional Skills
August 1st, 2008 by misterel
Functional skills are a fantastic idea. The need to pass a functional skills test in order to get a diploma is a great idea. The need to pass level 2 functional skills test in English, Maths and ICT to get a coresponding A*-C at GCSE is quite scary. The premise is (as far as I have worked out) that for a pupil to get a GCSE in any of the three ‘tool’ subjects (Maths, English or ICT) then they must have passed a functional skills test.
I’m not sure on the impact of this on the two core subjects, but for ICT it all depends on what you deliver at KS4 and whether you are offering a Diploma. OCR Nationals & DiDA are not ‘true’ GCSEs so are therefore exempt from the need to have functional skills… Therefore I can foresee a massive increase in the number of schools offering those 2 options and ditching the GCSE.
However, back to my first statement…’Functional skills are a fantastic idea’. I believe this to be the case. The reason being is that our kids are, in general spoon fed. They get help with coursework, how to write exam answers, essays etc… But, when they try to transfer skills from one subject area to another there seems to be issues. Many a time I have seen pupils using PowerPoint inappropriately in an English lesson and I am quite sure that our pupils fail to write ‘persuasively’ in an ICT lesson…
What to do next is my next dilema. Having been on a recent launch for functional skills and seen the amount of money the government is throwing at it, functional skills look like they are here to stay. Having had a few chats with our Deputy Head I reckon our best bet is to get all pupils to take the functional skills test in Yr 9. This will mean that any pupils doing ICT GCSE or a diploma will already have deomonstrated their ICT functionality before starting their new courses. Also think we will go with the Welsh board, have heard good things about their assessment… will trial it next year.
Posted in Teaching & Learning | tagged assessment, English, functional skills, ICT, Maths, spoon feeding, welsh board | | 0 Comments
Twitter and me…
July 2nd, 2008 by misterel
Have just been re-reading my posts and have realised that twitter has been mentioned, linked to, but not really explained… Also I think I am a visual learner… Twitter is the biggest word in the tag cloud I added!!! So I’ll try and explain how I use Twitter and the benefits you can get from it.
In simple terms Twitter is a micro blog. You can only post 140 characters at a time. I’m guessing originally people were just posting day to day activities, thoughts etc that they felt like posting. However, because you can follow and be followed by anyone, twitter has developed unofficial networks of people that share resources, ideas etc. In surfing terms I’m still a bit of a ‘grommet’ when it comes to twitter. I’m following more people than follow me and I’m still getting to grips with the whole process.
To be honest though, twitter has become my first port of call for info and the response time from other users has been fantastic. The big question is, can it be used in education. I have started to dabble with this idea and so far I’m still undecided. I introduced the concept of twitter to my sixth form ICT students, they have all made accounts and now follow each other and a generic ICT twitter account that I set up. I use this to post useful links and info about the lessons. The beauty of it is, I can’t write to much and neither can they.
There are some teething problems… Although I may think that ICT innovation and new ideas are in the realm of the next generation, none of my pupils had heard of twitter and it therefore took them a while to understand the concept. Secondly, they have to actively check their twitter account for new tweets… They seem to be a tad lazy at this. So, will wait and see how well they get on with it and will post here accordingly. In the grand scheme of things it would be fantastic if the school could have its own generic twitter account and every parent followed it…. one day.
Posted in Resources, Teaching & Learning | tagged blog, education, grommet, ICT, innovation, Resources, tweets, twitter | | 1 Comments
Lazy blogger
June 22nd, 2008 by misterel
I have dabbled in the world of blogging, but have so far been unsuccessful… I think it might be a character trait as I fail to keep abreast of my blog and suddenly realise that weeks have gone by and I haven’t blogged a word. This, however is the first time that i have decided to blog in the educational sphere. Hopefully teaching all day will give me enough material and insights to allow me to be a more frequent blogger.
One of the main reasons for starting this blog, is because I have become sucked into the world of twitter and have found it a very useful source of info and simple to use. I am also ‘blogging’ on our school website, although that is more a sharing of info and resources for other teachers and parents.
Going to post this now and then check out all the features available on this blog.
Posted in Generic | tagged blog, blogging, education, ICT, Resources, sharing, twitter | | 0 Comments
