Independent reports backs creative use of ICT

Extracted from the excellent http://www.merlinjohnonline.net/ site.

Yet again, another indepdnant reports that states that using "cutting edge creative technology to work with some of the most challenging students" really does work.

Some comments and they aren't out of context at all.

“We did a big push on digital creativity, cutting edge stuff,” he says. “Kids were getting into podcasting really early, and we were using podcasting in teaching.”

“And I think these tools can do it. They ensure that kids will get it right.”

“Now when children become successful they feel better about themselves, and they stop ‘effing and blinding’ and doing all the things that, in the context of our work, get them excluded from mainstream schools. In the long term we don’t want them marginalised, so if we can help them believe they can learn, and be successful, they can then learn new behaviour and then learn to be sociable and the whole thing follows itself. What’s wonderful is, in the video clips you can see children talking about how it has impacted on them.”

It makes me even more convinced that what we are doling is right - we just need to get it to students!

Read the full report by clicking the merlinjohn link above.

Extra Money?

A small piece linked from the QCA newsletter said that DSFS was giving an EXTRA £1000 for each student doing a Diploma.
Click in the link to the LA website and it shows that it varies from £780 to £1280 with some LA's getting less and some more refelcting the cost of delivery.
All the info I sw related to level 1 and level 2 at 14-16 though - even though it says that funding for 16-19 has been announced.

Never mond - and extra £1000 to support delivery of Diplomas - got to be good news methinks.

Diploma Positioning by the DCFS

I feel quite heartened by the press.
Headlines like
Ministers make Diplomas a Priority
Stop recommended A levels
The furture of A levels can not be guaranteed

OK, so most of these are sort typical daily mail type "when I was a lad" headlines but the underlying sentiment I think is good.

Things like Key Skills pretty much failed in the market becuase they weren't made imporatnt. The opposite occurred when qualifications like the GNVQ IT was awarded 4 GCSE pass status, it became so popular with schools that it cuased it's own downfall.

So talking up Diplomas is a good thing in my view, and blogs are opinions after all, just hope it doesn't get overvalued and therefore go the way of GNVQ.

Promising though - jonathan

BETT Show

Lots of QCA led discussion about FS at BETT.
There was even what amounted to a stand up argument in one of the presentations I was in. Quite rightly, the QCA representative was questionsed about the Drama diploma and how teachers could get studnets to "commercially rpesent their show".
QCA said - nothing to do with us
Exam Board (don't know which one) - haven't htought about that yet.
Drama teacher - but I have to start teaching this in Sept
QCA - not my brief

Stalemate! even after he asked it several times, quite funny really.

See the Key skills post about software at BETT, frankly their wasn't much -that's it!

Evidence that creative use of ILT helps disengaged learners

This piece has been extracted from the excellent Merlin John's blog. www.merlinjohnonline.net

Pro0f that Creative ICT helps the most disengaged learners

There are some basic truths in education and here’s one. You can’t learn or teach successfully unless you are prepared to take chances: and you can’t take chances unless you have confidence.And the relevance of this? A new study, carried out on Becta’s behalf in 10 UK special schools by University of Liverpool researchers, found that creative use of ICT is a powerful tool in helping children with behavioural, emotional and social difficulties to experience the successes that can give them the confidence to engage with their teachers and their education.

Enhanced engagement, motivation, co-operation, collaboration and achievement were all observed.It’s something that has long been obvious to some educators, but it took headteacher at Rush Hall School, John d’Abbro, who has pioneered creative work with his own students using state-of-the-art ICT tools from Apple for digital video, animation, music and podcasting, to set up a national research project with support from Apple and Canon.

And he is delighted that some of the insights he has gained from his own experiences have been confirmed by the findings of the researchers. It is backed up with extensive, revealing video interviews with learners, teachers and parents (see student Samantha Bell, above, on her Anne Frank project, and teacher Jan Kirkham, below, on the importance of self-esteem).

(Just go to the blog to see the videos ..... jonathan)

A diploma in beauty beats three A levels

You can always rely on the Daily Mail to get the heart of a story. That's the headline today - with "beauty" in quotes naturally.

They report that "students who do well in flagship diploma qualifications" will be counted as three and a half A levels, despite the fact that they take less time to complete. Of course it wouldn't be the Daily Mail if it didn't highlight the fact that suggested activities include printing banners for parties, stand up comedy routines and critically respond to computer games as well as micing in thw rods bereaucrats and confused!

But looking beyond this, key messages from the government are encouraging.

Ed Balls predicted they will become the qualification of choice and refused to guarantee the future of A levels after 2013. But a spokesperson for the Russel group of Universities said "..we are still not sure about the true credibility of the diplomas". Jim Knight, schools minister countered with "pupils can be confident they will study valuable, first class qualifications .... universities and colleges can be assured of their quality"

For the record Foundation diplomas will count as 5 A*-G passes, Higher level as 7 A*-C passes. I assume this refers to the current level 1 and level 2 qualifciations.

At least they are getting talked about!

FS - bit different to what we thought?

Here's an interesting one. We had a get together of custoemrs in the office the other day and one of the big things talked aboiut was the the type of student that would do functional skills.

I was very surprsied to find out that the construction diploma was actually much more acadmic that you'd imagine. I would have thought (and maybe this was my prejudice) that it would focus on practical crfat skills and would appeal to those studnets who want to become skilled tradesman - after all there seems to a huge demand for this.

But the general feeling was that it was much more academic and aimed at the designer/architect/drawing end of the market.

If this is the case then it needs to appeal to those students who traditionally wouldn't consider a vocational stuydy route at post 16 - and what about those studnets who do want to become skills tradesman?

I feeling v ery slightly uneasy about this - expectations have been set and I don't know if they will be met.