Tentative first steps as a digital leader

Despite all my ideals and lofty targets, reality hit me this week. Lessons to plan, work to mark, subjects to lead. As a result, my sights had to be lowered somewhat.
Still, I have made some progress on my journey.
Firstly, I carried out some initial research with several KS3 classes and discovered a little about their digital habits. I set aside time during a Year 7 and a year 8 lesson to discuss what I am working towards and why. Some of the responses I received have been eye-opening, disconcerting and worrying...

• Approximately 90% of learners have access to a smartphone, laptop/tablet or desktop PC
• Well over half of the pupils claimed to use the internet and related devices in a completely unsupervised, unfiltered and unmoderated manner. Of the remaining pupils, a handful have time restrictions imposed on them, and a few parents use filtering software
• Very few year 8 pupils were fearful of the internet and did not admit to feeling concerned about its risks
• A few year 7 pupils confessed to having experienced a difficult situation when online, but the anecdotes they shared seemed relatively trivial
• About a third of the classes confessed to using a device/app/site in a manner that they knew their parents would disapprove of
• Playing the devil's advocate even further, I asked how many of them take advantage of their parents' lack of ICT skills to conceal what they are doing. There was some reluctance to them confessing to this, but about a quarter of the class admitted they behaved in such a way

The last two points, whilst not particularly surprising, gave me pause for thought. I expected a level of disinterest from parents; I am prepared for apathy from my overworked and overstretched SLT, but I wasn't expecting the pupils to be anything other than fully committed to this process. In retrospect, this was naive of me. Of course the pupils will object to what we are trying to do when it shines a light on them capitalising on their parents' ignorance! Clearly we need to address another strand of digital citizenship, Digital Transparency.

However, before I can draw any firm conclusions or present this data to SLT/parents, it needs to be more substantial and less anecdotal. To this end, I will collaborate on a survey with fellow digital leaders to get a more complete picture of our learners' habits and opinions.

Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, I've thrown my lesson plans away (not literally, of course) and asked a few classes the big question "What do you want to learn?". As you can see below, it's pretty much a who's who of social messaging and social networking. Turning this wishlist into something meaningful and challenging will be an interesting prospect.

I've tried to broaden the impact of digital citizenship, by trying to incorporating more digital literacy skills into a non-ICT subject. I suggested to a business studies class would they be interested in the use of wikis, podcasts, blogs, vlogs and creating their own YouTube channel to help them revise and consolidate learning, and they all seemed really enthusiastic about this suggestion. 

I am fully aware at this stage that I've only made ideological progress; I now need to start actualising my goals. By the time I next write, I intend to have made tangible progress.Wish me luck.

Old Dog and New Tricks

Now I'm not a dog and neither am I old but I wanted to put a post up about workflows.

Workflows is a boring concept- how you work through a task rom A to B.  But on school computers it usually goes something like this:

Log On- find the program you wanted isn't on this PC.  Log Out.

Log On 2nd PC. Realise your pendrive is up in class. Walk to class to get pendrive. Chat to students and staff on way, come back and someone has logged you out.

Log on 3rd PC. Open up your planning document.  Realise all the bookmarks you saved in that mammoth resource hunting session are saved onto the first PC and you can't remember half of them now. Try to log into that account passworded website like TES- realise you've forgotten your password.  Send email password reminder to yourself. Realise the reminder will go to your work email which can't be logged onto on this PC. Log Out.

Log onto 4th PC.  Open up email, and so on and so on until your PPA is over and you've done nothing.

I'm forever jumping from safari to word to publisher to websites I have accounts with to the school main hard drive to dropbox to my pen drive and back again.

What the digital leaders taught me was to try to stick to one thing- and that was Google Chrome, Google Mail and Google Drive with Pearltrees stuck onto it.

The best things- once you've logged onto one computer it remembers your login details for all those fiddly sites like TES and dropbox- so you go straight there without logging in.  It goes straight into your email, straight to your Google drive.  And after today and having a Google Hang Out it logs you into that straight away too- so you don't have to log into Skype for instance.

I'm getting there slowly and I'm finding it is speeding things up- even if initially you have to log into your Google account on new PC's and of course your work email is still on Outlook.

Time isn't so much about money in our job more about effectiveness and teaching our students in the best way we can - which is more important.

So I'm changing my decades old practice and hopefully logging on just the once.......

Google Hangout

Very helpful hangout just now - thanks all! What seemed like a brief chat, and some fun with 'Draw' has led me to augment my plan with the digital champions. I think I really need to include parents - and might use the school twitter account to test the water. I also really liked the idea of the champions taking assemblies - this will support the planned deployment of champions in the homework clubs. Also, thanks to this group, when setting up the development plan for this element I've deliberately included room for the pupils' input. It seems from some of your experiences, one mistake might be to try and predict or control how the pupils will respond. We've all said how much pupils can surprise and impress us with their ingenuity and enthusiasm. It seems as though, within the sphere of digital literacy this is doubly true. I'll let you know what I learn from interviewing the applicants next week...

Bad News

I was able to use my iPad to access this blog - on the course and in school.  I have the same privileges as the students when using my iPad as they are shared devices.  I have checked today and you can no longer access this blog or any other blog - including the Greek Theatre blog or the European Day of Languages blog that I have set up.  I am assuming that this means that the students can't access them if they log into their own accounts on a PC too.   The category that is displayed in the block screen is WEBLOG, so I think that it would to apply to any site that takes the word blog.  So frustrating.  I think I will go home now as there is little point my working on a site that the students can't access tomorrow.

Further to the post on ICT Survey - Google Forms

I thought that I would play around with Google forms to explore the potential - I have used them before, with some success, but not for a while.

Please don't take the questions seriously - I know you are ready to lead!

ICT Survey

It's been interesting, and a little eye-opening, to chat to my pupils about their use of ICT. I was thinking of putting together an on-line survey to get qualitative and quantitative data to present to SLT, to add further weight to what we are trying to achieve. Might it be worthwhile to make it a survey of all of our pupils, instead? 

Is anyone else interested in this and would like to contribute to the survey questions?

Revelations!

Today I met with a bunch of pupils, in their own time and for the first time, who had put themselves forward to take part in a collaborative digital project.  Admittedly I had set the scene and tried my very best to explain my “vision” following the initial training myself and several other lucky professionals had recently received via the WISE Kids Digital Leaders in Education programme.

To give you an idea of how the session went I simply showed them the Powtoon I had created, showed them one or two snippets from the training programme and they were off!  I told them I had created a blog ready for “us” to populate and that I had already given it a hip and funky URL (rcsconnect).  So below following this session I would like to just highlight a few revelations that occurred to me during this time:

• They thought my URL was lame – It was too obvious and it was clear that the blog was about connecting people without having to use it especially with the letters RCS, which for me identified it to the school.  What they have suggested is MUCH better and I now have the task of securing (praying) that the suggested URL is available.  Even though the blog will be created with school based themes in parts, they want the ownership of doing everything for themselves.  Why doesn’t this happen with other work???
• Digital Creators – I quizzed the pupils on what kinds of different media, platforms both hardware and software, and as many online applications/games/social networking/blogging/vlogging/podcasting etc. that they had participated in. Guess what? ALL of them and more!
• Google Accounts – For one of the areas to focus on this week I asked them how many people had these accounts, ALL of them but two.  They all have to send me a “Test” e-mail within the next couple of days.  Seven of them have, no wait my phone has just received another which makes it eight, sent the e-mail and I have replied to them with their next task.
• Empowerment – I have said it before and I have noticed it even more than ever (maybe as a result of the initial training) in the last couple of weeks that if you give pupils the opportunity to talk, share and show then they will and they are quite happy to not just do these things but showcase what they are capable of or what they have done.  It breaks down some kind of barrier, maybe because pupils feel comfortable talking about the arena they play/work in on a daily basis.
• Hip/funky – My last revelation is to never use these words again when talking to pupils as they clearly are not the right adjectives, oh and that Facebook is/was so 2010! L

Where are we now? Like Alan Lewis posted previously and despite the fact that we have to go back and deliver our statutory curriculum's, there is a renewed feeling of pushing to the edges of the digital envelope as it were and not being confined by timetables and subjects.  What we are looking for here is an approach to digital learning that is as integrated as literacy and numeracy.  The difference is, I think, the pupils are already onside therefore in some ways this is an untapped resource.  Mistakes will be made yes, barriers will be broken some for good and some for bad, but if we harness and equip our learners with the right mindset, and they can access the necessary technology then we may just have the opportunity to achieve something really special that the entire school can embrace.

IOS 8 Keyboard - KuaiBoard

I have just had an email conversation with Kevin Wolkober about KuaiBoard and the way that it could be used in the classroom - saving time with feedback/ reporting etc.  KuaiBoard is one of the third-party keyboards that was recently highlighted in the IOS 8 update. It allows you to store regularly used information, sentences and paragraphs which can then be inserted into messages and any application using an Apple keyboard. For more  information,  see http://www.kuaiboard.com
Kevin is interested in what we think. He is planning to introduce a way that the saved comments can be organised.
I'm excited to hear from you and other teachers on your experience using the app.  I definitely think KuaiBoard is helpful for the classroom.  In a future update, I plan to allow users to organize their clips into folders, and agree this is an important feature.

Ronan's Escape

Perhaps it is appropriate for me to declare my personal investment in the subject of suicide, as I lost my brother to his own actions three years ago.
This short film was challenging and emotive, as it should be. It effectively portrayed the devastating effect that bullying can have on an individual. It also showed the 'pack' mentality that bullies and their accomplices can have, which can be completely overwhelming. It also showed that by not condemning bullying you become complicit in the act.
Having said that, there is no way I will use it in my lessons.
I feel very strongly that we need to give our young a positive message on how to avoid the end that the character Ronan chose, and that being bullied is something that can be dealt with, if they are brave enough to seek help. This undoubtedly would have robbed the film of its shock value (and cost it the vast majority of its youtube hits). Children are impressionable (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgend_suicide_incidents), and need to be guided rather than shocked; to be shown that suicide is a long term solution to a short term problem, whatever the problem may be. The film even showed how Ronan went about preparing for his suicide, which I found particularly unpalatable and really quite inappropriate. I was also angered by the glib approach to Ronan's suicide. The devastating consequences of his actions were not addressed, instead the film-makers decided to go for the heart-strings and end the movie with his suicide. Might this also not send the wrong message to our young? For children to sympathise with Ronan's hopelessness is commendable, but sympathy is also due to his family that were left behind to deal with the aftermath. Cause and effect leading to his suicide, but not cause and effect afterwards.

Perhaps this story is best told in tandem with a follow up movie to make explicit to children the consequences of suicide. In isolation, however, I found the clip ill-considered at best, and exploitative at worst.

Fulfilment and Happiness

I would be the first to admit that I sometimes struggle to keep things in perspective.  There have been many occasions when I have wanted to shout because of the frustration that I feel when I can’t persuade members of staff, students or the local authority to even try new things.  It can feel like a personal slight – especially if you have put a lot of work into a project.  Being passionate about developing ICT is all well and good, but maybe there are more important things in life.

Some of you may have already heard about Sam Berns - he is a remarkable young man who refuses to be defined by illness. His presentation to TEDxMidAtlantic is humbling and makes you wonder if your own priorities are right. Maybe though, like Sam, we should decide what our goals are, refuse to be put off and find the solutions.
 

Email apnoea

At the risk of being boring and blogging too much - I have been reading Howard Rheingold's 'Netsmart' (it's that or prep for school tomorrow) and he was talking about Linda Stone (Apple and Microsoft) and her observation about 'email apnoea'. I've suddenly become aware that my breathing changes when I write.  How strange.  Does anyone else experience the same thing?

Digital leadership in an analog educational system

"It's not because things are difficult that we dare not venture. It's because we dare not venture that they are difficult." -- Seneca

Today, for the first time, I felt like I was failing my pupils. I've always prided myself on my ability to translate national curriculum orders into a fantastic set of end of key stage levels. Always well above local, regional and national averages. But really, that isn't enough, is it? Not even close.
Let's not forget, we stand on the shoulders of giants. We, as prospective digital leaders have been given a great responsibility; we are the ones charged with being agents of change, in our lessons, schools, pupils' lives, parents' lives and in our communities. There is a deluge of empirical research to validate what we are trying to do. Every youtube clip of Howard Rheingold or Sonia Livingstone only convinces us further. We know what we need to do, we know it makes sense. But, and this is a but of mammoth proportions... How do we do it?

• We need to be developing pupils' crap detection skills (is that term acceptable, or should we tone it down a bit??)

• Develop a better sense of self-filtering and self-censorship

• To widen their palate of possibilities

• For them to widen our palates

• Using new technologies, new apps and new web sites

• Creating new apps and new web sites

• Encouraging pupils to develop their own voice on-line, to experiment, to take risks, to take risky experiments, to try, to fail, to dust themselves off and to try again

• To allow our pupils to feel empowered, but not because they know we are taking care of them, but because they are taking care of themselves

The Internet is an adult world, yes, but it's time for a new paradigm. We've all taken our children to a playground, where they had their fair share of fun and their fair share of scrapes. Yes, there were tears, but they always want to return, despite their mishaps. Why wouldn't they?? It's a playground for god's sake!! Let's take something from this. Let's try to make the internet less of a murky underworld and more of an adventure playground. Yes, our knees may get muddy and our hands scraped, but we'll still be back there tomorrow, full of enthusiasm for the promise of more muddy knees and more unbridled fun. 

I was doing a basic literacy exercise with some Year 8 pupils, pretty standard stuff, but they were still getting into it, and were really enthusiastic about simple things like peer assessment and our general pupil/teacher interactions. But as fun as that was for me, I felt, no I knew, that I was letting them down. This wasn't what they needed. The numbers game, pissing contest of end-of-key-stage results feels trivial and pointless. I, for one, am going to make a commitment to stop this madness and re-align my priorities. I swear, that on Monday, I am going to stand before my first key stage class and boldly ask 'What do you want to learn today?'. I also swear that their needs will come before those of the national curriculum.  Come Monday, I am going to start on the road to creating digital citizens, not Level 5+s. 

Update
I discussed my plans with a high(ish) ability year 7 group, and they were all very enthusiastic about what I was working towards. Some interesting points:

• All pupils used a wide variety of hardware and software tools, but predominantly they were social messenging
• About a third of pupils said their parents enforced some kind of filtering system on their internet access, but none of them said their parents restricted where they used their devices, only occasionally when they can be used
• All pupils sheepishly admitted 'off the record' to using apps that their parents didn't know about...
• This has inspired me to create a proper survey of pupils' ICT usage. I'll share the survey and results when they are finished
• I asked for a quick idea of what they were using and what they wanted to know more about. They came up with...

How children engage with the internet: Sonia Livingstone at TEDxExeter

An absolutely fascinating and powerful vindication of what we are all working towards with digital literacy and citizenship of our pupils.

E-safety - forthcoming events and resources

I just took part in an online meeting with SWGFL. It seems as though our second meeting on the 22nd coincides with the launch of a whole raft of resources that look really helpful. We are hoping to pilot the Welsh-language version of one of their items ( http://www.360safe.org.uk/ ). Has anybody else heard of this? There's also free half-day sessions next week that might be of interest: http://www.swgfl.org.uk/Training-CPD/E-Safety-Live/E-Safety-Briefings I don't think we can free anybody, but if someone from the group can go, perhaps we could share findings etc? Apologies if you're already familiar with all of the above! Hope everybody's doing well back in the hurly burly of schools! Lloyd

Sue Cooper: 3 insights and 1 action point

Hello!

Here is my video talking about the three insights that I took away from the first three days of the WISE KIDS Digital Leaders course.  This is followed by my action point.


3 Insights:

Action Plan:Student Voice

Stu Sheen - 3insightsand1actionpt

3 Insights and 1 Action Point following the first 3 days of the Digital Leaders Programme

Below please find my Audioboo recording.  Comments most welcome :)

listen to ‘My 3 Insights and 1 Action Point following Initial Digital Leaders Course’ on Audioboo

3 Insights, 1 Action Point - Lloyd Mahoney

listen to ‘3insights1actionpt’ on Audioboo

Day 3 - 3 insights and 1 moving forward - Janine Hawkins

Hi all,

Here are my 3 insights and moving forward idea.

listen to ‘My 3 insights and moving forward idea.’ on Audioboo

3 thoughts and a plan

This is more like 2 1/2 thoughts and a plan as two of my reflections are similar. With point one, I meant that we have to push boundaries and not just be reactive and point 3 we need to be constantly reflecting on our own use of ICT and educating ourselves to ensure that we keep abreast with change in education and specifically technologies. I hope that this clarifies things, but I suspect that it is all still as clear as mud. Liz

listen to ‘Digital Leaders Reflections and Plan’ on Audioboo

Day 3 - 3 insights and 1 action

listen to ‘Day3 ’ on Audioboo

Day 3 - Insights and course of action

I throughly enjoyed these three days, it was fantastic to met peers, exchange and discuss tools and resources. I've now so much that I wish to focus on I'm not 100% sure where to start.

I'm particularly interested in gaming, developing learning opportunity, problem solving and reflective writing, plus the additional of extra spreadsheet and database tasks that could be generated from data after playing games.

I'm also interested in a digital parenting. As much as I love technology this is one area it can impact negatively on families and I feel strongly that children deserve their parents time, over what is happening on their favored social media channel.  

I see digital literacy as a key part of learning. By better understanding digital literacy, children can engage with so many more resources online, using them sensibly and safely, understanding what they are doing in the technical content that they are doing it in. 

If my decision was not impacted by finance and time constraints my final choice might be different. Something I have always wanted to do is to develop programming lesson around Lego Mindstorm, where learners could build Lego models to design, build their own create models and program them to perform functions around the school, such as deliver a note to a classroom, or even make Mr. Botfield a coffee (additional programming required!). These kits are however expensive for one, let alone enough for a class therefore sadly out of reach for us at the moment. 

I think realistic action I can take is to promote digital literacy. This will have a really positive impact on the learners now, and also equip them with the digital skills they need to remain good digital citizens in the future and safeguard their digital reputations.  There are various ideas I have to achieve this; but initially it is most likely by setting up a bloging system, that learners can use to blog thoughts on lessons, as well as respond to a series of question and digital literacy tasks. This can be further developed in KS4 and KS5 where learners can privately or publicly blog revision notes for example. As well as being good practice for them I particularly like the idea that their revision material will be online for them to access, reflect upon and revise from when ever they need it. Such a system not only gives me scalability, but the opportunity to extended learning and digital skills by employing additional collaborative technologies, for example wikis. 

This approach will give a degree of flexibility, whereby for example I could cross over, or at a later date investigate and develop a new line of interest, such as digital parenting. 

My action is now to deploy a website where each learner has control of and responsibility for their own blog, and I will be thinking about the topics that I myself may start bloging on. 

Alan Lewis 3insightsand1actionpt

listen to ‘’ on Audioboo

Friday, 12 September 2014 Digital Leaders Training - day 3

Today was the final day of this section of the training, and like the previous two days, was full of interesting debate, sharing of experiences and as many questions as answers about the future of ICT in schools. The overriding emotion I have from the training is re-invigoration.

Much has been spoken and written about the need to return to a wholesome, good old-fashioned Computer Science curriculum. This way of thinking never really sat right with me; I knew that the current NC orders were tired and hopelessly out of date, but I never believed that a return to a curriculum diet that had been click-dragged to the recycle bin decades ago was the solution. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. I think we can all agree that the days of death by PowerPoint are rightfully numbered, and a revamp was needed. But this revisionist thinking that algorithms are a panacea for the ills of the ICT curriculum is myopic at best and plain wrong-headed at worst. What our young need is ICT 2.0, not Computing 1.01. This training, though, was a case in the defence of ICT. Our young are living in a digital world they are ill-prepared for, if they are prepared at all. That the vast majority of them can function in it at all is testament to their resilience and spirit of self-discovery. However, if we teachers, senior managers and policy makers, are brave enough, imaginative enough and prepared to be lead and well as leaders, we can empower our pupils to confidently stake their claim as digital citizens and express themselves in the digital world.

Of course, I am aware that this is just sabre-rattling. Before this can happen, there are battles to be had, hearts and minds to be won over and schemes of work to be cast asunder. But, to be in a position where I can contribute to this is both humbling and a privilege, and I hope I can rise to the challenge.

Audio Interview Rob and Tony

listen to ‘Interview’ on Audioboo

Day 2 Epiphany by Stu Sheen

Below you will find the epiphany I experienced shortly after introducing a BYOD scheme at our school.

listen to ‘Digital Awareness’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘Digital Leading’ on Audioboo

Day 1 reflection

Day 1 Audio Reflection

listen to ‘Day 1 - Reflection’ on Audioboo

The superb and inspiring NMC Horizon Report!!!

This is the link to the K-12 edition of the Horizon report:

http://cdn.nmc.org/media/2014-nmc-horizon-report-k12-EN.pdf

It comes out every year- in different sections (high school, uni, museums etc).

It basically gives you a concise overview of the new developing trends in education- mainly technological ones - but also processes.

It has a great system of categorising things as 1 year to adoption, 3 years to adoption etc and a great links section.

Day 1 Reflection by Stu Sheen

Below you will find my thoughts on on Day 1 of the Digital Leaders Programme.

listen to ‘Digital Leaders Day1 Reflection’ on Audioboo

Anthony Rhys Epiphany

Description of that 'epiphany' moment with gesture technology

Re-discovering ict

I've taught ICT for about 15 years, and only in the past few days have I really considered myself an ICT professional. Until then, I think I've been a pretty good teacher, able to create and deliver a scheme of work to fulfil national and local priorities with a good track record of achievement. And that's always been enough for me. I've always been aware that there's a whole world of cool and interesting activities that I could be involved in, but since it's not really been a requirement of the NC, I thought why bother?
However, the digital leaders training so far has proven to be a revelation. Whilst teaching will always, to a greater or lesser extent, be a numbers game, I realised that I have a duty to equip my pupils for the digital world they have been thrust into, rather than just being beholden to out-of-date curriculum orders and performance management tables.
I am looking forward to redefining what ICT is capable of offering to my pupils, my school, and to me.

Lloyd's key moment.

Here is Lloyd's key moment when reflecting on staff and digital technology.

Here is my moment!

A conversation about Snapchat - Shelley, Janine, Ian

listen to ‘Conv2’ on Audioboo

A conversation about online access - Janine and Ian

listen to ‘Conv1’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘What's been good in my classroom’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘Epiphany moment’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘Reflections Day 1’ on Audioboo">

Sue's epiphany

Shelly Reader day 1 Audio

listen to ‘Digital learners day 1’ on Audioboo

Sue's day 1 reflection

reflections video

Day 1 Reflections Lloyd

listen to ‘Day 1 Reflections’ on Audioboo

Day 1 Reflections - Ben Botfield

My Video Thoughts:

Copyright B Botfield - Creative Commons Licenses (x5) - 2014 ;)

Day 1 Reflections - Ian

Day 1 Lesson Plan

Day 1 Lesson Plan/Idea - Sue Cooper

Day 1 lesson idea using powtoon

Anthony Rhys Day1 lessonplan

Day 1 Lesson Plan from Liz

Day 1 Lesson plan Janine Hawkins

Tony Gallagher

Tony Gallagher is at teacher at Newbridge Inclusion Centre, which caters for pupils suffering with ADHD and other behaviour disorders.

Lloyd's Day 1 Lesson Plan

School Council Task

Shelly's Day 1 Lesson plan

Reflections on Day 1

listen to ‘Reflections on the Digital Leaders course - Day 1’ on Audioboo

Introducing Kyla Honey

Hello Kyla here. I work as an Educational Psychologist supporting Risca Community School, Newbridge School and their feeder primaries and the Bridge projects. I have worked for Caerphilly County Borough Council for the past 5 years.

My doctoral thesis was looking at risk and resiliency in looked after children, which is an area that I feel passionately about.

Day 1 Reflections - Ben Botfield

Here is my PowToon:

Day 1 lesson plan - Ian

Hello Again take a look at my Powtoon!

Here it is prepare yourself...

Shelly Reader

Hello I'm Shelly Reader, I work in Risca Community Comprehensive as the Pupils Educational Support Tutor (The PEST).  My role is to support Key sage 4 learners in all aspects of the curriculum to help them reach their full potential, I am also a Team Teach Trainer and deliver training to staff across Caerphilly borough.

Day 1 Mind Map - Lesson idea

This is my bubbl.us mind map.  It is copyright and you are not allowed to look at it even !!!

Introducing Anthony Rhys

I'm Anthony, ICT Co-ordinator and teacher of a class of pupil with Permanent and Multiple Disabilities at Trinity Fields School in Ystrad Mynach.

We are a 3-19 school for pupils with severe learning disabilities (SLD), which means all of our pupils are working well below their expected chronological age.

I specialise in using new and emerging technologies at school and the school had Sector Leading Practice for this in our last Estyn inspection in 2013.

I head a professional learning community (PLC) that looks at using gesture based technology with pupils with SLD.  We use and advise special schools worldwide on the use of Kinect, iPads, eyegaze and eyetracking technology, Leap Motion, Oculus Rift etc.

The blog entrance site to the wiki is here:

http://gesturetechsen.blogspot.co.uk/

On Twitter too @trinityfieldsit

I also paint in my spare time, which has nothing to do with technology- because we all need that balance....

Introducing Janine

Hi

I'm Janine Hawkins. I am Head of ICT in Blackwood Comprehensive School in CCBC.  I teach Key stage 3 and 4 ICT. I am  looking forward to moving digital citizenship forward within my school and the wider area. I am really keen to start by setting up a pupil focus group to make pupils more aware of digital citizenship and then these pupils making other pupils and parents aware and hopefully having a positive impact. 

 I am currently undertaking a ILM level 5 management course which I hope to complete in the next few months. 

I am very much enjoying exploring the technologies available to us and how to harness them appropriately for not only pupil but teaching staff and parent learning and awareness of digital citizenship.  

Day 1 Lesson Idea

Introducing Sue

Hey!

I'm Sue Cooper, also known as Coops!  I am an English and Media Teacher at Oakdale Comprehensive School.
I love my job; working with youngsters comes with many responsibilities but when you see that light bulb moment in their eyes it makes all the 'other' stuff worthwhile.

I am excited to be a part of the Digital Leaders team with Wise Kids and am looking forward to learning how to use digital technology in a safe and meaningful way!  I think it is important to equip our students, the next generation, with the right tools for adult life and that includes not only be able to 'use' digital technology but also awareness about how it can impact them.

Wish me luck....

Introducing Stu Sheen (Head of I.T & Computing)

Hello my name is Stuart Sheen and I have been teaching ICT & Computing for 10 Years.

I have considerable experience with Keystages 3-5 and became Head of Department in 2007.  In my previous roles I have been a Head of Year and Progress Manager in different schools.

My academic background is in Computer Science and I am currently involved in developing new Computer Science specifications for teaching at GCSE level.

On a personal note I am a bit of a self confessed geek, I like gaming, films, music, play guitar and love spending time with my young family!!

You can follow me on Twitter! @stusheen

Introducing Ian.....

Hello, I'm Ian Ratcliff and I am ICT Coordinator at Newbridge School in Caerphilly County Borough. 

I am interested in improving the Digital Literacy and Online Safety awareness of pupils that I teach. I am a trained CEOP Ambassador and hope to extend my knowledge and networks through the Digital Leaders programme.

Our school are currently implementing Office 365 and I am looking forward to the many teaching and learning opportunities that access to this software should bring.

Introducing Ben Botfield

Hello, my name is Ben, I'm an ICT teacher at Cwmcarn High School. I teach KS3, 4 and 5. I run our school Moodle and school website : www.cwmcarnhigh.co.uk

Introducing Liz Burrage - Lewis Girls'

Hello, I am Liz and I work at Lewis Girls' School where I currently teach and work in an ICT support capacity. My work is very varied and I see my role as one that supports and encourages others (staff and students) to get the most out of ICT in the classroom.  I believe that giving students skills is as important as delivering course content.  
I'm not afraid to take risks with ICT or to push boundaries,but I do get frustrated about unfulfilled new ICT initiatives.

I'm hoping that this year is going to be a good year for ICT development within Lewis Girls' School.

Introducing Lloyd

Hello, I'm Lloyd and I work at Ysgol Gyfun Cwm Rhymni as an assistant head. I am responsible for ICT across the school, along with Post 16 Learning. Our school (Moodle) website is www.cwmrhymni.com and we are on Twitter @cwmrhymni. My Twitter account is @lloydmahoney. I'm looking forward to developing the school's Hwb+ site, along with developing the staff's use of Twitter.

Introducing Alan Lewis

My name is Alan Lewis, and I am the ICT subject leader at Pontllanfraith Comprehensive School, where I have worked since the beginning of September. Before this, I worked at Cwmcarn High School and Pen y dre High School.
I am looking forward to the challenge and opportunity of being a digital leader.

Rob says hello

Hello, I'm Rob and work as an ICT teacher at St.Cenydd School.