Digital SIG (School Improvement Group) Meeting

This week the teaching staff split into the three college SIGs (School Improvement Groups); Learning, Digital and Literacy.  I belong to the Digital SIG (although I was a member of Learning for several years with the LRC Manager often attending the Literacy group) and the meeting proved to be extremely pertinant to many of the proposed actions in my Personal  Professional Development Plan.

Initially we discussed via Google Docs, the cooperative vision for our group.  Being a Cooperative Academy we hold the cooperative values above all else; self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity, solidarity which form the basis of our daily teaching, learning and pastoral care.  In turn, they also underpin our staff CPD, for example, with leadership being devolved to individual teachers and not restricted to middle and senior leaders, working towards a common goal  "we will all share a commitment to the development of new technologies to enhance teaching and learning"  Although I have trialled Google Docs in the past, I have preferred using Titanpad (see earlier posts) as it is much easier to share the document with a class; no need to add individual e-mail addresses for example)

We then moved to to forming SIGLets (small cooperative groups) which would focus on more specific aspects of new technologies and their role in teaching and learning, including use of Ipads and Kindles, Mouse Mischief, Web 2.0 International Links, Blogging using My Big Campus, Prezi and U-Tube.  I chose Ipads and Kindles which fitted exactly with me having bought three Ipads for the LRC and negotiated to purchase 5 Kindles (see previous posts) as well as this being an integral part of my PDPP.  Other members of the group include two PE teachers who all have individual Ipads and are using them to great effect both in their teaching and their personal planning, an English teacher who wants to work with me in trialling various apps to support her Year 12 students who are studying Othello and a MFL teacher who is interested in how Ipads can be used in teaching Spanish; this is particularly good as the MFL department's use of the LRC is often limited to using the PCs so a more innovative approach is welcomed.

The idea is to explore the use of Ipads as a SIGlet with the aim of putting together a presentation/workshop to initially the rest of the Digital SIG and then the remainder of the teaching staff as part of a CPD training session later in the year; tying in with the cooperative value of self-help – "we will help members of our community to help themselves 
develop increased access to, understanding of and proficiency in using new technologies".  I am also delivering an informal training session to a group of school Librarians on 21st October on my fledgling use of Ipads and Kindles as well as attending a course 'Ipad and Beyond' led by Bev Humphrey in November at the Renaissance Learning Offices.