Teacher Support with Google Apps - 1

Supporting Teacher Development with Google Apps

The revision history feature in Google Docs is not only useful for going back through drafts, it can also be used to provide active, real-time support for staff, assisting them to make better, more effective interventions.



I've just had some great feedback from a school that I have been working with for some time.

The Head decided that she wanted to shake things up after a less than outstanding OFSTED inspection - not bad but not where she wanted to be - and so we worked together to introduce Google Apps for Education across the school. That was several years ago and things went really well, with more lots of exciting learning activities that seemed to breathe new life into the teaching staff and, importantly,  engage the students.

Last year she asked how we could take things further and I suggested that we could use some of the features in Google Apps to support staff in THEIR learning journey more effectively. We discussed it with staff who were a little wary but one department, English, put their heads above the trench and volunteered to pilot some activities.

We discussed the issues that they felt may be important to focus on and, in the end, everyone agreed that supporting staff in developing their understanding of the types of interventions that they were making to support individual learners and resultant learning outcomes would be a good place to start.

Again, we narrowed down the focus a little more and decided to look at creative writing. They were already using Google Docs to develop creative writing activities and using this to support staff seemed a sensible next step.

So how did they do it?

Well, staff told their pupils what they would like to do and got agreement from them to allow the Head of Department and the Head to have access to the shared Google Docs that they would be developing over the year. Then, when a member of staff made an active intervention with an individual, one that they regarded as significant, they commented on it in the Google doc. The HoD and the Head could then log in and review the revision history within that doc to see if the intervention had produced some form of outcome, positive or negative.

Importantly, the teacher, the HoD and the Head could all discuss what was happening pretty quickly so that if there needed to be some other intervention made or if it was unclear that anything positive had resulted from the initial intervention something could be done about it.

In many cases the pupil themselves would be included in the discussions, at some level, to find out their experiences. The whole activity was focused on HELPING the teacher improve the learning outcomes for the pupils and not associated with any form of performance management process.

How did it go?

Well after a year of piloting this the majority of the English department have found it useful. Some did not want the pupils involved, and that was fine, but still felt that they gained value from the HoD being able to review and discuss their work.

One member of staff decided that it was too intrusive and withdrew from the pilot, preferring to seek other methods of support from the HoD. But the majority of the staff actively encouraged pupils to get involved in discussing how their interventions had helped, seeing improvement in behaviour and outcomes from most of the pupils that they taught. In some cases staff reported that previously un-cooperative or 'quiet' pupils had become more engaged after working with the teacher to give them feedback about their interventions on different tasks.

All the staff who stuck with the project thought that their teaching had improved due to the timeliness of the interventions from the HoD and especially the ability for them to 'discuss' progress and developments in the evening through chat. The majority of the staff felt that the Head's comments were less useful as they were more generic and less focused on the 'here and now' activities that were their focus (to which the Head breathed a sigh of relief since the prospect of rolling it out to other departments and the subsequent workload was causing her concern).

What's next

At the main staff meeting this term the English staff presented their experiences and declared their intention to extend the pilot to ways of supporting students with exam preparations. Subsequently Geography, History and, interestingly, Science have also asked to develop their own activities using this methodology.

Uniforms - Do they help prepare pupils?

Uniforms - an on-going discussion piece

I really don't know the answer to the question of whether we should impose uniforms in schools. This is a starting point for my thoughts on the subject.


In recent weeks I've seen a number of keynote addresses and been in a range of business meetings in a variety of large and small business environments. Last week I watched the major Windows 10 keynote where Microsoft showed some of the new features in Windows 10, arguably one of their most important presentations in years.

One common feature across all these keynotes and meetings was the total lack of shirts, ties, jackets and any form of 'corporate uniforms.


Some of the most powerful people in business, Satya Nadella of Microsoft, Tim Cook of Apple, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and many more have eschewed the corporate uniform and thrown their ties in the bin.

Now these large and small businesses don't make these changes lightly. If dumping the old ways of corporate uniforms did not lead to better business results then it would not be sustained. Forget that many of these companies are technology companies. The majority of their employees are not coders or 'techies', they are accountants, sales people, admin officers, designers, customer support professionals, lawyers, middle managers, project managers, etc. In fact all the roles that we should be preparing our students for in the future.

It turns out that companies have found out that it's the culture that they create within their organisations that makes the difference between success and failure, not the definition of 'professional' through the clothes that people wear. Defining that culture and helping individuals take on-board the culture that leaders want to encourage is key to helping creativity, collaboration and the delivery of important outcomes is the way to ensure that organisations succeed.

So the question is - do we do our pupils an injustice by creating school cultures that rely on old-style corporate uniformity? OK, it may be easier for the organisation in the short term BUT does it make sense for the pupils and, almost as important, to the organisation in the long run.

More thoughts to come .....

Office365 and Mac Office 2011 - A little schizophrenic like WIndows 8

I've recently being doing some work for a client and have found myself using their Office365 and Office 2011 for the Mac tools. The experience has not been horrible for the most part, in fact for the majority of my work, writing policy documents, reports, etc. it has been very positive. But, and it's a big BUT for those of you looking to push out Office365 in a MacOS school or organisation in general, there are little things that will drive you MAD!!

A little like Windows 8, where the constant to'ing and fro'ing between Desktop and 'Metro' environments can cause even IT professionals to throw their hands up in exasperation, the combination of Office365 and Office 2011 for the Mac can be more than a little annoying.

Missing features
First, although Office365 has many of the 'core' features found in Office 2011 for the Mac there are some notable omissions. Examples include being able to merge cells in a table and selecting columns and rows in a table and there are others. The same kinds of omissions can be found in Excel online as well and I'm guessing it is the same for Powerpoint and Outlook. Now that's OK because if you have Office 2011 installed on you Mac then you can just choose to edit the document with this and it will sync changes to the document in OneDrive. Except that it's not quite that easy because ....

Different features
....... some of the styles and features in Office365 online are not there in Office 2011 for the Mac. Or  if they are then they are not obvious enough to be found quickly and easily, which is how your staff and students will expect them to be found. Things like Table Styles seem to be different and other features are just different enough to make the transition between online and client-based Office not easy for an average user.

OneDrive
.... and don't get me started on OneDrive which is not even working as an integration into the Business/Education version for the Mac. I just hope that when they unify the OneDrive code so it is not two products, that they can sort this out - very frustrating.

Office 'next' for the Mac
So I'm hoping that the much delayed 'next' version of Office for the Mac will help cure the issues and bring the Mac version back into line with the main Office suite on Windows and in the cloud, and I hope it comes soon .... real soon....... because otherwise using Office365 and Mac Office 2011 can't be recommended for a school.

BETT2015 - Miles Berry on Primary Computing

BETT 2015 - Miles Berry on Primary Computing

One of the benefits of NOT going to BETT this year was the ability to sit back, relax and view some of the talks and content through the web.

Whilst the feed on the BETT web site was pretty rough there is now a growing number of videos elsewhere, including an excellent 45 minute talk by the wonderful Miles Berry.

Miles is always thoughtful, often challenging and never dull and so it was with his 45 minute talk on Primary Computing at the BETT Show this year.

Also, do you notice that it is indeed a rare photo of Miles when he is NOT smiling - says a lot about his whole approach to life and learning I think.

The video is embedded below, along with some thoughts of mine and a link to the slides from the presentation.

I know teachers are pushed for time. I know you have to mark those Class 5 maths books before tomorrow. But do take a look ......

Miles Berry Talk - How to teach Primary Computing - from Bett2015

Slide deck from the talk - click here

Some thoughts from the talk .......

Miles presents some good, common-sense ideas that should make teachers think about how they can develop the new Computing Curriculum within their school. But the talk was not simply about the practicalities of the new Computing curriculum. It was riddled with challenges that he puts up to make staff think about learning and teaching in general. One of the key challenges was presented early on and it is the Plowden Challenge that I'm keen to stimulate some thoughts about.

The Plowden Challenge
Miles quoted the Plowden Report from 1967 "“… build on and strengthen the children’s intrinsic interest in learning and lead them to learn for themselves”. This is something that seems to have got lost in some schools. Burdened by the various teaching frameworks, curriculum documents, lesson planning frameworks and evaluation activities that staff have to consider nowadays the challenge to instill a love of learning for the sake of learning seems to be disappearing down a plughole of accountability.

Often when I ask teachers what are the main elements of a good lesson they come out with things like 'learning objectives' and 'starter' and 'plenary', few, if any, mention the love of learning and many even miss the word 'learning' itself! Good teaching should always aim to develop a love of learning BUT THIS IS EVEN MORE THE CASE when you consider good teaching for Computing. Computing changes so fast and requires so much on-going learning that anyone who wants a career in the broader field of computing, let alone Computer Science, needs to have a love of learning if they are going to succeed.

I may be an old fart who was brought up in a time when University courses were free and you actually got paid an allowance to go and learn. However, I wonder whether the focus on developing learning around the prospect of developing a career has not robbed many of our younger students the opportunity to just learn for the sake of enjoying learning? Perhaps Computing, where career success requires this enjoyment, may help us bring it back across the curriculum as a whole?

BETT 2015 - Hue Cameras - Fun, cheap & robust

If you have time at BETT 2015 today why not pop and have a look at the Hue cameras on Stand SN41. I've seen these little cameras used in a lot of schools at all ages and teachers always rave about them. Plus they are really inexpensive and staff tell me they are reliable and robust as well.

Put the FUN back into your classroom and take a look at a Hue camera.

BETT 2015 - HP makes a potential win into a fail

I am building a quick list of things I would go and see today if I were at BETT and one of those things is the HP Stream line of devices. These small, inexpensive windows machines have had good reviews and come in both laptop and small form factor desktops. They are clearly aimed at the Chromebook buyers and should be considered by schools looking for devices to have in schools.

HOWEVER ....... I went to the BETT page for HP and opened up the web site address that was given on that page only to find myself in the HP USA web site. Perhaps this was a mistake so I went to the second HP BETT pages and same thing. Plus the address given for HP was their Palo ALto headquarters. COME ON HP, seriously!! 

I'd still like to see the HP Stream devices though so if you get to see them why not do a quick review from a teachers point of view?

Bibblio - Find & Organise Learning Resources

On my virtual tour of BETT 2015 I stumbled across Bibblio which is a little like Pinterest for education resources. You can create collections based around topics and share them with other people. You can also follow other people and view their collections.

The whole site seems slick, easy to use and, for the right age group, potentially very useful as an educational tool ....

HOWEVER ... there are resources that can be accessed through the site that may contain content that you would not want your pupils to see through a school recommended resource. It really depends on your approach BUT with issues like sex education and access to sexually explicit content a hot topic at the moment then being able to access 'Laci's Guide to BUTT SEX', however informative and actually open and honest it is may not be what your school would want. So do check out the resources before you jump into it.

Overall, one to look at if you are teaching older pupils.