I eat humble pie

Original links to elearning tools page.

iGoogle is dying - I have spouted on about certain tools for a few years now and iGoogle has long been a favorite of mine. One web page that enables links to be stored and post-its to be formed. I posted my use of this to fellow students a while back and shared my homepage the advantages were clear to me as demonstrated to the right. Sadly though overnight the links app stopped working and although Google will not be shutting down the tool till next year it is already rendered useless because

iGoogle page rendered useless

developers have withdrawn and taken there apps with them this active page linking to a range of useful tools has been rendered to nothing more than a useless untidy web page. This is a draw back with working in the cloud you will always be reliant of the tools being available. and when this is not the case you are left in the dark. Good old Google - never mind I guess I will have to fall back to Symbaloo but it does make you think - whats next?

E856 - Ends

Another Module comes to an end, its been a hard slog this year, too much happening at work to really get my teeth into the project as i wanted too. I still consider it a success but I had more ambitious ideas - still time will tell.

It's been a strange year one way or another a lot has happened this year many family successes and as I write A'level results bring good news to one young man who now starts off on his Higher Ed journey. Whilst mine is coming an end, this completes my Masters and will probably be the last formal qualification I push myself towards (Well that's what I said last time).

Time for a treat I think and welcome a new gadget, enter the Nexus 7 with a priority to start reading non technical stuff for a while.

Suckers this way

Social Networks Popularity (Lynch, 2011)

As social networking becomes an ever increasing part of our on-line lives, some news this week must surely raise concerns over how much personal information is left on-line. Linkedin has been hacked with over 6 Million users passwords on the list. An interesting spin off, Osborne(2012) invites users to enter their passwords to see if they are on the list. Get real you may work for the Guardian but seriously? You want me to type in my password to a site? What a great way to collect additional passwords. Needless to say I didn't put my password in but I thought I would try with 'bollocks' instead (forgive my French). Surprisingly it was on the list. So someone out there is using this as there password on linkedin, amazing.

Passwords like this are so predictable my password is much better its 'HyrJ3t%23a' very difficult to hack because its not a word, has upper and lower case and a non standard character. Now are you thinking 'the idiot has just put his password on a website', well I will leave you to ponder over that but if you check it you will find it has not been hacked - YET.

There is no doubt the trend in social networking is on the rise and as Lynch (2011) graphically represents Linkedin is up there with the best. I am off to change my password now I think.

References
Lynch,L. (2011) ‘How college professors use Facebook’, Schools.com, April 27[online], http://www.schools.com/visuals/college-professors-on-facebook.html (08 Jun 2012).

Osborne, H.(2012) ‘LinkedIn hacking: a timely internet security reminder’, The Guardian, 7 June 2012 , [online] http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/work-blog/2012/jun/07/linkedin-hacking-internet-security (08 Jun 2012).

Professional Development | Changes in School Leadership

Professional Development | Changes in School Leadership

This resource is from the series Need to Know. New models and new routes into headship. Mike Baker helps clarify the new landscape of school leadership, including hard and soft federations, and the new NPQH. Finding creative ways of addressing the difficulties faced by a shortage of prospective school leaders has become one driver for new models of headship. For example schools can now share heads, from informal arrangements through to formally binding legal federations. The flexibility is encouraging if you're considering leadership, but now prospective heads must also ensure they hold the NPQH - as from April 2009 only NPQH graduates will be able to apply for the top jobs. Produced in 2008.

Collaboration

Head stuck in notes :-( I thought I would take time out to reflect on a discussion we are having.

The collaboration within NBF ‘is an example of senior leadership collaboration between the leadership figures of different schools’, in this case it would be deemed a success. By sharing ideas and expertise the federation are saving money yet still maintaining standards. I can’t really make a statement like that without providing real evidence.

North Bedfordshire Schools Trust is developing an approach that will lead to greater efficiency, maintenance of high quality, and potentially cost savings for all 19 schools in the trust (The Schools Network, n.d.).  The update  identifies a number of initiatives that have come about as the result of collaboration within the schools. The sharing of ICT expertise has meant that the smaller schools have benefited,  although they cannot afford dedicated IT staff one school is managing another schools network remotely.  This clearly has wider implications and could prove to be a means of income generation. Another aspect that makes sense is the pooling of TAs, again sharing resources across the federation.

Finally it is acknowledged that there is a change of mindset going on here, with  schools now looking at the services as their ‘own’, interesting times ahead with the focus on ICT and bursary services. No doubt the bigger schools offering the services for the smaller schools to save money, but are the smaller schools missing an opportunity? Why is it not the other way around?

But what is true collaboration? I don’t think I can find a better example than this light hearted  incident that occurs in a men’s toilet. I hope you don’t mind but this really sums it up. Not Going Out & The Sketch Show - Lee Mack Urinal Sketch with Tim Vine & Jim Tavaré (Feb 5, 2011)

References

The Schools Network (n.d.) How a 19-school trust seeks to gain the full benefits of teamwork [Online] https://www.ssatrust.org.uk/innovation/trustschools/Pages/NorthBedfordshireSchoolsTrust.aspx (Accessed 29 March 2012).

Not Going Out & The Sketch Show - Lee Mack Urinal Sketch with Tim Vine & Jim Tavaré (Feb 5, 2011) YouTube video, added by WampitWeb [online], http://youtu.be/qJmgLqQ-uog  (Accessed 29 March 2012).

Well it's a Plan and first stab

Planned Leadership Activity

Introducing Diigo (Web 2.0 research tool) into the learning environment.

Context

The leadership project takes place in a college of further education within a restrictive environment. Students are on a 2 year full time course leading to Foundation degree.

Aim            

The aim of my leadership activity is to encourage the use of web based tools to support collaborative research and reduce the need for printed material. It involves a change in culture and a move away from paper based portfolios. This is a major change which in the longer term could involve, electronic marking, eportfolios and online web 2.0 tools.

This might be too radical for some at the school so it is my intention to introduce one innovation (Web 2.0 tool, Diigo). By encouraging practitioners to identify where it fits into their teaching practice and demonstrating its use with a group of learners it is hoped that it will stimulate further use and exploration of additional tools.

Leadership approach

A transactional approach will enable me to improve existing practices, it relies on collaborative leadership with colleagues in order to encourage a change in working practices of both staff and learners. My role will be to instruct and influence relying on my reputation of being knowledgeable and influential in this area.

Limitations

Tools used must work within the restrictions of the network and barriers to change will need to be overcome.

Some additioanl detail.

Stages of the activity

Stage 1: Introduction to fellow teachers

1. Questionnaire to ascertain current working practices

2. Introduction of the online research tool to staff.

3. Creation of accounts and workgroups.

4. Completion of an ‘individual’ piece of research on a given topic using the tool with fellow teachers.

5. Sharing the online research within the tool opening the activity up to collaboration.

6. Completing the research based activity.

7. Reflecting on the research and possible further uses of the tool from an educators perspective.

8. Together devise an activity that can be used in stage 2 to introduce the tool to learners.

Stage 2: Introduction to learners

9. Questionnaire to ascertain current working practices

10. Introduction of the online research tool to a selected group of students.

11. Creation of accounts and workgroups.

12. Completion of the activity designed in step 8. This should involve group research and collaboration.

13. Completing the research based activity.

14. Reflecting on the research and possible further uses of the tool from a learners perspective.

Stage 3: Evaluation

15. Completing a follow up questionnaire to ascertain the outcomes from the experience of the activity and if working practices are likely to change.

References
Diigo (2011), Web 2.0, bookmarking and annotation tool, [Online] Available from http://www.diigo.com (Accessed 3 January 2011).

Strategic Leadership, North Bedfordshire Federation

The following spray diagram attempts to simplify the North Bedfordshire Federation film, it aims to identify the key themes and points worthy of further discussion within the context of strategic leadership.

The changes taking place within the federation amount to an amalgamation of expertise and a sharing of good practice, whilst also ensuring the schools create a common curriculum.

It was clear throughout that the main aim was to promote student learning and improve performance, Clemence believed quite strongly that schools should not work in isolation. The strategy was to get all three schools that fed into Sharnbrook to work with the same curriculum thereby maintaining the standards of all middle schools within the trust.

A 'powerful guiding coalition' (Kotter 1996) in the shape of John Clemence and Hugh Carr-Archer, were the main drivers steering the change forward and the formation of a working group of head teachers was key to the strategic planning. According to Lavell this created a good working environment in which to share ideas and harmonise key issues. This can be placed quite clearly within the 'Strategy as design' lens, (Johnson et al, 2008) as the working group was utilised to create the logical process and provide strategic direction. However considering how the team based their strategies on the adaption and adjustment of their combined experience there is also evidence of strategies being made based on experience.

Ideally this should have been an evolutionary change bringing about an incremental process instead it was rather rapid seeming more like a revolution. This led to the top down approach because there was insufficient time, although this could be considered a 'time of crisis' necessitating a top down approach (Session 9, Course notes).

It could be said to have failed to ensure that staff were ready and willing to take part in the change (Step 1 Kotter 1996) but this is now in the hands of the respective heads, as one task is to address complaints that the leadership is too top down.

References

Fullan, M. (2007) The New Meaning of Educational Change, 4^th edn, New York, Teachers College Press.

Johnson, G., Scholes, K. and Whittington, R. (2008) Exploring Corporate Strategy, 8^th edn, Harlow, Pearson Education.

Kotter, J. (1996) Leading Change, Boston, Harvard Business School Press.

The Open University (2008) E856 Educational leadership: context, strategy and collaboration, 'DVD 1: Introduction to the North Bedfordshire Federation', Milton Keynes, The Open University.

The Open University (2011) E856 Educational enquiry, Session 9.2, 'Bottom-up and top-down change' [online], The Open University, http://learn.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=617575&section=2 (Accessed 2 January 2012).