school+wide+changes

What's on top?
 * Have started with Ultranet at the beginning of Term 4. Taking Year 3/4/5 this term. Focusing on the USpace for those students straight away. Term one - NE,Yr 6 and ORRS. Everyone on by term three.
 * Teachers in charge of class spaces, students in charge of USpace. Administration team to explore News Centre
 * Have students trained up on how to upload etc. Less heading colouring and more work.
 * The non-Ultranet teachers are focusing on the skills needed on a wiki ready for when they are using Ultranet.
 * About half of the parents don't have access, there is the plan to have monthly meetings for parents to come along and share the portfolios.
 * Also starting to use Voicethread to gather reflection for the action research.
 * A lot of upgrading - looking at getting the pod out of the corner and more central to the library.
 * Have rewritten the school curriculum which includes using elearning for assessment.

Other progress What changes have you instigated or observed? //Students are motivated to review and discuss their work when using the "comment" function of Ultranet.// //Podcasting is allowing self management and authentic opportunities to relate// //Some teachers are spending a lot of time at home getting things uploaded etc.// //Extra laptops have been made available in classrooms// //Some teachers are feeling the pressure to keep up.// //Planning for written langauge is now required on the sms using curriculum rubrics to allow us to gather data against the national standards.// //Was there an activity which has been particularly effective for your school// //Zooburst for publishing and the use of voicethread to gather student comments has been a fantastic easy way to IT into the classrooms//

What percentage of your staff are making the most of the opportunities afforded by the ICT PD? //About two thirds of the staff are very proactive in trying to upskill themselves and include ICT in their class programmes. Changes in relation to the LMS have meant ongoing challenges for the administration staff as well//

What has the impact been for your students? //Students are becoming more confident and willing to try to troubleshoot. Their understanding is becoming transferable from one programme to another. The junior school is using programmes like photostory and sites like [|www.smartkiddies.com] to good effect. There needs to be some thought about how to teach the hands on skills of keyboard use and basic tools such as cut,paste and upload.//

Whether they have been actively involved in cluster administration, implementation and the variation process. //4 staff members from our school have been involved in the management meetings and cluster organisation. All of our staff have taken part in cross cluster events and have found these worthwhile but not vital.//