Collaboration and influence

I've been working with our Craft instructor to amend some Access 3 Craft and Design National Assessment items. We have grabbed time here and there, although the pleasing thing is that he now has the knowledge and skills to complete this task himself, and to put his own ideas into practice.

The Science teacher came to see me during one of my now regular ICT 'drop in' sessions. Within the hour, we had reviewed The Naked Scientist podcast; considered possible uses of podcasting re: assessment of his pupils; and enabled him to set up his own blog! He sees the possibilities from blogging in terms of being a reflective practitioner (who is aiming for Chartered Teacher status), and promoting the discussion of eco-awareness in schools (eg EcoSchools).

I am now looking at the power of wikis, particularly after an experience last week. One of the managers was browsing our 'Rewards Scheme' (a 3-year old initiative to 'promote positive behaviour'). He noticed an anomaly in the Excel file (hosted on our network), and made a change. He informed me that he had made the change, and we discussed the appropriateness of this (it was brilliant, and saved me some work!). I will now use my own wiki to collaboratively plan work with external agencies (see podcasting project).

One of the steering group now runs a very healthily attended after-school music club. This is raising interest in advance of resourcing the FLaT room. Two boys who are due to leave soon (and therefore will miss out on using the resource) are keen to record some songs using the laptop and Audacity.

A photo of the finished FLaT room should be posted next week.