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Objective 2: Improve confidence in the use of ICT for learners, teachers, school leaders and parents
Update: The Cabinet Secretary has expanded on this objective and set the context in a post on Engage for Education.
Benefits: to increase the amount of sharing of practice and resource amongst teachers, leaders and learners in Scotland; improved reliability of technology in use; increased achievement for learners through the use of technology; enhanced reputation of Scotland in the wider digital world.
What do we need to do:
- Encourage development of good practice, sharing, peer recommendation, personal learning networks, communities of practice and on-line learning opportunities.
- Build on strong roots – how we use technology in other aspects of life.
- Address reliability issues with hardware/connectivity/filtering.
- Help existing and future school leaders understand the benefits of using technology to support and improve learning and what it means to be a responsible digital citizen.
- Support school leaders in developing a culture of technology to improve learning through professional development for teachers.
- Provide effective CPD opportunities within in schools, at local authority level and at a National level, so that teachers can develop their skills in using technologies for learning, and look at how we share effective use of technologies for learning, for example Glow Cookbooks, Consolarium Blog.
How will we do this:
- Have a basic standard for ICT competence in classroom - re-enforced by GTC , Teacher Training Institutions, HMIE ( Education Scotland) , SQA ( perhaps through appointee network and where necessary qualifications ) and the BCS (ECDL, Digial creator, e-type, e-safety etc....)
- Work with BBC and other external agencies to promote digital literacy across Scottish society
- Make better use of technology standards in CfE to make sure learners are developing necessary skills
- Schools and Local Authorities should have some basic standards around ICT access and infrastructure. There are lots of models around the world from institutional kite marking to local auditing systems - all aimed and open up networks and improving services for teachers and learners - one example http://uat.generatorfeandskills.org.uk/
- Taking McCormac Review recommendations into account, move responsibilities for ICT & CPD co-ordination from senior management remits to short term contract PT post(s), and allow them the time to identify - a) staff ICT training needs b) suitably skilled members of school staff to deliver training to colleagues
- Ensure that CPD for raising ICT skills & confidence has a purpose - projects with specific goals, agreed at the outset, rather than training to use a tool simply for familiarisation. There must be a benefit for learners.
- Identify free or cost effective web tools and open source software solutions that are already being used or could be used in schools. Share how these tools and services are being used though localised case studies and Glow cookbooks.
- Provide examples of how technology can be used to support learning and teaching, and to improve productivity and efficiency.
- Personal learning networks have been show to provide an effective form of support for professionals. It would be good to develop a national resource to show practitioners how to build their own personal learning network.
- Professional development is one way to improve staff confidence. CPD Find is excellent and should continue to be developed. Any publicly funded conferences or events should be digitally captured, tagged and archived. Consideration should be given to developing an on-line version of the SLF (perhaps bi-annual?) and developed in a similar way to the K12 Online Conference.
- Materials and CPD on how technology can support teaching, learning, organisation, planning and productivity should be made available on-line (through Glow or the GTCS) for all teachers as soon as they are registered with the GTCS.
- Teachers can gain confidence from understanding and seeing other people's practice. Schools should be encouraged to have their own website where they showcase practice. Websites could be nationally supported and stories signposted to appear on the Education Scotland or Engage for Education website. Functionality should be built in to recommend story to a friend / colleague.
- Teachers should be encouraged to take risks, but financial constraints are currently creating new barriers to change. Some of the savings generated from not continuing with the procurement of Glow Futures should be developed into a fund for providing teachers with small amounts of money (grants) to try new things, observe lessons, visit other schools and undertake training.
- When HMIE inspectors see examples of good practice they should capture it and digitally share it with others. These examples should be added to CPD Find and turned into CPD Shorts.
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