exemplar activities

Unit B Activity 4 - Create activity templates - Exemplar 2

Why Re-invent the Wheel?

The Situation.

At our Mainstream Academy, we work collaboratively with Class Teachers (CTs).

Within this collaboration, I found that I had amassed a fair number of differentiated materials for different CTs and had been quite happily printing them off for the pupils to use within the classroom.

One day, one of my SEN pupils said…"So you made all that on the computer………and then printed them off………and then we fill them in…and then we type it back on the computer?"
It did seem senseless when the object of the exercise was to find out if the pupils had a knowledge and understanding of a topic. ….. The object was not to test their handwriting or keyboarding skills.

From that, it dawned on me that the work had been differentiated within a virtually closed partnership (self and CT) and generally other teachers within the different departments did not know what was available… nor did I know what had been already been differentiated by other members of Staff. If a member of the SFL/SEN team had worked on something then the differentiated work was generally kept in a filing cabinet and this worked well until, for example, someone took the last copy! It also relied on the creator of the differentiated work taking time to print a copy especially for the files. Saving work on floppy discs had helped to overcome this, but perhaps the next step would be to network all the differentiated material.

Objective:

To create a 'user friendly' way in which all staff (throughout the Academy) could browse through and access all available differentiated material.

Initially only Staff will have access to this, but eventually all pupils will be able to copy the information into their own workspace and then when completed, they would be able to file it in a 'Homework' file. (This file can be accessed and marked by CT/SFL staff, but the pupils can only put it in…they can't take it out again.)

Method:

Our IT technician said that it was a simple enough task to create a new site on the network. As Network Administrator she would be able not only to send the information to different members of staff /pupils but also to different computers in different rooms.

We chose a name (SFL) and a logo, and from that we decided that primarily, until we got the whole thing up and running, we would network it to all staff, but the next stage will be to include pupils too.

All that was needed then, was to accumulate the differentiated materials from all members of the SFL/SEN department. (It is anticipated that this will be an ongoing developing process until all staff are at ease with doing working around the site for themselves.)

HOUSE DESIGN

As the newest member of the department, I found it was important to know who had created what as far as differentiated work was concerned, ergo, as a department we worked out that the 'House Design' should have as a header…. …Subject, Topic and Class Teacher's initials…. and as footer it should have the SFL/SEN teacher's initials and a date.

Working with the Site:

Ideally, every member of staff should be able to dip in and out of site and alter anything that they see fit… but it was felt that this might prove too challenging for the maintenance of the site…
Therefore we decided that at least for the time being, only members of the teaching staff in SFL/SEN department would have 'ownership' (which will allow them to change the documents if necessary). However, other members of staff will be able to alter the document(s) by copying files into their own workspace and working with it/them there… i.e. for anyone outwith the SFL department, the document in the SFL site is 'read only'.

What does it look like?

The first layer has three files:

1. Homework File (for pupils to deposit their work but only Staff can access it once it is there)
2. Read File which contains all the differentiated material.
3. Welcome file……….I've created a 'WELCOME' using Microsoft PowerPoint… Though it does give important information, this file really is just little bit of lighthearted relief and was an excuse for me to learn to how use the programme!

Within the Read File:

The files at present are organised into 1st Year; 2nd Year; 3rd Year; 4th Year; 5th & 6th Year; Primary (numbers) Primary (language).

From there, within for example the 1st year folder is Subject Folders…English; Maths; French; etc………..

Inside, for example the English Folder, will be a number of topics such as Animal Unit: 'Northern Childhood' Unit; Danny Champion of the World etc

If a particular Unit Topic is long and complicated then that might have a folder full of its own topics such as 'The Long Walk summary;' 'Mixed Sentences;' Solo Talk etc.

Time Scale

The initial concept began around February 2001….. but it was towards the end of the summer term before I felt comfortable with the organisation of the site per say.

During August - September term, I tested it out on members of the SFL department and one or two members of Staff that I know well…..

The next stage is to 'Launch the Site' officially. For that we needed a User Friendly crib sheet.

I felt that in order for it to be quick and easy to understand, it should have 'snapshot pictures' of the screen and the writing should be kept to a minimum.
My son taught me how to take 'screen snapshots' by pressing 'Print Screen' and 'Control' buttons together and then using Edit > Paste in Word 2000. After learning this, I realised that the background within each file was a bit dull being in white or grey and was delighted to find that to turn the background into something more attractive is a straightforward and easy thing to do. The speech bubbles are 'auto shapes'. Text Boxes; Word Art; 'fill colour' and 'line colour' have all been used too to try and make the whole thing attractive.

The official Launch will be this following week. All members of staff will be given a copy of the instructions and a colour poster (A3 Size) will be put into the Staff Base… It is anticipated that each department might want have a small colour copy too.

View the Crib Sheet Poster as a Word file (522 k).

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