[Dfey-general-discuss] Think Tank

[Robert Leverington]

Hi Everyone,

I have been invited to speak at a Naace think tank regarding parental
engagement using IT on Tuesday [1], and give a students perspective.

Tim and I have compiled the following ideas, but it would be great if
you have any further ideas or comments on these existing ones.

Parental engagement:
 - Unless there are major concerns parents only tend to be informed of their
   child's progress on at most a termly basis.  Means there is little support
   at home.
 - More frequent reporting (daily?) would mean students would get more support
   at home when they need it, likewise they would receive appraisal when they
   do well.

* Possibility for students not to learn how to manage their time due to parents 
micromanaging them

 - Risk of over reacting parents, reduces the independence of students.

Creates problems in instances where students put in a lot of effort but due to 
some triviality (doing wrong question!), get a low grade.

 - Needs a wide range of task records to be held in any database; some students
   do well at homework and coursework based assignments, but not so well at
   exams (and vice versa).

Information:
 - Large amounts of information held by schools on each pupil.

*the significance of this needs to be respected.

 - In the best interests of students to be able to access as much as possible. 

*(why not all of it?)

 - Allows them to assess their own progress, especially useful for more mature
   students.
 - Currently information is handed out sparingly, can be frustrating.

*I've seen cut & paste feedback used when my ICT coursework was marked 
electronically.

 - Some teachers don't bother marking work, this would encourage them to and
   give parents and students a way of assessing this.

* System must fully comply with Data Protection Act - this could potentially 
cause problems if challenged in court.

* System needs to be clear about how long the data is retained for and for what 
purposes.

Access:
 - Experience with VLEs:
     - Spent the first few months with people trying to get access.
     - Very important to consider this.
     - Web based application was useful, but students didn't check it very
       often - needs to be integrated with e-mail (perhaps facebook too?).

* personal email - not school email.

 - Must form an integral part of schooling, otherwise it will be neglected by
   teachers and students.
     - Training definitely required.

*teachers need to be 10x more enthusiastic about it than the students.

Game-based learning:
 - Dependant on ability, more capable students might find it less engaging.
 - Must be used to compliment more traditional tasks.
 - Focus should be more on the learning than the game, there are many games
   that are regularly used in school - but the majority do not do a lot to
   enhance learning at all.
 - Mustn't be used just so the teacher can have an easy lesson.

* Really lame games are sometimes almost even less enjoyable than normal 
lessons.
* Teachers some times find it difficult to lead lessons like thids.

Students rights:
 - Students must have access to all information that their parents do.

* without a doubt, I agree.

Regards,
Robert

[1] http://www.naace.co.uk/997

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