Re: [Dfey-general-discuss] Think Tank

[paul sutton]

Robert Leverington wrote:
> 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.


good idea, perhaps schools could also suggest how parents can support 
their child's learning

a few parents think its the teachers job to teach not theirs, so may not 
see it as their job to help, they will however blame the teacher if 
child is falling behind, this could be due to not doing homework which 
should be the parents responsibility to ensure its done properly.
> * 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).

yeaL, I found exams stressful  sometimes,  others found them easy.
> 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?)

could be reasons to hold certain information back  so unless there is a 
good reason then i agree.

>  - 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.

my ou tutor gives written feedback,  i need to claim my own learning 
objectives in my assignment, this is marked with numbered comments which 
can be easily linked to the paragraph concerned,

marks for asssignments are broken down so the over all grade is an 
average of those,   end of course is an average of all 6 assignments 
plus grade for endf of course assessment,



> * 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?).

you need a computer at home for thism,  some i think require IE, 
something dfey are addressing as they would like schools to use OSS as 
much as possible, but yeah vle's should be accessible to all.

good idea to remind them oss exists, its used in other countries.  and 
it can help low income people as much as others.

> * personal email - not school email.
again with school e-mail schools can monitor who mail is sent to /. from 
its a partly a child protection thing.  schools need to protect children 
its no good barring adults from schools if they can still contact them 
via e-mail,  hence students are given their own e-mail,  i would ask why 
this is.

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

i find if i log in to a forum to find no new mail frustratingm, 
facebook send me maikl if someome has replied or posted a new mail, 
this saves logging in when there is no reply

ou forum also e-mails me all mail sent to forum for my tutor group;, if 
i want to reply i can log in, it saves logging in daily.

but yeah getting people to read / reply or communicate properly is hard, 
lessons on good communication may be,.

> *teachers need to be 10x more enthusiastic about it than the students.
could be more difficult when you have to mark lots of work, plan 
lessons, and deal with all the other things they have to deal with.

> 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.
yeah,  this seems to be about enguagement not sure what games you mean 
but say footbhall manager games can teach about maths, etc,


> * 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.
again unless there is a good reason to withhold thisk,  say child is 
adopted,  parents don't want to tell child until he / she is a certain 
age,  would you want to read that you are adopted on some sort of school 
record.

yeah the crb / isa allow you to see adn challenge any information they 
have on you,  this works in the caser of when they get something wrong 
and you don't actually have a crininal record.  so i guess this is 
similar,  a child could fail a lesson as there was a never a consistant 
teacher, or the teacher just sat there and did nothing,


> Regards,
> Robert
>
> [1] http://www.naace.co.uk/997