Learning and Teaching

Learning Platforms  

Merlin Learning Platforms

Preparing to Implement a Learning Platform

Vision - Clarify the School Vision relating to learning platforms

• How do you want learners, teachers, parents and managers to benefit from use of a learning platform?
• Use the Harnessing Technology video on ‘Learning Today - A Day in the Life of Anton’ to look at learning platform developments and discuss what might be beneficial for your school.
• Look at additional case study examples on the South West Grid for Learning and discuss how these may / may not be relevant in your own school situation. Use the case studies in the Leadership Team Toolkit as a starting point for discussing requirements with your leadership team.
• Look at the ‘Day in the Life’ appendix at the back of the learning and teaching book
• Use the Strategic Leadership in ICT (SLICT) programme to provide the senior management team with the opportunity to focus on developing this vision or in the case primary schools use it to clarify your own vision through discussion with other head teachers. Information about this can be accessed on the training part of the web site. Link
   

Review the current position

• Use the Becta matrix to review your current position and identify the school starting point.
• The Learning platform functionality matrix also gives examples linked to each element, enables review information to be saved and amended and suggests possible actions displayed in an action plan
  http://matrix.becta.org.uk/

Implementation

• Use case studies from the Leadership team toolkit to identify strategies for implementation that would be effective for your own school circumstances
• They provide key questions, contextual information, summary of strategies and how they were used as well as video footage to promote discussion with management teams
• Identify the staged actions that might be required over the next few years to work towards this change. Some suggested actions might be:
  
  • Ensure pupils and staff have individual log ons and give them a reason to log on to the portal or web site regularly in order to access information, for example, minutes of meetings, newsletters.
  • Develop shared and agreed systems of storing information on the school network or portal that all staff need to use, for example, to monitor planning or share multimedia resources.
  • Move towards electronic communication systems with staff, for example, ensure you have a group list of staff e-mail addresses and that these are used for some types of communications.
  • Work towards developing electronic communications with parents who have access, for example, provide e-mail updates to parents who would prefer this method of communication
  • Use the portal or extranet, for example for:
  – Staff communication and updates
  – Setting pupil activities
  – Virtual staff room
  – Staff access to key documents from home
  – Homework activities
  – Discussion groups for more able pupils
  – Consultation with governors
   

Publications

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