ICT School Mark
Work was begun on the School Mark for ICT last year but it has yet to be completed. It is planned that this year the process will be completed and that Mount Tamar School will be able to claim ICT Mark status.
Merlin
Merlin, the SWGfL platform for saving, sharing and developing resources will be available to staff and pupils over the coming months. The service as a whole will be looked at as and when it becomes available and the modules useful to staff and pupils at the school evaluated and accessed. At the moment the most useful aspect of Merlin which will be the 'off site' storage of files as many of the services have already been implemented using open source software at Mount Tamar School.
Electronic Toys
The ICT Department over the last few years looked at and evaluated a number of different devices. At the end of last year the Eee PC's were evaluated and a class set has been purchased for groups of pupils to use.
During the coming year it is anticipated that Nintendo DS's, Wii's and other hand held devices will all be looked at with respect to providing individuals and classes with further and different learning experiences.
Input Devices
Currently keyboards and mice are the only input devices available to pupils. The move forward will be to look at and research two different lines; hardware devices and text to speech (TTS).
On the hardware front graphics tablets will be looked; evaluated and, it is hoped, added to the computers in the ICT Room. 'Text to Speech' and 'Speech to Text' will be investigated; their are know problems with 'Speech to Text' as the computer has to be 'trained' to the input voice.
Documentation
During the next year all the ICT Departments documents will be converted from paper copy to web based copy. This will reduce the paper load and allow simpler and more frequent updating of the documents.
A new layout of the ICT Department pages will also be developed alongside the conversion. In addition a set of blank pages will be built up to assist other departments in converting paper based copies to web based.
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ICT Content
Trafficlights - This software is being actively developed by Steve Kemsley or Magicka Interactive. Short term requests for features often turn up and are included within the next release of the software. Currently the pupil access, SMS services and virtual drive modules are being worked on.
Learning Platform - The new Key Stage 3 ICT Courses will be added to MTSOC along with any new assessment materials that are developed. At Key Stage 4 new content and assessment materials will be developed for the Diploma course.
MTS Internet Services - New and updated information will be added to the web pages with more people trained to add and update pages. Staff training will be given via INSET courses on either a one-to-one or one-to-group.
Key Stage 4 Courses
All pupils entering Key Stage 4 will follow the ELC course to begin with. This will allow them to achieve an initial qualification before moving onto one or more of the following:
The new National Diploma qualification will go live for Plymouth City as from September 2009 and during this year meetings will take place to make sure that Mount Tamar School is ready to start. In a departure from other schools in Plymouth, Mount Tamar School will be offering a Level 1 Diploma where as the other Plymouth schools will be offering Level 2. Alongside the diploma course it is hoped to co-teach a second course; OCR Nationals Level 1. Meetings will take place regularly with the other consortium members and investigations will be made into co-teaching of courses.
Mount Tamar School received information from another awarding body regarding a different Diploma setup which may will meet the needs of some of the pupils of Mount Tamar School better than the national diploma. This diploma is still at the drawing board stage but will involve units of work being put together to meet the level awarded.
Assessment
The department will look at the forms and methods used for assessment at all Key stages this year.
Key Stage 3 - Along with the new National Curriculum documents at Key Stage 3 there is to be an 'ICT app markbook' which will collate the standards reached by individual pupils. Currently only examples have been seen but as soon as the 'final' copy becomes available it will be implemented alongside the writing of new units for Year 7. The new National Curriculum will be cascaded over the next three years in Years 7, 8 & 9.
Key Stage 4 - Assessment for the AQA ELC course is in place and has been agreed with the AQA. Assessment for the new Functional skills courses will be in line with the materials as laid out by the DCFS and the examination boards.
Software
Collaboration software was researched during last year and in the end two were installed for evaluation; DimDim and OpenMeeting. It is hoped to open OpenMeeting to the pupils and staff in the early part of the Autumn term on the Intranet and subsequently open it to the Internet.
The next major versions of the software packages OpenOffice and Firefox are both in Beta and are due for release in the weeks leading up to the end of the year. As soon as they are released they will be evaluated and installed across the academic network.
Other software will be updated as a when suitable versions become available: new software will be evaluated and installed across the network.
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