A solutions-orientated approach to post-NOF CPD
Web-wise-wapping | Launch | Press Release
Please note that this project has now come to an end, so the links may not all work
Raising standards and transforming teaching:
ICT as a catalyst for change
In Wapping, an area that is only one mile square, the digitally rich work and live beside the digitally poor. The fourteen state schools in the London Docklands cater for diverse races, religions and learning cultures. Roman Catholic, Church of England, Jewish and Muslim children are recognisable concentrations in a strongly multicultural group of children. One way in which the Wapping heads are seeking ways of inspiring all these pupils with the belief that they can achieve educationally is by sharing their expertise to build a local community that is web-wise and computer savvy.
The St Katherine and Shadwell Trust which is the driving force behind collaborative nature of Wapping social regeneration is now offering funds for increasing IT skills in the area. By pooling the money, the heads are able to plan a three year training programme designed to be self-sustaining once local expertise is established.
Each year, two teachers from each school will also be given an online Toshiba notebook computer which will help teachers to integrate the project work into their already busy schedules. The classroom teachers are developing web based national curriculum exchanges with local schools, classroom assistants and parents. In the process of widening Wapping students horizons some projects will reach out to schools in other parts of the UK, South Africa, the Caribbean, Washington and Ireland. Teachers are structuring the projects to give pupils the opportunity to use Internet technology in exciting ways that will raise the self-esteem of pupils and achieve high levels of learner motivation. Head teachers in the project are working together so that the transformation of teaching methods is well integrated into traditional practices. Senior managers and ICT co-ordinators will concentrate on web design and maintenance of the project web site in partnership with students and parents.
The emphasis on international citizenship is one aspect of partnership with the MirandaNet Fellowship. This is an organisation of leading practitioners in the use of Information and Communications Technology in classrooms and staff rooms. The MirandaNet Fellowship, based at the Institute of Education, University of London, will be providing the peer mentoring, the accreditation and the formative evaluation. New methods for web based self evaluation are being explored by the Institute so that the participants can measure their own learning progress, ask for appropriate feedback and identify their learning needs.
MirandaNet companies and organisations are partnering schools in the Web-Wise Wapping project. All the WWW achievements will be shared on Think.com, a web based learning environment given free by Oracle, the software company. Think.com facilitates communication in the Wapping community in between face to face meetings. A minimum of computer skills are required to use this program which gives all students and teachers an email address and an opportunity to publish their own web pages and portfolios of achievement. Web based debates, expert hot seats, interviews, conversations and ezines will be features of the ICT driven initiatives that express educational vision, social commitment and an international dimension.
Another strand of the project is the application of ICT for whole class teaching. Promethean's 'ACTIVboard', the interactive whiteboard system, is being used alongside a structured training program for key teachers facilitating innovative new approaches to group learning and the sharing of digital resources. Toshiba are funding an investigation of the role mobile computers play in the learning of the disadvantaged and the gifted. The Tools for Schools Charity will be providing good recycled computers for student and home use, also partly funded by Toshiba. Cisco are negotiating to place IT academies in key schools to raise the level of professional qualifications amongst students and parents who want to improve their job prospects. Actis will be providing web based curriculum resources. Worth Media will be piloting interactive web based English Language programs to assist children who arrive from overseas after the mainstream English teaching has started.
Support from the local education authority, Tower Hamlets, is already taking shape in discussions that project managers are having with the City Learning Centre. The MirandaNet team is planning bids to the European Union, the International Lottery Fund and the World Bank so that the remit of the project can be extended to train more local people in IT, especially single mothers.
Together, partner schools, companies and the St Katharine and Shadwell Trust believe that the Web-Wise Wapping project will make a difference to community learning and digital empowerment.
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