Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from 2017

Rolling Out Google - Rolling In Hwb+

This week we finally got confirmation from the Welsh Government of the Google for Education implementation into Hwb, the end of the Learning Possibilities Hwb+ virtual learning platform and further investment in school broadband. Kirsty Williams, cabinet secretary for education, is quoted as saying: "We want our teachers to have access to the best digital tools and resources and the best quality superfast broadband. We have listened to the feedback we’ve been receiving from schools and I’m very pleased that, as a result of their feedback, we will be rolling out Google for Education in 2018. This will give our teachers a much wider range of digital tools and resources and will lead to greater collaboration and communication within the classroom." No date for the implementation was mentioned, only that teachers will "soon have more choice about the digital tools they use". As I outlined in my post at the end of October , it looks like G Suite for Education will p

Statutory DCF?

Once or twice during my recent visits to schools, confusion has arisen over whether the Digital Competence Framework is a statutory document or not. I've always explained that unlike the literacy and numeracy frameworks, it is not. I've posted below something on this from the National Digital Learning Council minutes from June 22nd 2017. Jane Peffers - Welsh Government lead for the DCF was presenting to the NDLC on the Digital Competence Framework: 4.5 The potential for the DCF to be made statutory was raised. At this time, this is considered unlikely and it is hoped that encouraging its use, rather than prescribing it, will support and encourage a more significant change in culture, for teachers to adapt to the new ways of working.

Hwb / G Suite for Education Announcement

Last Monday, Chris Owen (head of digital learning unit, Welsh Government) announced at a Google Leadership Symposium in Cardiff, that G Suite for Education will be included in the Hwb platform possibly from April 2018. For those schools in the room this was great news, many feeling finally vindicated that their Google approach to developing cloud student learning was finally being recognised by the Welsh Government. Up until this announcement, several local authorities and regional consortia had made it quite clear to schools in their areas that they didn't want them using G Suite for Education, that basically Hwb was the only show in town and Google "wasn't safe". Chris Owen - Google Leadership Symposium, Cardiff As you might have picked up from my previous posts, that's fine as long as what is being provided through Hwb are the best set of digital tools and resources that are available. In some instances this has arguably not been the case. Hwb+ being th

DigComp Update

Back in June 2015 I wrote a post about the announcement from the then Welsh education minister, Huw Lewis, about the introduction of a new Digital Competence Framework  (DCF) for schools in Wales. As many of you will know, that framework has since been written and is beginning to be implemented in schools across Wales. In the post, I provided a list to several digital literacy or competence frameworks already in place across many countries, highlighting to the digital pioneer schools who were writing the framework that they didn't have to start from nothing and that they didn't necessarily have to 'reinvent the wheel'. Therefore it was interesting to see this morning an update to one of the frameworks mentioned. The European Digital Competence Framework for Citizens, also known as DigComp, was first published in 2013 and "consists of detailed descriptions of all competences that are necessary to be proficient in digital environments and describes them in term

Digital Competence / Computer Science - Refreshing Views

It was interesting to read this on the BBC news website a couple of weeks ago, ' Computing in schools - alarm bells over England's classes .' At the heart of the report is that experts are concerned that since the introduction of the computing curriculum in England, there has only been a modest rise in students taking the new computer science GCSE. By 2020, the British Computer Society warns that the number studying for a computing qualification could halve. The other major concern is that only 20% of the entrants were girls, down from around 40% taking the previous ICT qualification. There were those at the time who were concerned with the change in focus of the curriculum and talked of, 'throwing the baby out with the bathwater'.  As Drew Buddie says in the BBC article, he felt that ICT was unfairly maligned and was far more creative than its critics assumed, and that "it is clear that many 14-to-17-year-old students, particularly girls, are not attracted to

NDLC Minutes Provide Glimpse of Hwb+ 'Future'

Update to my last post Hwb+-Another Nail in the Coffin? As I've said previously, I do like to read through the agenda and minutes of the National Digital Learning Council meetings. These are freely available to the public on the Hwb website. Below you will find a section from the minutes dated 4th April, 2017: 5.7 The Hwb+ / provisioning contract with Learning Possibilities ends on 31 August 2018 and there is no contract extension option. Officials are already exploring exit strategy arrangements to ensure continuity of service specifically around the provisioning service which underpins the user authentication for all Hwb services. 5.8 CO (Chris Owen, Welsh Government) outlined the current thinking around the next phase of the provisioning, authentication and user management for LiDW users. NDLC members stressed the importance of ensuring the replacement service offered high-availability levels as this is such a pivotal element of the programme. CO confirmed that this was fu

Hwb+ - Another Nail in the Coffin?

This post on the Hwb News page caught my eye this afternoon. In early July, the Welsh Government (WG) are running four Hwb+ Workshops to " explore the current use of the Hwb+ learning platform " and wanting to " hear your views " before planning the next steps in the LiDW programme. If you've read some of my previous posts about Hwb+ you'll know I've never been its biggest fan and in ' Gazing Into My Crystal Ball ', suggested that maybe the contract for Hwb+ wouldn't be renewed. Dare I propose that the only reason these workshops are being held by the WG is that they already have a very good idea what the feedback from schools will be like - overwhelmingly negative. Therefore it appears that these events are an opportunity to gather further evidence of why the contract with Learning Possibilities for Hwb+ shouldn't be renewed in August 2018. I'd be extremely surprised, in fact astonished, if a different outcome arose from these event

Hwb J2launch and OneDrive Files?

In my recent meetings with primary schools, inevitably our discussions will turn to the evidencing and marking of pupils work. More pupil work is now being completed online through tools such as Office 365 and J2e (via the Hwb platform ), along with G Suite for Education and 2Simple's Purple Mash . Therefore how does a teacher easily find and mark work when it's being held in two or more different places? Especially if you factor in that pupil's work could also be held on the school network and on individual iPads. It's all a bit 'messy' to say the least. Recently I've been looking at j2launch which is part of the Just2easy set of tools and freely available to all schools in Wales via the Hwb platform. J2launch is a Content Management System (CMS) within J2e. Work created online using the many J2e tools is automatically stored here along with any other file type you'd like to upload. Files can be searched for and organised using folders. All done, in