ICT Champions

St Chad's as an ICT-Enabled community has been a major school priority this year and already a number of staff have emerged as 'Champions' in the use of new technology.

Miss Hanson – Embracing technology has enabled Miss Hanson to produce a variety of lesson and revision materials to improve the quality of teaching and learning in the English department.  Using podcasts and video technology she has created activities for Year 11 and Sixth form groups.  Many of these are now displayed on the Virtual Learning Platform.  In addition Miss Hanson has become an active user of the Satellite CLC incorporating the Apple Mac technology into her work.  In particular this has involved the use of Comic Life software to bring student’s own scripts to life.  It has also enabled differentiated materials to be used by the department as a bank of resources has been created.  Miss Hanson is also working on the production of DVD’s to promote the school and the development of St Chad’s TV which it is hoped will feature on digital signage around the school in the near future.

Finally the English department have taken part in a number of events involving the use of new technology including the BBC School News Report, the Make Your Mark Enterprise challenge and the Young Direct Marketing award.  Well done to the department and to Miss Hanson for the work she has done.

The Maths Department – The Maths department have developed the use of www.mymaths.co.uk with classes in order to record progress of pupils.  This is an interactive site where students can follow on line tutorials and also complete levelled worksheets.  Students receive instant feedback on their work and the site has raised both expectations and involvement of individuals. 

Miss Hughes – It is now widely recognised that students can learn a great deal from using computer games.  Miss Hughes has begun to develop this by introducing sessions for students that enable them to create their own computer games using Mission Maker software.  In line with this she has also developed greater e-safety awareness amongst students and this culminated in activities that focused on National e-Safety Week in February.

Mr Myler - For the technology department being able to use the most appropriate software is crucial and Mr Myler has begun to pilot Adobe Photoshop CS4 for design work. In addition to improve the work of the Duke of Edinburgh groups, he has begun to use Anquet Maps software for route planning.

Miss Mulhall – As part of our quest to make St Chad’s an ICT-enabled community several staff have begun to pass on their expertise to other members of the staff team.  Miss Mulhall, Curriculum Team leader for ICT has developed the use of Podcasting and has carried out a number of training sessions.  The results of this can now be found on the Virtual Learning Platform and in the coursework produced by pupils.  Many department are also now looking at using podcasts as revision aids for GCSe courses.

Mr Wolfenden – For Year 9 Science, Mr Wolfenden has set up a project involving the testing of water samples and the effects of habitat on marine life. To introduce the project he used Skype to video conference with Dr Emily O'Connor from the Royal Veterinary College in London. This allowed Year 9 classes to communicate with an expert in the field. Further conferencing sessions have been arranged to give feedback on their findings.

Mr Bennett – In addition to his role as whole school co-ordinator for ICT, Mr Bennett has begun to look at a number of initiatives to introduce emerging technologies into school.  One of this has been the recent Smartphone project which has provided ten Year 11 students with a Smartphone which enables them to access revision materials ‘on-the-go’, anywhere, anytime, as they prepare for their final GCSE examinations in June.