Craigmount High School, Edinburgh

James (Jamie) Whiteside is a teacher of Computing at Craigmount High School in Edinburgh, and for the last few years he has been working hard to develop and embed the use of Studywiz in his own school and across Edinburgh.

Recently, Craigmount was inspected by HMIe and after speaking to Jamie, the students, and other members of staff, the inspectors highlighted the school’s use of Studywiz as one of two areas of good practice.

I met with Jamie recently and he said that, interestly, he felt the inspectors were not entirely sold on Studywiz after speaking to him alone, it was only when they spoke to the students that they started to understand the impact it was having on learning.

Here’s a paragraph from the report:

Young people can work with published materials at a time and place which suits them and their learning style. The system encourages innovative methods of supporting young people. For example, one teacher has set up an evening chat room to offer support. The system encourages peer evaluation of published work through gallery resources. It motivates young people by allowing them to access interactive flash games and self-marking assessments. Evaluation of the activities indicate that young people feel this facility is a valuable resource.

HMIe Inspection Report for Craigmount High School.

Jamie and the school are of course still developing the use of Studywiz and he has some ideas about how they can continue to move forward at Craigmount and the other Edinburgh schools.

We’ve asked Jamie to contribute to this blog so watch out for his posts in the near future.

‘Teachers favour mobiles and compatibility’

“50 per cent (of teachers and leaders surveyed at BETT 2009) said portable computers such as PDAs and handheld PCs would make the biggest impact on future teaching and learning.”

Check out this interesting read on the survey findings from BETT 2009 on technology’s role in increasing student concentration and achievement, improving teachers’ skills and knowledge and encouraging greater family involvement in children’s learning

‘Teachers favour mobiles and compatibility’ Merlin John Online, 31 Jan 2009

Saxon Wood School (Hampshire)

Thank you to Lynne Cannon and the great staff and students at Saxon Wood School in Hampshire for their time and hospitality last Friday when myself and senior Studywiz developer, Colin Harris, visited.

For both Colin and myself the visit was extremely helpful in terms of seeing, and understanding, the challenges physically disabled students face when using technology. Colin will be feeding what he learned into future Studywiz development.

We were joined by Hampshire LA staff, Colin McQueen and Alistair Goodwin and Alistair shared a link to the online resources available from Priory Woods School, which is an all age community special school in Middlesbrough. Priory Woods is not a Studywiz school, but we won’t let that get in the way of some excellent, free resources.