V04s: Learning platforms: all aboard

The objective of this course activity is to get to know the other participants on this course.

Introduce yourself by going to the course forum and adding something about you, your school and your VLE. Further guidance will be given in the forum.

The objective of this course activity is to collect some basic information about your school’s VLE.

Your task is to find out:

• Which VLE your school is using (e.g. Fronter, Moodle, Frog, Blackboard, etc)?
• Which company or organisation supplied the VLE and what support do they offer?
• What support is offered by your local authority or other agency?

You should keep notes of your findings so that you can reflect on them in later Activities and draw on them in discussion with others and in developing your school’s implementation plan.

The objective of this course activity is to collect some basic information about your school’s VLE usage.

Your task is to collect data on the extent to which the VLE is used. This may be best collected from the staff responsible for its management. VLEs will usually provide such staff with usage reports. Typical data that you should collect will include:

• how many staff make use of the VLE
• the extent to which students use the VLE
• the extent to which pupils/students and their parents can access the VLE and the extent to which they are/will be expected to (and actually do).

You should keep a record of your findings. This may either be the reports themselves and/or summary notes.

The objective of the activities in this part of the course is to develop your understanding of the ways in which the VLE is used in your school setting, and the plans being used for its implementation.

Set up meetings with your headteacher and, if appropriate, other members of the school leadership team to discuss their vision and plans for the implementation of the VLE. Questions to ask include:

• What plans the school has already put in place for implementation?
• How do these plans tie in with the wider school vision and Development Plan?
• How the staff training is being planned , including which members of staff have been trained and to what level?

You should keep a record of your findings, including:

• a copy of any existing implementation plan
• notes on your meetings with the headteacher/other senior leaders.

At the end of the course, in Activity 10, you will feed back to the headteacher and leadership team any proposed developments to the plan in the light of subsequent activities.

Set up meetings with other staff who have been trained to use the VLE, or those that you know from the usage reports are active users. Questions to ask include:

• the extent to which they use the VLE to support their professional activities outside the classroom (e.g. planning, record keeping, communicating with colleagues or parents)
• the extent to which they use the VLE in their teaching
• the types of activity they use it for with students
• the strengths and weaknesses in its use as they perceive them
• their reflections on their students’ attitudes to its use
• the impact it is having on students’ learning (e.g. in terms of motivation, behaviour, engagement with the curriculum, collaboration, performance, results).

You should keep a record of your findings, including:

• notes on your meetings
• any evidence that staff have provided you with about how they use the VLE or the impact it is having on them or their students’ learning.

The objectives of this course activity are to:

• summarize your findings from the other activities in this part of the course
• reflect on those findings ready to share with others.

While carrying out the other activities in this part of the course you will have collected a range of notes and data. You should now reflect on these and use them to carry out a SWOT analysis. A chart is available for this here.

The objective of this course activity is to share and discuss ways in which VLEs are being implemented in participants’ schools.

7.1 Go to the course forum and, in the discussion called ‘Sharing initial findings’, post a message in which you summarise your key points from the SWOT analysis and findings from Activities 2 to 5.

7.2 Read the posts of other participants and discuss the ways in which their plans are similar or different to your own. You may find you need to ask for further information in order to make sense of how another participant’s school is using their VLE.

Remember to return to this discussion every day or so to respond to any replies to your message and to engage with any new posts in the discussion.

The objective of this course activity is to develop your understanding of the pedagogical and societal issues for VLE implementation and to reflect on this in the context of your own school.

8.1. Watch this Teachers TV programme, which  considers the use of a VLE in a secondary school in Cumbria. In particular it looks at ways in which their use of the VLE enhances and promotes discussion, administers tests, reduces administration and supports a reading week initiative. As you watch the programme note down issues that are pertinent to your school’s implementation of its VLE.

8.2 Go to the course forum and, in the Discussion called ‘Discussing the Teachers TV programme’, post a message that lists the key points that emerged from your watching of the video when you reflect on your own school’s VLE implementation.

8.3 Read this article (Fanning, 2008), which reports on the ways in which VLEs might be used in schools and considers their role in the context of the traditional school day and lesson. Fanning argues that as the VLE introduces opportunities for more flexible ways of working, this has a fundamental impact on structures for learning. He considers the ways in which learning at home and school can be linked by the used of a VLE and the constraints and opportunities for this.

As you read the article, consider the relationship of a VLE to engagement by teachers, students/pupils and parents. Note down three issues that you think are particularly relevant to your school.

8.4 Go to the course forum and, in the Discussion called ‘Discussing the article by Fanning’, post the points that emerged for you when you read the article and considered issues of engagement. Where appropriate, you may ask others in the group for their thoughts on these issues and, similarly, respond to others’ posts.

8.5 Read this article Berry (2006), which looks at the use of a VLE from the point of view of knowledge sharing. Thus inter-relationships between software and the exchange of data is considered. Alongside this, the ways in which teachers and pupils work and share together is reported on.

8.6 Go to the course forum and, in the Discussion called ‘Discussing the article by Berry’ post the points that emerged for you when you read the article and considered issues of knowledge sharing. Where appropriate, you may ask others in the group for their thoughts on these issues and, similarly, respond to others’ posts.

8.7 Make your own notes to summarise the key things emerging for your school’s implementation of its VLE from Activities 8.1 to 8.6.

The objective of this course activity is to develop your understanding of the policy agenda for VLE implementation and to reflect on this in the context of your own school. This activity is based on two short articles about this policy agenda.

9.1 Go to this resource from Becta (2009), which gives an overview of the use of learning platforms (VLEs). Consider how the objectives and perceived benefits in the document align with those you identified when discussing the VLE implementation in your own school in Activities 4 and 5. N.B. Further resources are available on the Next Generation Learning website.

9.2 Go to the course forum and, in the Discussion called ‘VLE policy agenda’ post the points that emerged for you when you read the articles. Discuss the points that emerge in the group and identify those objectives which most closely align with implementations in the schools represented, those which least closely align and build an agreed list of benefits of VLEs as perceived by the group.

The objective of this course activity is to develop the strategic plan for the implementation of the VLE.

Your task is to revise the plan in the light of previous activities and in discussion with the headteacher and other key members of staff

10.1 Take the SWOT analysis from Activity 6. Identify how the VLE implementation plan addresses the elements of the analysis. Does it allow for building on strengths? Does it provide for opportunities? Does it address weaknesses and threats?

In particular you might consider ways in which the plan reflects and addresses the vision (Activity 4) and staff needs (Activity 5).

10.2 Does the plan need changing in the light of Activity 10.1? If so, what changes would you recommend. Make notes of any recommendations ready for your meeting with the headteacher and/or school leadership team in Activity 10.4. Make sure you provide explanations for why you think those changes are needed.

10.3 In Activities 7 to 9 you reflected on your implementation plans and discussed them with others in the group based on a range of readings and other resources. Take the outcomes of these discussions and consider and note any further changes you would wish to make to the plan.

10.4 Arrange to meet with the headteacher and/or school leadership team to discuss your findings so that the process of updating and agreeing sign off to the revised plan may be put into place. This follows on from the discussions you had in Activity 4.

The objectives of this course activity are to discuss and agree what we have learnt as a group.

Go to the course forum and, in the discussion called ‘Shared Learning’, post the key learning points that have emerged for you during the course. Agree on the common shared learning from the group and summarise it as a brief set of notes.

The objectives of this course activity are to complete an evaluation form and, if you wish, print a course completion certificate and rate and review the course.

Your task is to complete the evaluation questionnaire, which can be found on the course page. There are also links there to print a certificate and rate the course. The certificate will be ‘released’ by your facilitator when you have completed the course.