Work on NTLP has increased rapidly with the league of teachers putting a lot of effort into their areas! Mr Tetteh has developed and area covering an entire Scheme of work for Year 7 reproduction, and is setting up an area with relevant homework for this section. I provided an Inset session with the science department, and they now all have their own area to offer interactive homeworks on the portal. Mawuli is now setting up an overall homework area so the rest of the department will simply need to copy and paste the pages in. It looks like Science are taking the portal on whole heartedly and Mr Tetteh is becoming a man of legend!

In Math, a similar project has begun for the entire Year 7 scheme of work, the project is being worked on by Heather and Ron, and the framework is now in place for this piece. Again, homeworks and SOW are going to be made available to all staff and students, which will make life a lot easier!

DPA’s area of the portal is expanding with relevant lesson links for many areas, and the next plan is to move onto homeworks.

We’re planning something a little different with English, to give staff a big WOW, which will hopefully grab their attention and get them all on board. I’m working closedly with Kate for 1 lesson a week to get this up and running, and this should be ready very soon!

Other progress around college is picking up. Art are regularly using the data projector unit they have been provided with, and are regularly now borrowing a second projector so they can run 2 simultaneously! Music are now using interactive CD Roms in lessons with their new speakers, but the problems with cubase still persist! AND Finally…….MFL are using Podcasting for GCSE Oral exam practice recordings. These should go on the portal later this week!!!!!!

Personal use at the moment is centred around a piece of kit called “Revelation Sight and Sound”. It’s a great piece of kit, which allows pupils to create audio visual presentations using any form of digital media available to them. You can check out a couple of examples of the work produced on the portal, with Year 12, and Year 9. The quality of work is excellent, the pupils love it, and it can be accessed from the Portal to showcase work! EXCELLENT!

Paul Jennings the legendary Science technician dude will be undertaking rigorous training this week to become an expert in media editing. this will mean that he will be able to edit, crop and chop and media file to suit the needs of the department, leading to a more effective use of video to meet everyone’s needs!

Remeber……….training is open to everyone in college……all you need to do is ask!

The newly formed League had its first official meeting this week on Tuesday 25th January. It was a chance to meet up, discuss what projects everyone was going to work on and then begin some brainstorming to help bring forth ideas to work on. The meeting began with an introduction to Inspiration, a discussion on the various projects and then time to throw different ideas and strategies around. The following projects have been decided:

Dazza Parr: Will be working to extend and Improve the Virtual Geography site he has begun work on, leading to links and exercise that will be posted to their NTLP area!

Heather Caswell: Will be working on a 4 lesson study for KS4 maths, looking at Circle Theorems. The aim is to provide interactive content for this unit, again with links for other teachers on their NTLP area!

Mawuli Tetteh: Will be working on a series of lessons focussing on the Haber process, for Year 10. The work will have a focus on starters and plenaries, which again will be uploaded to NTLP, with a possible focus on assessment of pupil progress using VerdICT.

Veronica Pilkington: Will be focusing on an interactive Scheme of Work for Year 7, linking the current scheme of work to relevant interactive lesson activities and digitised work. This will also be made available to other staff on the NTLP!

Chris Wilde: Whilst working with everyone else involved in the group will also be working on an interactive Scheme of work for “Black People of the America’s”, which will be made available on NTLP.

Katie Fiddler: Due to illness Katie was unable to make the first meeting, however discussion with Mr Bullock has led me to the conclusion that the English project will focus on Yr 10 writing skills, concentration on a specific lesson on a writing triplet.

Work has began well, and everyone is happy with the projects thus far!

Chris