UPDATES:

Following the new Frogbox update, you will be able to use & share the new calendars, with coloured overlays, as well as being able to ‘froggerise’ yourself with the new Frog avatar builder.

WASSUP:

Wassup is our new virtual billboard. Check out all of our homemade adverts, posters and banners to find out what’s happening and what’s upcoming at de Ferrers.

E-LEARNING PORTAL:

The New Technologies team now have their own special pages. You can post your comments and ideas, watch training and ‘how to’ videos, look at our best pick of websites and teaching tools and ask the experts. If you’ve got a problem and no-one else can help, maybe you can call… The E-Team…

COMING SOON…

• Our CPD portal…everything you ever wanted to know about how to use AFL, Differentiation and the Accelerated Learning Cycle.
• The SEN portal for staff
• The de Ferrers daily – a virtual morning newspaper for tutor time – what’s happening and where?

Catch us at the Frog National Conference at the ICC on 14th June.

You will be able to download the presentation and handouts, including ‘20 great things to do with your (Frog) VLE‘, from our website: www.deferrers.com/conferences.

http://www.frogtrade.com/index.phtml?d=2289032

Some of the new things this term are:

EXAMS PORTAL:

Updated information for staff and students about GCSE exam dates and arrangements, revision lessons, common exam guidelines and who to contact in the event of problems.

We will soon be expanding this with the Sixth form exam portal.

PLANS PORTAL:

Our revamped launch page to access all of our Medium Term Plans (formerly Schemes For Learning),   Short Term Plans (formerly Lesson Plans), resources, exemplars and deadlines.

COMING SOON:

• The CPD best practice portal with video clips, graphic organisers, forums and e-mentoring
• The E-Learning ‘ask & tell the experts’ portal
• ‘Wassup’ – our guide to events & what’s happening this term at deferrers – a virtual billboard
• The Repro zone – a cost-effective way to request work from reprographics
• Olympics 2012 interactive pages

…and more…!

One thing that hasn’t changed is the popularity of our Frog VLE. It continues to get a lot of use by staff and students. There’s a lot progressing behind the scenes, but a few obvious changes are:

NEW LEARNING PLATFORM TOOLS – Staff can now use Frog to link directly to Bromcom’s Webfolder for electronic registration and also to our new APP package, Classroom Monitor. The de Ferrers platform has grown considerably in recent years, and Frog is now well at the heart of everything – check out the graphic!

TALK TO THE HAND! – Mr Hand, the new head of KS4 Achievement & Guidance, has introduced his ‘Talk to the Hand’ section for Trent students in years 10 and 11. Each week there is a newtheme in assemblies and tutor groups can now discuss the issues amongst their class and send Mr Hand their comments and thoughts. It’s a very effective way to incorporate student voice on a number of levels, from individuals to whole campus. We have similar pages coming soon for Dove Voice and the Student Council, making use of the new Frog tools.

SUPPORT FOR Q.E.M.S. – de Ferrers is pleased to be partnered with Queen Elizabeth Mercian School in Tamworth, and as part of out support we have been helping them to set up their Frog Learning Platform, with a lot of the same pages and widgets we have developed. Both schools are now part of a Staffordshire Frog cluster, meeting occasionally to share ideas and good practice.

ENGLISH LITERATURE mini-website - English staff have been working with our New Technologies Development Leaders to launch their new sixth form website:

COMING SOON:

• e-learning games and our student games-design group
• Sports Report pages..by de Ferrers students, for de Ferrers students…

The World Cup resource as blogged about in the previous post proved very popular. Lots of students had a go at the quiz, with a number of students getting all of the questions correct. England came out on top in our “Who will win the World Cup” poll, followed by Spain and Brazil in second and third spots. Only another four years and we can do it again!

Work has begun on the Student Council pages which will be up and running by the start of next year and there are plenty of other new sections and features in the pipeline. We will bring you some more updates nearer the time.

Staff & Students can try the World Cup quiz & top the leaderboard, view facts and stats about the World Cup finalist countries and the South African stadiums in our interactive Google Maps mashup, vote for who’ll win and post their views on the matches…all that plus a countdown clock!

Next week we also launch the redesigned student front pages, with better access to new hotlinks and the message feed from staff. Well done to the Student Council & Dove Voice for their views and ideas!

Here’s the official results of our Frog VLE Election 2010 votes and student voice…a brilliant resource.  Popular with a lot of students and well used in CPSHE lessons by Y11.

Thanks again to Paul Evason from Haybridge High School & 6th Form for coming up with the template and sharing it.

Will the real election results look anything like this???

We are about to unveil our new Learning Blog widget, allowing students and staff  to share thoughts as part of self & peer assessment, learning diaries, book reviews, etc. We hope to upload this very soon to the Exchange area of the Frog Community for other schools, as well as a few other goodies…

Next job…our interactive World Cup 2010 VLE pages…the thinking hats are going on now!

Following on from the success of our Young Designer KS3 voting website, we have now opened it up to Young Designers at KS4.

Four pieces of work are on display from the Young Designers who have each been assigned an anonymous number to make the voting fair. Every student at de Ferrers is invited to decide who deserves to be the Young Designer, so get voting.

You can access the voting centre by going into the VLE and clicking the Young Designer button under the “Subjects” section.

Here is an overview of the new web pages and details of where you can find them on the VLE:

Creative Arts Website

The Creative Arts curriculum area website is now live and a link can be found in the subjects area.

The website is being updated with resources, news and photo galleries for Art, Drama and Music.

General Election 2010

We have also set up an Election 2010 mini-site. Thanks to Paul Evason from Haybridge High School & 6th Form for creating this resource and making it available via the Frog Exchange. (You can read their blog Here).

The website provides general information by linking directly to BBC web pages and also allows students to share their thoughts and views about the General Election.

We have adapted Paul’s version slightly to include our own Frog Box voting system. A link to the Election website can be found at the foot of the student homepage.

Revision Zone

Last, but not least, is our Revision Zone. This web page provides links to external websites that will help with revision, these are split into the following categories – KS3, GCSE, A Level, IBDP, General Advice Tips & Preparation and Revision Timetables.

There is a forum which can be used to share your own revision tips and links to revision websites with other students.

Students can now select a DT option and ask for help, guidance and advice from some volunteer mentors. Most of the GCSE and A level options are now represented.

We’re already seeing some excellent responses to this – well done!

We hope to start using this approach soon in other curriculum areas.


Education News:

Staff and governors at de Ferrers now have their own one-stop shop for education news and webslinks, agggregating all of the news feeds into one convenient webpage.

We will soon be making a one-stop revision and study page for students.




Young Designers:

DT are celebrating the work of KS3 designers by dispalying some of the best work and inviting their peers to cast their votes.

Check below for the current winners…

Since the last blog post we have been busy working on some new sections of the VLE.

Recently we have been experimenting with the use of surveys within Frog to collate feedback from our VLE users. Using the built-in form components we have been able to create surveys that use a variety of radio buttons, tick boxes and text areas. After a successful trial with de Ferrers staff, the PE curriculum area have now launched a student survey which is open to years 7-11. The survey allows students to share their opinions of Physical Education at the college.

If you are a student in Years 7-11, you will find a button on your Frog Dashboard after you login which will take you directly to the survey.

I am sure you will see some more surveys appearing on Frog soon, we are also working on some new widgets, so watch this space!