The de Ferrers Academy – Frog Blog

This week in Frog we have grown even more:

- Several dozen students have signed up for jobs next term as radio station presenters, news crews, sports reporters, games designers and FrogAgents…well done!

- You can now enter the FrogBox..our interactive suggestion box & voting booth. You can find the FrogBox in the Student Voice section of the VLE. This week’s topical vote…who will win X-Factor? Vote now…

- Gifted & Talented now have their own mini-website for students to access resources and links.

- Science have added the Science Blog to their revision pages. Read it here: http://defscience.wordpress.com/. You can check out what the science staff & students have been looking at and recommending…

COMING NEXT WEEK…improvements and additions to the Student Voice section, including the Council Pages and IAG gets activated…!

We have recently set up an International Climate Challenge area on the VLE. This is your chance to have your say about the future of the world – tell the government what you want to see in your area to reduce climate change.

You can find the International Climate Challenge form in your “Subjects” area of the main menu. Look for the orange hand and this will take you to the resources area and drop box. Simply download and complete the form and upload it.

It’s week 2 of our Frog VLE and web traffic is up 20% on last week…keep it up, all you Frog users!

The Science website is now live and packed with stuff, including GCSE revision resources (past papers & mark schemes, podcasts and the podquiz, BrainBlast notes and quizzes), weblinks & Science news, class notes and the Nutty Professors Science Club. Special thanks to Mr Griffiths for getting the website out in time for resit exams.

From Friday, you will be able to see the school daily notices and lunch menu on your Frog homepage. What else do you want to see?

Finally, our 1st Frog competition: RADIO DE FERRERS JINGLE…..

We want you to use your ICT skills to design some short jingles or music for our forthcoming radio station. A panel of staff & student judges will select the best one for a music-related prize.

The deadline will be 1st January 2010. Anyone in Y7 – Y13 can enter.

E-mail your entries to frogadmin@deferrers.com. Good luck and get jingling…

For those that haven’t looked at Frog yet, here is a sneak look at your new student homepage:

New Student VLE homepage

The new de Ferrers Frog VLE is almost ready to launch…this will be our second VLE, after a very successful few years using Netmedia’s MG4L, making us one of the country’s most experienced VLE users. There is already considerable excitement building, with 200-300 people logging in everyday to check it out.

On 2/11/09 we officially make the move to Frog for all de Ferrers students and staff. Parents will be able to access Frog in January 2010.

So what have we been doing behind the scenes?
- Trying various tools out with the New Technology Development Leaders, our resident ICT experts
- Checking different login profiles
- Adding learning resources in many subjects and curriculum areas
- Starting to build mini-websites for some subjects, including the learning centre

What will we be doing over the next few weeks?
- Adding even more learning resources for students to use
- Advertising for student ‘Frog Agents’ to help develop the platform, build webpages and modferate forums
- Creating widgets that can be added to your Frog area

Got any questions or suggestions about our new VLE? Why not e-mail us at frog@deferrers.com, or send us a tweet (www.twitter.com/deferrers).