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A Department Website - Simon Balle School, Hertford
The aims of our departmental intranet were threefold:
- To act as a point for the ‘pick up’ and ‘drop off’ of homework
- To act as a ‘launch pad’ to geographical resources sites/images/videos etc.
- To promote independent learning
Before attending the initial meeting, the Simon Balle intranet was very basic. Each department had a page, but most were either unused or were not updated. Other than providing an overview of what was happening in the department, the intranet was an unused resource.
One of our departmental targets is to improve the setting and collection of homework. Therefore we wanted to use our departmental intranet to try and achieve this target, and act as a virtual homework setting and collection point. Our second aim was to create a ‘launch pad’ from which students could access resources and visit suitable websites. Finally we were hoping to encourage more independent learning amongst our students: initially those in KS4 and KS5, but with a view to extending this to KS3. By taking responsibility for collecting their homework online and using the ‘launch pad’, the idea was that learning would become more student-centred.
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Our school replaced its existing intranet with an extranet hosted by Uniservity. The software is very simple to use, and with limited training we were able to start organising the structure of our departmental site. We created a separate area for each year group, which was then sub-divided into areas for each module during Key Stage 3, based around the schemes of work.
Once this structure was in place emphasis was placed on the development of the year nine area, in terms of homework. An initial homework sheet was posted on the site, and students instructed to complete it online and then print it out (at the moment there is no facility to submit homework online with the Uniservity software, but our school is piloting a package called Kaleidos which may allow us to do this in the future).
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This preliminary experiment was successful with homework returns at almost 100%, although this could be attributed to the novelty factor of the intranet. Some students complained that they couldn’t access the site from home, so we responded by arranging a homework clinic at lunchtime.
To ensure that all students would be ‘forced’ to use the intranet we posted the materials needed for the end of unit assessment (a presentation on the Mount St Helens eruption) on the intranet. When asked how they felt about the intranet (in a questionnaire survey) many Year 9 students explained that they were more motivated to learn and complete their work because they were using ICT. This was an opinion held by both girls and boys. The resultant pieces of work presented in class were of a high standard (in terms of content and National Curriculum levels).
When questioned about the assessment pupils said they were enthused by the resources that were made available to them, particularly video clips of volcanic eruptions. The inclusion of an ‘assessment for learning’ help sheet was also commented upon by students, who had accessed this resource from home whilst preparing their presentations.
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| Developing Intranet Usage |
A natural progression from using the intranet with Key Stage 3 was to begin developing the intranet for use with Key Stage 4 classes, in particular to try to achieve our aim of using the intranet for more independent learning. We felt that Year 10 would benefit from using the intranet when writing their GCSE coursework.
Rather than providing the students with booklets or help sheets, all notes and guidance were posted on the intranet, along with maps and links to relevant websites. This has made the students more organised (something that they themselves have identified) and increased contact between home and school.
In a focus group comprising of Year 10 students the general opinion was that “geography coursework is easy” because of the way the writing-up process has been structured. Many liked the fact that they didn’t lose the sheets and could access the information from home. The fact that the department has access to both desktop and laptop computers during all of the Year 10 lessons has also helped promote use of the intranet, both during lessons and ensuring continuity of learning experience when pupils are at home.
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In terms of planning in the department, the intranet has had a noticeable impact. The department is currently reviewing the Key Stage 3 Programme of Study and associated schemes of work and the intranet has featured highly in planning of new schemes of work.
Although it is tempting to overuse the intranet (it is somewhat of a novelty to staff as well as pupils) we have been forced to carefully consider what we use ICT for in the department and we feel that by experimenting with using the intranet we are now in a better position to judge when it is appropriate to use the intranet to enrich the learning experience, rather than using ICT for ICT’s sake, for example using the intranet for virtual fieldtrips and for posting templates which can be used when writing up pieces of work.
The wider impact of ‘piloting’ the use of intranets within the school is difficult to assess at this early stage, but it is clear that there are some very positive outcomes. The school is a specialist humanities college, with the geography and history departments in particular working closely together, both physically (sharing an office) and in terms of what we want pupils to gain from the school ‘experience’.
While we have been developing our own geography pages, informal sharing of experience and training has been given to the history department who have commented positively on the experience. Since the whole school intranet is in its infancy we feel we are in a position to offer advice to other departments about possible ways of using their own intranet pages to inform teaching and learning.
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Drawbacks of developing the intranet have been primarily due to the over prescriptive nature of the extranet software (Uniservity), which allows only a limited number of formats for pages, in terms of structure and appearance. Pupils have identified this as an area for development, with year 10 pupils commenting that the sight contained too much “white space” or “empty buts”, there is little we can do to overcome this other than adding images to homepages.
The fact that the Uniservity doesn’t offer a tool which would allow pupils to submit homework has hindered us from achieving our first aim, although as mentioned above we are hopeful that by synergising the intranet software with new ‘Kaleidos’ software we will allow us to overcome this obstacle.
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In conclusion we feel that the geography department has started to harness the power of the school intranet, which previously had been an untapped resource. Pupils (Year 10 in particular) are now able to use ICT as a tool to further their own understanding of the subject, both during structured lesson activities and when they are working on their own either in school or at home.
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