I previously wrote about our student e-council meeting held last term. The aim of this was to get students opinions and ideas on how technology should be used in school and what features they would like. This year I want to evolve the role of this group to actually taking on a hands on role with our VLE.
These are some ideas of what I’d like the group of students to be doing in my utopia.
1. Helping create the structure, layout and look and feel of the VLE.
2. Running and creating their own areas of the VLE.
3. Contributing content to their own areas and to subject areas of the VLE (specifically links, audio and video)
4. Self moderating their own areas.
5. Helping to train staff use the VLE and acting as technical support for staff and fellow students.
6. Helping to formulate a student led acceptable use policy.
Obviously this is a potentially large project and I plan to start small. The first thing I have already done was to convene the group – we had our first meeting before half term and those students that came were enthusiastic about the project. I’m still not sure which students I want to make up the group and it’s hard to get a mixture of quality and quantity. So far I’ve picked up students who I think are both responsible and have a talent for ICT but I’m sure there are other students who I’ve missed out who would be valuable assets. I’m also not sure what age students I want – originally I had a spread from all the year groups but with a diverse group the younger students can be intimidated to talk infront of the older students. In future meetings I will probably separate KS3 students fromKS4 and 5 students (to non UK readers KS3 is age 11-14 KS4 14-16 KS5 16-18). We will also meet in the morning during form periods and assemblies as students are never quite as good at coming during lunchtimes!
I’m fairly optimistic that once I find the right students and have accounts for them all to use and play with the facilities on offer, as well as a little bit of equipment for them to use (think video cameras and bluetooth for connectivity with mobiles) this will go fast. Right now though I’m stuck on the basics and we’re going to start with working on our student led AUP and see where it takes us.
Wish us luck and I’d love to hear any comments or news of people doing similar projects.
Great stuff; I am all for it – ’empowering the pupils’ to use one of those edu terms I don’t really go in for. Then it gives them ‘ownership (another one!) of their VLE. We did/do similar – take a selected band from each year group (selected by their head of year) and make them teachers on their own page (ie course)on Moodle to run for their year. Basically it’s divided into topic sections and each form (we have 6 per year) has its own section into which they add forums/choices/photo sharing etc. I did it by taking them off timetable for two hours and in that time I taught them enough about Moodle editing to keep them going – (they learned far quicker than the teachers!) Some of the older ones, as you mention in 5 above, help members of staff run their own departmental areas by uploading stuff for them. All the best with your endeavour.