Big lottery - Big plans

Posted by: mimanifesto on: September 9, 2008

• In: games-based learning | Gaming | GLOW | ICT | Leadership | Quality assurance | teaching and learning
• 3 Comments

..just had word that my recent big lottery fund bid has been successful – it means I can now go ahead and buy 10 mini notebooks and 10 Nintendo DS consoles with brain-training software for some out-of-hours school projects we want to run during this session using on-line science based games and DS maths and vocabulary games. I’ve had a great reaction from pupils through using on-line games in my GLOW groups for a number of months now and it will be great to extend this work into breakfast clubs (“feed your face and boost your brain”) after school sessions and primary school ‘roadshows’ run by senior high school pupils visiting our associated primaries.

We aim to target selected pupils in P7, and S1/2 and offer them and their carers some games-based learning to try and give them a ‘cognitive boost’ in the run up to their standard grade studies, as well as trying to help them maintain concentration and motivation throughout the school day, particularly at breakfast, break and lunchtimes. The lottery funding will play a big part in making some or all of these plans a reality.

Of course, this means that the kit will be available for use in class during the school day when not ‘on tour’ and I’m currently working with the RM ASUS mini-pc, my model of choice for this project…

It’s a deceptive little beast of a machine. No need to be a Microsoft slave either – the open office software is great and compatible with word, PowerPoint and excel. The Firefox browser is fine for GLOW, and I’ve had it working both with wireless and cabled connections. This is great because our new school building will be wireless-enabled. This machine is the 4GB one – but no problems at all with using GLOW meet, so all in all, it’s going to be another great way to access GLOW in more classrooms in our school. Widening access may persuade more teachers to come on-board with GLOW and ICT in my school and maybe this is how we have to work nowadays, being ‘creatively subversive’ with finance and budgets. Yes, the priority is for the out-of-hours and extra-curricular stuff around our learning community, but the spin-off will be felt in classrooms around our schools during normal classes.

Is this the way we should be going to get the money to buy these things? probably not in an ideal world, but lets be pragmatic here. For me, good management is all about efficiently using available resources and being creative, searching for solutions to challenging situations and leading effectively to achieve success. There is money out there – it just takes a little work and application to hunt down and tap into these sources.

And you know what gave me the idea? a section about grants and funding on one of Andrea Reid’s ( http://andreareid.wordpress.com/) GLOW pages – so a great example of the value of GLOW as medium for sharing advice and ideas with colleagues both inside and beyond our individual establishments…

About these ads

Tags: Andrea Reid, ASUS mini-pc, games-based learning, GLOW, ICT, Learning communities, Nintendo DS