Redborne Upper School has deployed Paragon, an online Continuous Professional Development (CPD) tool, to enhance the ongoing teacher training and performance management process for the school’s staff and their assessors.

Developed by CPD and performance management specialists Vantage Technologies, Paragon supports teachers’ development and training requirements by allowing them to record evidence of their training in an easy-to-access e-portfolio, and their mentors to access and monitor the evidence to provide feedback on their progress.

A key benefit of Paragon is its accessibility. With all CPD information stored in a single location and securely accessible over the Internet at any time by both mentors and staff, performance and development is easier to monitor and manage. Subsequently, the appraisal process is continuous and more effective, and the overall standards of teaching and learning are boosted.

Paragon enables schools to follow recently revised professional standards for performance management more closely. Staff can log evidence of their performance and ongoing training in support of meeting the standards. Being able to rate themselves against the standards means teachers are more aware of their professional development needs, they can then create an action plan based on these needs, making training more focused. Furthermore Paragon’s unique Idea’s Generator feature allows them to access its library of resources to assist them in creating their action plans.

Nigel Croft, head teacher at Redborne Upper school, said: “Paragon helps individuals to understand their strengths and weaknesses and make more informed decisions about their training needs. It also gives mentors and the school a clearer picture of trainees’ progress, enabling us to offer more targeted in-house training by matching their skills to a training need.

“Reports can also be generated in Paragon to see how the department, or school, is progressing, and head teachers can use the this evidence to demonstrate achievements during inspections. This system will really support school improvement and it’s something I would strongly recommend to all schools.”

Traditional performance management meetings are held annually and only allow an hour to discuss the teacher’s previous and the following years’ targets. John Gunn, director of Redborne Training School, explains: “This traditional system is fraught with problems; for some it’s the only time they talk to their manager about their targets and achievements and as it’s paper based there is no transparency or easy way for senior managers to understand CPD needs or targets across the school.

“Paragon helps people at all levels see performance management as a continuous process so discussions at meetings between teacher and reviewer are much more focussed as both parties understand where the member of staff is in relation to their targets.”

Successful initial trials of Paragon mean it has gone live to around 100 Redborne teaching staff; it will be rolled out to the remainder of school staff including, teaching assistants, laboratory assistants and admin assistants later in the year.

Source: PublicTechnology.Net

UK – 25th August, 2008 -  The Institute for Learning (IfL) is calling all teachers in an LSC-funded provision not to miss the 30 September 2008 deadline for registration as a teaching professional.

In September 2007, the government introduced regulations aimed at ensuring that the further education and skills sector has a qualified, professional workforce with up-to-date subject and teaching skills.

Work-based learning providers that deliver FE provision through a contract or funding agreement with the Learning and Skills Council are required to ensure that all their teaching staff:

• register as members of IfL
• undertake at least 30 hours’ continuing professional development (CPD) each year (prorated for part-time teachers)
• abide by the Code of Professional Practice

IfL was formed in 2002 and is the professional body for teachers, trainers, tutors and student teachers in the further education sector, including work-based learning.  As an independent body, IfL is run by an elected council and works closely with several sector organisations, unions and employer bodies.  The aim of IfL is to support members and to continue raising the status of teaching practitioners in the sector.

The government will meet the full cost of standard registration for teachers in LSC-funded institutions; teachers will not be asked to pay any fees when registering. Teachers, trainers and tutors who do not work on LSC-funded programmes are also welcome, but will need to pay their own annual subscription.

Source: e-skills UK

Learn Skills will provide a range of high quality web-based teacher training courses that will address the needs of teachers from the viewpoint of CPD.

UK – 5th September, 2008 -  Teachers are split over the merits of Web 2.0 tools in the classroom, according to research conducted for ntl:Telewest Business. Half of teachers questioned believe that Web 2.0 applications, such as Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Wikipedia are valuable educational tools, yet the rest felt they are a distraction with no real academic benefit.

Tech-savvy parents are the biggest advocates of Web 2.0 in schools and colleges.

This confusion over the advantages of Web 2.0 tools in the classroom can be linked to teachers being in the dark when it comes to next generation applications. A fifth of all teachers polled felt that when it came to Web 2.0 tools, they lacked the knowledge or training to integrate them into their lessons. Another key barrier to their adoption in the classroom proved to be security concerns. Almost a quarter of teachers worry about the amount of personal information that students disclose online and their behaviour when using social networking sites.

Tech-savvy parents are the biggest advocates of Web 2.0 technologies, with two thirds of parents feeling that the tools were useful for engaging and teaching children as they encouraged creativity and helped students to develop their communications skills.

Dave Alderson, Public Sector Specialist, ntl:Telewest Business, said: “Web 2.0 has really crept up on the school system as social networking sites,blogs and YouTube have become a global phenomenon in a relatively short space of time. Many of today’s pupils live and breathe this technology, using applications such as instant messaging, Facebook, MySpace and Wikipedia every day to create content, communicate and collaborate with people worldwide. Whilst security is a valid concern, there are measures that can be put in place to address this.”

“Schools and colleges need to ask themselves if they are living up to the expectations of the digital generation. The interactive and collaborative nature of Web 2.0 tools is ideal for engaging children in the classroom and nurtures the skills and enthusiasm they have developed at home.”

According to the study, next generation applications are now an integral part of children’s personal lives:
- 54 per cent of 13 to 18 year-olds use YouTube in their spare time
- Half use social networking sites
- 47 per cent use Wikipedia

When children were asked what Web 2.0 tools would be useful at school:
- 44 per cent stated Wikipedia
- 35 per cent chose instant messaging
- 34 per cent said YouTube

However, less than a fifth of teachers used Wikipedia as a resource in classrooms and only five per cent used YouTube. Even general internet information sites only scored 14 per cent of teachers’ votes, despite the fact that almost a third felt the internet had added the most value to education.

Mr Alderson added: “Our study reveals that there is a Web 2.0 chasm between the tools that children would like to see in the classroom and what teachers are actually using. The key to using these tools effectively though, is having the right infrastructure to deliver them. Schools and colleges need to have a robust Next Generation Network (NGN) in place that can provide sufficient bandwidth and resilience to support media-rich applications and offer the necessary foundation for a collaborative, digital environment.

“Some schools and colleges are in the early stages of adoption and it is only a matter of time before Web 2.0 takes on a more extensive role in the classroom. Whether using YouTube to view the latest videos from around the world in geography, or visiting Facebook sites to collaborate with other students, schools need a provider that can help them plan, design, and implement the technology required to deliver to the digital generation, the interactive education they demand.”

LM Research interviewed 1,500 teachers, parents and students nationwide. The teachers were based at secondary schools, sixth form colleges and Further Education colleges. The parents questioned had children aged 13 to 18 years old and the children surveyed were aged 13 to 18 years old.

Source PublicTechnology.Net, for all you need to know concerning UK Public Sector ICT & e-Government news.

“These results would highlight a need for teachers to expand their understanding of ICT, outside of the standard ECDL Certificate to web-based tools that are freely available today”, said Sean Griffin, Co-Founder of Learn Skills, web-based skills and compliance training company,  “and teachers should set aside some hours of CPD to address this teacher training issue.”