Creating and Using OERs to Promote Best Practice

DEFT

• 21st century show and tell
• Creating Digital Paintings using iPads
• Creating Instructional Videos
• Creating and Using OERs to Promote Best Practice
• Digital Reporters at Camp Cardboard
• Digital video in ITE
• Exploring the intersections of digital literacy and creativity
• The use of mobile apps for digital story-telling with nursery pupils
• Using QR Codes to Engage Children with Learning
  

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One school's approach to sharing and promoting best practice using a blog

About. This lesson idea relates to the issue of using technology in a school to support the professional development of staff. A teacher from Wales school created a free Wordpress[1] hosted blog (http://whsteachingandlearning.wordpress.com) with the intention of providing a central location for other staff members to share their experiences of a range of teaching and learning approaches and resources, including those relating to digital literacy. A resource or an idea would be posted to the blog, with the other staff encouraged to add comments relating to the given resource. For instance, a post was added to the blog relating to the use of iPads in the classroom [2]. This then gave other teachers an opportunity to share their use of the iPads across the curriculum. The blog has also been used to discuss assessment for learning materials, the use of flip cameras for assessment purposes and the use of a standardised marking policy. A drop in session was arranged to introduce staff members to the blog, as well as to allow them to discuss some of the resources available for them to use in their lessons.

Pedagogical content. This lesson idea encourages collaboration^(ta) between teachers in order to develop and share practice⁽ⁱ⁾ across a school. Blogs provide excellent opportunities for children and adults to share ideas and work together. They encourage and enable dialogue^(ta) between a writer - or group of writers - and an audience, allowing for quick and easy feedback. They enable questions^(ta) to be asked and answered quickly. This example shows a blog being used to encourage discussion^(ta) to enable curriculum planning^(topic) and curriculum development^(topic).

Resource details
Title	Creating and Using OERs to Promote Best Practice
Topic	[[Topics/Curriculum development|Curriculum development]],  [[Topics/Curriculum planning|Curriculum planning]],  [[Topics/Blogs|Blogs]],  [[Topics/ICT|ICT]]
Teaching approach	[[Teaching Approaches/Dialogue|Dialogue]],  [[Teaching Approaches/Questioning|Questioning]],  [[Teaching Approaches/Collaboration|Collaboration]],  [[Teaching Approaches/Discussion|Discussion]]
Learning Objectives	To use a teacher produced blog to help promote best practise amongst staff members
Subject	[[Resources/Teacher Education|Teacher Education]],  [[Resources/ICT|ICT]]
Age of students / grade	[[Resources/Higher|Higher]]
Useful information	Using OERs to enhance sharing of good practice across the school
Related ORBIT Wiki Resources	Case Study: Using OERs to enhance sharing of good practice across the school
Files and resources to view and download	This lesson idea comes from the DEFT case study Using OERs to enhance sharing of good practice across the school. The whole case study is available for reading and downloading here: http://www.digitalfutures.org/index.php/case-studies/schools/school-case-study-7/