Online and interactive in the classroom
Forward-thinking schools are abandoning traditional instructional techniques in favour of an exciting multi-media approach. Dean Carroll reports
Transforming the UK education system from meeting government exam results targets to a new era of online interactive learning is the challenge ahead for school leaders. In some institutions, such as Ninestiles School in Birmingham, students are already being encouraged to embrace innovative learning streams with names like "globality" and "discovery", through the use of multi-media platforms.
Innovative techniques include specific user-friendly web platforms for each school project and the use of green-screen technology and podcasts to allow students to make their own videos and audio clips, acting out scenes from classic novels like Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde. These elements help teachers to reach a generation of digitally literate students now living through the prism of technology and the internet.
Elsewhere, at Sunbury Manor School in Surrey and the Costello Technology College, Hampshire, online primary portals – provided by software firm Frog – have been introduced to allow prospective students to access all the information they need. Moderated by prefect teams and mentor students, these websites host teacher profiles as well as chat forums to give pupils at feeder schools the chance to ask questions and voice their concerns to their more experienced peers.
Sunbury Manor deputy headteacher Pete Dando reveals that 90 per cent of prospective students logged on to the portal in 2008, with 90 topics being discussed in 450 online posts on subjects ranging from travel directions and lunch arrangements to school uniforms and detentions.
Explaining the other benefits, Dando says: "Because everything is online we saved money as we no longer had the cost of printing school information booklets. But it is mainly about instilling confidence in new students by ensuring that they have all the advice that they need and that there are some familiar faces when they arrive on the first day."
Sunbury Manor is also planning to implement a parent portal and teacher blogs. Asked how he ensures that the 30 per cent of families without internet connections are not left behind, Dando says the printed school newsletter still provides parents with all the necessary information and contacts while government schemes are providing computers to the most disadvantaged homes.
The digital agenda is also being driven by government agency Becta, which has ordered all secondary schools to install online monitoring of students by 2010. Head of institutional management at Becta, Simon Shaw, says this will allow parents to get regular updates on their children's performance, attendance and progress – rather than having to wait for parents' evening or receiving mobile phone texts when there is a problem.
"This is a new world we are entering and the idea is backed up by all the unions as well as ministers and parents," he adds.
"It will have a positive impact on learning and actually save schools time while improving communication. At the moment, only 16 per cent of pupils share information about their day and 82 per cent of parents want to be better informed.
The possibilities are endless, according to education consultant Sir Dexter Hutt – a board member of the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust. He calls for headteachers to be creative by staying ahead of the technological curve "against a backdrop of globalisation and a rapidly changing world". 
