16th November 2018
This week started with an interesting meeting at Plymouth Council House, for the up and Coming "The Box", this will be a museum for the 21st century with extraordinary gallery displays, high profile artists and art exhibitions, as well as exciting events and performances that take visitors on a journey from pre-history to the present and beyond, always with Plymouth as its focus.
I am really excited to be involved as a teacher ambassador and am being given the opportunity to be have a say in the education offer that this project will offer on opening in 2020. The progress on the build is going really well, you can view a timelapse of the construction work in October below. I will keep you posted on events.
A large portion of my day on Tuesday was spent figuring out the best way to register my Digital Assistants and Learning Commons Assistants when they come to do a shift with us. A rota was too restrictive and so I have devised a QR code system that will automatically send a google form saying that they are registered. This should work really well, enabling me to to reward those students who are committed to coming to help us out. Both groups of students are currently busy; the DLs have been health checking our IT rooms and replacing hardware and the Commons Assistants are currently looking at creating a careers/futures section upstairs.
2nd November 2018
It's been a long time since I wrote last. I have just been so busy, but will not use that as and excuse, really should try harder! Straight into the updates. Seascape our wonderful autonomous yacht doesn't get to wet her bow yet as the competition has been postponed until the Spring. The failing light and weather conditions have not been in our favour and so the decision has been taken to move the date back. We are however hoping to make our maiden voyage in November for the Illuminate festival. So, it has been a week of looking at wearable LEDs to see how we can light her up!
On November 20th we are launching a fund raiser through Rocket Fund
We would love to create a Makerspace in the Learning Commons.
We would like to transform part of our Learning Commons (library) into a makerspace. Part of our culture here is a desire to create an innovative and entrepreneurial culture. Makerspaces can do this by encouraging creative problem solving and an entrepreneurial mindset. Having a makerspace which is free and available to all students improves our community and the ideas that come out of it. We believe that the set up of a makerspace will:
Encourage innovation among students
Enhance thinking ability
Transform student ideas into products
Generate startups at school level
Promote hands-on learning
Support creative problem solving
Engage students within the program
Support and implement innovation
This will be for the whole school, the space will be available for all at lunch and break and we will run clubs through the week and promote the use through all areas of the curriculum.
Details of the crowd funding website will be shared, when it has gone live!
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Team Updates - so far this year, we have launched a recruitment drive and been blessed with some great new digital leaders and learning commons assistants. Each member of the team has signed up for one or more projects to either promote digital literacy or reading and reviewing literature. These will include producing documentation and test projects on the use of our green screen room and radio broadcast equipment, promotions around reading and reviewing more books, creating training on new software, creating posters and media materials for the school and training up more students to be able to help staff with technical issues. I look forward to sharing their successes with you.
This month also see's the launch of DHSB Cyber Club, a Government initiative that will inspire the next generation of cyber security experts and help to grow the UK's cyber capable workforce.
Students will immerse themselves into four phases that span hundreds of hours' worth of challenges, tasks and games that have been designed to nurture their interest in the industry and improves skills such as lateral thinking. The first phase of the programme is designed to identify problem-solving skills, logical thinking, and to spark enthusiasm for the subject, no matter what your interests are. Not to mention what huge opportunities there are in this sector for employment. To give you a flavour - can you solve the puzzle below?
First club date is Thursday 15th November. Read more here.
Review of the month - goes to Fintan Riley for reviewing 'Quidditch through the ages' by JK Rowling.
"This book was a great bit of light reading and a great addition to those who have read all the Harry potter books and are looking for something else in the wizarding world to read. I enjoyed the many easter eggs in this book,like how there was a quidditch player called Josef Wronski and he was the inspiration for a move 'the wronski feint', which Viktor Krum spectacularly pulls off in Harry Potter's 4th year, the goblet of fire."
Fintan wins a pizza of his choice, delivered to him in the Learning Commons!
Lego Mindstorms Competition - Thursday was a great day out with the Year 7 Digital Leaders, attending a lego mindstorms competition with other local schools at Mars Wrigley Confectionery. The event focused on opportunities at Mars Wrigley for budding engineers and building a fun day around STEM. Our Digital Leaders were fantastic; working well with others, being resilient when problem solving and being courteous throughout the day. They also asked some amazing questions including ones about annual turnover! The winning team included students from DHSB, DHSG, Plympton Academy and All Saints Academy. A real lesson in cooperation and collaboration. Quite a few Starbursts and Skittles got eaten in the minibus on the way home too.
And finally - Working Wednesday.... we launched this two weeks ago and it has been great. Students can eat while they complete work and it has been nice to see a different cohort of users coming in. I have been impressed with the majority of students, always polite, considerate and helpful.
12th October 2018
"Books smell. Musty and rich. The knowledge gained from a computer, it has no texture, no context. It's there and then it's gone. If it's to last, then the getting of knowledge should be tangible, it should be...smelly." - Rupert Giles
I gave up the computer for two days this week to reorganise and sort out the wonderful collection of books we have in the Learning Commons. I wasn't looking forward to it at all, it seemed arduous and dusty, but all in a days work now that I am part librarian! It turns out however, that being stuck under a pile of books, gazing over and under the covers is a quite wonderful experience. The books really do smell and I was caught in the moment, thinking about Giles the Librarian and his quote; fulling appreciating his intentions whilst still disagreeing about computers and thinking how lucky I am to work with both. I do hope though that my similarities to Giles and his adventures in being a High School Librarian, end there. (For those younger readers - google Buffy the Vampire Slayer!)
We order our books in terms of genre and then alphabetic by surname within that genre. Each shelf is now clearly labelled to help with searching and also added some short info slots on some of the authors we have, these will be changed throughout the year. It was interesting to research our most popular authors and I was pleased to find out that Naomi Novik was a Computer Scientist and game developer before being published.
Student Voice
It is really important that the students drive the Learning Common forward, after all it is their space. In order to facilitate this, I surveyed students in all years.
Interesting, when asked what they wanted to see more of; books came out on top. Followed by tech that could be hired out, Graphic Novels and then newspapers and magazines. As a result, I will box up the micro:bits and pi's that we have, with some idea sheets and make these available to hire, from the New Year.
I will also look into which magazines would be most popular and look into stocking those.
We also asked at how the space is being used by the students and if they were happy with what was going on at lunch and break time, the focus was if we should be open for everyone without restrictions, which was clearly the most popular choice.
However, when you add up the students that wanted to have work only on a couple of days with the ones that only wanted it for work and others that made sensible suggestions, they do need to be taken into account and so from next half term, we will introduce working Wednesdays.
5th October 2018
This week started with the confirmation of our competition sail date for Seascape400 (the addition of the 400 will be revealed later!). We will take to Millbrook lake on Tuesday 30th October and compete in a point to point race and a time trial around a set course of way marked points. We will compete against teams from PSCA, Real Ideas Organisation and MSubs. After the boats have completed the race they are going to be brought back to the workshop and illuminated to be part of the Illuminate Festival. This festival is going to open and close the wider Mayflower 400 programme, in November 2018 and 2020.
This week I gatecrashed the DHSB Mayflower 2020 team. This is a group of students working with the History Department promoting and organising events to celebrate the upcoming Mayflower 400 celebrations. If you are in Year 7 or 8 and want to get involved please register your interest here.
I have given all students the opportunity to provide feedback on the Learning Commons via a google form, which has been emailed to them. The deadline for this is next Thursday and I will share the results and actions based on that, on Friday.
We have blown the cobwebs off all of our social media accounts and you will now be able to get the latest by following us as dhsblearn at Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. This is a great way to find out when the Learning Commons may be closed for clubs, on that note; don't forget Code Club starts next week. Monday is for beginners and will focus on Scratch and Friday will be starting with Python. See you there!
28 September 2018
This week I will be reading City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau.
One of the challenges I gave myself when I started my new position here was to read most of the books on the DHSB Sixteen by Sixteen list, which has been updated recently to include some more contemporary works. I started last week with Split Second by Sophie McKenzie and although I found it tricky to relate to the teenage protagonists (unsurprisingly!), I did find myself unable to put the book down, particularly in the latter stages. It was thrilling and had a few unexpected twists and turns.
I would love students to review books after taking them out of the Learning Commons and will be promoting this over the next term, please see the DHSB Library Website where you will be able to review a book, as soon as it has been returned. I will be giving out commendations!
I have started buying more physical copies of our Sixteen by Sixteen list, we had some new arrivals this week. You will find them in our new Sixteen by Sixteen section.
Don't forget to check Wheelers, if you have requested a book - it may well have been ordered.
Seascape Escapades
This week we really got started on our Autonomous Yacht Project. We decided on the name 'Seascape', completely stripped the decals off the boat and have taken off all equipment. The sails need realigning and we will need to decide where best to put the GPS module and other kit needed. Also, we now need to 3D print our wind vane and bracket for the magnetic shaft encoder. We also looked at the command centre software and realised that we need to modify some connectors for our Pixhawk board.
It's been great this week to see the upstairs section of the Commons being used for lessons, we have had Art and Religious Studies using it as a fabulous learning space and I have had an induction for our new Year 7 English students in Newton house. It's been really interesting talking to the boys about their choice of books and I have been getting recommendations of the books that I should order; including more sports books and more graphic novels. I will keep you posted.
21st September 2018
Another week gone and this one has been mainly about boats - not unusual if you live in Plymouth I guess. This week saw the launch (get it!) of the RNEC competition with 14 students involved in the initial meeting, they have been briefed and are now currently thinking about the planning stage. If you want to read more about the competition then click this link.
We also brought the yacht that we will be working on for the next few weeks back to DHSB. This is how she looks now, we will be completely overhauling the design and looking for a new name. Suggestions welcome! Next steps are to take out the RC equipment and think about the best way to add the new components to make her autonomous.
We celebrated Agatha Christie's birthday this week, perhaps not quite as popular with the boys as she was when I was at school, but we still have a healthy amount of loans which goes to show that sometimes the old ones really are the best.
We Are Hiring
We have some exciting projects coming up over the next year and so this is a great time for us to increase our Digital Leader and Learning Commons Assistant team. All students in Years 7, 8 and 9 will have received a sign up email to complete if they are interested. Digital Leaders are students that help in the day to day running of our IT systems, both in the Learning Commons and out in the classrooms, supporting teachers. We are also looking for non technical support and welcome applicants who feel that they can bring something to the team. Deadline: Monday 24th September
Exciting Initiatives
There are so many amazing initiatives available for students, that it just isn't possible for me to be involved in running all of them, so I will try and cover the best ones here each week.
A good idea can come from anyone, anywhere. If you’re between 13-18, we’d love for you to join us and share your best idea using science, technology, engineering, and math. It doesn’t matter if you use pen and paper or a full-scale lab; it’s all about the idea and the thinking behind it---no matter how big or small.