A Student Council representative is meeting with the Edtech coaches to discuss setting up a GESS student page on Facebook.

German class for advanced students:
they’re doing film analysis and media comparison in the Google Classroom.

Whether it’s at lunchtime, in free periods, or whenever there’s a moment to spare: the teachers make good use of the opportunity to ask the Edtech coaches for advice or tips on using digital media in the classroom.

The teacher is getting a year 6 class started with using digital textbooks: ‘So you don’t have to carry so many books around any more!’ Getting everyone through the complicated registration procedure required by the publisher Klett takes ages. But then the pupils are tremendously keen, showing admirable focus as they flick through the book and zoom in on content.

There’s a big assembly in the gym – the GISB turns fifteen today. Many happy returns!

A group of students is doing internet research to create a ‘sway’ on the UK’s political system. It takes them a while to find useful websites and images, but there’s a lot of energetic discussion going on too.

The Edtech coaches are running a mini-workshop for teaching staff on the quiz software Socrative and how it can be used in class.

The students have the task of preparing a presentation on Napoleon. They’re doing research online, but I can see lots of open textbooks too. One student is looking for a diagram like the one in her textbook – finding one, she pastes it into her presentation, commenting: ‘This way I know it’s a good illustration.’

Those students who want to are taking coding lessons in the science room with the MIT’s Digital Literacies project, learning first steps towards programming.

The teacher displays a pre-prepared worksheet, his own creation, on the interactive whiteboard and enters the answers given by the students using a digital pen.