How Hwb helped teachers and pupils with the Digital Competence Framework, at St John Lloyd Catholic School, Llanelli

Darllenwch y dudalen hon yn Gymraeg

“We took a whole school approach to raising digital competence: teachers learning alongside pupils, departments sharing practice. Here’s a summary of what we did:’’

As part of preparing for the new curriculum, we invested in hardware and software so we could use mobile technology across the curriculum, taking ICT out of ICT suites and into departments. To make Hwb work for all the staff, we needed to train them on its features, tools and apps.

Learning side by side

Staff have been developing their digital skills alongside learners, helped by our ICT team rolling out all user names and incorporating Hwb into the departmental Scheme of work.

Sharing good practice between departments

We take a whole school approach to training sessions where departments showcase their digital achievements and share skills across the teaching staff.

The Geography department is taking the lead on developing use of J2data for data handling investigations.

History and Science information is displayed through collaboratively created presentations by pupils who access their work at home through the cloud on Office 365.

Cloud Storage, collaboration and online safety

Hwb lets us access cloud storage and collaborative features through Office 365 and J2E. Pupils can upload green screen videos, and share and evidence their book work with QR codes.

Pupils learn at their own pace, becoming independent and motivated learners using the OneNote application to create multimedia digital notebooks with support videos embedded; in RE they use interactive worksheets embedded into OneNote class Notebooks.

Instant feedback on discussion topics, and resources, are provided by departments via ‘Hwb Classes’.

Finally, paramount to our success with the development of digital literacy is pupil safety, and at the heart of this is our use of the 360 Degree Safe Cymru tool to ensure pupils’ digital footprints are secure at all times.

The greatest impact across the curriculum

The greatest impact across the curriculum? Using Hwb to develop oracy in our languages departments. Audio, translation and QR codes feature on J2E and develop oracy skills in Welsh across the key stages – teachers and learners have a learning conversation providing instant feedback. J2e5 has been tested within the French department to encourage Year 7 pupils to extend their writing through the use of word banks.