• Front Page
    • Digital Education
    • Terry Freedman's Books Bulletin
  • RSS
  • Search
    • Welcome
    • The "About" Page
    • Testimonials
    • CV/Resumé
    • My Writing
    • Published articles
  • Corrections Policy
Menu

ICT & Computing in Education

Articles on education technology and related topics
  • Front Page
  • Newsletters
    • Digital Education
    • Terry Freedman's Books Bulletin
  • RSS
  • Search
  • Info
    • Welcome
    • The "About" Page
    • Testimonials
    • CV/Resumé
    • My Writing
    • Published articles
  • Corrections Policy
Image from Pexels Licence: CCO

Image from Pexels Licence: CCO

What makes a good training day? 10 suggestions and a link

January 2, 2018

If you have had a training day on return to school after the break, I hope it was a good one. In my experience, the training day is marred by the inclusion of a session in which a guest 'expert' addresses the whole staff. The aspects I liked best were the time available to work with my team, and the time I had on my own to get things ready for when the kids returned.

If you have any opportunity to organise your own time on a training day, here's what I suggest should be the priorities from an education technology perspective:

  • Make sure the tech is ready to use. That doesn't mean you have to check it, but ask the technical support team, if there is one, if it is all ready to use.
  • Try logging in as yourself, and also as a pupil. It's better to have a nasty surprise today rather than in a lesson with 30 kids.
  • Also check if anything has changed. For example, has some software been updated over the holidays, necessitating changes to instructions? You may not have time to make those changes now, but at least you will be forewarned and can inform staff and pupils.
  • If you need to book ed tech facilities, such as equipment or a computer lab, do so.
  • Check that you have all your lesson plans, worksheets, anything else in place for when you need it for the first teaching day.
  • Check that your classroom is clean, welcoming and (yes I'll say it) exciting.

If you are the Computing/Ed Tech/ICT lead in your school, here are some things you may wish to check in addition to those above:

  • Does everyone in your team know what they are doing in terms of the first topic to be taught?
  • Do they have the knowledge they need, or will they need support in class if it can be arranged, or time to go through the material with you or someone else?
  • Are there any newsy topics that might be discussed with students? For example, have there been high-profile data leaks recently? Has YouTube or another social media platform come in for e-safety-related criticism?
  • Make sure that your meeting contains essential ingredients: tea, coffee, and a selection of cakes!

Finally, if you've had the worst kind of training day, perhaps this extract from a radio comedy show will bring a smile to your face:

In Leading & Managing Computing & ICT, Professional development Tags training day, cpd, professional development, pirates
← Here's what you missed in Digital Education...2017 Retrospective: coming soon in Digital Education →
Recent book reviews
Shortest History of AI.jpg
Review: The Shortest History of AI

How is it that ChatGPT, Claude and other Al models appear to perform so well at certain complex tasks that some people become convinced that they're sentient — only for them to then promptly fail at simple tasks that even a child could handle?

Read more →
teacher geek.jpg
Review: Teacher Geek

Every so often I like to take a look, or another look, at a book published a while ago, and today I’ve been looking at Teacher Geek, by Rachel Jones.

Read more →
Teach Fast.jpg
Review: Teach Fast

The book contains some interesting ideas.

Read more →
profits, prophets.jpg
A question of leadership

I have somewhat dichotomous views of this question of whether leaders make a difference, or much of a difference. I think my views can be classified as macro and micro.

Read more →
Making good progress.jpg
Review: Making Good Progress?

Daisy Christodoulou carefully picks apart the pitfalls of various kinds of assessment, drawing on different subject areas to do so.

Read more →
principles and practice of assessment.jpg
Review: Principles and Practices of Assessment

There is plenty in this book to like.

Read more →
effective teaching.jpg
Review: Effective Teaching: Evidence and Practice

Although this is a few years old now (2018), it has stood the test of time.

Read more →
maths library.jpg
Review: One for maths teachers

This wide-ranging book takes in probability, fractals, astronomy, Babbage, Lovelace and a host of other areas and people.

Read more →
Weimar.jpg
Reviews: Two for History teachers

Two books on the Nazi era.

Read more →
verb yr enthusiasm.jpg
Review: One for English teachers

No book about the craft of writing seems complete without a stern chapter on the importance of eschewing adverbs and adjectives - but what to put in their place?

Read more →
Dig+Ed+Banner.jpg

Contact us

Privacy

Cookies

Terms and conditions

This website is powered by Squarespace

(c) Terry Freedman All Rights Reserved