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The
Web Wise Wapping Project
In Wapping, an area that is only one mile square, the digitally rich
work and live beside the digitally poor. The fourteen state schools
in the London Docklands cater for diverse races, religions and learning
cultures. Roman Catholic, Church of England, Jewish and Muslim children
are recognisable concentrations in a strongly multicultural group
of children. One way in which the Wapping heads are seeking ways of
inspiring all these pupils with the belief that they can achieve educationally
is by sharing their expertise to build a local community that is web-wise
and computer savvy.
The St Katharine
and Shadwell Trust which is the driving force behind collaborative
nature of Wapping social regeneration is now offering funds for
increasing IT skills in the area. By pooling the money, the heads
are able to plan a three year training programme designed to be
self-sustaining once local expertise is established.
Each year, two
teachers from each school will also be given an online Toshiba notebook
computer which will help teachers to integrate the project work
into their already busy schedules. The classroom teachers are developing
web based national curriculum exchanges with local schools, classroom
assistants and parents. In the process of widening Wapping students
horizons some projects will reach out to schools in other parts
of the UK, South Africa, the Caribbean, Washington and Ireland.
Teachers are structuring the projects to give pupils the opportunity
to use Internet technology in exciting ways that will raise the
self-esteem of pupils and achieve high levels of learner motivation.
Head teachers in the project are working together so that the transformation
of teaching methods is well integrated into traditional practices.
Senior managers and ICT co-ordinators will concentrate on web design
and maintenance of the project web site in partnership with students
and parents.
The emphasis
on international citizenship is one aspect of partnership with the
MirandaNet Fellowship. This is an organisation of leading practitioners
in the use of Information and Communications Technology in classrooms
and staff rooms. The MirandaNet Fellowship, based at the Institute
of Education, University of London, will be providing the peer mentoring,
the accreditation and the formative evaluation. New methods for
web based self evaluation are being explored by the Institute so
that the participants can measure their own learning progress, ask
for appropriate feedback and identify their learning needs.
MirandaNet companies
and organisations are partnering schools in the Web-Wise Wapping
project. All the WWW achievements will be shared on Think.com, a
web based learning environment given free by Oracle, the software
company. Think.com facilitates communication in the Wapping community
in between face to face meetings. A minimum of computer skills are
required to use this program which gives all students and teachers
an email address and an opportunity to publish their own web pages
and portfolios of achievement. Web based debates, expert hot seats,
interviews, conversations and ezines will be features of the ICT
driven initiatives that express educational vision, social commitment
and an international dimension.
Another strand
of the project is the application of ICT for whole class teaching.
Promethean's 'ACTIVboard', the interactive whiteboard system, is
being used alongside a structured training program for key teachers
facilitating innovative new approaches to group learning and the
sharing of digital resources. Toshiba are funding an investigation
of the role mobile computers play in the learning of the disadvantaged
and the gifted. The Tools for Schools Charity will be providing
good recycled computers for student and home use, also partly funded
by Toshiba. Cisco are negotiating to place IT academies in key schools
to raise the level of professional qualifications amongst students
and parents who want to improve their job prospects. Actis will
be providing web based curriculum resources. Worth Media will be
piloting interactive web based English Language programs to assist
children who arrive from overseas after the mainstream English teaching
has started.
Support from
the local education authority, Tower Hamlets, is already taking
shape in discussions that project managers are having with the City
Learning Centre. The MirandaNet team is planning bids to the European
Union, the International Lottery Fund and the World Bank so that
the remit of the project can be extended to train more local people
in IT, especially single mothers.
Together, partner
schools, companies and the St Katharine and Shadwell Trust believe
that the Web-Wise Wapping project will make a difference to community
learning and digital empowerment.
For more information
call 07 801 336 048
Or email Tanya Keable or Christina Preston.
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