#DLchat as a Slow Chat

Most people who know me know how passionate I am about having digital leaders in schools and the benefits they can have. I have been known to nag folk about hosting #DLChat - and posting on the digital leader network. #DLchat and the Digital Leader Network are a collaboration between like-minded people and not owned by any one person; it's the energy shown by a great community of professionals that keeps them going. 

I'm not quite sure exactly how long #DLchat has been going, but over the past few years we have had some really successful chats on a Thursday night. Some weeks have been quieter than others and lots of regular chatters have had major commitment changes over the past few years, though remain as passionate as I am about digital leaders. A couple of years ago I asked people if we should change the chat to a different night as many people had other commitments on a Thurs. It was felt at this time that it should remain the same. I do now feel that a different format is needed, to keep the chat going and to include more people. If you check out the # each week, tweeters have shared photographs, blog posts and events with their digital leaders and more of these people might like to host if they weren't tied to a Thurs night. 

When @Bekblayton proposed that we trialled a slow chat, I thought this could be a great way of keeping the chat going, whilst involving and including more people. A slow chat happens when someone poses a question, then it is responded to throughout the week. An alternative (thanks @clcsimon) is whereby the host posts a different question each day throughout the week. We can find it by searching for #DLchat and following the threads.

So now that it is more flexible, there is no excuse! Here is the document you need to sign up for hosting! When you sign up, you can state whether it is one (or more) questions / ideas / topics for the week, or whether a new question will appear each day. It's entirely up to you!


I think that this way we will include more international digital leader advocates and we can learn from each other. It also might just tempt those who are put off by the fast pace of the chat as responses can be slower and more thought out. 


So to kick off this week's slow chat, tomorrow I will be asking: 

Q1: What are the benefits of having digital leaders? 

Q2: How have they contributed to school improvement? 

Q3: What difficulties have you encountered when supporting digital leaders?

These will hopefully appear throughout the day ... 

I'm relying on others contributions, as I am now attending an an unexpected meeting on Thursday from 6pm. But that's ok, because the slow chat can continue for a whole week! So please do join in. Don't be shy or feel you can't contribute because you haven't before - all views and ideas are welcomed! We can learn a lot from listening to one another and sharing oue good ideas. 

How can digital leaders have an impact on the computing curriculum?

A post for #DLChat on 17th September at 9pm

I confess that my work with digital leaders has been sketchy over the past couple of years. I left the role of ICT coordinator two years ago, but that doesn't mean I have lost my passion for what I believe to be an asset to any school. We do have digital leaders at East Harling and I am fortunate to work with some of them in our code club, but I am not directly involved with what they do for the school. I have tried to get KS1 digital leaders going (mini DLs as I like to call them), but this has proved difficult despite their excitement about the role. Time is a problem. I aim to try again this year! The reason I am telling you this is that the following is based on experiences that are over two years old. They are still very valid and I actually feel very proud of what we achieved as a school before the computing curriculum became statutory. 

My digital leaders met at least once a week and had different areas of expertise, depending on their interests and what they wanted to learn. A couple were responsible for blogging and they updated their digital leader blog independently. They had lots of ideas, many of which came into fruition.

They hosted an open event where teachers and technicians (spot @kevin_sait!) came along to learn about the impact they have in school. I know that this had an impact as the ICT coordinator from my current school attended - and subsequently advertised for digital leaders. He has been supporting them in school for over two years now. 

So what about computing? Well I like to think that between the digital leaders and I we left a legacy of good practice. I was always quite hot on teaching the computing elements of the ICT curriculum as I knew that it was the part that teachers shied away from. Being an AST meant I had to know. I also wanted to find resources and ideas that would inspire children to engage and teachers to develop the passion to deliver confidently. So my digital leaders learned how to use - and become experts in - a range of resources such as:

• Kodu
• Mozilla thimble
• Hackasaurus
• Scratch
• BYOB
• Probots
• Popcorn
• Sherston resources
• A range of ipad apps

I'm sure there were more, but these were the ones I remember most. I did not teach them, they learned by exploring, breaking things and through trial and error. Pretty much the same way that I have learned. It seems to stick better that way. 

They taught their peers during class ICT sessions, provided staff workshops and 1:1 support (depending on the teacher's year group), provided computing workshops for teachers in our cluster, presented e-safety sessions in assemblies, hosted kidsmeets, attended kidsmeets to learn new things and participated in cluster livewriting sessions to share expertise with other children. I have no doubt about the positive impact that they have had. I am very proud of one of my digital leaders who, after two years of campaigning to get her high school to employ digital leaders, has taken on the role herself. At the end of last year she had 20 year 7 digital leaders turn up! Wow! 

Of course the impact they have had is only measurable by the anecdotal evidence from other staff members, but I know that many felt more confident to try things out after they had received training from a digital leader - or they had them supporting in class. The laptops were being booked out more, staff were becoming more adventurous with what they were teaching and the children were leaving school with a greater level of skills.

I know that schools rely on passionate staff (or young people!) to keep any digital leader movement going. As a deputy, SENDco and year 2 teacher my time is very limited. My experience with year 6 digital leaders though was that they almost managed themselves. Some of them came more than twice a week and I was quite frank that they had to work things out themselves - and they did! At times all I provided was my room, meagre tips (and only when I could sense frustration) and the fact that I was available (often marking). So if you really want to get started but are concerned about protecting your time, promote an ethos of self-learned expertise. 

In #DLchat I would love you to share your successes and struggles. Maybe we can persuade others to employ them this year and find out for themselves what impact they can have.

Successful resources for the computing curriculum

Last Thursday #DLChat focused on successful resources that have been used in the computing curriculum. I started a gdoc to crowd-source these successes and to show how digital leaders have supported delivery of the computing curriculum. Many of you will know how passionate I am about digital leaders, the benefits to them as students and the impact that they can have in school. It is great to see how schools have benefited from their skills. 

 This differs in the crowd-sourced computing document as it is not just ones that are known, but ones that have been used.  I have blogged about many computing resources and am proud to say that there are very few that I haven't tried in school - and this is mostly because they are new, not appropriate for KS1 and I only have an hour a week with my code club so haven't got round to them yet. Please add any that you know of that haven't been listed. There are lots of valuable ideas in the #DLChat story below too. 

The digital leader network: At the Norfolk ICT conference

Good morning conference attendees! I hope that you will find some useful posts on this blog, but in the meantime get involved! 
Get involved 1: Why not place a digital leader pledge to the linoit below! You can see examples of what other teachers have pledged here at the Naace hothouse last year. 

Get involved 2:
Add your answers to the answergarden.

Get involved 3:
Check out my name-dropping list too for links to marvellous digital leader/ICT work going on in the UK. 

Get involved 4: Impact of digital leaders
Read about the impact of digital leaders, according to the schools that employ them, here. Find out why Tom likes being a digital leader too.

Get involved 5: Badges If you are looking for some of the digital leader badges, you will find them here. If you would like to see some of the slides from my presentation again, you can view them here. 


If you start nodding half way through the keynote, try doing something from this blog post. Appshed is a fab challenge!

The DLN Naace nomination

It was with mixed feelings that I received nominations for the Naace impact award last year. It felt a bit undeserved as the Digital Leader Network blog is very much a collaborative effort. It would not be so successful without the time and effort that other teachers and digital leaders have put in. The people who kindly nominated me were very generous with their praise and encouraged me that this would be a positive thing for everyone involved in the DLN, so I filled in the form and said why the 'DLN' deserved an award.

I would never take credit for other people's work - I hate it when others do it - and have always been careful to acknowledge sources of inspiration. Finding out that I had been shortlisted renewed the mixed feelings I had before. Being in the same category as Chris Mayoh is difficult as he was the person who inspired me to get started with digital leaders in the first place. I wish him the best of luck - I truly believe that he deserves more than an impact award! 

I have however submitted a short film and would be proud to receive an award on behalf of all the other people, including Chris, who have contributed to the blog's success. Please excuse my Norfolk twang - I am a country bumpkin, but not quite as simple as I sound!





Take a look at the Naace Impact Awards shortlist for all shortlisted nominations. Some of my good tweeting friends, like Anthony Evans and Julia Skinner have been recognised for their hard work and contribution to the world of ICT.

Digital leaders at the Naace 3mhothouse

The digital leader network

Like many others I filled in the online form to attend the Naace hothouse, hoping to network and extend my ICT knowledge, skills and understanding. I was asked by Jan to provide a 'workshop' on the digital leader network and, apart from being a bit stunned, was delighted to be given the opportunity to spread the word again. The reason for this? In my view digital leaders are the best free resource in schools - a resource that could potentially have a huge impact on ICT development. I am passionate about this; passionate about creating sustainable solutions for keeping up with developments in an ever-changing area of education.

The workshop proved to be popular and became fully booked, leaving Nick Jackson (whose digital leaders recently led a teachtheteachers meet) without a place. This turned out well for me as it was a great way to get him up front and sharing his expertise. When I realised that Chris Mayoh was attending the workshop, I decided it would be silly preaching to an expert, so asked him to come and share his wisdom too. It proved to be a good idea as we were able to show how digital leaders are being employed in both primary and secondary. We each brought different experiences to the session and of course a change of pace is always good. You can view my prezi here, watch @ChrisMayoh's digital leader interviews here and @largerama's prezi and one of his films here. Of course these do not capture the discussions that went on, but they paint a picture of the work that is going on in our schools.

Before the session I had the idea to ask others to leave a pledge on the digital leader linoit. This would give some indication of the impact of the workshop. Incidentally, at the end of the session I asked how many teachers already had digital leaders in their schools. Two hands went up. The response to 'Who will employ digital leaders now?' was quite overwhelming. I am not surprised though. I think between us we showed the impact of a free resource available in all schools.   

Please add your pledges!

The digital leader network collaborative blog has grown in a very short time and has proved to be a good place for teachers to showcase their digital leader's great work. That is the whole purpose of the blog- to showcase, support and inspire others so that they may too employ digital leaders in their schools. Although my initial ideas about the network were very grand (linking schools across the UK and beyond) this is a solid start to spreading the benefits of having digital leaders.

So my pledge is to try and emulate Chris Mayoh's success in Bradford, in Norfolk. I would also like to host a digital leader 'kids meet' (this should have happened last year) and hopefully get our children to the Bett Show. This can only happen with support from others - and once again my twitter PLN come up trumps with their enthusiasm and drive to make this work. Yes there are a few 'negative disruptors' out there (see a great post by Jill Duman), but they are a very small minority and are easy to ignore. Nobody in this project has claimed to be the owner, initiator or leader. It will be a successful project because of its collaborative nature and because it is a good idea!

If you are interested in learning more about the digital leader network, come and join in #DLchat on a Thursday night at 9 during term time. You will meet inspirational tweeters who have been there right at the start of this project: @ICTevangelist @ChrisMayoh and @MrsMeeks64. You will also come across hard working tweeters who have given up a lot of time and put a lot of energy into this project - @aknill @largerama @traceyab1 @gr8ICT @ashmrkenyon @mbrayford @mikeyjohncarr amongst many others.

Acknowledgement must also be given to @ICTmagic and @eslweb who often help out with archiving, @JenniH68 for her hard work with edmodo and @kristianstill, @MrStucke and @bobharrisonnet for their continued support and inspiration. Thanks also to @janwebb21 for giving us the opportunity to spread the word further.

Please add your pledges!