New Challenges!

After 18 months of developing the Moodle system for Waitakere College, and finally starting to make some headway on the technical side of things, I got an offer I couldn't really pass up...

I'm now the Science Faculty Leader at Lynfield College.  More focused job description (only 1 title to worry about instead of 3!) but still a bigger job and definitely a step in the direction I want to go.

Lynfield has been very welcoming, and I feel I've settled in well.  No earthshaking changes (yet) but just working on a few little things that seem to have slipped away from the centre of focus, like Learning Intentions and Success Criteria.  The school has a very different feel to Waitak, but a very positive atmosphere.  Success builds success, and Lynfield has certainly had success with a high number of Scholarships in the Sciences last year.  The challenge here is to look at that often overlooked group "the lower middle" who want to learn and can do well, but don't get the glory and therefore miss out on the attention they need to be the best they can be.

Things to think about, systems to observe, changes to plan.

Time to make a difference out there!

SMS-LMS Interop working?

Every time you think you've got something sorted, you find another hurdle!  Musac finally sorted out why the system wasn't sending data to Watchdog, and then Watchdog wasn't able to understand the new data it was receiving  !  They finally got that sorted and finally we had data flow again.  As soon as that happened I was able to launch ParentPortal, so now caregivers are able to log into a web based service with their own unique username and password, and see all their child's school data.  Assessment Data, Attendance, Timetables, Reports. All available whenever they want to look at it.  And with scheduled updates, this data is updated each night.  Of course, the Windows Terminal Server keeps resetting my session and so deactivating the scheduled upload, but that is the next hurdle!
At the start of term 3 there were quite a few staff changes (including myself, more in my next post!) and these didn't seem to be coming through to Moodle.  Eventually, Musac managed to track down the problem.  The new teachers codes had been entered into the database as lowercase instead of uppercase!  What a pedantic system!!!  :-(  After weeks of effort, the problem was identified and fixed in a few hours, once the right people got around to looking at it.  Why they can't do it when I first ask...
So the SMS-LMS system can now handle a change in teacher during the year, can send parents daily updates of their child's school data, and is working better and better as a functional LMS.  I presented on this at the Emerging Leaders in Education Ignite Evening at the end of Term 3 and will also do so at the KnowledgeNet Conference in September.

Now the challenge is more on developing the pedagogy and culture of e-Learning at Waitakere College.  but that's not my job anymore...