Health & Wellbeing in Integrated Learning Communities

I just thought I’d share with my colleagues a little discovery I made, it really is common sense, but something you don’t really think of until it happens to you. As you know, readers I’ve been super keen on using a wiki to be a one-stop-shop of information and collaborative learning tool for everyone involved in engaging with the draft Health and Wellbeing Outcomes.

It’s my fault really, when I ensured the site was whitelisted by our ‘websense’, which was no trouble at all, I asked them to add the address www.hwbtrialling.wikispaces.com which they dutifully did. What I didn’t realise was that’s fine if you want to view it,  you can even sign in….but if you want to join it  you are re-directed to another address something along the lines of www.wikispaces.com/join which of course I didn’t request, so any one using a council machine was frustrated at not being able to participate.

I guess the problem hasn’t arisen before as most of the handful of wiki members are already fully conversant in use of wikis and already had accounts set up, so it wasn’t a problem. So I guess the moral of the tale for any colleagues wishing to use wikis as collaborative learning tools, should fully explain the extent of their addresses and usage to their authority filtering people to make sure they don’t follow in my footsteps.

Last week the group of eager subject supporters and officially trialling schools met to hear developments and share news. We were delighted to have Wendy Halliday from Learning and Teaching Scotland join us for a national picture and Donnie MacDonald Head of Education, The Highland Council.

A couple of really good points for me were firstly the enthusiasm to develop cross-curricular approaches, not exemplification or regurgitating 5-14 Programmes of Study. The second, was an observation a Secondary Head Teacher made, which was that this is all about building on what we are doing in being a Health Promoting School, whilst it’s good to support staff, allay any fears, to say ‘you are doing it all already’, doesn’t help the process of change..I’m sure you can work that one out for yourselves.

My slot on wikis I thought was great (if I humbly say so myself) until folk went away and tried to join it at work! I used the great common craft clip and a few slides (not breaking the 10-20-30 rule!) and a few great reasons for using this new fangled super duper collaborative tool.

• It’s always the most up to date version you a viewing, yay!
• Information is not scattered across inboxes.
• How documents can be seasily stored and accessed, saving emails from that annoying, ‘System Administrator -you have reached your limit’ email, boo!
• It saves endless meetings that can cost a fortune, particularly in Highland with travel
• We’re all contributing to a small community dvelopment project, learning outcomes for all of us participating and some good health ones too.
• It records revisions, so we can see just how the trialling process develops and can reflect on it.
• You can edit, work and save, click, edit, work, save click as many times as you like, whenever you like! You don’t have to be logged on to the machine at work.
• You don’t need to use shared drives for storage of documents that are jointly worked on.
• I like them!

Just a few of my tips for convincing people how great wikis are, if the saving money one doesn’t grab peoples attention, I don’t know what will.

If you want to add any great top tips for selling wikis leave a comment after the beep, beeeeep.

Have you ever thought what it is really like to leave the world of a residential care home, to be thrust into the world?

I was lucky enough to see the first showing of the National Theatre of Scotland’s newest offering and I can assure you it didn’t disappoint. It featured some of the newest crop of emerging young actors who displayed nothing but first class acting skills. The set, the music and the content was by far the most incredible play I’ve seen this year.

If you have ever seen ‘Blackwatch’, you’ll know the incredible stories the NTS produces. This play had all the same drama and ‘knot in the throat’ style scenes, the incredible dance moves. It was all the more real for me working in education and having worked in residential units in the 90’s.

The story is set around a group of care leavers and their experiences moving into a ‘independent living’ flat. I must say it was so carefully scripted with a moral tale that left a desire to make every peice of work you are involved in more inclusive. Without giving you a ’spoiler’ all I can say is that really this play should be seen by everyone working with young people as a form of CPD.

A few pointers for you..

• Do you consider how every aspect of your teaching affects those in authority care?
• How can you support young people better in their transition?
• We are all ‘corporate parents’ now matter what service you work in.
• How are ‘our’ kids doing? Something we never really say once they have left authority care. But who does ask?

The play is now touring across Scotland, check out their website for more details. I cannot recommend this play to you highly enough.