It’s obvious to the data team, but can be perplexing to school executives, that the Head does not need “administrator” role in the School Information System.

While we do try to make their work as fluid as possible, executives need to understand:

• The data is very incomplete. When you look at it you are missing significant meaning that comes from our detailed practices and undocumented understandings that are the responsibility of dozens of other workers in the school. You need their eyes and experience, not just your own, to make sense of it.
• The application is very noisy. It holds millions of records – more than any person can grasp. Even gaps are significant, but not obvious. You need everything irrelevant stripped away.
• The data is fragile. Minor changes or corrections can have unintended effects on the real-world treatment of students and staff. As far as possible, we delegate that responsibility to staff who understand the significance of corrections; we wrap changes in procedures to ensure consistency between systems; and we expect the editing staff to devote time to learning minute detail of how the school handles data changes.
• The data is sensitive. Real people need effort to switch mindset as they shift from pattern-scanning in large lists to individual pastoral considerations for children or staff with confidential financial, medical, legal or pastoral notes. Inconvenience in the application works to assist appropriate caution.

This is not a flaw: it is inherent in the complexity of an organisation with hundreds of clients and accountability for millions of items of data.

The key survival strategy for executives is to deeply understand “dashboard” reports that focus on their strategic issues, and to make use of staff who have deeper awareness of the implications of the data.

Image credit: wikimedia

A talented teacher asked,

I have a student who will still require ongoing Zoom to have lessons whenever I give face to face lesson to the rest of the class with OneNote [on a big touchscreen in the classroom]. I need to know how can I give lesson to one via Zoom and the rest face to face.

It is technically possible to plug a USB microphone into the classroom PC to work in Zoom sessions.

However, it takes more than electronics. It’s easy to underestimate the expertise involved in classroom teaching. In your physical classroom you are monitoring understanding through your highly developed peripheral awareness and familiarity with classroom behavioural indicators. Evaluating learning over Zoom is hard due to restricted vision, sound, contextual awareness and the challenge of attention-switching.  To compensate, you would need to give each site equal attention, whether it be the home with one student or the classroom with 25.

We normally work hard to keep all outside distractions out of the classroom. Your in-person class may feel short-changed. And for the remote student, we cannot expect the Zoom session to be as interactive or reassuring or clear as being in your classroom.

What learning benefit do you want to provide?

How can an absent student become confident that they understand the content, or that they need to ask more about it? Students in the classroom look at peers’ work and body language. Zooming your talk to the class won’t provide that. Instead you might offer, for example:

• pair-work with another student over Zoom (using its whiteboard feature)
• recorded solution demonstrations with space for question/comment (in OneNote or ClickView interactives)
• a class space for practice-question discussion and solutions (in a Q&A forum or an open Zoom meeting)
• an audio recording of your in-class explanation of OneNote material, captured using OneNote audio
• individual followup and support.

The tough teaching challenge is working out what you can do efficiently with the time you’ve got.