Implementation Road Map

Have done a lot of thinking over the last week about how we will roll out the project to stakeholders. Currently looking at the following:

TERM 1

• Initial Staff training - Training allocation from FROG to be used to develop capacity in the specialist departments (Maths, Science and Technology). Pushing for day 1 training to be early September to give a chance for departments to engage. Second training day early October - to give departments long enough to test out skills from day one and come back armed with lots of questions (hopefully). Departments will spend first term cascading. This approach will give the specialist department to lead a project that impact on the whole school - ideal evidence for redesignation!
• End Sept./Beginning of Oct. roll out Governor portal - launch at full governors meeting. Follow up training for Clerk to governors. The most powerful way of getting governors to engage is by having as many hooks into the system as possible. Dissemination of all agenda's/minutes via FROG. Set up initial discussion forums to engage governors between meetings.
• October - lots of subliminal emails out to staff and students to market FROG
• End of October - Release job specification to students, inviting them to apply for roles of FROGWARDEN (forum moderator's/think tank), Web/Flash developers, Subject support. Get at least some FROG wardens in place before the main launch event.
• Launch to students during Technology week (3/11/08)- high profile event, item in newsletter; to be followed up by letters home to all students
• Establish regular meetings with FROG champions (specialist departments)
• Develop in house support materials - tutorial video's etc, students are encouraged to be independent learners. Staff should be the same!
• Conceptual thinking on school management portal
• Discuss transition portal requirements with primaries (Mid Nov/Dec.)
• Establish student voice portal - approach Media Studies to support E-Zine
• Establish parent focus group to work on shaping the parent portal. Initial portal to go live before Christmas with access to some MIS data
• Specialist departments to have migrated resources from Learning Resources to FROG by end of term
• Update SDP and produce action plan to secure accountability of departments
• Specialist departments to have functioning portal up an running by end of T1 - staff using lesson planning tools

TERM2

• Specialist departments develop working partnerships with other departments to cascade knowledge, understanding and skills - support with resource development
• All departments to have a web presence on FROG and be using it to support learning
• Twilight INSET sessions
• Develop transition portal
• Work on migrating college website to FROG
• Further development of Parent Portal
• Rationalise network shares and remove

TERM 3

• Develop school management portal
• Embedding culture of E-Learning
• Review of progress year to date - trigger evaluation cycle

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Implementation meeting with FROG

Have spent the last couple of weeks thinking about FROG sub-consciously most days. At every opportunity I have had, I've been scribbling notes on my tablet, recording voice memos on my phone and reflecting on ideas every night to formulate a vision as to what the Costello implementation of FROG will look like. We've tried to build in elements of innovation from day one, thought carefully about key functionality that will act as hooks in for staff - driving a desire to want to use the system. What have we ended up with - loads of journal notes on my tablet along with graphic assets that will come together to shape the implementation.

The meeting itself was about 3 hours with Jonathan North from FROG - the level of detail I had gone to in preparation really helped Jonathan secure the vision that we were trying to encapsulate in the design. I had looked at some of the other implementations FROG has worked on with other schools and cherry picked elements that I thought worked and were representative of our ethos as a technology college. The storyboards and site maps I had put together really helped the meeting progress. The process was very much two -way with Jonathan offering clear advice and offering alternative suggestions that may enhance the end user experience. We went through in some detail the staff, student, governor and parent portals. Jonathan went away with a clear idea of what we were after - along with a CD of the resources I had put together. The whole process can take up to 14 weeks. Jonathan said that the initial storyboard and concept boards would be turned around in a week or so. These would provide the college with the opportunity to feedback and make alterations before the server went to build. We are looking at the server being commissioned during the first week of term in September.

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