Over the last 5 weeks we have been working closely with the 15 schools participating in our Pioneer School programme for Pond. Some schools have done amazing work, coaxing even the most reluctant of teachers into Pond and some schools have been snowed under meaning Pond froze up a little. But, out of this, we’ve learned a lot. Here’s a brief summary of those key learnings.
- Once teachers have added some items to the catalogue and they get their first piece of engagement via a thought or Learning Idea added to their item, the sense of success and pride is obvious. This is one of the benefits of being part of a trusted community of educators.
- Some schools are using educational suitability like hashtags to identify not only their staff and interests but also to tag resources in the catalogue. This is a shortcut which works well before buckets are available as it means that they have effectively put a shortcut in the catalogue.
- Other schools have used bribery to effectively get their staff into the groove of using Pond, showing each week the positive effect of hand in hand professional development and rewards. At least this positive encouragement has meant that their staff are gaining a practical understanding of Pond’s capabilities and features.
- Schools who have differentiated their PD to directly accommodate the confidence and capabilities of their staff have had great success. By running small groups based on how tech savvy their staff were, these leaders were able to directly target their training for those who would use Pond.
Of course, as expected, there were some stars from each school who forged ahead in Pond while others were more reluctant. The greatest thing we’ve learned from these people so far is that persistence and support from the leaders within schools helped encourage those people into Pond. Stickers and awards to encourage best practice also went down well to jolly people along.
In response to the feedback from Pioneer Schools, our development team have pushed forward some key updates sure to keep most folks happy.
- Duplicates will now be dealt with swiftly, meaning if you try to add something already in Pond you’ll be notified and redirected to leaving a thought or adding a learning idea.
- You can now choose your email notifications sent to you by clicking on your profile in the top right corner and changing the preferences here. Of course, if you want the encouraging notifications when a new person follows you, leave it as is.
Get in, check it out, see how Pond is growing and changing.