OPLS blog

Tom Hemingway, over in Ankara (though not for much longer, sadly) has begun a wiki to help his successor quickly get to grips with coordinating the IB’s diploma programme in TED Ankara College.

He has very kindly opened this up to the IB community in general, so please take a look.

In his own words:

“This site is designed as a virtual handbook for IBDP coordinators at TED Ankara College, but coordinators
from other schools are welcome to take and use what they like. The site contents are listed on the left, and
are organized according to high school grade. If you’re new to this site, I suggest that you start with the Calendar page. You can follow the links in the calendar to relevant pages that explain the tasks.

This is very much a work in progress, but this project could lead to something of more general benefit to IB
programs in other schools. If you have suggestions for improvement, please click on the Discussion tab on
any page, or click on my icon at the bottom of this screen to send me a message.”

Thanks Tom, and good luck with your move back to the US.

Some colleagues at our research unit at the University of Bath, UK, have recently published a review of research relating to the IB diploma programme.

Briefly, its contents include:

• College entrance
• Perceptions of the IB Diploma Programme by admissions staff of universities
• Perceptions of students and graduates of the IB Diploma Programme
• Perceptions of the IB Diploma Programme by teachers and heads of schools
• Preparation for the IB Diploma Programme
• Outcomes of the IB Diploma Programme
• Policy issues relating to programme implementation
• Comparisons with other programmes
• Critical studies relating to equity and access
• Personal, social and health education

Please have a look when you have time.  You can find more information on the publication here and download the full pdf file here: A review of research relating to the IB diploma programme.

Today we launched a site we have been working on for the past few months: the IB Community Theme web platform.

It has been developed to help schools integrate curriculum planning and activities around 6 major global issues into school life … and to share results, successes and stories with the global IB community.

It is an exciting venture in terms of the IB’s digital space and our first proper foray into linking Web 2.0 concepts with community-based site development.

We hope you like it and feel able to contribute.

OPLS team.

Recently, I was alerted to an initiative by some of our diploma geography teachers - a subject-based wiki designed to support the teaching and learning of the current syllabus (guide or specification).

It’s another great example of how tools like wikis can harness the collective intelligence of the IB teaching community and an important pointer for future OCC development.

They’ve used wikispaces but it could easily have been set up on any other wiki platform.

Have a look for yourselves here: IBgeog Wiki.  Great stuff!

We knew it would only be a matter of time before the IB learning community began to inhabit media sharing sites such as YouTube and Flickr. Here are two examples we’ve come across recently - both from YouTube.

The first is a PYP exhibition sample, contributed by students and teachers at the International School of Tianjin, China.

The second example is from a TOK student in the Diploma Programme. We don’t know who he is or where he’s from, as there are no end credits, but we think you’ll enjoy it nevertheless:

With either video, we make no claims as to their adherence to programme requirements. What we do want to do, though, is use them to highlight a number of important issues.

The first is that they’re two examples of students using new technologies to get a message across and show evidence of learning. This is something we will need to come to terms with as a curriculum and assessment authority, and particularly as an awarding body, in the future. Recognising student learning, when evidence of it is so dispersed on the web, will be a real challenge for us in the years ahead.

The second is that they’re both examples of resources which can help teachers in furthering their understanding of the programmes. Discussions around what’s good, and not so good, about them are invaluable for teachers as they attempt to come to terms with programme requirements and continuously improve their practice.

Thirdly, and as a corollary of the above two points, where these examples are located will increasingly be irrelevant. What is important is how we describe them (ie what metadata will we need to establish and use in order to tag these resources?) and how we link to them (ie how can we make use of the semantic web to go beyond a closed teacher resource exchange, such as that on the OCC?)

Something to think about anyway.