Digital Leaders

I am excited to have been invited by Kristian Still to be involved with developing the idea of ‘Digital Leaders’ in school.  Digital Leaders is an initiative started by Kristian Still at Hamble College in Southampton.

To quote Kristian: “The Digital Leaders are a group of students from Hamble Community Sports College that lead innovative ICT practice and regularly meet as part of the Digital Media and Gaming Club. They contribute to ICT innovation and curriculum development and contribute to school ICT policy.”

Kristian has styled this on the GenYES initiative in America.  Digital Leaders could be considered ‘Digital Prefects’ – developing their own leadership skills whilst promoting IT across the school, setting a sterling example to younger pupils as they go.  The wider roll-out of this scheme is being promoted by the Vital Project, a nationwide initiative to promote ICT in schools from the Open University.

Since being asked at the weekend to partake in the scheme my mind has been racing.  My current thoughts are that I may open applications to the position of Digital Leader to Years 9-11.  I would wish the leaders to be either already taking ICT or Media at GCSE/BTEC level – or planning to do so.  I like the idea of Leaders being appointed for one school year only, and reapplying for their posts the following year.  I hope to find around 15 leaders for the rest of this school year.  I would like the team to meet perhaps once a week, looking at their ICT/Media work, initiatives that I am working on with staff, and some of the more fun aspects of our digital lives.  We have strong Media & ICT departments and I hope these pupils and this initiative can drive them on further.

Ultimately I would hope that our Digital Leaders could act as flag bearers for both ICT and Media as an option at KS4, and also I hope that they can have a great impact helping me develop the IT skills of our staff and our pupils, pushing eLearning across our curriculum.  They will also help develop the Media output of our school, something I will come to in a forthcoming post.

Kristian scored something of a coup with his project last year, securing sponsorship of his program with Lenovo.  They helped fund a Lenovo Netbook for each of the digital leaders.  If I could secure this kind of backing myself it would give the scheme a fantastic kick-start.  I will be emailing some of our suppliers the document attached below, if anyone is reading this and would like to get involved I would obviously be delighted to hear from you!

Open letter to potential sponsors:

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