One if the first tasks I had when I started in my new role was to help staff use the school LMS. The staff were familiar with it and had been using it for about 18 months however as their thoughts moved to the upcoming year ahead it was timely to revisit their use of it.

However I was brand new, no one knew me and importantly I did not know much about the staff. This meant running formal workshops or mandated sessions based on things I thought were useful was not going to be a good way to approach this. So Snag A Shelly was born. Announced at morning briefing to many giggles staff could book me for 30 minutes at a time where they could work 1:1 or with a small group of their choosing to have their questions answered, to have specific help setting up pages or time to explore how elements can be used for and why/how.

When the Head of the Chinese Language faculty approached me with an idea it was pretty exciting. Her team had allocated some time at the start of every lesson to do some engaging, fun language activities that got the students engaged and ready to launch into their learning. The idea was to use that time to connect with digital resources.

So we started by introducing staff to 3 tools they could build games, quizzes and activities in - Quizlet, Kahoot and Blabberize - with a key feature being that they could all run in Chinese. This meant the staff could explore ones of interest, making and sharing resources between classes.  The next step was to teach the students to make resources so they could start adding to the games available - all whilst practicing and refining their Chinese language skills!