Discover how schools are using Frog


For many Frog schools, moving to a virtual school model of operation is nothing new. Frog works with schools around the world and our community has encountered closure through everything from natural disasters, to severe weather patterns and even social upheaval.

In this blog we are sharing experiences and demonstrating the ways in which schools use Frog to carry on with business when the world closes down, and more importantly shape how they do things when things return to normal. 

EDUCATION BLOGS

CPD BLOG

Most popular posts
Positive changes seen in tech engagement for high school in Greater Manchester
Apr 28, 2020, 8:15 AM

Bedford High School had been using Frog for over 6 years, with mixed success in terms of getting the whole school community to engage with the Virtual Learning Environment. When the closures were announced, they realised the one infrastructure that would remain stable during the challenging times ahead was technology. With a focus on providing  home learning support for their students, Bedford High worked with Frog on a design update of their Parent and Student portals to make them more appealing and user-friendly. 

Preparation and training

The school took fast action ahead of enforced school closures, creating a clear and coherent contingency plan for how their home learning process would work. They placed Frog at the centre of this, with all assigned work to be put through their platform.

All students received refresher training to ensure they knew how to use Frog and guidance was provided for the new virtual home learning process.

The process included the use of FrogSnap as a feedback tool for teachers, enabling them to provide whole-class feedback rather than every student individually.

To ensure parents were well-informed and engaged in the process, Frog Messaging was used to keep them updated.

The impact

"The analytics were showing we had captured the school community's attention as we were seeing a six-fold increase in users."

"We have found that our users have become more accustomed and accomplished with their use of Frog and we are dealing with significantly less technical issues."

Gabriel Calwell Assistant Headteacher

The school is also using Frog to help subject leaders (SL's) to build their refined curricula. A Bedford High School Curriculum site has been devised to ensure SL's upload key resources to support their subject curriculum. This ensures all subject resources are in one place.

Summary of approach

  • Agreed process and roll-out
  • Guidance and support provided
  • Central place for all subject resources
  • Use of communication tool - Frog Messaging - to keep parents informed
  • Curriculum site on Frog for subject leaders to upload key resources

North Lakes School launches The Froggies to boost engagement.
Apr 22, 2020, 7:45 AM

After schools had closed and home learning activities commenced, North Lakes were looking at a way to encourage engagement in addition to the existing school reward system.

The solution needed to be inspiring and visible to all children on their Frog timelines. An idea was surfaced to create an 'Oscars' themed awards which would become known as "The Froggies".

Creating a buzz

In the lead up to Easter, the Frog timelines were adorned with 'coming soon' messages so children and parents became intrigued.

 

Froggies-Tweet

 

The concept

Everyone can be awarded Froggies with 5 different types to collect:

Frog of the Day

Teachers are to recommend a child they believe deserves 'Frog of the Day' through their online learning activity. These are sent to the Online Lead via the messaging system.


Froggies-Awards

Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum Froggies

Children can earn these certificates by completing their online activity on Frog. Each week the Online Lead looks at everyone's login information and awards the certificates accordingly.

The Froggies are posted to the child's personal timeline, so it appears as a notification that they can look out for. Their achievement is also posted to the class timeline and the children are encouraged to make a comment on their award.

A dedicated site called The Froggies is a place to view all of the awards that have been issued, like a 'hall of fame'. Children and staff can also share comments here and interact with one another.

Awards are also celebrated on the school's social media channels which is helping to create a real sense of excitement about who can earn a Froggie next. 

In the second week post launch, the school had received 8,000 logins which shows really positive engagement as the idea starts to take off.

Online resources shared across alternative provision MAT
Apr 9, 2020, 8:15 AM

River Tees MAT is a group of alternative provision schools. All children that attend are classed as vulnerable and therefore still attending each school each day. As many of the teachers are working from home, the learning situation is slightly more unusual compared with other schools...

Guidance and resources

E-Learning lead, Matt Holley has created online guidance and resources to support everyone. A Covid19 site has been shared to all stakeholders via a Frog dashboard - which Matt keeps updated, it includes:

  • School documents
  • Amended timetables
  • Links to external support websites
  • Home learning guidance
  • Past papers for older students
  • CPD for teachers to achieve during lock-down


Centralised 

The schools struggled to keep printed staff handbooks updated with the ever-changing Government advice. so this content was also moved onto Frog, meaning it could be updated dynamically and sit with all other resources.

 

Benefits of approach

  • Staff can access everything from a single login 
  • Information is easily updated to keep up with demand
  • Approved links to external content included
  • Supports remote teaching and well-being

Handing in paper-based worksheets when school is closed
Apr 8, 2020, 8:15 AM

Frog Assignments has the full complement of self-marking quizzes, file drop and text activities for work that's created on the computer, but Mayflower High School were looking for a solution to submit assignments that have been produced on paper...

 

The solution for them was to use FrogSnap.  Staff continued to set Assignments with the addition of a File Drop plus some basic instructions. Pupils can now prepare their written work on paper as usual, take a photograph of it using the free FrogSnap app on their phone and upload directly to the Assignment that was set for them. 

 

Feedback---Mayflower_blurred

Example from Mayflower High School

 

Submissions can then by annotated by the teacher using the Assignments Feedback feature or all work can be downloaded onto a local computer.

 

Get Started with FrogSnap!

 

Download FrogSnap from your app store...

Links-App_PlayLinks-App_Apple

 

Using PowerPoint with Assignments
Apr 7, 2020, 8:30 AM

Penistone Grammar were looking into developing a remote learning strategy before Covid-19 closures were announced, so Strategic IT Lead, Michael O'Brien had already been investigating their options...

Guidance

They prepared guidance on 'what good looks like' for their remote learning. The Headteacher outlined that for years 10-13, every hour of lesson time, teachers should use Frog to set assignments and include:

  • Instructions
  • The activity or task
  • Assessment


Method

With activities and assessments already being used within their Frog Platform, Michael had been looking at ways in which teachers could talk through prepared material. Having rejected live video conferencing because of technical and organisational challenges, he settled on a little known feature of PowerPoint.


Recording

MS PowerPoint includes a feature which allows voice recording with a presentation. Once saved, it creates a small video file which can then be uploaded as a resource attached to a Frog Assignment.

 

A guide to Assignments

 

Microsoft PowerPoint Recording a Slide Show

penistone - gif

After creating your PowerPoint assignment - use the 'Record Slide Show' functionality.

 

penistone - powerpoint

Record your voice-over in PowerPoint.

 

penistone - gif 2

Export your PowerPoint as a video.

Guest Blog: Central place for useful, vetted third party links
Apr 6, 2020, 9:38 AM

There has been a glut of free content available online recently, and although this can support home learning for our students, as a teacher I was overwhelmed by it coming at me in many different forms (GDPR seemingly out of the window) and could only imagine how parents and pupils must be feeling. Just because content is free, billed as 'educational' and promoted for home learning use, did not mean it was safe.

Increasingly concerned for pupils and their families, I took on a mammoth task to create a 'Home Learning Links' site. This is an ever-evolving compilation of links that I have visited and vetted (to some degree). As well as links, the site includes Online Safety advice provided by approved organisations such as CEOP, Childline and UK Safer Internet Centre.

With this resource created, I was keen to share it with our Penrith Hub (network of schools), so we could collaborate and share resources to keep the site maintained. 

I am happy to open this up as a resource for other schools to use, so many more pupils can benefit from it. I only ask that North Lakes School and Frog could be credited wherever it is shared.

Thanks!

 

Home Learning Portal

 

Martyn Soulsby

Leadership Team & DPO

North Lakes School - Charanga

How to find out who is logging into Frog
Apr 5, 2020, 4:00 PM

With everyone working remotely, schools have asked us how they can find out who is logging into Frog. Here's how...

 

Watch our Analytics Application guide for FrogLearn to find out how to track user activity. There's lot of graphical data you can access to monitor trends.

 

  • To find who is logging in by individual, year groups and username take a look at the VISITOR LOG FrogCode widget. You can add this to any site and find out who is logging in!

  • The Analytics Application provides you with overall trends and you can combine this with student data to see more. An Excel template has been provided with instructions for how this can be achieved.

    Download Template



Collecting coursework remotely
Apr 3, 2020, 2:51 PM

With coursework assessment still ongoing and the usual methods of feedback and collection in person no longer possible, some schools have been looking for an alternative way to collate this...

 

Whilst waiting for official advice from the exam boards, Mulberry School for Girls found their solution using the Assignment and File Drop facility to collect work from students.

Students

Receive the coursework and submission dates in their assignment menu so they can organise their work effectively.

Teachers

All work is collected through the Assignments feature and teachers can use the 'Download Files' option to download all coursework as a single Zip File. Individual student folders keep everything in one place, ready to send to the examining body.

 

A guide to File Drop

 

 

 


A guide you can share with parents to explain Frog Messaging
Apr 2, 2020, 3:14 PM

Many of our schools have been asking for a guide to Frog Messaging that can be shared with parents. For those new to Messaging, this is a feature we launched earlier this year that enables schools to communicate a message which parents can access in two different ways, via a push notification on their mobile device (using the MyFrog App) or by logging into Frog on a web browser. 

 

MyFrog App (requires a parent to download to their device)

Messages will appear on parent mobile device as a push notification.

 

Frog Browser

Parent logs into Frog using a web browser and messages will be indicated by an icon at the top right of their screen. 

 

As clear and regular communication is critical at the moment, we have provided a guide which you can share with parents to help them pick up school messages.

 

Frog Messaging - A simple guide for parents


Assignments - who is setting what?
Apr 2, 2020, 7:45 AM

You've told us that visibility is key when both students and teachers are working remotely, so here are some guides to help you!


Assignment Monitor

This application, which you can find in FrogDrive > Applications allows you to see which departments are setting work, week by week.  Assignment Monitor also lets you search for individual students, see all their work set and the marks they received.  

Learn more about Assignment Monitor

Reporting

The Reporting app is a useful tool when preparing for meetings. Heads of department can see which members of staff are setting work and be able to report on class hand-in rates.  You can run reports on students too, seeing counts for work set across multiple subjects and how much they are handing-in.

Watch this guide for more about Reporting

British School of Paris uses digital planners for teaching
Apr 1, 2020, 5:30 PM

The British School of Paris is a 1:1 iPad school, although lots of work was already delivered through Frog, they needed to think differently.

Keith Pearey, Deputy Head, created a new section on their Frog platform, with a site for each year group.  The sites have a page for each day of the week, and sub-pages for each period. Keith went through each class' timetable and added a noticeboard for every teacher. 

In short, he created a digital planner for teaching.

  • For a child, every morning they log into Frog on the iPad, they open this planner, select the current period and there is work provided by their teacher waiting for them. 
  • Teachers are free to use any resources they currently use within the school but from home.
  • SLT have a true picture of what each teacher is covering in every lesson!


Paris - planner

How one school helped structure the whole school day for students
Apr 1, 2020, 3:49 PM

School routine is important for both students and their parents, so how do you make a virtual school day work in reality?


One of our Frog Schools has gone beyond delivering transactional lessons remotely, they've transformed the whole school day! Assuming responsibility for their students from waking up to going to bed, in a bid to help them find structure in this new situation.

Using simple Frog tools, both students and parents have a routine to follow via simple timetabling of the school day, including breaks, just as they do within the school environment.

Here is an example of what they have created:

greenshaw schedule 1

 

greenshaw schedule 2

 

greenshaw schedule 3

 

greenshaw schedule 4

  • ← Previous
  • 0
  • 1
  • Next →
How you can get involved…

Frog schools are doing amazing things already, which is why we will be asking you to help us help the schools that need it. If you’ve got something useful to pass on then please send it to us so that we can include it on here for others.


Learn more
 

Featured Tweet
View more tweets