Merlin – feeling like a wizard’s apprentice!

Today was the first day’s training to become a Merlin mentor.  The aim of the day was to familiarise ourselves with the interface of Merlin and navigate the all the tools, widgets, files and pages that it contained.  The title of this post reflects my initial thoughts as I had difficulty logging on (my error, not Merlin’s) – didn’t bode well!  But eventually we got down to business and explored how Merlin could be tailored to suit our school’s needs.  I have to admit that the driver for embarking on using Merlin is mainly due to two reasons, the first being the major ICT infrastructure overhaul we are intending to install and secondly, the parent online reporting that is due to be up and running by December 2012.  These reasons combined with wanting an ‘umbrella’ by which we want to link our existing website, blogs, staff share drives etc etc.  Because of the changes in our ICT infrastructure, I had already designed a spec as to our ICT vision and what we want basically which formed a good foundation for today’s course.

We were asked to bring an admin person as well to enable a different perspective on the  proceedings.  This worked well as they could ask questions that were pertinent to their issues and dilemmas.  I can see that the role of a Merlin mentor in a school of our size (402 children and 30+ staff) will be a massive undertaking and will require patience and tenacity if the school is going to gain the maximum impact from such a venture.  It’s part 2 of 3 next Thursday, where the teaching and learning aspects will  be implemented on our pages.  I am ever hopeful that my ‘apprenticeship’ will extend to me becoming more proficient at Merlin and learning about all that it has to offer if only to decide what we need and don’t need.  Watch this space…..