The first task was to look at the ‘Historical and Strategic Context’ in which our work is carried out. The most interesting thing for me here was to discover the massive change that has taken place as government has changed. Whilst I was aware that the Coalition goverment was making drastic changes, I was still rather surprised by the total lack of guidance and the fact that we are now seeking this guidance from other sources. I’m still making up my mind whether the lack of central direction is a good or bad thing……what do you think?

The Mini-Project:

I work for an organisation called the United Church Schools Trust, a charity which manages eleven independent schools in England. A subsidiary of this charity is the United Learning Trust, the largest sponsor of City Academies in the UK. These are defined as being “state-maintained but independently-run schools… set up with the help of outside sponsors” (Shimmon, 2010). I will focus on the provision that we make at Secondary level for this task.

The Labour government (1997-2010) was hugely committed to the provision of ICT in schools. It supported schools in three key areas: the numbers of computers in school, Internet connectivity and support issues. This support was coupled with large amounts of funding and policy documents – from central government, from BECTA (British Educational Technology Agency) and at Local Authority level. The Government’s Harnessing Technology report stated that “We want every child to achieve their full potential by ensuring that every school in England makes full use of ICT for learning and teaching,” (Department for Education and Skills, 2005, p. 41) This led to some significant advances in the years that Labour was in power, but some would argue, that it also led to wasted funding. (See Alan Day’s statement in Hitchcock, 2011).

In May 2010, England gained a new coalition government. This brought with it two key changes in direction. The Importance of Teaching, the governement’s White Paper for Schools (2010) sets out the “decisive action to free our teachers from constraint and improve their professional status and authority”. There is no mention of any policy related to e-learning on the Department for Education’s website. Indeed, Valerie Thompson, CEO of the e-Learning Foundation, speaking to the Guardian said “I think if you ask education ministers for their views on ICT policy in schools, for the most part they will tell you they don’t have one.”  (Hitchcock, 2011)

The second change is related to the Spending Review brought on by the financial crisis. This led to the liquidation of BECTA (April 2011), the removal of the funding for the Harnessing Technology strategy and the cancellation of many projects under the BSF (Building Schools for the Future) banner. These are all having a significant impact on many schools.

Within the United Church Schools Trust, the commitment to ICT and E-learning remains strong. Budgets are lower, thereby imposing some constraints on spending. However, “Central Office works continually to ensure that the latest, best quality resources are in place, regularly updated and new resources and applications reviewed so that we can deliver….improved teaching and learning.”  (United Learning Trust, 2011) Within this context, the organisation works independently and with key organisations (such as NAACE) and individuals, to develop strategic policy. Important areas for development at present include: the ICT mark (an accreditation for schools who have reached nationally agreed level), e-safety, training on interactive whiteboards, with a particular emphasis on interactivity, hand-held response devices, VLE development and the Digital skills curriculum for staff and pupils (Photoshop, digital audio and digital video).

In summary, the current context for our schools is that we work to develop e-learning, which we believe to be of significant benefit to learning, freed from government constraints, but without the substantial financial support and guidance provided by the previous Labour government.

Bibliography

Department for Education & Skills (2005). Harnessing Technology. Nottingham:
DfES Publications.

Department for Education (2010). The Importance of Teaching: The Schools White Paper. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.

Hitchcock, G. (2011, April 5). What Future for ICT in Education? Retrieved November 8, 2011, from The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/government-computing-network/2011/apr/05/it-schools-england-future

Shimmon, K. (2010, May 26). What is an Academy? . Retrieved November 15, 2011, from The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/may/26/what-is-an-academy

Trust, U. L. (2011). Principles for Principals. Oundle: United Learning Trust .

OK, just checking in again. I think one of the challenges of blogging is making it a regular thing. Sometimes, I find I have nothing interesting to say. Other times, I have something interesting to say, but no time to say it! Anyway, one thing I did say I would do is to share the work that I did on the first Module of the Masters, so the next few posts will all be the mini-assignments which were submitted for ‘Understanding E-learning’, which, thankfully, I passed.

Surprised myself here – I had been and commented on some other design project ideas without knowing that this was the next task to complete:

http://mpettifer11.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/design-project-ideas-task-6/#comments

http://gemmateaches.wordpress.com/2011/11/06/design-ideas/ – I liked the way that Gemma put forward several ideas and then asked the readers to choose one. It made me feel much more involved as a reader to know that my opinion would be considered (whether she took any notice of it or not!).

I guess that in writing a blog, we want an audience. But how do we know that anyone is following us or reading what we write?

I know a couple of people have ‘subscribed’ to follow my blog? Help, I thought, that means I will have to try to make it worth people reading now!

I also looked at the stats in the admin area which showed me who was reading and following. When I put up the Word doc with the details about how to reference work, that provoked a mini peak in my profile. So, adding something that people want clearly works. I will have to work out a way of creating a voucher that gives people free chocolate – that should attract an audience!

In the meantime, I will try to be an ‘audience’ to my e-learning colleagues and go and read and comment on a few more design projects.

Last week:  I spent part of the day today looking at Blackboard Communicate. We will be having some sessions using this software as part of the Masters course and it is useful to be able to see what its capabilities are. As with any organisation at the present time, cost-cutting is on the agenda and we are looking at ways of delivering some of our courses by distance learning.

Today: Had our first proper session using Elluminate and it does have some exciting possibilities. A little slow at times, it was a good way to bring together the class and for us to have a brief discussion about progress. It was made interactive through the use of the ‘poll’ facility, allowing us to vote on a couple of questions. We also took turns in using the audio. I found this a little strange in that you are ‘on’ and it is difficult to gauge the feedback from the group with no facial expressions or comments. A little impersonal. Video could improve that but slows the bandwidth and given that it was a little broken even with just the audio, this is not yet feasible with home technology. I shall look forward to exploring this technology further through later sessions.

 

 

In Task 5, we have been asked to consider the way the blog can be used and how we are using ours. I am not using the blogs a great deal – I am finding time to have a quick flick through about once a week. One thing I have done today is worked out how to set up the RSS reader in Google, so that I can try to follow what other people are doing. Again, it will come down to time as to how much I read.  I am tending to respond to the task requests rather than posting anything else.

 

I do find the blogs more interesting to read when they contain images and links, so I am also trying to include those myself.

I have added a subscribe button to my blog, so people can subscribe by email and, imagine my excitement, when 3 people actually thought my blog worth following! (They may unsubscribe after this post!)

 

I do still prefer the immediacy of social networking, such as Facebook (for friends), LinkedIn (for professional networking) and Twitter – well, I’m not quite sure why I use  Twitter at the moment, but I’m working on it.

I hope that now I have the RSS feeds set up, I may start to find some benefit to using the blogs as well.

 

For our fourth task, I had to add some other blogs to my Blogroll. Not being a regular Blog reader, I had to start thinking about what to add. One obvious link is the link to the main blog for this course. Then I started thinking about who I had found inspirational in the world of ICT and Education. I have added a couple of links – Joe Dale is a linguist who has found some very inspirational ways of using ICT in language learning. He has a great Twitter feed, which I do already follow and through him I met up with some really fun and exciting people at Language World a few years ago. I used to be a ‘guru’ in the area of ICT and languages (someone else’s descrioption, not mine). As my work has led me away from languages, I have missed out a bit on the developments in ICT for language-learning and Joe’s work helps me to stay in touch. I have also added Danny Nicholson. We worked together at an organisation called MPowerNet and we have kept in touch since. He is a ‘friend’ on Facebook and constantly makes me laugh but I haven’t really read his blog before. There are some other candidates to be added, but I will have to find a bit more time to do some reading.

 

We have been asked to write about our skills. I have divided these into three main areas, those related to language, those related to computing and those related to training.
1. LANGUAGE

I am a trained linguist, with A levels in French and English and a degree in Russian. I also have training in Teaching English as a Foreign Language and I am fascinated by language and linguistics. I have dabbled in Spanish, German and Chinese. I still see myself primarily as a linguist and try to find opportunities to learn and teach language.

2. E-LEARNING

My computing skills are not hugely technical but relate to how computers are used in teaching and learning.

I have built up particular expertise in the use of Interactive Whiteboards. From 2002-2004, I managed a research project, based at the
University of Hull, where we developed an observation schedule and collected data from more than 200 lessons taught using an interactive whiteboard. From this we developed a CD ROM ‘The Good Guide to Interactive Whiteboards’ which went to a print run of more than 45,000 copies – for all schools in the UK and also widely distributed in the USA. The project website closed about a year after
the research concluded, but can still be accessed through the Wayback Machine at ‘The Review Project’.  (http://web.archive.org/web/20060823232656/http://www.thereviewproject.org/)

At the height of this project, I was acting as a consultant to several local authorities, a whiteboard manufacturer and government agencies. My interest lies primarily in the area of building classroom interaction – the board itself is not ‘interactive’ – it is the way in which teachers select and develop materials which makes for classroom interactivity.

Connected to this, I have also carried out research on the use of Expression Pupil Response Devices in English. Expression devices allow individual responses from students which can be displayed on an interactive whiteboard. I am currently working on a paper based on this research which I hope to find a publisher for in the next year.

I have some skills in the area of Using a VLE, Supporting distance learning and Evaluating software.

3.    TRAINING

I have worked as a trainer for nearly 15 years now, initially training language teachers in the use of ICT, and now working cross-curricular with teachers from all subjects. I really enjoy being in the classroom and spending time supporting teachers in all aspects of their computer use. I have written materials for many training courses (paper-based, online and video-based).