Doing more with less

We all knew that cuts to the public sector would come just about as soon as we knew the results of the general election in May. What most of us didn't know is how fast the cuts would come and exactly where they would be made. I don't think anyone thought that when the Con/LibDem Government said that they would protect front line services, that this meant that the Harnessing Technology Grant would be cut by 50% in order to contribute towards the funding of "free schools". They argue that this is not a cut but a reallocation of resources from one area of the front line to another. In reality, this has meant that every school has suffered a reduction in the amount of money available to it to invest in technology for learning so that a small number of new schools can be created. Not a strictly a cut in front line resources but a redistribution from the many to the few. Such is the nature of politics, decisions are made that effect all those in education based on ideological viewpoints. This decision for all  of us who are passionate about the use of technology for learning, has immediate, direct and very tangible consequences.

I think we all expect that this will not be the end of the cuts and that school budgets will get tighter in all areas over the next few years. There will be less money for hardware, software, connectivity, professional development and training. The challenge then, for leaders and users of technology for learning is how to continue to develop an improve teaching and learning whilst having less money for these things - effectively, how do we do more with less ?

Taking a pragmatic approach and making cuts and savings yourself might be the obvious starting point. John McLear's Blog post on Seven Ways to cut ICT Costs might be a good place to start. It provides some sensible, practical ideas, such as maintaining equipment and printing less as well as the "go compare" approach of reviewing costs you are paying for existing services. I'm not sure that the idea of moving ISP away from a BECTA accredited provider to local provider is a sound one. It may save money, but probably at the cost of esafety. Not an option most schools would or should countenance.

This approach also is based on an assumption that there is waste in the first place and that schools and the people working in them are somehow not used to working within a budget, looking for best value and minimising costs. Although I am sure that there are instances of wasteful practice in schools, in my experience, teachers and subject leaders are incredibly cost conscious and many have been prudent in their approach to day to day costs as well as rigorous in their procurement processes. Remember, schools are judged under the OfSTED framework on how well they give value for money.  

The angst and frustration caused in schools by the cuts is typified and eloquently summarised by Dawn Hallybone in her Blog. Dawn, as ever remains positive and suggests that greater cooperation and collaboration between schools may be a way of making savings in the future. Groups, clusters or families of schools making collective purchases in order to take advantage of economies of scale, whether it be for hardware, software or online services is a sensible approach but assumes there is money to spend and that schools continue to work in collaboration rather than competition. Experience tells us that in times where funding is scarce, competition rather than collaboration prospers, let us hope this time round, it is different.

I too want to remain positive and offer some suggestions into where savings could be made and how we can do more with less. Here are my thoughts :

5 ways to make the best possible use of the resources we already have.

1. Interactive Whiteboards - a considerable investment, most classes have them, many of their features are often unused and therefore their potential remains unexploited.
2. Software  - many schools invested heavily in software through elearning credits. In some cases the sheer volume of resources purchased meant staff did not have time to look at what they already have.
3. Free, online and web based resources - this is a massive source of free tools for learning. All you need is an internet connection and the time to look at what is available. http://www.boxoftricks.net/?page_id=29 might be a good place to start.
4. Learning Platform - many schools have invested in one of these and again make use of only some of it's features. Time spent developing this may have greater impact than buying in new software.
5. Share - use tools such as collaboration zones, blogs, Evolve and MyEvolve (in Leeds) and twitter to share the ideas and resources you have and find the resources you need.

All these potential savings rely on two things - time and access to training or support. Here is my final suggestion on how money can be saved. Most schools have someone in them that is a fantastic user of technology for learning. They might not be great at everything, but will have some significant areas of expertise that can be shared within the school. Some time for that person to share their practice, might help others do more with the tools they already have available to them.

5 Blogs worth following

Here's a list of Blogs I follow:

From Dawn till Dusk - musings on ICT, handhelds and life - ICT teacher Dawn Hallybone's blog. Lots of useful links, ideas and reflection on teaching and learning. Interesting perspectives on game based learning in particular.

Nik's Learning Technology Blog - usually contains links to web based resources that I've never come accross before

Primary bits and bytes - Kirklees LA blog, which although does contain posts aimed specifically at a local audience, often has nuggets of good practice and useful links.

Teacher Reboot Camp - thought provoking and often challenging reflection on the use of technology for learning by a teacher trainer.

Technologies For Learning - Primary Headteacher, Mark Wilson reflects on effective use of ICT and links to a range of practical and useful resources


These are worth following because they:

• talk about learning
• are on the whole, rooted in practice and experience
• provoke thought and reflection
• link to things I usually haven't seen elsewhere
• are updated frequently
• inspire me to share my own experiences

I'm sure there are hundreds of others, if you know a good one I've missed, please leave the link for me !

Out of our comfort zone and into theirs

I had the pleasure of spending some time in Birmingham last week with Colin and Angela from Ninelands Primary school in Garforth. They have been contributing to QCDA's Primary Curriculum review and in particular the guidance on using technology for learning. When it's published, I'll post the link as there's plenty of interesting an innovative ideas and examples of how technology is being used around the country to give rich, high quality, engaging and memorable learning experience to children and young people. There's a whole page dedicated to the fantastic work that's going on at Ninelands.

The highlight of the day (Angela and Colin's company aside) was a series of inspiring presentations from teachers and students involved in the project.

The first presentation was from Dawn Hallybone, an amazingly enthusiastic, passionate teacher from Oakdale Junior School in London. Dawn spoke about the commitment made by her school to using technology in all it's forms to provide a rich and memorable learning experience for their children. She described how a games based approached to learning was used by staff at Oakdale to provide, what the children called "secret learning" opportunities. She showed how technologies, such as Ninteno Wii and Nintendo DS, which are familiar to students from their life outside school, can be brought into the classroom to enthuse students and engage them in play based learning. She gave a number of examples of games that she used successfully with students such as Myst, Curious Village and Brain Training, but stressed that it was not the game specifically that made the difference, it was the approach of putting the tools for learning into the hands of the children. She used quotes from children in her class who described this approach as "plearning" and Brain Training as "Maths in a 12v blender !".

Dawn also explained how she used web based resources to extend learning beyond the limits of the school day and beyond the walls of her classroom. She talked about her use of:

• Twitter to gather feedback from students
• Tutpup for providing Mathematics activities
• Pivot Stickfigure Animator which allows children to create simple animations

All of the above are free to use and accessible from home or school for the students. Dawn's classroom sounds and looks like a vibrant, exciting and fun place to be and she is a great sharer of her experiences through her blog and through a twitter feed.

The next two presentations were both from secondary schools, were very different in focus, but were equally inspiring. The first was from a teacher (sorry, name escapes me) from the Blue Coat School in Oldham. He talked at length about how they have developed the use of their VLE (Moodle in this case) to provide rich and extended learning experiences for their students. He described how they allowed students to use their own technology, such as ipod touch's and mobile phones to access the VLE and participate in learning and how they tracked the success of the courses they ran online through usage and access statistics. He described how this system had allowed them to continue to support students in the run up to exams, despite the school being closed during the recent winter snows. The school also uses the VLE to post video tutorials of hard to teach concepts and collects student voice through SurveyMonkey a free on line survey tool.

The final presentation was deliver entirely by three year 11 students from Saltash.net Community School who spoke very eloquently about how ICT is used in their school to engage, inspire and challenge them in order to maximise their learning opportunities (you can read what they thought of the experience here). They explained how allowing them to use their own devices in school, saved the school money and extended their opportunities for learning and how they were often given a choice in the way in which they were asked to respond to tasks, giving them the flexibility to use technology (or not) or choose an appropriate medium that they enjoyed using.

The school has it's own social network as part of the web based tools provided by the school which allows students to communicate in a familiar digital environment, through a medium in which most of them are happy using, but which is safer and more secure than other social network sites such as Facebook.

Alex, Lewis and Adam then set out a list of the web tools they see as integral to the way in which they learn:

• Dvolver - online video making
• Doink - online animation generating tool
• Photopeach - slideshow creation and sharing tool
• Wallwisher - online sticky notes board

The students also spoke at length about the range of technologies they use everyday to access learning, such as their own phones, ipods and netbooks and the tools they use for producing work including as flipcams and sound editing software such as audacity.

They gave a very clear message about how they learn best -the tools they are comfortable using and the sorts of approaches they really enjoy. It appears that Saltash school have listened to these messages and embraced technology for learning as the way forward. These three young people were fabulously engaging, clear, concise and entertaining. They were also passionate about their own learning and how they learn best. They were also very clear of the role that their teachers had to play in their learning. They said "trust us to use the technology" but teach us how to use it safely, something Saltash clearly have done well.

On reflection the main things I took away from these three sessions were that, we can really engage with the young people we teach by using the tools and mediums with which they are familiar and comfortable. This means finding ways of safely allowing students access to tools which motivate them and inspire them to actively participate in learning. These tools may already be in their pockets in the form of mobile phones and ipods. This is their comfort zone, this is where they feel at home and these are the methods that this generation use to engage with the world. In order to stay relevant in their eyes, we should be taking advantage of these tools and exploiting them to extend learning beyond our classes and schools.

It is also clear that the range of tools available is rapidly increasing and as fast as we get to grips with using one tool another may become available. The good news is that many of these tools are "free" to use and don't require anything more than internet access and a web browser to start to use them. Keeping up with these developments is a massive challenge for teachers and staff in schools, the good news again though is, finding out about useful tools and resources is becoming easier and easier and using them once you've found them is becoming easier and easier. Tools such as twitter allow a resource and it's description to be shared with the speed of a text message and blogs such as Dawn's, Mark Wilson's or this one mean that a single resource or idea can be shared with thousands of people at once.

These technologies may not be a natural choice for some of us to use and integrate into our practice, but it's clear that planning learning opportunities that involve moving out of our comfort zone and into that of the learners there are positive and rewarding consequences for both teacher and learner.

My First TeachMeet

My reflections on my first TeachMeet at the naace conference in March 2010

I’ve just been to my second teachmeet. The first time I came across this bite sized innovative way of celebrating and sharing practice was at the BETT show in January (incidentally, it was the best thing that I saw there this year) and the venue tonight was Blackpool.

For the uninitiated, TeachMeet is an informal gathering of professionals interested in the use of technologies for learning who come together to share what they are doing in a refreshingly quick, snappy and concise way. The nearest thing I have experienced to this is an open mic night at a comedy club, where anyone can get up, do their bit and then get off. It makes for a very entertaining, informative and inspiring hour or so, as volenteers, randomly selected by an online fruit machine stand up for a maximum of seven minutes to talk about what they're doing.

Contributors presented in variety of ways, some using PowerPoint others showing examples of their and others work on the big screen, others just stood up and talked. The subjects varied from the implementaion of a city wide online survey to the use of Second Life to provide online CPD about esaftey to teachers.

Contributors presented in variety of ways, some using PowerPoint others showing examples of their and others work on the big screen, others just stood up and talked. The subjects varied from the implementation of a city wide online survey to the use of Second Life to provide online CPD about esaftey to teachers. All had to stick to simple rules:

* presentations no longer than 7 mins
* maximum of 1 minute set up time
* must be focused on how technology contributes to learning
* no commercials for software

These rules ensure that the pace is fast and the focus remains relentlessly on learning. The MC for the occasion was Drew Buddie (who is known to some secondary colleagues in Leeds as a pioneer of the use of learning platforms) who ensured that the event ran with pace and humour.

The really great thing about TeachMeet is that it's so time efficient, both to watch and to contribute. For the watcher, you hear about 10 stories an hour - that's 10 good ideas that inspire and make you want to find out more. If a presentation isn't relevant to you, you know that another one will along in a minute or two, so very little time is wasted. It reminded me of our Evolve Butterflies, but in real time. For the contributor, presentations are short, so no lengthy preparation time is required. It relies on what comes naturally to teachers, their ability to explain and get their ideas across quickly and simply.

I think there is real potential in TeachMeet for sharing ideas and practice, posing questions and celebrating success in all areas of learning, not just in the use of technology. It seems ironic that the ICT in education community came up with an idea that is so relies so little on technology, but the feel of these events capture one of the great traditions of this community, the willingness to share and collaborate.

If you want to find out more – here are some examples of TeachMeet at BETT this year from YouTube - or better still, get involved with TeachMeet at the Yorkshire and Humberside TeachMeet on Friday 26th March. Details of this are on the TeachMeet wiki, which sounds a bit geeky and technical, but really isn't. Anyone can read and sign up to this site, which contains information about upcoming and past events.

Maybe we'll do a LeedsTeachMeet .....