There is a truism in industry about not outsourcing a mess. The same applies to education. Commercial reasons for outsourcing are well known: improve efficiencies to increase revenue and market share; bring in external expertise; and allow managers to focus on core competencies. The same reasons apply to schools and colleges. Of particular importance to [...]
“Yeah, we use a lot of open source stuff, I quite like the philosophy,” said the network manager of a college I have recently worked in. She then listed the individual pieces of software that keep the systems running, the e-mail routing and the web content hosted. Her manager (on the SMT) naturally had no [...]
Becta is leading the Next Generation Learning campain about using technology to make learning more exiting and have a greater impact. In a recent poll of parents, they discovered: 95% of parents think technology can help their children to learn, 78% think technology can bring lessons to life, but only 63% think it can improve [...]
There is an article over on the BBC’s Click site about what it is like one year on in Microsoft’s school in West Philadelphia. There is hardly a book in sight. Every student is issued a laptop and not much else to complete their studies. Homework projects are e-mailed to all the students, and their [...]
I’ve been involved in a couple or recent projects looking at new school builds and refits. The usual situation is one where there is a pot of capital cash set aside for ICT that is used to buy computers, whiteboards, projectors and so on. The procurement and installation charges are usually considered separately from the [...]
The report ‘2020 Vision‘ was published recently. This report was the outcome of a review announced by Ruth Kelly last year and presents a vision for personalising teaching and learning for children and young people aged 5-16. It then makes some recommendations for the delivery of that vision. The report considers: Ways to improve and [...]