For school leaders, improved access to affordable,
up-to-date equipment, broadband and fast Insights from practice
connectivity are critical. Some described an
environment where every pupil has her/his own Demonstrating the value of a particular
personalised ICT support system. This might be resource:
accessed through a personal laptop or another At the seminars, both industry and education
portable device. Interactive learning would be thought that securing value was mostly to do
facilitated by a virtual learning environment (VLE), with how well a teacher uses the resource.
incorporating technologies such as podcasts, video Schools offered examples of resources
_
often
conferencing and video tutorials. One key expensive
_
that were gathering dust. The
characteristic should be that resources better reflect integration of training with product purchase
pupils’ free-time activities: social networking, was generally welcomed. However, although
games and TV. There should be access both in and suppliers offer much of this free, there are
out of school. issues of supply cost and availability of teacher
time. Schools felt that training was not
School leaders wanted teachers to be competent in sufficiently effective where it failed to show
using a range of tools to lead and shape learning, what a product might contribute to a
not just interactive whiteboards but data voters and curriculum programme.
Web 2 technologies, such as blogs and podcasts. A
shift in teacher role to a facilitative approach was Selection of the ‘best’ resource:
deemed desirable to promote individualised Both industry and education highlighted the
learning. To achieve this, teachers need software to need for an ‘educated purchaser’ in schools.
be adaptive
_
easily edited and customised
_
and Most schools lack the knowledge, skills and
assessment tools integrated to provide feedback on confidence to make ‘best’ purchases and so
pupil progress. tend to focus most on the criterion of
‘cheapness’ rather than functionality and
Educational suppliers shared this vision. They value for money. Schools are not sure who to
pointed to technologies already available or in go to for impartial advice. They appreciate the
development to support personalised approaches, work done by Becta on procurement
such as personal devices, e-books, assistive and frameworks and specifications, but this does
voice-moderated software, video-conferencing and not help with making the best choice in every
automated assessment, plus materials that can be case.
self-authored to some extent. At best, all these
might operate as a ‘pool of assets that can be
constructed on a bespoke basis rather than one
size fits all’.
37
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