Climate change and sustainability - these issues are at the forefront of most people's minds nowadays as it becomes more and more obvious that we need to change the way we live. In the long-term, changing the way young people relate to the planet we live on and ensuring they understand the effect we have on it is vital if we are to make the changes we need to.
As teaching and learning is transformed through the use of ICT, we need to consider the fact that, according to Gartner, IT accounts for about 2 percent of CO2 emissions worldwide (the same proportion as the aviation industry) and PCs are responsible for 40% of the total carbon emitted. As the Government is aiming to have all school's 'carbon neutral' by 2016, addressing the carbon emissions your technology is responsible for will obviously have to play a big part in that.
One of the articles here last year told how the power saving features in Windows Vista can help cut costs and save power and the Brockenhurst College case study demonstrates how they have saved thousands of pounds and reduced their carbon footprint by overhauling their IT infrastructure and implementing Windows Vista and Office 2007. If this was a project implemented by the students at Brockenhurst, then it would have been a good candidate for The Observer's Ethical Kids Award, which is for "school groups or individual students who are making a difference with their sustainability projects."
The first school to win was Meare Village Primary School in Glastonbury, for their pupils work on a sustainability project to improve waste removal, school food and transport. The 2007 winner was Stratherrick Primary School in Inverness (no website - they only have 2 teachers and 26 pupils!), who wowed the judges with the sheer number of sustainable initiatives on the go in their school under their “Great Grounds Galore” project, which included a 6ft greenhouse made from 1,500 used bottles.
The competition entry deadline is 14th March - the competition is for students under 16. Part of the prize is £6,000 grant to carry out another project.
We were talking about where the responsibility sits for ensuring that software installed on school's computers is properly licensed. And what surprised me was when he told me about the situation with computers provided under the 'Computers for Pupils' (CfP) scheme - the ones that schools allocate to students and give them to take home. Because they are still owned by the school, not the pupil, apparently the school is responsible for proper licensing of these computers, even once they've been handed over to pupils. I found this difficult to believe, but apparently it's no different to employees' computers provided by an employer - for example, your staff laptops. So if you're students go installing additional software, and it's not properly licensed, you're held accountable!
Tim quoted Becta's words to me: "As the device is actually owned by the school the licence issues are the responsibility of the school. Our advice to schools is that they have a stringent acceptable use policy that should contain policy with regards downloading software onto a device owned by the school."
We were talking about this as Tim was telling me about Parago - a web-based software suite which allows you to monitor hardware and software changes to a PC, whether they are in school or at home. I don't profess to understand how the software works - it sounded too good to be true, until I saw it. It has been developed in conjunction with schools, who've provided feedback on what features they want to see in it.
But it isn't just designed to track down illicit software - it can be used to track any assets (like whiteboards, projectors etc) - and the software tracking feature can also be used to ensure that software installed on a school PC is appropriate - which might come in handy with both student and staff laptops!
You can find out more about the software on the IT Vision website, which includes case studies of both primary and secondary schools.
Dave Whyley, in the Wolverhampton E Services team, is well-known in the education community for his passion for projects with mobile learning. The Learning2Go team have been active in Wolverhampton since 2003, and each year they've produced an annual report on the progress. This year's report contains a number of case studies in which teachers, parents and pupils reflect on what it means for them. Dave is always keen to impress that the project is not about experimentation with a particular mobile device, but instead is all about a new approach to learning in the 21st Century. After 5 years, the project team is looking forward to moving out of 'project' status, to become a fully-fledged, and fully-embedded part of Wolverhampton's BSF project.
You can download the current, and previous reports from the Learning2Go website
If you've ever felt there must be a better way to do things, or your teachers are always saying they need more time, then our next Live Meeting at 3.30pm on Thursday 28th February is a must for you.
As teaching, learning and the day-to-day running of schools becomes more and more dependent on the use of ICT, it's vital that you and your staff know how to get the most out of your technology so you can be as efficient as possible. Knowing the quickest way to do things, instead of finding out through time-consuming trial and error, can help make your administrative and IT staff more productive and save them precious time. It can also free your teachers to be more creative with their time to ensure that lessons are as engaging as possible, and enable your students to concentrate on the content of the work they are producing rather than on how to work the technology.
This session will provide time-saving and efficiency hints and tips and look at what’s hot in Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 to help you make the most of the applications on your desktop. These few simple tips could save you hours, which in today's time-pressured world has got to be a good thing.
Steven Audis, Education Technology Adviser, will be presenting once again so register now and then all you need to do at 3.30pm on Thursday 28th February is logon to view and listen to the meeting online.
If you'd like to see any of our previous Live Meetings or see what's coming up over the next few weeks, you can find this info on our Live Meetings page.
I have to admit that I feel a bit of a Luddite when it comes to some of the more technical sides of IT - and my mind was pre-programmed to believe that things that involved "virtualising" anything were too technical for me. But, over the last year I've come to realise that I've missed the change that has gone on with the world of virtualisation - the idea of running multiple mini-computers within one bigger one; or running an application on one computer, but displaying the screens on another. It's the kind of dark art that I had thought was reserved for big datacentres (do people still wear white coats in them?), but more and more I come across it in more 'normal' situations.
Chris Page, at Warwickshire local authority, is obviously a fan of it - he's using it to provide support for schools, and their pupils, across the county. What it allows the IT team to do is distribute new software applications across the schools, without having to send a technician out to visit them. So, if a new version of SIMS arrives, they can make it available for users quickly, or if they find a new bit of software for teaching, they can make it available to teachers for evaluation - all without going near the computers of the schools and teachers involved. It helps them improve the managed ICT service for schools by streamlining application delivery and improving security for remote access to school networks. And IT technicians are freed up to focus on delivering better support, while teachers can easily evaluate innovative new software on school computers.
It uses a clever bit of software, called SoftGrid Application Virtualization. In a nutshell, it allows you to install an application on one central machine, and then "stream" it down to other PCs when they want to use it - without having to install it on those PCs. So, a teacher could use a virtual version of Office 2007 for training, but still have Office 2003 installed on their laptop.
According to David Banton, the Network Manager at Avon Valley School “SoftGrid has made our IT environment extremely flexible and saved us significant costs. Once an application has been sequenced it can be accessed by users anywhere in minutes.”
Chris and David worked with us to produce a case study, which explains how it helps the school and the local authority, which is available on our worldwide case studies website.
Chris also published a more detailed case study on Avon Valley School, on the Warwickshire team's website
But up until now, it's been called Windows Live SkyDrive Beta. I've just received an email telling me that it's been officially released, and the size has been increased to 5GB of free storage!
Anybody can get a SkyDrive, as it's free - just sign up for it using your Windows Live/Passport ID, and you too can have 5GB of file storage online, with file storage areas for private, shared and public files. Gone are the days of moving files between home and work with a USB drive (which inevitably got lost somewhere between the two places).
Imagine - all of your students currently carrying their data around on a USB memory stick (and busily plugging them into USB ports all around your school?), could be using this. What would it cost you to give every one of your students 5GB of Internet-accessible storage on your network?
More info on SkyDrive
I had a down trip to Wales today (from rural Oxfordshire), visiting the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT), part of the University of Glamorgan. I was invited to talk with the Blended Learning course, on the subject of "Transformed Education", and later to talk to an audience from local schools.
At this point, you might wonder why I might be doing this. After all, what right have I (we) got to tell others what Transformed Education looks like? But the theme of 'transformed education' isn't about me telling others the way it is going to be, but instead it's a story about how the world of learning is being changed by new technologies, new student skills and attitudes, and new approaches to institutional structure, and what the implications of all of these things could be.
If you want to see what I covered with the schools, the presentation files are all available below.
Looking back, it is likely that we will view the era from 1950 to 2000 as something of an aberration in the history of learning. The "factory schools" built around the world of during that era saw learning confined to rigid boxes.
And then, when the heading changes to "New Learning Strategies Fueled by Technology", he says:
In the 21st century, education is embracing a new, exciting, engaging, effective future. New technology has played a huge part in this, not only because of the new opportunities it brings to the classroom through personalisation, but also because it allows students and teachers to quickly and effectively swap great ideas with one another.
His last paragraph concludes:
Like Dorothy and Toto in The Wizard of Oz, learning is being whisked away on a whirlwind of change and imagination. When it touches back down to earth in another 10 years, the education landscape will certainly look significantly different than it does today. This report provides some intriguing clues as to what we might see instead.
You can download the full report, or just read sections. Stephen's views are in the "Innovative Learning" section of the full report, on page 102, but the whole report contains a global insight into projects which are supporting the changing model of learning we're seeing everywhere.
I know it's half-term. And that means that one of the great things about it is that the corridors are quiet, and you get a chance to hear yourself thinking.
But not everybody wants you forgetting your students....
As part of the Byron Review of Children and New Technology, the DCSF have launched a competition for children, to give them the chance to tell others about staying safe and having fun when using the Internet and playing video games. The announcement dropped into my inbox on Friday, and the deadline for the competition is Sunday 3rd March! The competition is for children to tell others how to be 'Netsmart' or 'Gamesmart', or to get out their art kit and design a cover for the report due out at the end of March.
The prize for the winning children is to have their entry included in the report, and to come down to London to the launch.
More info on the competition is on the Byron Review home page, along with a downloadable flyer for the noticeboard (next Monday, when the corridors are again full of newly-energised students).
Hmm, thinking about this, those schools who haven't yet moved to the Standard School Year may already be back - the odds are stacked in their favour!
One of the most popular pages on this blog is the Shift Happens presentation, which I tailored for a UK audience. The original US version has been viewed on over 3 million times on YouTube now, and I am regularly coming across people who have seen my UK version at conferences and meetings.
You can download a video of the presentation, or a PowerPoint version, from this blog
When I'm working, I'm constantly reminded of some of the references it makes to a changing world. This morning's reminder was actually from my children. And the slide it reminded me of is the one where it says "There are 2.7 billion searches performed on Google each month", and then asks "To whom were these questions asked before Google?".
I'm working at home today, and it's half-term. Normally the two are compatible - I settle down in the study, close the door, and can carry on uninterrupted. But this morning was different. About half an hour ago, my children were battering down the door to tell me about the frogs. Frozen solid in our garden water feature. Encased in a 2-foot-square block of ice. And they were worried that these six frogs were dead. (When you see a frog soup in the middle of the country's largest ice cube, you kind of get that sinking feeling). But a quick search on the Internet (Live Search of course) revealed that frogs can freeze solid, and then when they defrost, they carry on life as normal. And so a few buckets of warm water later, we've got six happy defrosted frogs hopping around the garden. How would I have known that before Internet search engines?
I'm working at home today, and it's half-term. Normally the two are compatible - I settle down in the study, close the door, and can carry on uninterrupted. But this morning was different. About half an hour ago, my children were battering down the door to tell me about the frogs. Frozen solid in our garden water feature. Encased in a 2-foot-square block of ice. And they were worried that these six frogs were dead. (When you see a frog soup in the middle of the country's largest ice cube, you kind of get that sinking feeling). But a quick search on the Internet (Live Search of course) revealed that frogs can freeze solid, and then when they defrost, they carry on life as normal. And so a few buckets of warm water later, we've got six happy defrosted frogs hopping around the garden.
How would I have known that before Internet search engines?