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Shortly, the updated Microsoft eBook on cost saving will be released in which Gerald Haigh, independent writer to Microsoft, has contributed to. As part of the content creation, Gerald spoke to Mike Herrity, Assistant Head at Twynham School in Dorset on the familiar theme of cost saving through paper...

Gerald Haigh, independent writer to Microsoft took a visit to Blatchington Mill School, down in Hove to see their work on SharePoint and parental engagement. Here in his own words details his trip. I took the opportunity recently to visit Blatchington Mill School and Sixth Form College , a very large...

Many of you will have heard bits of the story of Twynham School and their creation of a well-established learning platform using SharePoint. Through various case studies and presentations at conferences around the world over the last 5 years Twynham have been very fortunate to be able to show  work...

  A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit Shireland Collegiate Academy in Smethwick, West Midlands and explore how their Learning Gateway is used in a number of ways to assist teachers, parents and students alike. This is something that has now been in place over a number of years...

Educational guru and LP+ Chairman Stephen Heppell will be presenting at Parklands Primary School , Northamptonshire on 8th March 2011 to demonstrate the future of online learning and how ICT and VLE’s can transform learning and parental engagement. School leaders, teachers and students will talk about...

Office Communications Server (OCS) is finding new friends across the educational spectrum – aka Microsoft Lync. We’re hearing good things about it from the University of Plymouth , for example, where it’s used by academics to keep in touch with students away on work placements across the UK and beyond...

How much does your school spend on reprographics - paper, toner, printers, photocopiers, and the staff to run them and keep them running? I'm sure that the average secondary school is spending more on reprographics than they do on their whole ICT budget. Mike Herrity, at Twynham School, found out his...

Last week I wrote about schools using Learning Gateway to connect with parents and followed that with looking at the practical issue of making sure your data is up-to-date . The targets for schools to provide online parental reporting are DCSF & Becta guidelines, not legislation – and as such there...

Last year we worked with the DCSF and a group of schools to record their stories of parental engagement, and what they were doing to build a stronger relationship with parents in their school community. As well as the written case studies on three secondary schools ( Blatchington Mill School , Monkseaton...

I was at Capita’s SIMS Annual Conference in Nottingham in June, talking about the future of technology, and how it will impact the workplace over the next decade. I’ve been invited to give this presentation at a wide range of conferences this summer, partly because it is one way of thinking about the...

Twynham School, in Christchurch in Dorset, are a school which tends to be at the leading edge of technology – they are often one of the first schools in the UK to implement a school-wide deployment of new Microsoft releases, and the ICT team in the school always seem to be champing at the bit to take...

  Possibly the most difficult job I get asked to do is to describe SharePoint succinctly. It’s not because I don’t know what SharePoint is, and what it does – in fact, I use it extensively myself for lots of different purposes, and I see it in regular use in schools, colleges and universities. But...

Alex Pearce has dropped me a note to remind me that it’s exactly one month until the Learning Gateway Conference 2010 , on 14th July. Last year it was at The Belfry, this time it’s moved to Church House, in Westminster. Last year’s conference was well attended, and everybody I met during the day was...

Last weekend, Doug Belshaw’s “ Things I learned this week #17 ” mentioned this blog ( although with some fake reluctance ), and the post that contained the What’s new in PowerPoint 2010 for teachers video. I often read Doug’s blog , as well as listening to the EdTechRoundUp podcast , which Doug takes...

Twynham School has increasingly developed a reputation for their use of SharePoint to create a Learning Gateway for their students, parents and staff. They have been using SharePoint since 2007 and in early 2008 the systems team at Twynham School wrote a guide to the work they were doing with their Learning...

Over the last few weeks, the papers have been full of stories about school closures across the UK – naturally so, as half of all schools were shut down for at least a day by snow and ice. And it’s given impetus to the important issue of how a school that has to close can keep its children working, in...

Part seven of the series of Top 10 ICT Money Saving Tips for schools , based on my BETT 2010 presentation. Late last year, I was chatting with a group of senior leaders in schools about the amount of paper that is used in a typical school (it had been partially prompted by me, when I realised that...

Nothing like taking things right up to the wire – and this year we’ve excelled ourselves in making last minute changes to our BETT stand, in order to find a way to fit in all of the latest news onto our stand and into our theatre. But as the fitters start building the stand down at Olympia, we’ve realised...

At last week’s Learning Gateway Conference, organised by Alex Pearce and Richard Willis, Steve Beswick, gave the opening keynote where he talked about a general overview of the Microsoft UK Education business, and some of the strategies for our engagement with education, and considerations for the future...

At the Learning Gateway Conference today, I listened to Mike Herrity talking about the Twynham School’s Learning Gateway, and specifically about how they got people in their school community using it. On one of his first slides, there was a statistic that proved they have been doing things right...

I got a question from Mike Herrity yesterday, asking me about the ways that parents can be given access to SharePoint/Learning Gateway, and explicitly whether they needed their own SharePoint licences. As an aside: Mike Herrity is a deputy head at Twynham School down in Dorset, and is a great SharePoint...

For those who are going: I’m now writing my presentation on Information Security (where, if I mention losing USB memory sticks, I’ll be very clear to make sure I say Leicester City instead of Leicestershire, unlike this week at the SIMS Conference), and so if you’re going to be there, add a comment,...

During half-term week, we joined the Welsh Assembly Government at the Urdd Eisteddfod in Cardiff Bay, to launch Welsh language support for SharePoint. Steve Beswick, of Microsoft, and Meri Huws, of the Welsh Language Board, officially launched the pack with Jane Hutt, the Welsh Assembly Minister for...

Alex Pearce, from Great Barr School in Birmingham, is the UK’s only Microsoft MVP for education (MVP= Most Valued Professional), which means he has access to early product information, and worldwide communities of SharePoint specialists. A lot of what Alex does is related to his school’s Learning Gateway...

I don’t use the phrase “you should” lightly – it smacks of a My Mum ( especially when it came to giving me advice about bring up our children. You know the kind of thing “You should put them to bed at 6pm” and “You should keep them quiet” ). But in this case it’s a no-brainer to say “you should” because...