Yesterday, I wrote about the Innovative Schools videos – four schools, two hours of video, 187 pages of supporting documentation and hundreds of ideas.
The question from day one of the project was “How do we make this digestible?”. You know the situation – somebody has a great series of videos, so they pop it onto a DVD and then post one to every school in the country. I’m pretty sure that within reach of your desk, you’'ll have one of those DVDs in a folder – from an acronym organisation like Becta, NCSL, DCSF, QCA or SSAT – which you feel you really must get round to watching some day. But you haven’t found the time yet – even though it arrived two terms ago!
Well, we wanted to avoid that. So we won’t be giving away DVDs at BETT, or sending your head teacher a folder for her to pass on to somebody else.
Instead, we’re going to let the resources sell themselves. We’ve put together a great trailer video, which gives a bit of an insight into what’s in the full videos – it is designed to appeal to those who are itching for change, as well as those who aren’t. It will hopefully sell the idea that change can be good and can help raise standards. And it will challenge those who think that they can resist change!
But you can judge that for yourself. I’ve been fortunate to present this video to a wide range of people in 1:1 briefings, and have seen a range of positive reactions. But letting you watch it is the ultimate test:
(If you’re not using Silverlight – shame – then here’s the direct link)
Does it get you interested in the rest of the work? The whole website is open for you to explore…
If you noticed any similarity to Shift Happens in a couple of the student statements, then you’re not mistaken. When I created the UK version of Shift Happens, I hadn’t really understood how many people would be downloading it, emailing me, and showing it at conferences. (If I had known, I’d have changed the iPhone photo for sure!). But given the way that Shift Happens went completely viral – and the way that the slides I’d added for the UK Education audience have been referenced in so many other places – I thought it was worth developing the story further. I don’t know yet if this video has the same power as Shift Happens, but one of the lessons learnt is that it, and the rest of the material, doesn’t emphasise Microsoft – that’s one of the reasons we’ve branded it very differently. We have tried to be very balanced, and present a great school story – it is definitely NOT a Microsoft story.
Last week, we announced the availability of the Innovative Schools video case studies. Although they were on the web earlier in the year, we weren’t ready to tell everybody about them until we’d completed all of the work on the website. But now, that’s been done, so I can tell you all about what’s there...
Earlier in the year we were asked to produce a series of ‘deep case studies’ for use by schools around the world. The goal was to go way beyond our normal style of case study, which looks at what schools have done, to focus on how they had done things – what were their stories of success and what lessons had they learnt on their journeys.
We identified four UK schools who’d been using ICT in innovative ways, and who had learnt lessons worth sharing. The schools were chosen for their differences – urban & rural, successful & less successful, primary & secondary – to ensure that whatever your situation, you would be able to find things which are meaningful for you. The schools we chose are:
And then we started work – with a film crew, an education journalist, an education researcher, and a small team from within Microsoft – to record the schools’ stories.
We received fantastic support from the schools, who made available staff and students, and even arranged for parents and governors to be interviewed. We ended up with nearly 40 hours of interviews, and then had to start the hard task of boiling their whole story down into reasonable size chunks – reducing 40 hours to a couple of hours (and even now, I want to find a way to also share some of the things that ended up on the cutting room floor).
One way that you could judge the quality of the result is the words of Jim Knight MP, Minister of State for Schools and Learners when he commented in our press release
Innovation is core to ensuring that the UK education system is positioned at the forefront of learning globally. By focusing on the journey made by each school through the eyes of teachers, pupils and parents, the Innovative Schools case studies are an extremely useful tool to excite and inform the education sector about what is possible while providing a forum for the discussion of best practise online. With resources like this, we hope that all schools will be able to incorporate IT effectively, building on the success of those that already do. The four schools being profiled by this programme should be very proud of these achievements and the fact that they will encourage others to follow their lead across the world.
We decided to focus on nine chapters, and each school’s story is broken down in this way to make it easier to use:
The results, which you can see on the Innovative Schools website, is a series of videos featuring the voices of head teachers, deputy heads, classroom teachers, students, parents, and local authority staff. It is schools telling their own stories, and sharing the lessons that they have learnt along the way – and their approach to innovation.
Over the next fortnight, I am going to write more about these case studies, and what can be learnt through them, but for the moment, pop over to the website, and take a look at one or two of the materials there.
These stories are good to watch/read if you want to know what other schools are up to, and especially useful if you are looking to convince others in your school of the need for change, or to have a dialogue about what change could look like. There are so many individual interviews that I could pull out to look at, but for the moment, just take a look for yourself. I’ll start pulling out my highlights tomorrow!
I had a look back at my blog statistics this morning, and thought you might be interested to see the Top 10 blog posts from this blog – just in case you missed any of them
Feb 08
How robust does a laptop for education have to be?
View
I can’t vouch for these being the absolute best of my blog posts – but I do remember them all as being interesting ones to write!
Anyway, happy reading.
Woke up early this morning. I don't get a daily newspaper delivery, and it was absolutely bucketing it down - hence no trip to the newsagent. So instead I settled down with my TES to catch up with all the latest news. And suddenly I found myself staring at a reference to this blog - in the "5 things to think about this week" section.
Somebody at the TES has obviously been reading the blog, and referred to all of the Information Security posts that I've been writing recently. So, if you've arrived via page 37 today, then welcome!
If you're looking for the information security information, then start on this page - it's got the latest posting, plus a link to all of the other blog posts about information security. Mind you, if you're reading this at the weekend too, get yourself a cup of tea first - it's a long read!
And if you want to skip straight to Ed the Fed's article, jump here. (Ed the Fed is the Microsoft UK Chief Security Advisor, and as his nickname suggests he's got an interesting background that means his advice is robust!)
Whilst we're on the subject of the TES, which drops through my letterbox every Friday, here are my thoughts, for what they're worth: What I like about the TES: The Magazine (even as a non-teacher) The "5 things..." section The stories about the latest teacher who's ended up in front of the GTC (this week's is astounding!) The analysis (this week, the Jim Knight article is great, and you know something's going right when the unions praise a minister!). What I don't like about the TES The FE section never seems to tell me anything really useful. I wish I could get the version without the Job Ads, because my bin is always full with those on a Friday night. They really haven't managed to re-capture the Ted Wragg moment - the back page which always made me smile
Whilst we're on the subject of the TES, which drops through my letterbox every Friday, here are my thoughts, for what they're worth:
I go away on holiday, and suddenly tons of things get announced. Hurrah. I should holiday more!
Alongside all of the Windows announcements (the first public view of Windows 7 and the new cloud-computing platform, Windows Azure), we also previewed the Office Web Applications which will be included within the release of the next version of Office in early 2010.
For schools, this seems an important development, as it will mean that you will be able to have complete transportability of documents and work (with complete fidelity*) between home and school, regardless of whether your students have Office at home or not, or have an older or more recent version than you use in school.
First Look: Office 14 for Web
I don’t think that moving to web-based Office applications is the right thing for everybody, in all circumstances, because a lot of what students (and teachers) do today involves a rich mix of media and data, and it would be wrong to assume that everybody is online all of the time. But it provides another element of flexibility. It’s still a year away, but the Beta will be available sooner, and we’ll all get the chance to play with it and see what it can do.
* With complete fidelity: This is something that I think is quite important to students & teachers. If I create a document where the pictures all line up, and it looks perfect, I don’t want to transfer it to another piece of software which makes it look different. Sometimes (but decreasingly) I get that experience moving between Office 2003 & Office 2007, but I have seen some wild changes moving between different applications which use .odt, simply because there doesn’t appear to be a standard way to implement an open standard! What the team demonstrate on the video above is that one of their clear focus areas it to ensure that when you move from the Office suite to the web suite, and back, it retains all of the information, and all of the formatting is consistent.
Twynham School in Christchurch (a particularly lovely and genteel part of Dorset) were happy list night, as the school won one of the Becta ICT Excellence Awards. Shortlisted earlier in the year, they were up against very stiff competition – the shortlist contains some of the very well known names that pop up in the media and ICT in Education magazines all the time.
It was therefore even more fantastic that they scooped the sole award for the “Learning beyond the Classroom” category . They have done a huge amount of work to enable parental access to information, and have found plenty of new ways to connect parents to their children’s learning, as well as improving many of the processes of parental communications through their innovative parental portal.
As you can see, it was a black tie do last night – and Assistant Head Teacher Mike Herrity is obviously happy with his award. I’m worried about Dave Coleman (on the left) – I think that perhaps he’s realised that a heavy weight of expectation now sits on his shoulders for next year!
Becta's mini case study is here.
I was down in Dorset earlier in the year to visit the school, but to my shame haven’t really written much about them here, so here’s my chance to right the wrong!
They have been enthusiastic in developing their portal, and also in creating mini-sites that share their work with others. If you go to www.twynhamschool.com/supportinglearning you can get a really good idea of everything that they are up to – with PDFs, PowerPoints and even videos of parts of their system.
The videos cover many different aspects, and you can see a walk-through of how the school have implemented:
Online Parental Reporting
The team at Twynham have created a parental reporting site that fully meets, and goes well beyond, the expectations of the DCSF’s Real-Time Reporting targets, and parents are able to login and see the latest attendance information, as well as a neat analysis of attendance for individual subjects, as well as the timetable, and grades from the latest review or report. They can also download full reports historically.
One of the nicest things about their site is that they’ve realised that many other schools will be interested in what they have done specifically on online reporting, and have created a mini-site just for this so that you can see it for yourself. You can see what they have done, and the web-parts they have created to merge information from the MIS system, on the link below:
ww.twynhamschool.com/onlinereporting
With the current rush to implement Learning Platforms in schools, to meet the Government targets, there’s a sense that the purpose of a learning platform is being forgotten a little – I’m starting to see research which says “Schools have learning platforms, but aren’t sure how to get the strategic value from it”. If you’ve got the time to look at what Twynham have shared, I’m sure that it will help you to understand the true potential of creating a Connected Learning Community (and how the Learning Gateway can help you get there)
The full list of winners isn’t on the website yet, so hopefully I’ll hear more from other schools soon
The Becta website has all of the winners on it now - take a look at the full list on http://awards.becta.org.uk/display.cfm?page=2024
As you may know, I enabled Windows Vista’s BitLocker encryption on my laptop a couple of weeks ago, and since that time I have been reassured to know that should something happen to my laptop, all of the data on it is fully encrypted and secure. The whole process was very smooth – I simply enabled it in the Control Panel, and the encryption happened in the background over a morning. If you’re thinking of doing something similar in your school, for your teachers’ laptops, you would benefit from reading an excellent TechNet article written by the Microsoft IT team – they’re the people that keep all of our in-house IT systems running.
The article deals with both the technical, and managerial issues, of managing the introduction, and also gives a unique insight into the challenges of change in a very tech-savvy environment. And the article is incredibly honest about the challenges faced, and the lessons learned. Here’s an extract":
Lessons Learned Lessons learned during Microsoft IT's BitLocker deployment include: Microsoft IT tried to retrofit the environment with BitLocker. A better approach would have been to move forward with new computers and then upgrade only existing computers that had the highest security risk. Microsoft IT thought BitLocker would be easier to deploy than it was. Microsoft IT relied on the BitLocker Preparation Tool to handle all aspects but found during testing that it failed in some situations, primarily due to locked files when trying to shrink the partition. Hardware needs rigorous testing at scale. Computers that test well in a lab environment sometimes yield different results in a production environment. In other words, one computer in a lab might look fine but thousands in the production environment have variance, such as differences in the BIOS. Recognizing high-business-impact data is a difficult, industry-wide issue. Few tools are available that enable organizations to find the types of high-business-impact data that users have on their computers.
Lessons learned during Microsoft IT's BitLocker deployment include:
Read the whole article here, and if you have time take a look at the whole IT Showcase section – a large section of the website in which the Microsoft IT team share their experiences in running a complex IT infrastructure (The “How Microsoft IT reduces costs” section is especially interesting)
BETT 2009 is on the horizon already – only 69 days to go* until 14th January.
For most exhibitors, it’s more than “on the horizon”, as it’s been “the day job” for a few months already, as we’ve all been planning how to show you things that make you swoon interested at the show!
Inspired by Steve Clayton’s “PDC2008: Dear Boss” blog post, I thought it we should have a “Dear Boss” letter for BETT – something which points out what a fantastic investment a day (or two) at BETT is. So here’s my attempt at a handy template letter to get you out of school for the day/week:
Dear {Enter Your Head’s Name Here}, I enjoy my job and have always appreciated how well you manage me. As you know, I don’t ask for much. I am a humble employee with simple needs, and I would like to attend the BETT Exhibition in London on 14th-17th January next year. And I'd like to invite you to come with me this year! Wait! Before you respond, let me explain. This is not the typical exhibition that is more about a day out of school than about learning. BETT is where the best and brightest come together from schools and from the educational technology industry. As well as our chance to see what’s new (and help us to make the most out of our ICT budget) it’s also a chance to listen to the experiences of lots of other schools, and learn from the things that they’ve done well, and also from the lessons they have learnt along the way. Remember when we found out that the whiteboards were too high up the wall for our pupils to reach? Well, we might not have had to get the caretaker premises maintenance manager to move them all if we’d had the chance to talk to other schools about their experiences. And you know that you’re always complaining about the deluge of paperwork and acronyms? Well, we’ve got the chance to go and hear seminars that will tell us what the next set of initiatives and acronyms are going to be all about – QCA’s Primary Framework, DCSF’s Universal Home Access programme, BECTA’s Next Generation Learning, and OCR’s Digital Literacy Curriculum. Who knows, perhaps we’ll get the chance to be one of the first to take part in a new initiative (like you so wisely say “the early bird catches the worm and budget” in these new programmes) But it isn’t just the exhibitors and the speakers; it’s the other attendees. These are some of the smartest folks using the same tools and technologies we are, and facing the same challenges we have. We can learn a lot from them and see how they have overcome issues we have run into. I keep reading the blogs (on my own time, of course) and everyone says that networking is one of the top reasons to attend. I promise we won’t come home empty handed. We will come back with a ton of information from Becta, DCSF, QCA, SSAT and other agencies, as well as a pile of useful information for every subject department in the school. Finally, I know we'll come back inspired. BETT is where the government and the education ICT industry lays out its future strategy. You had the most spectacular idea yesterday about how we need to be a little more transformational. By going to EBTT, we will see the future and come back with ideas for how we can make your genius idea a reality. Thanks in advance for your approval on my humble request, and I hope yo can come too. As a minimum I promise to bring you back a trip report, the first pick from the freebies bag and a very inspired and much smarter employee. Your favorite employee, {Enter Your Name Here} ps The BETT organisers will also treat you like a VIP - they'll give you exclusive access to the "Leadership Lounge". Don't worry about me, I'll be happy eating my sandwiches on the carpet, whilst you're enjoying the Olympia equivalent of an airport executive lounge.
Dear {Enter Your Head’s Name Here},
I enjoy my job and have always appreciated how well you manage me. As you know, I don’t ask for much. I am a humble employee with simple needs, and I would like to attend the BETT Exhibition in London on 14th-17th January next year. And I'd like to invite you to come with me this year!
Wait! Before you respond, let me explain. This is not the typical exhibition that is more about a day out of school than about learning. BETT is where the best and brightest come together from schools and from the educational technology industry.
As well as our chance to see what’s new (and help us to make the most out of our ICT budget) it’s also a chance to listen to the experiences of lots of other schools, and learn from the things that they’ve done well, and also from the lessons they have learnt along the way. Remember when we found out that the whiteboards were too high up the wall for our pupils to reach? Well, we might not have had to get the caretaker premises maintenance manager to move them all if we’d had the chance to talk to other schools about their experiences.
And you know that you’re always complaining about the deluge of paperwork and acronyms? Well, we’ve got the chance to go and hear seminars that will tell us what the next set of initiatives and acronyms are going to be all about – QCA’s Primary Framework, DCSF’s Universal Home Access programme, BECTA’s Next Generation Learning, and OCR’s Digital Literacy Curriculum. Who knows, perhaps we’ll get the chance to be one of the first to take part in a new initiative (like you so wisely say “the early bird catches the worm and budget” in these new programmes)
But it isn’t just the exhibitors and the speakers; it’s the other attendees. These are some of the smartest folks using the same tools and technologies we are, and facing the same challenges we have. We can learn a lot from them and see how they have overcome issues we have run into. I keep reading the blogs (on my own time, of course) and everyone says that networking is one of the top reasons to attend.
I promise we won’t come home empty handed. We will come back with a ton of information from Becta, DCSF, QCA, SSAT and other agencies, as well as a pile of useful information for every subject department in the school.
Finally, I know we'll come back inspired. BETT is where the government and the education ICT industry lays out its future strategy. You had the most spectacular idea yesterday about how we need to be a little more transformational. By going to EBTT, we will see the future and come back with ideas for how we can make your genius idea a reality.
Thanks in advance for your approval on my humble request, and I hope yo can come too. As a minimum I promise to bring you back a trip report, the first pick from the freebies bag and a very inspired and much smarter employee.
Your favorite employee, {Enter Your Name Here}
ps The BETT organisers will also treat you like a VIP - they'll give you exclusive access to the "Leadership Lounge". Don't worry about me, I'll be happy eating my sandwiches on the carpet, whilst you're enjoying the Olympia equivalent of an airport executive lounge.
I’m sure this letter isn’t yet perfect – what else would you add?
* How about my Excel skills? =DATE(2009,1,14)-TODAY()
Ergo Computing have written to me to let me know that they’ve got an open day next week at their headquarters in Nottingham. There are two scheduled sessions – morning (10-12) and afternoon (2-4) – and in two hours you’ll get the chance to take a look at their latest products, as well as a tour of their production facilities. These days production facilities are normally kept closed to visitors, so if you’re in the area, and fancy a look, it’s worth finding the time (or rewarding a technician in school with a 2-hour pass out of the tech suite!)
Ergo Computing UK are holding an open day on Thursday 13th November 2008, giving UK schools chance to get to grips with some of their latest technologies and innovations that could improve learning both today and in the future. As the UK’s leading mobile computing manufacturer, Ergo operate out of one of the most technologically advanced notebook production facilities in Europe and are at the forefront of numerous exciting infrastructure service developments within the education arena. They’re opening their doors for two sessions, morning and afternoon, giving: Hands on time with Ergo’s latest Windows based products and innovations, such as the AS1 all-in-one desktop, MicroGlide range of UMPCs (Ultra Mobile PCs) and space-saving SecureDesks. Practical, live VLE demonstration and a session on Free2teach - an all-in-one intuitive server management solution for the classroom. The chance to tour Ergo’s production facility, see their assembly plant in operation and quiz technical experts regarding your ICT issues or future plans. Informal and interactive, the day promises to give you ample time to handle Ergo’s new range of Windows based laptops, UMPCs and desktops – in addition to experiencing first hand key learning solutions and services such as VLE and Free2teach. If you’re interested in attending, or would like more information on the event, please contact Hazel Winter by Monday 10th November 2008 on hazelw@ergo.co.uk. Alternatively please call on 0115 914 4144
Ergo Computing UK are holding an open day on Thursday 13th November 2008, giving UK schools chance to get to grips with some of their latest technologies and innovations that could improve learning both today and in the future.
As the UK’s leading mobile computing manufacturer, Ergo operate out of one of the most technologically advanced notebook production facilities in Europe and are at the forefront of numerous exciting infrastructure service developments within the education arena.
They’re opening their doors for two sessions, morning and afternoon, giving:
Informal and interactive, the day promises to give you ample time to handle Ergo’s new range of Windows based laptops, UMPCs and desktops – in addition to experiencing first hand key learning solutions and services such as VLE and Free2teach.
If you’re interested in attending, or would like more information on the event, please contact Hazel Winter by Monday 10th November 2008 on hazelw@ergo.co.uk. Alternatively please call on 0115 914 4144
Unfortunately I can’t get there, but I’d be interested in how things have changed in PC production.
When I first started working in IT, part of the induction programme for my new job in tech support was to spend a day on the factory floor and to build a computer (a Link 480Z with a massive 16KB of RAM and a 4Mhz Z80a processor). Letting people loose on the production line is not something that can be done these days I guess. Why?
Well, about six months later I took the support call from the customer who’d bought that machine. Turns out I’d missed an important washer…
When you put a few ICT staff together from different schools, and they start comparing stories, it often becomes one of the most valuable sessions of any day. The chance to share stories of success, and some of the pitfalls that people found/avoided on their journey of change, is really valuable. With that in mind, I can heartily recommend a trip to Knowsley (up there, by the Mersey) on 1st December, to hear the stories of Bowring Community Sports College.
They have been on a voyage of change for the last few years, and have agreed to open their doors to visitors to get the chance to hear their war stories, learn from their experiences, and ask questions to discover the story behind the story.
Here’s the invitation details:
You are cordially invited to join other school and authority leaders on 1 December 2008 for a day devoted to leading and developing 21st century practice in schools. This event is sponsored by Microsoft as part of the Innovative Schools Programme and hosted in Knowsley by Bowring Community Sports College. The conversations on the day will revolve around the changes in provision, practice, people and places that are occurring in individual schools and across local authorities. Our goal for the day is to create a community of schools that will continue these conversations after the event. In addition to the opportunity to network with others from across the United Kingdom who are leading change in schools, highlights of the day will include: Keynote from Professor John West Burnham, teacher, writer and consultant in leadership development. He is Senior Research Adviser at the National College for School Leadership. Workshops from Bowring Community Sports College and New Line Learning on their school-wide curriculum reform efforts. Conversations about learning space redesign and other authority-wide changes. Free resources and guidance from Microsoft.
You are cordially invited to join other school and authority leaders on 1 December 2008 for a day devoted to leading and developing 21st century practice in schools. This event is sponsored by Microsoft as part of the Innovative Schools Programme and hosted in Knowsley by Bowring Community Sports College.
The conversations on the day will revolve around the changes in provision, practice, people and places that are occurring in individual schools and across local authorities. Our goal for the day is to create a community of schools that will continue these conversations after the event.
In addition to the opportunity to network with others from across the United Kingdom who are leading change in schools, highlights of the day will include:
If you are able to join other local authority leaders, head and deputy head teachers for this event, please send an email to Pippa.
*All additional information about the event, including discussions with attendees and speakers, will be posted to the community on Microsoft’s Innovative Teachers Network. To join the community, go to http://uk.innovativeteachers.com, and register to create a username and password. Once you’ve signed in, click Find A Community from the Communities tab, look for the community called “Innovative Schools Event,” and click “Join Community.”