Merlin John Online

Ready for another ICT initiative? Tell Tim Pearson

Anyone ready for another ICT initiative for education? We've had laptops for teachers, whiteboards, learning platforms and the current Home Access bid to 'bridge the digital divide' for some learners – what, if anything, should come next?

Tim Pearson will be asking this question of suppliers to the UK ICT market this week on behalf of The Technology Strategy Board ("Our approach is summed up in the words connect and catalyse"). The former chief executive of education supplier RM, who already has first-hand experience of a number of government initiatives, is speaking at a special BESA briefing on Thursday morning (March 18) on how The Technology Strategy Board can support business in educational technology, and to ask for advice on "potential large-scale future funding".

Read more...

Virtualisation brings savings for school networks

Gerald Haigh asks what is virtualisation, how does it work, and why are so many network managers talking about it?

Taking the ‘what’ question first, it’s a way of drastically reducing the number of network servers that are needed to run a Microsoft-based school network. So a big school might have a couple of dozen servers, each doing a different job. Virtualisation will make it possible to replace them with perhaps nine, or even fewer. How? By replacing many of the physical servers with virtual servers – that is to say they exist as software rather than as big metal boxes. The virtual servers are collected together into clusters and each cluster lives in a powerful physical server.

And why are so many organisations – not just schools – going down that road? For two main reasons.

Read more...

The Innovators – 15 Dawn Hallybone

Almost like any other resource? Dawn Hallybone hands out the Nintendos

By Maureen McTaggart
Dawn Hallybone’s eureka moment came during a subject leaders’ meeting while listening to a presentation from her borough’s then ICT consultant, Anthony Evans, about a classroom revolution happening in Scotland.

“As soon as I heard what they were doing, I thought, wow, I’d like to get my hands on some of those Nintendo DS consoles,” she says, sitting back with what can only be described as an elated grin, reliving the moment it hit her that games and gaming consoles could be powerful tools for learning in classrooms.

Read more...

Challenge + fun = Games Based Learning 2010

The outstanding student presentations to the computer games "Dragons' Den" at the Scottish Learning Festival in 2009 constituted a rich, instant demonstration of the value of games for learning. And the presence of three of the key people associated with that event, Derek Robertson, Ollie Bray and Ewan McIntosh, at Games Based Learning 2010 on March 29-30 to share their insights, will go some way to also making this event, held at The Brewery, London, unmissable.

They are part of a strong education line-up that also includes Stephen Heppell, Dawn Hallybone, Tim Rylands and Alice Taylor, one of the people responsible for Channel 4's innovative use of gaming in its cross-platform commissioning for education.
(If you register with this code - merlingbl10 - before March 19 you get a 30% discount.)

Read more...

NEET like Chocolate - debut on teenage issues

By Maureen McTaggart
Rose, Lia and Charleigh – an early school leaver, an ex-young offender and an expectant teenage mum – used to think a career in the media wasn’t for the likes of them until they joined a group of seven other young unemployed teenagers to learn broadcasting skills with award-winning film production and education company Chocolate Films.

The project is based at south London’s Stephen Lawrence Centre and their first production, ‘Live From Stephen Lawrence’, has the head of the Metropolitan Police’s Status Dog Unit, Sergeant Ian McParland, in the hot seat discussing the current teenage status symbol – dangerous dogs.

Read more...

Nessie among award winners at Education Show

By Sally McKeown
A program designed to support pupils with dyslexia scooped an Education Resources Award last week. Nessy Learning Programme Deluxe, from Net Educational Systems, won the Special Needs (including ICT) category,

Trialled by the Bristol Dyslexia Centre, Nessy is a complete literacy scheme which uses a multi-sensory approach to develop and improve a pupil’s knowledge of letters, sounds and blends. Pupils move from one island to another in the Land of Ness, building their skills step by step. The games format and animation motivate pupils but underneath is a tried and tested approach which shows, teaches and tests.

Read more...

Editsense - a camera-shy star for media education

By Jack Kenny

Any one who has worked with products for what passes for media education in some schools will know how vital Editsense is. Many schools are starting courses on making moviesm, and  new GCSE specifications mean that there will be more. One essential lesson will be that making movies is not just about using a camera. Editing is the focus.

As the Editsense creators explain: "However many times you explain the importance of changing shot size and camera position, and dividing a film up into shots, the theory tends to go out of the window as soon as young film-makers get hold of the cameras. Because a lot of our film projects are very short and intensive, we needed a quicker way of getting the participants up to speed."

Read more...

'Pupils not heard in BSF process' – Futurelab survey

By Bob Harrison
Pupils are not being engaged or listened to in the planning for Building Schools for the Future programme, according to the results of a survey – "Building and re-designing schools: students' ideas and opinions" – conducted by Futurelab.

Tim Rudd, the Futurelab senior researcher who managed the research, says: Although this was not a statistically representative sample, the results suggest that there is an appetite from pupils to be involved and engaged with the planning of future learning environments, but the children are not as engaged as they want to be."

Read more...

'Probably the best introduction to ICT in learning'

By Jack Kenny

I always turn to the end of a review to read the conclusion first. I will save you the trouble: this book is very good and is well worth acquiring. Now I'll tell you why.

ICT has been around in our schools for a quarter of a century; in the outside world it has changed our lives.  Every child now in school has only known an ICT-rich world. How strange to them many schools where ICT is peripheral must seem. A task for everyone is to make the world of school seem less strange to children and, consequently,  a better place for learning.

Read more...