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THE LATEST UPDATES AND DEVELOPMENTS IN SCHOOL TECHNOLOGY
ALL BELLS AND WHISTLES How one school is keeping its ICT one step ahead of what the pupils get at home
UPDATE 46 ›› ICT NEWS
The latest updates and developments in school technology and services
IN PRACTICE 48 ›› MEN IN BLACK’
The Blackburn Rovers Education Trust stays one step ahead of the ICT curve
50 ›› A PIECE OF THE PI
Cambridge’s Chesterton College gets involved with the Raspberry Pi project
FOCUS ON 58 ›› PIMP YOUR CLASSROOM
How one school is making sure its ICT is better than what the kids get at home
59 ›› ICT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE DULL
What schools need to do to gear up for a new generation of IT gurus
HELP DESK 62 ›› TECHNO GEEK
Turning gaming into learning in the classroom
SHAR WITH E ME IT M YOUR ANAG ER
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NEWS & ANALYSIS SCHOOLS ‘NEED TO INVEST IN IT’ A recent study has highlighted the concerns of state secondary school teachers and ICT buyers regarding technology uptake in UK schools. One hundred teachers and 100 ICT buyers were interviewed for the study carried out by Epson. Eighty-one per cent of teachers said they believe it is detrimental to use outdated technology in school. Furthermore, 94% of ICT buyers believe using outdated or non-integrated technology is worse than using no technology at all. This raises concern that UK schools are not investing enough in ICT equipment. Two-thirds of ICT buyers believe this to be the case, while 50% of UK teachers agree that their schools need to undergo a significant ICT overhaul to enhance the learning experience of their pupils. Sixty-four per cent of ICT buyers expect their budgets to increase throughout 2012 – providing opportunity for improvement. Graeme Davidson, category manager of Epson, said: “As we are all increasingly exposed to more modern and exciting technology at home, the UK education system needs to mirror this trend and keep up with the changing times.” In terms of the main reasons holding back ICT adoption in today’s education system, teachers believe cost – of both initial purchase (87%) and maintenance expenses (68%); a lack of government support (64%); and human factors, including lack of skills in using the equipment (61%) are the most pressing issues to overcome.
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UNIVERSITIES PAY OVER THE ODDS FOR IT New research on the purchase price of ICT products has revealed that universities have been paying exorbitant margins anywhere up to 557% when buying from suppliers. A study by Mercato ITelligence, the benchmarking tool approved for the Government’s G-Cloud, found that while universities are dealing with funding cuts, they are still paying over the odds for ICT. The average margin paid by universities was 27% – considerably higher than the industry best practice rate of three per cent, according to the SOCITM Annual IT Trend survey. With £493bn predicted to be spent on ICT in Western Europe this year, according to Gartner, it is clear many millions are being wasted by purchasing products at excessive prices. Mercato’s head of benchmarking, Al Nagar, said: “Organisations are overspending on their IT as a result of the radically fast moving market and this is hitting bottom-line at a time when many are fighting to become more efficient. “Buyers need to monitor and benchmark prices to negotiate the best price with suppliers as ICT bought at better prices will enable budgets to be stretched. “Universities will gain more and better ICT for the same money. This means higher volume for the supplier and better fairer deals for the buyer.” Mercato research shows that 81% of organisations do not secure best value when they make investments in ICT. Volatility in the market makes it difficult for buyers to gather data and find the optimum price. Nagar continued: “It is clear from our research that IT buyers are finding it difficult to obtain and manage comparative data on ICT product costs, particularly in such a highly volatile market where price and stock change daily. “Without this comparative data to compare quotes against, buyers are struggling to achieve best practice best value of three per cent margin. This is significantly hampering efforts to stretch the reach of every pound, which could be impacting efficiency and growth as organisations cannot get the level or volume of technology they demand.”
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OFSTED COULD PUT AN END TO PHONES IN SCHOOLS Teachers could be forced to banish mobiles from lessons under a recent move from Ofsted to tackle behaviour in schools. From September, the education watchdog plans to put in measures to tackle low-level disruption during lessons, which could see schools penalised for not improving behaviour. Sir Michael Wilshaw said banning pupils from using mobiles worked well at Mossbourne Community Academy, where he made headlines as principal for his controversial approach to student discipline. “It certainly cut out all that nonsense that you have in schools of these things being brought in and then a mobile phone going off in a lesson,” he commented in an interview with the Daily Mail. “The outrageous behaviour that you occasionally see in all schools is serious, but I think the bigger issue is that low-level disruption which takes place which stops children learning effectively. Teachers and headteachers have got to stamp that out.” As well as being disruptive, he said mobile phones could also be used for bullying and accessing inappropriate content. Schools can currently confiscate a mobile phone from a pupil if a teacher suspects a pupil of using it inappropriately, but few schools ban mobile phones altogether. These plans and others were revealed in a speech today by Sir Michael, where 6,000 schools rated ‘satisfactory’ will be rerated as ‘requiring improvement’ and new rules will be instigated surrounding pupil behaviour. The National Association of Head Teachers has urged schools to think twice before issuing what they see as a potentially impractical and counterproductive ban on mobile phones. General secretary Russell Hobby said: “Of course the presence of mobile phones in schools needs to be handled carefully but many teachers are choosing to use their technology creatively and as part of the lesson. An outright ban would send a message to pupils that schools are out of touch with the world in which they live.”
INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS MORE POSITIVE ABOUT NEW ICT CURRICULUM Despite being free from government control, independent schools have a more positive view of the Government’s current ICT policy than state schools, a recent survey by BESA has revealed. Eighty-seven per cent of independent schools showed awareness of a change in ICT policy, compared to just 70.5% of state schools. Although some schools understood the details of the policy more than others, 62% of independent schools felt the Government was on the right track, while just 26% of state schools held the same view. Ray Barker, the director of BESA, commented: “The findings will not be good news to the Government. However, when we consider the fact that the foundation of the Government’s policy sits on an increasing level of freedom and autonomy for schools it is not surprising that the independent school’s sector understands and feels a closer alliance to the recent policy changes. of ICT buyers believe “As an increasing number of state schools using out-dated convert to become academies with independent technology is worse than using none at all school status, we are starting to see government policies that possibly sit more comfortably with Independent schools, who are more akin to managing themselves.”
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3D STARTER KIT ENHANCES EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCE The new 3D starter kit for schools includes NEC’s lightweight, re-chargeable 3D glasses plus market-leading 3D content and software in one handy kit to provide easy access for schools looking to introduce the 3D experience into the classroom. The 3D content contains seven interactive applications and numerous interactive 3D modules including the exploration of the human heart and of a plant cell. Eight 3D demo videos include illustrative examples covering subjects such as geography, sciences and technology, as well as primary educational content for teaching spelling and mathematics. www.nec-displays.co.uk
DIARY 19 June TURNING TECHNOLOGIES USER CONFERENCE 2012 Aarhus University, Denmark TurningTechnologies.com
19 June THE INTERNATIONAL LEARNING PLATFORMS CONFERENCE 2012 The ICC, Birmingham FrogTrade.com
28 June CAPITA’S DATA MANAGEMENT FOR SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT - A HALF-DAY BRIEFING Manchester CapitaConferences.co.uk
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In technology
we trust
Blackburn Rovers Community Trust runs an awardwinning Technology Centre of Excellence for a catchment of North West schools and beyond. Julia Dennison speaks to IT manager Chris Dawes to find out how 3D and gaming platforms like Xbox Kinect are enhancing lessons
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chools are coming round to the idea that 3D and Leading from the front gaming technologies are more than just Dawes is very much a technology pathfinder. He sees it as his gimmicks, but actually have a positive impact on job to try the latest and greatest innovations in ICT so schools teaching and learning in the classroom. Despite with restricted budgets don’t have to take the risk. “If I am not a number of recent studies proving their benefit ahead of the game in what I am doing, I have failed; it’s as (86% of pupils in 3D classes improved in tests), simple as that,” he says. “If I’m [only] doing what a school’s there is only a handful of schools actually using 3D, doing, what’s the point?” The centre works with local schools gaming, and hand-held devices as teaching aids. Whether to supplement their teaching and learning, and not just in this stems from a combination of schools balking at technology lessons, but across the curriculum. This is expensive price tags or waiting to see what others do first, essential, as in a somewhat deprived area like Blackburn, it’s unclear, but what is certain is the number of many of the schools can’t afford to purchase the kind of educational establishments using the technology is growing. forward-thinking technology on hand at the Blackburn Rovers One organisation staying one step ahead of the Community Trust. Technology prices are coming down, but technological curve is Blackburn Rovers Community Trust, Dawes warns that even if a school can afford a 3D projector, which acts as a Technology Centre of Excellence for a the upkeep and kit, like rechargeable 3D glasses, can add up. catchment of around 400 schools in the North West. A Not only does it have the facilities to offer schools, but the registered charity, the trust works with a number of local technology centre also acts as a source of inspiration too. organisations, including reseller Probrand, which has kitted “When I started out here, Microsoft Photo Story was a new out the centre with the latest technology thanks to product and no one was using it,” Dawes remembers. He donations from leading hardware brands. All this helps started to run it as an afterschool programme for schools and improve the offering to schools, which pay a nominal fee to now all the local secondary schools use it in their curriculum. use the centre’s services. “I do think that’s because of us,” he adds. The trust has a fully 3D Furthermore, Dawes enabled technology suite, insists it’s not just about If I am not ahead of the game in what I am doing, which is used to enhance having the right equipment. I have failed; it’s as simple as that. If I’m only lessons and gets very “A school can have as much doing what a school’s doing, what’s the point? positive feedback from technology as they want, pupils and schools that use spend hundreds of it. The centre offers lessons thousands of pounds based around game programming, using the Xbox Kinect as getting all the top-range stuff, but it doesn’t matter if it a platform, and has a Microsoft Kodu Lab that fits nicely with doesn’t have people able to use it,” he explains. “Here, the the government initiative towards computer programming. teachers have got the time and the skillset to deliver it, and Blackburn Rovers Community Trust’s IT manager, that is the key difference.” self-confessed gadget geek Chris Dawes believes technological solutions like these will soon make their way Gearing up for change into every lesson and he’s working hard to ensure schools see Dawes works with schools that are feeling worried about the their benefit. changes to the ICT curriculum coming into effect in
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September, but he feels confident that with programming software like Microsoft Kodu already on offer at the technology centre, he can help alleviate some of that worry. “I was so excited about the changes because we can offer it now,” he says. “I do totally think it’s the way to go. It’s the future.” The centre also advocates using interactive technology like tablets to help pupils shoot video and learn on the go. “The classroom as we know it will go by the wayside,” says Dawes. “It’s about interactive learning environments and changing spaces.”
Giving technology a try
Blackburn Rovers Community Trust also plays an active role helping technology companies develop their educational ICT solutions. One such solution that the trust is helping to demo is an interactive heart rate monitor that projects a virtual representation of the user’s heart beating using Microsoft Kinect technology. “When we first got it, [the pupils] were queuing up,” remembers Dawes. “There was no: ‘I’m too shy.’ They wanted to have a go. Kids don’t want to be quiet at the back of the class anymore.” It’s still early days for using motion sensor technology in the classroom, but Dawes believes the opportunities could be endless. “I think it’s going to be key and at the front of every classroom,” he says. With the sell-by date on cutting edge technology becoming increasingly shorter, you can be sure that by the time you read this article, Technology Centres of Excellence like Blackburn Community Trust will have moved on to the next big thing. “When I first started working at the trust, PCs were at the spec of the phone that’s in my pocket, and it will be the same again in another six or seven years,” adds Dawes, who already has his eye on the world of augmented reality as a new toy (read tool) for learning. After all, when you’re leading the way, you can’t afford to take your eyes off the road, if even for a second.
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A piece of the Pi Chesterton College in Cambridge has received a huge amount of press coverage recently for its involvement in the Raspberry Pi project. Carrie Service speaks to Paul Williams, head of ICT at the school, about teaching computer programming
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aul Williams has been teaching PC-based programming at Chesterton College for over three years now, way ahead of the famous Michael Gove BETT speech. So it comes as no surprise that the Raspberry Pi foundation chose him to test out its credit card-sized computer, purpose-built for programming, on his students. Since getting involved with the project, Williams has been interviewed by the BBC, ITV and the day before we met, CNN had visited the school. This is all down to Williams’ passion for programming and a curiosity in whether or not he could get children interested in programming. He did, and the rest is history.
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You were described by the BBC as “not a typical example of an IT teacher”. Do you think your unique background puts you at an advantage over other ICT teachers who are having to take on programming this September? Yes, well, this is my seventh year as a teacher. Before that I was a computer programmer as a trade. So my route was: school, [then] O-level computing. I then did a vocational course; a Btech National Diploma in computer studies and a degree in computer studies. I worked as a programmer for 12 years and got made redundant – I then became an outdoor pursuits instructor. I knew there was no future in teaching outdoor pursuits and had a
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Computing is going to be difficult – how many students are going to want to sit down and hear about the mother board?
family to support, so I sort of combined the two and decided to try teaching ICT.
Do you think other schools will be daunted by the curriculum changes, particularly as many teaching staff will not have had experience in programming? How has your team coped? I am the only full-time member of staff teaching ICT. I do have teachers from other subjects and they are good teachers, but I feel sometimes that because their knowledge is not that specific to ICT, it could – I’m not saying it does – affect the levels of the enjoyment of students. Next year we will have programmers in the school, and they’re maths teachers. Many people who have worked in programming previously, like I did, moved into teaching maths because ICT was seen as ‘boring’ at the time. There are around four programmers who work in the maths department of the school, so the change in curriculum has opened up new doors for them.
Obviously, you are already fairly geared up to teaching programming, but what changes will you have to make, if any, in terms of resources? We’ve got loads of PC suites around, and in terms of software, we’ve already got that in place as well. There is a Microsoft product called Small Basic, which is free. The Raspberry Pi runs a programming language called Python, which I’m learning at the moment. But that’s free from an open-source environment.
What challenges do you think you could face? We have recently invested in software for video editing and website design. These are fun and a lot of students enjoy doing that, so you do get productivity in the classroom. But computing is going to be difficult – how many students are going to want to sit down and hear about the mother board,
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and ‘this is where the memory goes’? I can see some students switching off. I’ve got mixed abilities classes, so they range from bottom set maths students to extension maths students. The challenge is trying to build that within the curriculum, thinking about how you keep everybody focused.
How do you plan to overcome this? [Smiling] I don’t know yet. I will be looking at what other schools are doing and also getting ideas from the internet. We do have things like Nex robots, which the children build like Lego and can then programme them to move.
How interested are the children? How much programming do you think they should be doing? It is quite advanced. And that’s a hard question because students love it, or they hate it. A lot of kids think that they know how to use a computer because they know how to use the internet. Michael Gove’s dream is that we just do computing. I think we need to be very, very careful that we don’t neglect the business skills. My curriculum will be changing next year; I’ll be introducing more of the computing side, but I will carry on with the traditional spreadsheets and databases too. Williams has invested a great deal of time and effort in getting children to share his passion for programming. He runs a programming club after school on a Tuesday night, where the “geeks”, as he puts it, come along and do programming for an hour using Scratch. Williams has also just introduced them to Basic, the same programming language he started with when he began his career in programming. Williams hopes that the Raspberry Pi will help to break down barriers because of how accessible it is: at £25 a time, there is no fear of valuable equipment being broken, and schools should be able to buy enough for the whole class.
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Michelle Hill, deputy head of Leamore Primary School in Walsall, has revolutionised the way the school uses ICT. Carrie Service talks to her about her achievements and the school’s recent Naace ICT Impact Award
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eamore is a small primary school of just 200 students in Walsall in the West Midlands and is perhaps not the first school that would come to mind when thinking of groundbreaking use of technology. But none the less, Leamore really is a groundbreaking school, and it’s all down to one woman: deputy headteacher Michelle Hill.
THINKING OUTSIDE OF THE BOX
Hill came to the school four years ago, and has certainly left her mark in the few years that she has been in charge of ICT. Her most recent achievement is a Naace ICT Impact Award, which the school received for its use of blogging with early years children. The project came about initially as a way of streamlining their records, Hill explains: “In early years, you have to collect some evidence from each child, and traditionally everybody scribbles everything on Post-it notes and you end up with these really unmanageable lever arch files. So, we came up with the idea of giving out iPod touches to every member in the early years unit and we set up some WordPress blogs, so every child had their own blog.” She then made sure every early years staff member received training so that they were able to take photos and videos, write descriptions and add tags. Hill wanted staff to be able to do this ‘on-the-go’, as they were going about their normal routine, so that they didn’t have the problem of trying to remember something after the activity: “It was live blogging,” she recalls. Hill shows me the video the school submitted to Naace when it was nominated for the award, which features clips from some of the video blogs. There are shots of children working on their art projects and talking to staff about what they’ve been doing at school that day so parents can log-on and take a look at what their children have been up to – far more powerful than a written report or even a photograph. Hill is keen to see that ICT impacts all areas of the school, and is constantly thinking up new ideas to make things easier for pupils and teachers. Leamore recently looked into investing in a new learning platform and made some inquiries into different products on the market. They had a meeting with one supplier and looked into what the learning platform could do; they even received training on how to use it, but they weren’t particularly inspired, and Hill thought she could do better: “It wasn’t something that fitted in with what we wanted to do, and the cost was £4,000,” she tells me. “So we created our own for free.” They registered a domain name for just $10 and then began building their own platform using a WordPress site and integrating their online resources.
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“We absolutely believe in the importance of technology, which is why we did GSCE with a Year Five class”
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AN IPAD REVOLUTION
Hill is concentrating a lot on getting the most out of the school’s iPads at the moment. “We were early adopters, so when they came out around two years ago we bought them straight away,” she explains. I asked why they weren’t tempted to wait a while before investing money in technology that was relatively unknown and untested in schools, but Hill’s attitude seems to be to go with her instinct: “We could have waited and waited for the newer ones to come out but we were keen to find out what the problems with them would be, overcome them and just hit the floor running with them really.” Hill has started an iPad band in Year Five – yes, that’s right, an iPad band – and when I meet with her they are due to have their very first concert that same week. “I say this sort of tongue-in-cheek, but we’re hoping they’re going to go on tour. We’re hoping that they’ll be that good that local schools will invite us in to do concerts,” she says. The performance involves 120 children in total, with each child contributing something different to do with technology, and 30 children in the actual band. “It was quite mad to organise,” she laughs, “even the dance number has got technology thrown in, and the violin pieces as well.”
WORKING MAGIC
Hill always has her ear to ground, listening out for new innovations in ICT that she thinks the children might benefit from. Another iPad-based project she is working on at the moment is centred around digital art. She has managed to get a local children’s author and illustrator, Steve Smallman, on board, who has been working with the children over the summer term to develop their iPad art skills. This all came about because Hill came across some “really cool” digital paint brushes during her research for new ideas. They work just like a real paint brush, so the children can create intricate paintings and artwork on the iPad: “We only found out about them two weeks ago, so we’ve ordered them from America,” she says. They are hoping to exhibit the final artwork produced using the paintbrushes at the local library. But it doesn’t end there: “That’s when we’ll throw the magic at it,” she tells me, mysteriously. Using a free app called Aurasma, visitors to the exhibition will be able to, as if by magic, watch a video showing how the artwork was produced. An iPad will be placed next to the display, and when someone lifts the iPad up to the exhibit and scans a piece of artwork, a video of the child creating it will appear inside the painting (when viewing it through the iPad). Hill has used the same software on a display of the reception
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class’s craftwork within the school, which she describes as “the Harry Potter wall” and it certainly does have an element of magic about it.
BREAKING THE RULES
The level at which Leamore utilises ICT is similar to what one might find in a secondary school. I ask Hill if she believes that getting children to use ICT at such a young age is always a positive thing, and her answer is a resounding yes: “We absolutely believe in the importance of technology, which is why we did GSCE with a Year Five class,” she reveals. Hill was impressed by the speed at which the class was grasping its work and so decided to set them the challenge of passing GCSE ICT, at just nine and ten years old. “They were a particularly good class, so we put eight of them, plus their parents and three members of staff on the GCSE,” she tells me. Everybody passed and nobody got below a grade C – one student even got an A*. “If we believe in something, we’ll go for it,” says Hill; and go for it they did. The school even had to become an examination centre because nobody wanted them to sit the exams at their school, and what’s more, the children passed the GCSE in just one year instead of two. There is barely enough space in this article to cover all the amazing things that Leamore is doing with technology. Alongside all of the other ICT-based projects, the children also run a radio station known as ‘The Little Monsters’, with its own dedicated editing suite featuring brand new Mac computers. Hill is also hoping to do a year-long paperless project with one class, giving each student an iPad so that they can complete all work without any paper; and Leamore has just become an Apple training school, helping other schools in the area to use Apple software. The Year Six class recently received a double Animation Award for its excellent work using Flash animation – having already done their GSCE in Year Five, they were at a bit of a loose-end as to what to do next. “It was a bit ridiculous to do A-level,” says Hill, smiling. Leamore’s ICT equipment includes 35 Macs, 42 iPads, an Xbox Kinect, a Playstation, three Wii consoles and 10 iPods. So, how do they do it? Do they have additional funding? “We are just really careful with our budget,” explains Hill. They started by investing in 10 iPads and tested the devices out across all the year groups to see if they were suitable before making a big investment. “We don’t waste money on things that aren’t going to work, that aren’t going to make an impact,” says Hill. “We’re quite shrewd. Yes we have got these amazing things, but we don’t just buy anything or everything, we only buy the things that we believe in.”
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Bridging the IT skills gap
Not only does ICT in the classroom no longer have to be dull, but the education sector is finally acknowledging the importance of tangible IT skills for young people moving into the workforce. This case-study provides evidence of why IT skills are important for a new employee working in the IT industry and how the Raspberry PI could help
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ollowing the launch of the low-cost Raspberry Pi, there has been significant discussion on how schools are failing students in provision of IT education. At the beginning of January, Hayley Mitchell joined what is a quite technically focused team at ThinkBroadband.com, having previously worked in healthcare recruitment. Within a week of joining and being introduced to the infrastructure that powers the internet, she was upgrading her own graphics card and was looking forward to building a server. Having worked with the team for the last 10 weeks, she reflects on the development opportunities she missed while in education. This viewpoint examines both the challenges faced by Mitchell, as a recent entrant into the IT industry, and some of the difficulties experienced by her employer Sebastien Lahtinen, co-founder of ThinkBroadband.com in finding suitable candidates for the role in his organisation. Hayley Mitchell’s perspective… “The new job with ThinkBroadband was a huge change for me in terms of the skills required. I didn’t realise how wide reaching and varying the IT sector was and how it can affect
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every part of your life. The opportunities are endless and IT is no longer about just sitting in front of a computer. This job has opened my eyes to a world of possibilities I have never thought about before and is giving me valuable experience. “Since joining, I have learnt about computer security, IP addresses and even how to convert between binary and decimal numbers. Much of this is of course specific to the company I work for, however I have also discovered many basic skills such as HTML, the markup language used to make web pages, which I feel I should have had some exposure to in my time in education. Had I been given more opportunities, I may well have taken a different career path from the beginning. “Many of the web apps today make it easy to write blogs, produce videos and engage in social media without understanding how the underlying system really works. That’s great, and there is no reason why every car driver should be a qualified mechanic, but it would make sense to understand the basics of how an engine works in case you break down. In the same way, I was never taught to build basic web pages in HTML and when you want to do something a little bit non-standard, these types of skills are really helpful. Better IT skills mean
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you can not only be more productive, but also use the tools bring and help them to do their jobs more effectively. available to you in much more effective ways. The importance of tangible IT skills for young people “IT is often seen as a geeky option for many kids at moving into the workforce is really important. They are so school, but if more students were given the opportunity to integral in the world today in most office-based roles and experiment with technology, then we might have more increasingly outside of the office. Yet not enough focus is people coming into the IT industry from different being put on basic skills, never mind developing more backgrounds, or using IT to solve new problems and set up advanced ones. This needs to begin in schools. their own businesses. “IT is often seen as the domain of the geek; however “I’ve found it IT skills don’t so rewarding to necessarily mean The importance of tangible IT skills for young people moving a career in an IT be able to learn into the workforce is really important. They are so integral in company. As how to solve my own IT challenges, the world today, inside and outside the office technology has but I was never changed how we truly encouraged work, IT skills to do so before should be working in an IT company. considered as important as English and mathematics, as “I didn’t do very well in GCSE IT, not because I couldn’t its use will become more and more prevalent across excel (no pun intended) in the subject but I just wasn’t all industries. shown the potential of how this could be useful in later life. “There’s a lot of bad practice around, like formatting Even though I’ve been working for many years now, I still documents in word processors – too often people have so much new to learn.” replicate offline ways of making texts larger to indicate a heading, rather than tagging it as a heading. This means Sebastien Lahtinen’s perspective… students often walk away without the skills needed to “As a small technology company, we needed to make sure manage larger documents. we found someone for a non-technical role covering a wide “I remember being taught at university how to use pivot range of skills, who would fit in with the relaxed IT culture tables to analyse data, a basic yet powerful data analysis of jeans and t-shirts rather than suits and ties. We were technique, most spreadsheet users have no idea of. Many surprised by the sheer volume of applications we received people will manually update large numbers of sections of and it took considerable time to narrow them down to a documents rather than learn how to automate a process. short list. These types of skills should be considered basic “Small businesses often don’t have the same support requirements for students leaving secondary school. infrastructures or processes in terms of dedicated IT “When interviewing for this position, we were looking departments which means that for a technical company to for people with an interest in technology and the bring in someone less technical can be a challenge to willingness to learn new skills. ensure they have the right training and support. We also “We have been very fortunate to find someone keen to often work remotely, bringing with it additional challenges. learn and excited by the possibilities the new skills Having helped non-technical friends working in office available can bring both for use at work and also in her jobs understand some of the tools available in common personal life. As an employer, it is inspiring to be able to office application packages, I have seen the gleam in their help develop these skills and see Hayley captivated in eyes at the new world of opportunities the skills can putting them into use.”
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Gaming in schools Keeping kids interested is nine-tenths of the battle when it comes to teaching. Children these days are used to having the best technology at their disposal, so what should schools be investing in to get children hooked on learning and accelerate their progress?
When you hear the words ‘games console’ you might not immediately think of education. But more and more schools are bringing games or ‘gaming’ into the classroom and are using it as a way to accelerate learning. Games in general have been used for a long time in classrooms, but now many schools are utilising consoles that children use at home, such the Wii or Playstation, in lessons. This ‘tricks’ children into learning by getting them to do something they would usually do as a treat or at weekends. Consoles that allow children to move around are particularly popular because they add an extra dimension to gaming. A child moving around, playing a dance game or tennis on the Wii, will burn far more calories and create much more interaction with other pupils than if they were sitting at a PC. New technology that doesn’t involve complicated buttons such as the Playstation Kinect, where no controller is used, are great for younger years children and there are loads of games out there specifically designed for toddlers and primary age pupils.
Michelle Hill, deputy head at Leamore Primary School in Walsall (see page 54) is a big fan of using gaming for learning. Maths and literacy are perhaps the most obvious areas you might expect to benefit from the use of games, but as Hills points out, the possibilities are endless: “For our nursery years we use a game on the Playstation called the iPet. They look after a monkey-like imaginary animal on a daily basis; they have to feed him every morning, change his clothes – it’s all about PSHE.” Hills has such faith in games based learning that there are only three topics out of 36 where Leamore does not use it. Hill’s top tip for implementing the idea in your school is: know your audience. Keeping up to date with new games and the pupils’ hobbies and interests is a good way of finding games that are relevant and capture the children’s attention: “We look out for things that are coming across the year,” Hills tells me, “for example we know Fifa is coming up so we’ve been putting together a unit of work based on the Fifa game for the Wii.”