4 ways to make your educational technology facilities more inviting

T-Pain's Singing TeacherHow do you ensure that the ICT facilities at your school are attractive enough to be used by pupils and staff? Even if your school has a Bring Your Own Technology (BYOT) scheme or a tablet-centred 1:1 scheme in place, you will want to ensure that the school’s own stuff is being used as fully and as effectively as possible. What can you, the ICT Co-ordinator/e-learning co-ordinator/senior leader in charge of ICT in the curriculum, do to help make that happen? Here are some suggestions.
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7 Ways of Making ICT More attractive

2011/365/95 Harping the BluesYou may not know this, but there is not a lot of difference between a Lee Oskar diatonic harmonica (the type used by blues and folk musicians) and a Hohner Blues Band harmonica. The Lee Oskar is said to have been engineered to give a “sharper” edge to the tone, which suits the blues sound, whereas the Marine Band, being slightly “softer”, works well for folk music too. Unless you’re a purist, there is probably not much in it. As someone once said:

“A difference is only a difference if it makes a difference.”

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7 MORE mistakes made by ICT Co-ordinators

the screamHaving written about 7 mistakes made by ICT Co-ordinators (and if you haven’t read that, go and read it now; don’t worry, I’ll wait), I gave the topic a bit more thought and then realised I could have easily listed a few more. Well, here are a further seven to be thinking about! Have you made, or are you making, these mistakes?

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Discussion about the role of the ICT Co-ordinator

I recently posted a couple of articles that questioned whether the role of the ICT Co-ordinator was necessary. (See the links below if you missed those masterpieces.) Well, we had an online discussion (I’m not daft enough to make an appearance in real life on that sort of platform!), escaped relatively unscathed, and here is the result...
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The role of ICT Co-ordinator is unnecessary: discuss

OK, I admit it: I was being a bit of a devil’s advocate when I suggested that the role of ICT Co-ordinator is redundant, but consider this. In these hard times, how will you respond if your Headteacher calls you into her office one morning and says:

I need to make some serious budget cuts. What exactly do you do, why does it need to be done anyway, and why can’t I get an admin person on half your salary to do it instead?

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