Cool Tools for Ed Tech Leaders: Stickies

One of the techniques used by organisations and teams when formulating their plans is to gather people’s ideas on sticky notes, post them on a wall, and then look at everyone’s “stickies”. Then they use this process as a basis for further discussion.

There are two clear advantages of this approach.

Firstly, stickies are small, so people can’t write loads on them unbless they cheat by writing microscopically or on several stickies. Secondly, if they are colour-coded, or placed in different areas of the room, according to categories, you can see at a glance where people’s thinking is tending towards.

But there is a huge disadvantage: what happens to the stickies afterwards?

In the best-case scenario, some hapless person has the task of transcribing them. More likely they, and along with them an important element of the history of the organisation, go into the trash can.

There is a better way. In fact, two better ways.

Wallwisher

Wallwisher is an electronic stickies program which emulates the paper version on which it is based. Permitting only 160 characters of text – the same as an SMS message – it doesn’t let yu write reams. What  it does allow you to do is insert pictures and choose the background colour. These are clearly advantages over what its humble paper cousin is able to offer.

 An example of a Wallwisher wall Moreover, being online, it is ideal for enabling team members in different locations to take part in the process at the same time.

Yet another advantage is that, unlike a wall in a training or meeting room, the Wallwisher room need never be closed. That means that people can keep adding ideas to it, and that anyone who was unable to take part in the original activity can still have their say.

Sadly, the transcription disadvantage remains, as you can’t export the wall as text. However, as is often true of techie things, there is a workaround: you can copy/paste each stickie into a Word document. However, to be able to do so if your wall is copiously populated you would need, as Mae West so eloquently put it, nothing to do and plenty of time to do it in.

StickySorter

Stickies can be grouped and colour-coded If that sounds like hassle, and you’ve already developed your plan using a spreadsheet, then StickySorter is the tool for you. A free download from Microsoft, this takes each row of your spreadsheet and converts it into a stickie. You can then move the stickies around, group and colour-code them.

“What’s the point?”, you might ask. Well, spreadsheets are not everyone’s cup of tea, and StickySorter provides a very visual way of seeing the overall plan.

Not only that, but each stickie will contain al the information from that particular row in the spreadsheet. In other words, the column headings in the spreadsheet serve as field names in the stickies, just as they would if exported to a database. (In fact, you can use this to illustrate to students – and perhaps even colleagues --  the concept of inputting data once, and then using it over and over in different ways.

Unlike Wallwisher, you can search StickySorter, and obtain basic stats as well as the facility to group results at a simple level.

For example, if I do a search for “Male” I will be told somehting like “There are 200 records, and of these 67 are male”, and will be able to group those stickies together and move them to somewhere else on the screen.

A disadvantage of the program is that it’s not great for capturing ideas in the form of stickies in the first place. You can create new stickies, but that particular functionality works much better when you already have a bunch of stickies that you’ve imported from a spreadsheet, because then each new sticky contains the field names possessed by all the others.

A second drawback of the application is that, unlike Wallwisher, StickySorter must be installed on a computer: it does not reside on a website.

Which one is better?

No doubt you will wsh to decide which of these applications you will use, and how. One option might be to use Wallwisher to help you generate and capture ideas, then transcribe them to a spreadsheet, and then convert them into StcikySorter stickies to show not only what the final plan looks like, but more important tasks (on red, say). Cerainly, it is bound to be easier to discuss possible changes from looking at this than from looking at the spreadsheet version.

Each of these tools can, of course, be used independently of, but also in conjunction with, each other. The main point to bear in mind from this article is that you can now enjoy many of the traditional advantages of paper stickies without having to suffer from their inherent disadvantages.

If you’d like information on how Wallwisher may be used in the curriculum, download your free copy of The Amazing Web 2.0 Projects Book.

31 Days to Become a Better Ed Tech Leader -- Day 28: Start a Surgery

Here's a question for you: if you were thinking of doing something different, and you had two choices, which of these would you go with? Option A, where there is little or no support available, or Option B, where there's a lot of support available. I think most people would choose Option B, if all other characteristics of the two options were equal.

A task a day for 31 daysThe same goes for using educational technology. Despite the fact that many people use it in their everyday lives, there is still a reluctance on the part of some people to use it in the classroom. As well as putting on in-service training for people, having user-friendly how-to guides on the wall, and making sure that the technical support is first class, there is another thing you can try: starting a surgery. This is a difficult thing to recommend actually, because it can involve working beyond the school day, and asking others to do the same. (The fact that many teachers do so anyway is neither here nor there.)

So I'll explore some options, once I've described what I mean by a 'surgery'. It works along the same lines as a doctor's surgery: if something is wrong, or you're not sure about how to do something, the idea is that you can pop along to the surgery, where someone will be delighted to help out.

The great thing about setting up a surgery is that it provides yet one more safety net for those colleagues who are less than confident when it comes to use technology in their work.

The traditional model of a surgery, which is still used in many schools, is where the Head of ICT or Educational Technology Co-ordinator makes herself or himself available every Wednesday (say) for an hour after school. Where people are willing to 'muck in' and take turns to do it, so much the better.

A far better option, if you can set it up, is the one I saw in a school I supported when I was an ICT advisor. They had set up a computer area for staff use only, as I recommended here, but they had gone a step further. The staff computer area was also the Head of ICT's office, in effect, and it was shared with his technician. Consequently, there was someone available to give assistance at pretty much any time of day. As if that wasn't enough, there was a kettle and a coffee machine, with a tin of biscuits plus milk and sugar for people to help themselves to. Yes, you're not supposed to eat or drink in a computer area. Yes, it cost them money to provide those refreshments. And yes, the room was in use all the time.

Another model, if you can arrange it, is to arrange for each member of staff in your team to use one of their free periods (assuming you have them) in exchange for not being asked to cover a lesson at that time. The benefit for the teacher is that she knows where she is going to be, and can take some work in to do. If your Principal is very wedded to the idea of staff using the technology, you should be able to make a persuasive argument for this sort of thing.

A variation on that theme is to ask members in the technical support team and/or classroom assistants to do some of their work in the computer room at particular times in the week, so that they can be available to assist teachers if required. There is also nothing to stop you creating a kind of 'virtual surgery', comprising walkthroughs in the form of videos or screen captures. A virtual surgery is obviously not personalised in the same way that  a physical one is. However, by making a set of guides available in this way it is possible that you may alleviate many of the problems which come up in a typical surgery anyway.

Don't believe me? I know of one part-time educational technology co-ordinator in a primary (elementary) school who reduced the number of enquiries made of her from several a day to one or two per week. How? By the simple expedient of placing a ring binder folder in the computer room with some How-to guides for staff -- and lots of blank pages, along with the simple request:

If you have a problem and then discover the solution, please write it all down here so that others can benefit.

It was, in effect, a paper version of a wiki. Why not use a real wiki? Set one up so that staff who feel confident enough can share their expertise and solutions.

Making this facility, and the walkthroughs, available online means that if you don't have a computer room in your school it doesn't matter, because people will be able to use them at home or in their own area in school.This will also be a useful facility if you don't have a computer room.

Another interesting approach is to have a pupil rota, such as at lunchtime. The benefit for them is that they get to use their favourite applications or continue with their work, and helping staff can be a great confidence booster. Unfortunately, having a student roster doesn't usually obviate the need to have a member of staff present as well. From staff's point of view, they are likely to obtain help faster, though; and you benefit by being rushedoff your feet only half as much as you would have been! (At least until word gets round about what a great service is being provided!)

Bottom line: a surgery can be yet another lifeline for reluctant teachers -- the removal of yet another barrier to entry.

31 Days to Become a Better Ed Tech Leader -- Day 27: Review Your Technical Support

A task a day for 31 daysIt stands to reason that people aren't going to use the technology if it's unreliable (or reliable only in the sense that it is certain to go wrong), or that getting a problem sorted out takes ages.

Therefore today, I have just one question for you: what is your technical support like?

It shouldn't come to this...In my opinion, the best technical support is that which is completely invisible. Things tend not to break down because only the best was purchased in the first place, and because the technical support folk are proactively monitoring and maintaining all the systems in use. When, in the unlikely event a piece of equipment does go on strike, it's replaced within hours, or even faster.

Is that a counsel of perfection? Is it pie in the sky? I don't think so; in fact, I know it's not the case because I've seen ordinary, urban, working class area schools achieve exactly that. Yes, even primary schools.

So again, I challenge you: what's your technical support like? What would you like it to be like? What needs to happen in order to bridge that gap?

Check out the References section for other articles which may be useful to you on this topic.

Photo by Linusb4.

31 Days to Become a Better Ed Tech Leader -- Day 26: Set Up a Staff-Only Area

A task a day for 31 daysWhat I'm about to say will probably strike you as completely counter-intuitive, but here it is:

If you want to get your colleagues to start using technology, set up an area where only teachers and other staff -- no students -- are allowed to enter.

Keep the kids out!

Reasons for setting up a staff-only area

There are several good reasons to do this:

You need to make the technology accessible

I've also covered this in the articles about removing the barriers to entry, reasons your ed tech facilities are being underused and reviewing your equipment loans procedure, but there is another aspect, which is more psychological than anything else. By setting up a staff-only technology-rich area, you're saying to the staff, in effect, that you consider them to be so important that they don't have to vie with students for the use of these facilities.

Staff can work in privacy

I worked with one school in which staff who wanted to use a computer had to work on one in the school library, in the company of students. Hardly any wonder, then, that no teacher was ever to be seen there. How can you write a report on a student when there's the possibility of students seeing what you're writing?

Teachers can request help in private

Everyone has to start somewhere, but most teachers would feel embarrassed at having to ask for assistance in front of students, or of making what they regard as a silly mistake and getting into a panic, in public as it were. Having a staff-only area removes that source of fear.

You can showcase the technology

You don't have to have only computers in the staff-only area. Ideally, have other equipment such as a digital camera, a pocket camcorder, a voice recorder, an electronic whiteboard, a visualiser, a "voting system" and anything else you can think of which might get people excited about possibilities.

Features of the staff-only area

So what should your staff-only area be like? Here are some ideas, based on what has worked in my own experience.

It should be a drop-in centre

Any teacher should be able to trot along to the room whenever they feel like it. The easiest thing to do is to make the key available from the school office.

Only the best is good enough

Your natural inclination is, no doubt, to put any new equipment in student areas, and "recycle" older equipment by putting it in the staffroom. However, if you want to encourage teachers to use technology in their lessons, you need to give them (exclusive) aspect to the best, the newest, the brightest.

Apart from the psychological aspect (see above), this approach is also a way of helping to ensure that the equipment is reliable, at the very least. You're also maximising the chances of staff being able to use more advanced features, faster, and with better quality results.

Think of yourself as a car salesperson: would you arrange a test drive using some old banger, or the latest model, in pristine condition?

It should be away from the staffroom

The staffroom is a place where you can be constantly interrupted. If possible, use a completely different room. It pays to look around. In my last school, I discovered a music practice room which was being used to store half-a-dozen music stands. You don't need a whole room for that. I went to see the Principal and, to the protests of the Head of Music, I acquired the room, which I set up as a staff-only area.

I installed 6 computers, a laser printer and a colour inkjet printer (these days I'd install a colour laser and possibly a 3D printer too).

Within a week, literally, the room was in constant use.

It was yet one more factor which contributed to the fact that within a couple of terms the use of ICT across the curriculum went from virtually nothing to almost constant. Let me put it this way (bearing in mind that in those days laptops and software was expensive): we had to convert a further two classrooms to computer labs, bringing the total to five, over the course of 18 months.

I like to think that setting up a staff-only area helped.

Photo by sumnix worx.

31 Days to Become a Better Ed Tech Leader -- Day 25: Review Your Loans Procedure

A task a day for 31 daysOn Day 24 we looked at how to make the ed tech facilities, especially computer rooms, more accessible. Today I'm considering the business of loaning out equipment, in the form of a series of questions to consider. These questions arise from my experience of visiting schools and seeing the procedures — or lack of them — for loaning out equipment.

What equipment is available for staff, students or classes to borrow?

For example, do you have class sets of laptops or pocket camcorders? Can staff borrow equipment to take home, so that they can familiarise themselves with it, or do some work on it in their own time? Is equipment available for students to borrow?

How do people know what's available to borrow?

Is there a list published somewhere? How often is it updated? Do people know that the list exists? How do new staff, especially those starting at odd times of the year (eg supply teachers) get to hear about the list?

What insurance cover do you have?

If a teacher or student borrows equipment, especially to take home, who pays if the item is lost, damaged or stolen?

What is the actual procedure for borrowing equipment?

Do people have to fill out a form? If so, where are copies of the form kept? Is it online? If so, can everyone gain access to it? Is it part of your VLE or Learning Platform? (For example, it's possible in Fronter to set up loan equipment as a resource like a room, which therefore shows up as being available or unavailable at a particular time.)

By the way, just in case you think this is a no-brainer type of question, I worked with one school to help them improve their management of technical support, and it transpired that in order to borrow equipment, teachers had to go and see one of three people. The person they had to see depended on what they wanted to borrow, although this was not made explicit anywhere. Moreover, one of the staff only worked part-time!

How do people know if the equipment they want to borrow is available?

Actually, how do you know that it's available? I visited one school where a crucial lead had gone missing because someone had borrowed it without telling anyone. So how do you get loaned equipment back in time? What do you about it if someone (consistently) fails to return stuff on time?

Where do people collect the item?

I'd suggest the school office, if you can use your powers of persuasion. Why? Because there is always someone there during the working day, which means that not only is it easy for someone to collect the equipment but also that it's not been left alone in a cupboard that might be broken into. (In one school I worked in, someone walked into the school and stole a printer from an office — not mine, I hasten to add: I locked my office every time I left it.)

Is the loaned equipment ready to use?

In the previous question I used the phrase 'in time'. In my opinion, that is not 5 minutes before the next person wants to borrow it. You need to allow time for charging it up, inserting fresh batteries, inserting an empty SD card, or whatever. Teachers need to be sure that when they open the box, everything is ready to be used.

Is the equipment easy to use?

Remember Freedman's Five Minute Rule: that it should be easy to be up and running and do some basic things with no prior training in five minutes or less. I advocate that for loan equipment there is a set of instructions for the teacher to consult if needs be. I don't mean the kind of instructions which have been written by a technician and then translated from Japanese! I mean clear, step-by-step instructions.

I also think that if a teacher is borrowing an item for the first time, someone should spend a few minutes with them just going through the basics.

How do people return loaned equipment?

Do they have to run around finding the person to return it to? Do they return it to the school office?
How is equipment checked?

I'd recommend using the kind of system that libraries use when lending out CDs. They check for obvious signs of damage and then note it down on a card. For example, you might note that a camcorder has a scratch down one side. I'm not suggesting you charge people for damage, but if a teacher knows that the scratch she has just noticed has already been documented, she won't be worrying about whether she did it or not.

If you loan out laptops, you should also check for newly-installed programs — although I would highly recommend that you make it impossible for anyone apart from yourself, your immediate colleagues or technical support to install anything. And do a virus check.

Why so many questions?

The whole point of all of these questions is this: is it easy and pleasant to borrow educational technology equipment? If not, why would anyone wish to bother?

As ICT leader, part of your remit is, almost certainly, to encourage other people to use technology in their lessons where appropriate. A good starting point is to ask yourself these kinds of questions.

The crucial thing to do is to consider them from the standpoint of a teacher who has just started working in the school today. If you can't answer these questions unless you've been in the school for at least a term, or unless you're you, then something needs to be done — and fast!

6 Possible Reasons Your Educational Technology is Underused

Does your computer lab look like this?

It's seen better days

Hopefully not! But how about metaphorically speaking? If your once-lovely shining new facilities are simply not being used by other teachers, perhaps one of the following is the reason why.

Teachers don't know what's available

Just because you do, don't assume everyone else does. Do you know what's available in the music rooms? When was the last time you took an inventory of the science area? It's not a bad idea to let people know what they can use. Set up a special area of the staff noticeboard, issue a half-termly newsletter, or make the occasional announcement in a staff meting. And definitely include the information in staff induction materials.

Teachers don't know how they could use it, or why they should

I think this is a matter of making suggestions to people, and asking their opinions. Something to avoid is coming across as if you know their subjects better than they do. That is pretty obnoxious, and almost guaranteed to trun people off working with you.

Teachers don't know what the kids know

It's a daunting prospect, thinking that before you can do what you actually want to do, you have to teach the kids how to do it. I'll give you an example of what I mean. Let's suppose I teach geography, and I want the kids to use a spreadsheet to generate a graph from some rainfall figures. I don't want to have to teach them how to do that, because that's just going to waste precious time from my point of view.

One thing I tried, and it worked really well, was to issue a bulletin at the end of each half-term stating what the students had been taught, and what they were going to be taught next. Once the staff knew that, to continue with the example, we'd covered how to make graphs, they were a lot more confident about using the facilities with their students.

Teachers lack confidence or competence

I've lumped these together because I think they amount to the same thing. At least,m they go hand in hand with each other. Improve your skills, and you're bound to become more confident.

So, make sure there is in-service training available, and classroom support if required.

The facilities are too difficult to book

I've already dealt with this problem in Removing the Barriers to Entry. Teachers are too busy to embark on a sort of obstacle course, so if it's hard to book a set of laptops or whatever, they probably won't.

The facilities are uninviting

They could be uninviting for all sorts of reasons. Old equipment, dirty keyboards, broken mice, or lots of posters telling you what is forbidden. Or they may be unreliable, or not fit for purpose in some other way (for example, laptops don't retain their charge for more than about an hour), or the computer labs may be too hot (a common complaint) or too noisy because of the air conditioning.

Perhaps in one of the computer labs only some of the workstations work — with the non-functioning ones still in place looking ugly and useless.

You'll need to look at the facilities with an objective eye, as I advocated in Carry Out a SWOT Analysis. That will help you identify the causes of the problem.

Conclusion

Unless you're incredibly unlucky, you should be able to make a significant increase in the use of the ed tech facilities in a relative short period of time. I know that quality is important, that it's not simply a question of numbers. But people can raise their game over time, so the important thing is to get them using the facilities to start with.

Also, if the facilities are constantly in use you will stand a much better chance of winning an argument for more funding to upgrade the facilities. In these hard-pressed times, that sort of consideration is more important than ever.

See the References for other useful articles on this topic.

31 Days to Become a Better Ed Tech Leader -- Day 24: Removing Barriers to Entry

Educational technology is different from other areas in the curriculum in one respect especially, which is that its success is partly measured by how much it is being used by non-specialists. With that in mind, the final quarter of this series is about encouraging other staff to use it.

A task a day for 31 daysIn fact, not merely use it, but want to use it. For that to happen, the technology has to be useful, exciting, easy to use, easy to access. Today, I'm going to concentrate on that last one, making the educational technology easy to access. I'll continue with this theme tomorrow.

Let's start with a simple proposition. If the educational technology is easy to access, other staff may or may not make use of it. If it is difficult to access, then they almost certainly won't, except under sufferance, such as if they are forced to by the senior leadership team, or on a particular day they have no alternative.

You have to bear in mind that, these days, it is really quite easy to gain access to a computer if you really need to. Many public libraries have computers which can be booked for an hour at a time, and there are internet cafés, not all of which look like dives. Many teachers have their own computer or, in the UK, a school laptop.

Bottom line: when it comes to using a computer outside school hours, teachers have a lot of choice as to where they go if they want to use a computer for lesson preparation or report writing. In a few days' time I'll be looking at how to encourage teachers to use the school's facilities for their own work.

But what of using the computers with classes? There are several things you can do in order to encourage or facilitate that, but within the context of this series I am going to focus on just one: making sure the equipment is accessible. Today, I am considering computer labs; tomorrow I shall look at equipment that is loaned out.

Remove the barriers to entryThe first step in making a computer lab accessible is to enable staff to actually get into it. Yes, I realise that is pretty obvious, but consider the situation I found myself in in one school:

• The keys to the computer labs were kept in a Deputy Headteacher's office.
• You were allowed to go into the office to get a key as long as the office was (a) unlocked and (b) not in use for a meeting.
• You were allowed to take only one key at a time. (The significance of this will become apparent in a moment.)

What this meant was that what should have been a very simple act — walking into a computer lab — required meticulous planning if you were not to end up waiting outside a computer lab with a class of kids who were becoming more and more unruly by the second while you frantically tried to gain access to the key.

That is assuming, of course, that you had been able to book the use of the room in the first place, because that was another major hurdle. Each room had its own booking timetable, which was available on the teacher's desk in the room.

Sounds logical enough, doesn't it, but suppose I wanted to book the use of the room next Wednesday morning for one of my classes. This is what I could end up doing:

1. Find key to computer lab A.
2. Check timetable in Lab A.
3. Return key and, if computer lab A was booked at the time I need it, take the key for Lab B.
4. Check the timetable for Lab B.

And so on. There were three computer labs, so checking their availability could, by the time you'd managed to get hold of the key each time, easily take your whole lunch hour. Little surprise, then, that most staff did not bother most of the time. It would be untrue to compare the computer labs to the Marie Celeste, because at least that ship showed evidence of recent occupation.

Sorting this out took surprisingly little time, using a few simple expedients.

Firstly, I redesigned the computer lab booking form. I figured that nobody would care much which computer lab they used (we didn't have a specialist area set aside for, say, multimedia; the only real difference between the rooms was the number of computers in them). Therefore, I amalgamated the room timetables for all the rooms onto one booking sheet, and organised it by time rather than room.

In other words, if you wanted to use the computers next Wednesday morning, you looked at the sheet to see which room(s), if any, were free at that time.

I then placed the booking timetable in the staffroom, which seemed quite logical to me.

These two steps meant that booking a computer lab went from possibly taking an hour to taking less than five minutes.

I also asked the school office to take charge of the keys. After all, there is someone there all the time, so that made perfect sense too.

All of a sudden, gaining physical access to the rooms was no longer a Herculean labour.

There is also the matter of access to the network. I understand the need for security, but I could never understand why some Heads of ICT made it so incredibly difficult to get into the computers unless you ahd your own user ID.

My view is this: there are always going to be students who forget their login details, new students or staff who have not yet been given their login details (even though they should have been) and visitors to the school. So why not create a bank of generic user IDs, like User01, User02 and so on? I believe that as long as people know that the work they create under these names will not be kept very long, and so must be transferred or saved to an external medium if they want to keep it, that's fine. It will only be the odd one or two in a class anyway (one hopes).

Another aspect of access is ease of use. These days, many applications are fairly intuitive if you've been using computers for a while. But not everybody has. When I was Head of ICT I came up with Freedman's Five Minute Rule. This states that someone should be able to come into your computer suite, log on, do some work, print it out and save it and log off, all in the space of 5 minutes even if they had never set foot in the school before.

One of the things you might do in order to meet this requirement is to put up posters giving step-by-step instructions for starting each application, how to save work in the word processor, how to print off your picture, and so on.

To be accessible, the computer systems also has to actually work. I will be covering technical support another day, but it's worth saying at this point that if your computers are unreliable, people won't use them. If, for example, there is an intermittent fault such that every so often the network crashes for no obvious reason, you really need to get it sorted out. It may be that it "only" happens on average once a week, or even once a month, but no teacher wants to be the one in the computer lab with a class when it does.

None of the things I've discussed here will in themselves make teachers want to use the computers. What they are all about is reducing, or even removing, the barriers to entry, to borrow a term from the econommists' dictionary. Think of it as a shop might: opening the doors of a shop and putting in signs reading "Menswear 1st Floor" won't get people flocking through the doors. But make it hard to enter the shop in the first place, and then fail to let people find their way around easily, and you will certainly deter all but the diehards or the desperate from even trying.

Look out for another article, coming soon, on why your computer facilities may be lying idle much of the time.

31 Days to Become a Better Ed Tech Leader -- Consolidation Day 3

Hopefully, the last ten activities have been useful. Having spent some time seeing what's going on, and then looking at some hard evidence, you should by now have started to address some practical issues, such as:

• What is the documentation like? Is it helpful?

• What resources do we have? What do we need?

• What are people talking and writing about? What new ideas are coming in?

• What do we need to do to make the ICT team (if there is one) even better?

It would be good to spend some time looking back on these activities to see if there are any gaps, because the next batch of 'assignments' are very practical and pragmatic indeed, as you'll see.

Just a couple of points to make:

Firstly, activities like reading, which don't produce an immediately identifiable result, are very important. I remember seeing a sign for a door once which depicted someone sitting with their feet up on the desk, and their eyes clothes. Underneath it said, "Quiet please: genius at work!"

I think there's a grain of truth in that. We all need quiet time to sit and just have ideas. The target culture has made us all think we're not doing anything of value if you can't see it or measure it. However, the brain needs time to mull things over. I certainly find myself that if I read and reflect, read and reflect, ideas start to gestate and are worth waiting for.

Secondly, there is a particular type of team leader who thinks that they have to take credit for everything the team achieves. Apart from being morally suspect, if not reprehensible, that sort of attitude is self-defeating, because ultimately people will simply stop giving out their ideas. Either that, or they will email you their idea and copy the email to everyone else they can think of, including your own boss.

If you've done a good job of encouraging and facilitating the birth and sharing of ideas, it doesn't matter whether people think you had the idea yourself or not. How come? Because if people in your team have great ideas then that's a reflection on you anyway.

Coming soon: some practical things you can do to get the technology being used across the school.

Five Minute Tip: Managing Your Team Meetings

Five minutes are all it takesIn my experience, most people run most meetings really badly. What are the most common pitfalls, and how can you avoid them?

Meetings should always result in something happening. Even if the meeting was a discussion, an exchange of views, there should be an action arising from it -- a good example here would be for someone to produce a summary of the views expressed.

Colleagues should know in advance what the meeting is going to be about. All too often, the Agenda appears at the last minute. You must give people time to prepare, especially if you want to have a genuine discussion about something.

Papers for the meeting should be made available well in advance. I have attended meetings where a 108-page document relating to the meeting was emailed to everyone 25 minutes before the meeting was due to start. That is unacceptable, and simply lays you open to suspicion of not intending to have a genuine discussion.

Someone should take notes in the meeting. As you are unlikely to have a secretary to do that, the fairest thing to do is take it in turns. But note that it is very difficult to take notes and chair a meeting. When it's your turn to take notes, you might consider asking someone else to chair it. That would also have the benefit of giving others a chance to step into your shoes and gain some valuable experience in their own career advancement.

Minutes are meant to be a record, not a transcription. Keep them brief and to the point. And make sure they are distributed within a day or two. The person taking the minutes should always give them to you for your approval before disseminating them to the rest of the team.

Minutes must always include action points, with a named person responsible. Note that the person responsible must be selected in the meeting, not afterwards, and only if they are present and agree -- it could be considered unprofessional to assign a task to someone in their absence, especially if it's a task that nobody else wishes to do.

Meetings should have set start and finish times. Even better, there should be some guidance in the Agenda as to how long each item will take. If these timings turn out to be optimistic, curtail the discussion and put the item(s) high on the next meeting's Agenda.

The meetings should start on time, and finish on time. No waiting for people who haven't arrived: the most important people are the ones who are actually there, and it's unfair to keep them waiting. It's also self-defeating, because they will learn that meetings start later than the time specified, so next time they will arrive late as well, because there is always something that "I just need to do quickly before the meeting."

Meetings should not be so frequent that they end up being held for their own sake -- everybody is too busy for that. Neither should they be so infrequent that there is no opportunity for a team spirit to build up. You'll have to judge this for yourself, but I would suggest that a meeting every two or three weeks is about right. If that is very difficult to fit in, consider a different pattern and structure: say, a full meeting every month, with a ten minute get-together at the end of each two week period in-between -- or an audio or online meeting just to "touch base".

Sometimes it may be impossible for someone to get to the meeting, but that need not be a problem. It's now both possible and easy to hold meetings which include people who are not physically present. Doug Woods, in a comment on my article about special team meetings, made some incisive comments, which I've reproduced here:

It seems to me, and this is hardly an earth-shattering observation, that people cannot always attend a meeting. Maybe this is because of illness, working from home or a different site, or they have a scheduling clash...whatever. Perhaps, this may be more of an issue nowadays with school clusters, federated schools, schools on split sites etc..These people, however, may well have a valuable contribution to make or could benefit from hearing other members' contributions .... else why would you have invited them to the meeting?

It can be important, therefore, that you enable such absentees to be able to make their contribution to the meeting in some other way. Possibly you could ask them to write their contribution beforehand and then have someone read it at the team meeting but I'd suggest that might be a poor substitute for an informed dialogue or discussion. So why not consider audio (telephone) conferencing or video conferencing as a means of allowing absentees to contribute and share in the meeting? Even someone on a train or someone driving could pull into a services [station] and contribute via a video link on their smartphone.

It also occurs to me that while meetings take place between key members of your team, there are other staff who may be affected by decisions or outcomes made at such meetings. Why not video your meetings and/or have a discussion board live during and after the meeting so that these other people can make a contribution and feel that they are included?

I'd also add that you could invite guest speakers to your meeting via Skype or a similar webcam-based solution. If you really wanted to push the boat out you could ask a member of your team who is attending a conference or an exhibition to report in live through their laptop. There also various online meeting applications available, such as Flashmeeting.

Finally, even though they may not have a choice in the matter, the members of your team are giving up valuable time to attend the meeting. Very few people like meetings. Sugar the pill by making sure refreshments are available. If possible, invite a guest speaker in, or ask one of your team to prepare a presentation. In other words, make it a bit different: you might like the sound of your own voice, but others might not!

This is an expanded version of an article originally published on 5th April 2007. Thanks to Doug Woods for his comments.

31 Days to Become a Better Ed Tech Leader -- Day 22: Organise In-Service Training

I am firmly of the belief that an ed tech leader is only as good as the team they're leading, and that good in-service training plays a large part in improving teachers' skills, knowledge and understanding.

A task a day for 31 daysLet's take that phrase 'good in-service training': what does 'good' mean? What is 'in-service training'?

Not all INSET has to involve PowerPoint

The meaning of 'good'

I think in-service training is good if it enables the teacher to do something s/he couldn't do before, or to be able to do it better. I'm using the word 'do' in a very broad sense. It could be that, having attended a course, you have a greater understanding of a particular issue than you did before, without necessarily having to actually do anything with your new-found knowledge.

(I'll explore this in another post, but I believe very strongly that there needs to be time and space set aside for teachers to explore issues as an intellectual endeavour, and not merely so that some pre-defined 'output' measure can be improved. But that's for another day.)

Ideally, in-service training should be useful for the individual teacher, the ICT team and the school as a whole.
Teachers should have a huge say into what training they will experience. I've seen instances of where teachers are sent on courses they don't want to attend, and denied permission to go on courses they do. That's a ridiculous way of trying to get the best out of your staff. Admittedly, there may be some things which everyone has to attend, such s information about a new curriculum, but there has to be give and take.

As far as what is good for the ICT team is concerned, that should be discussed by the ICT team. As team leader you will need to take some decisions, but they need to take into account your colleaues' concerns and ideas too.

Types of in-service training for ed tech specialists

But what is in-service training? Traditionally, it's a course. However, it could take a number of forms, such as:

• Attending a course.
• Running a training session.
• Attending a conference.
• Trying out something different.
• Writing a unit of work.
• Scrutinising students' work (not your own students, someone else's).
• Spending time reading.
• Spending time in discussion forums, Twitter and so on.
• Attending training sessions in bite-sized chunks, such as after school, and highly focused, eg Advanced Photoshop or Using Assessment for Learning techniques in ICT.
• Attending great team meetings.

Types of in-service training for non-specialists

Bear in mind that one of your jobs might be to organise training for non-specialist staff. Ideas that come to mind include:

• As you don't know what colleagues know or don't know, I'd suggest conducting a survey to find out what sort of things they would like training on.
• Running a regular ICT surgery. I'll be covering this in more depth soon.
• Running specific training for teaching assistants who help out in ICT lessons. I've always thought it best for all concerned for them to have at least a basic level of competence in using technology.
• Encouraging colleagues from other subjects to invite you to their team meetings to help them discover how technology could be used in their lessons.
• Making a video of the ICT going on around the school, and showing it at a staff meeting. (Students can take this on as a project.)

Your task for today

There's a lot to think about there, but here are a few issues which you might like to consider in your 15 minutes today:

• Who is going to deliver the training? It doesn't have to be you or an outside expert. One of your colleagues might be able and willing to do so. I've had pupils giving training, and the teachers loved it because it was so effective for them.
• Does training always have to take place as an extra-curricular activity? Doesn't that discriminate against colleagues who are paid by the hour? Since the training they enjoy will benefit the school (one hopes), should they not be paid to attend it?
• Does training always have to take place after school? After all, that discriminates against colleagues with family commitments. How about lunchtime sessions as well? I don't think there is an ideal time for training or a foolproof answer to this type of concern, but I think it's important to try and be as flexible as possible.
• Does all training have to take place 'live'? If you were to video your training sessions, the recordings could be made available on the school's VLE for colleagues to access in their own time.
• The same goes for screencasts. Why not create a series of short screencasts to cover the basic aspects of applications which are commonly used in the school?
• Does training have to take place in school or a teacher development centre? How about a team visit to an exhibition? I have organised some great visits for teachers to work places where technology is used.If such days are planned and organised well, they can be really effective professional development.
• Does all training or professional development have to be organised? What about taking part in online discussions? What about making the technology available and allowing people to use it how they see fit, or simply to explore it?
• Looking at your team as a whole (or yourself if you don't have a team), what are your most pressing training needs? Where are the gaps in your knowledge or skill set? How and when can you start to address this?

Further reading

You may also find the following articles useful:

5 Minute Tip: Keeping a Professional Development Record.
Web 2.0 For Rookies: Proving Professional Development.
                    

Update on 2010-05-21 10:18 by Terry Freedman, Educational ICT Consultant

A message from Doug Dickinson reminded me of the OU Vital Community. OU Vital is a recently-established online professional development community for ICT educators. Run as a collaboration between the Open University and e-Skills, it is providing a range of free professional development opportunities, both offline and online.

One thing it does which is especially relevant here is provide a range of 15-minute CPD activities -- ideal for the busy teacher (if they happen to be at the right time, of course).

Thanks for the reminder, Doug.

I also mentioned, in the comments, a forthcomin article about managing meetings. It has now been published here.

Connected Leadership Course

My friend Peggy George has sent me details of a Moodle course she is facilitating. Called 'Connected Leadership', the course is running this week (May 16-21), although all of the resources and the entire course will remain online indefinitely.Become a strong link in the leadership chain

Peggy tells me:

While Kim [Caise], Lorna [Costantini] and I created the course and organized all of the content, there are a number of co-facilitators behind the scenes who are there to contribute to the discussion forums and keep the conversation going which is a great help! They include Paul Stacey, Sharon Betts, Bruce Bearisto, Virginia Rego, Clint Surry, Randy Labonte, David LeBlanc and Wade Gemmell.

I've had a quick rummage around and it looks very good indeed, with lots of resources listed (including the 31 Days to Become a Better Ed Tech Leader series, which is most flattering) and some interesting discussions in progress. I'm looking forward to exploring further, and I suggest you might find it interesting and useful too. Here's the link:

Connected Leadership

31 Days to Become a Better Ed Tech Leader -- Day 20: Do Some Reading

In my opinion, reading is very important for helping you generate ideas and innovation. However, I do believe that to get the most out of a book or article you need to do what I call ‘active reading’.

A task a day for 31 daysThat means not simply reading an article in the way you might read a sweet wrapper or a billboard, but thinking about what you’re reading – even before you open the first page. There’s a good article on this website about efficient reading by Alison Skymes, and I should highly recommend that.

In this article I’m going to recommend some newsletters , blogs and Twitter accounts which should prove useful to you. Please bear in mind that the official UK ones from Becta (marked with a *) may be discontinued as part of, or a consequence of, the impending spending cuts.

Also, I haven’t recommended any books here. That’s not because I don’t read books – I do! But books come and go, and I tend to review them on their own, usually in Computers in Classrooms first. To find book reviews,  go to the tag ‘book review ’. You can also see a list of books I’d recommend on the books page. And, of course, there are my own books, which you can find listed here .

OK. With no further ado, here is my list of recommended reading.

Always make time for reading

Why subscribe to an independent newsletter?

• They have an independent voice, ie independent of organisation’s interests, or commercial interests – but you need to check just to make sure this is the case.
• They tend to contain a wide range of expertise, viewpoints and topics.
• There’s a sense of community (sometimes).
• They can be good for local news.
• They can be good for national news.
• They can be good for international news.

Subscribe to an independent newsletter!

Examples include:

1. Computers in Classrooms  This is my own newsletter, so I would recommend it, wouldn’t I ? But several thousand other people like it too, and they all have an interest in educational ICT. Although Computers in Classrooms contains news items, it is mainly a forum for exploring the possible implications of recent developments rather than simply the news of the developments. It also contains magazine-type articles, reviews, prize draws (sometimes) and other good stuff.
2. Information Technology in Developing Countries I have to declare a bit of an interest here because I occasionally have articles published in this newsletter. I like it because it has articles about educational ICT issues in countries such as India and Africa, which tend not to be reported on very much by the main magazines, blogs and newsletters.
3. From Now On This has some interesting discursive articles, and provides plenty of food for thought. I don’t like the website much because in my opinion it takes too long to drill down to the list of articles, but it’s worth the effort.
4. Stephen Downes' Online Daily newsletter. Useful and eclectic round-up of half a dozen or so ed tech news items every weekday and sometimes at weekends as well. Downes can be acerbic or hilarious -- I find my point of view varies according to whether it's my turn to be at the receiving end of one of his withering comments! Downes scans hundreds of ed tech blogs and is good at seeing through the persiflage.
5. Ed Tech Talk Newsletter This short newsletter gives out information about forthcoming online talks and discussions in, especially, Classroom 2.0 Live (which I mentioned in the article for Day 18, on joining a group).
6. Technology & Learning News Useful for keeping up with an eclectic range of educational technology-related news.
7. Technology & Learning Blogs Again, I must declare an interest, being one of the bloggers featured on this site. You’ll find a great variety of bloggers and blogs here, each blogger posting every two weeks on average. Much food for thought.
8. Local newsletters can be very useful indeed, so if your Local Authority or School District published one, subscribe!

Subscribe to a blog or follow a Twitter account (or two)!

1. Becta’s Emerging Technology  News * I have to declare an interest, as I proofread this before it goes live. It’s a great source of technical news with suggestions about the impact on education of technical developments. Neil Adam does a sterling job of finding and summarising complex technical issues, and often writes about advances months before they appear in the mainstream press.
2. Next Generation Learning  * This will be useful to you if you’re looking for articles suitable for parents, ie without technical jargon and implicitly assumed knowledge.
3. National blogs/updates, eg Department of Education and Learning & Teaching Scotland: these are useful, but cover all aspects of education, not just ICT.
4. Local blogs, eg Havering ICT Blog, or even a local school’s blog
5. Corporate blogs, eg Microsoft’s Schools blog
6. Independent blogs, eg The ICT in Education blog , Andy Black, Doug Woods and Shelly Terrell. Note that these are just a few of the blogs I subscribe to.
7. Tech  News blogs, eg TechCrunch and Gizmodo -- although I’d recommend Becta’s Technnology News over these (see above).
8. Collections of useful information, eg Shelly Terrell’s Teachers Reboot Camp (again), Chris Smith’s Shambles and Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day.
9. Leadership-oriented blogs, eg Miguel Guhlin’s Around the Corner, Scott McLeod’s Dangerously Irrelevant and Stephanie Sandifer’s Change Agency .
10. Twitter in general
11. Twitter lists, eg Danny Nicholson’s Techie Teachers list. (Uk-centric, mainly).  You’ll find more ed tech lists listed here.

I hope that’s enough reading for you! Remember, you don’t necessarily have to do it all yourself. If you lead or are part of a team, perhaps your colleagues could monitor particular newsletters or blogs, and report back briefly at the start of a team meeting.  In a nutshell, the suggestions in Delegate a Unit of Work applies to other aspects of leading ICT as well.



31 Days to Become a Better Ed Tech Leader -- Day 19: Attend a Conference

A task a day for 31 daysIt's a great pity, in my view, that one of the first things to go when the budget is tight is training. You can understand why: allowing a teacher to go on a training day not only costs the event fee, but also the cost of hiring a substitute teacher. Plus there is the hidden cost in terms of the fact that substitute teachers, no matter how good they are, rarely fill the shoes of the regular teacher. (And that is one reason, incidentally, why creating a lesson bank is such a good idea.)

Nevertheless, it's a short-sighted measure because I think continuing professional development (CPD) in any job is essential. One especially good form of CPD is — or can be — a one day conference.

I've already written about what I look for in a conference. But how can going to a conference help you become a better ed tech leader?

Benefits of attending a conference

A conference presentation can give you useful insightsIf you choose the conference well, these are the potential benefits:

• Get the latest news and upcoming developments. Things move so fast in  both technology and education that this is a good enough reason in itself to get along to a conference. One thing I have often found is that if a representative of officialdom is giving a talk, they will give you off-the-cuff news and insights which will either never find their way into published reports or will take some time to do so.
  
  For example, they may give you interim results of some research they've been carrying out, or some options they've been considering plus a heads-up about a forthcoming consultation. All of these kind of things help you keep on top of your game and put you in a position to be able to advise the senior leadership of your team from an informed standpoint.

• Meet other ICT leaders. I do my best to keep up with the news, but even so I always manage to find something out from a fellow attendee that I didn't know before. In fact, just being able to, if necessary, have a good moan about the state of things can be very good. After all, being an ICT leader or co-ordinator is often a lonely job, and meeting others in a similar position can be therapeutic if nothing else.

• Another benefit of meeting colleagues in similar positions is that it enables people to exchange ideas. No matter how innovative you are, you can still learn something from talking to other people.

• If the conference has been good, you will not only come away full of new information and ideas, you will also have had a morale and energy boost.

Conference follow-up

One of the downsides of going to a conference is that the new information and ideas end up going to the bottom of the virtual in-tray. I think it's very important indeed that when you return from a conference you work to a simple rubric along the lines of:

1. What were the three key things I learnt at the conference?
2. What is one thing I can and should change immediately as a result of attending it?
3. What is one thing I should change, or advise the senior leadership to change, over the long term?

If you lead a team of teachers, feedback should be given at the next team meeting. That in itself can provide valuable CPD, not only in terms of disseminating the knowledge to colleagues, but also in terms of the ensuing discussion.

If the team meeting is not scheduled for a long time, the information and advice should be disseminated to the team in some way.

I also think that one of the conditions of being allowed to go to a conference is that the notes made are distributed as necessary. Otherwise the benefits of attending are confined to only the attendee and can soon disappear.

Clearly, most of the points made here can be applied to any form of training, not only conferences.
There are aso online conferences, perhaps the best known being the K12 Online Conference. Attending such a conference is often easier than attending a physical one because you can watch the presentations in your own time, and so do not need permission as such.

However, I think there are two principles and one practical issue involved here. The principles are that, firstly, I believe that teachers should be treated as professionals. That means being given time to go to events like conferences. Secondly, expecting people to attend a conference in their own time effectively discriminates against those teachers who have family commitments and for whom, therefore, attending an online conference is impractical at best and impossible at worst.

The practical issue is that attending an online conference in real time enables you to participate in the discussion and Twitter stream taking place at the time.

It may be possible to negotiate for members of your team and yourself to have guaranteed no cover while the online conference is going on, so that each of you could attend in their 'free' lessons. Obviously, that kind of arrangement won't be possible in the average primary school.

In any case, it's not an ideal situation because in my experience you still get constantly interrupted and even called upon to do an emergency cover anyway. In fact, the ideal arrangement is to attend the conference at home or at a colleague's house. I don't underestimate the difficulties of getting that approved though.

Bottom line: attending a conference at least once a year is essential. It should help you do your job better. Everyone knows that teacher expertise is one of the most important factors in securing student learning and progress; conferences can help you maintain and increase that expertise.

You may also find this article useful: All About BETT: What it is, 9 Reasons to Attend,4 Reasons You Should Be Allowed to Attend, and 4 Other Colleagues Who Should Go Too

31 Days to Become a Better Ed Tech Leader -- Day 18: Join a Group

A task a day for 31 daysWhy join a community? John Donne said ‘No man is an island’, and that sentiment is certainly true when it comes to education in general, and ICT in particular. Joining an organisation can reap benefits – I’ve identified 12 possible benefits below.

We work better togetherI’ve drawn a distinction between societies and communities. It’s a completely arbitrary approach on my part, which sees a society defined as a formal organisation, with a particular structure, entry requirements and so on, and a community as an informal organisation.  As I say, it’s pretty arbitrary: some communities also have membership approval and other formal elements. Nevertheless, I hope the distinction proves useful to you.

Why join anything?

• Remember the proverb, many hands make light work. I have often found that when I am looking for information, someone in one of my groups has already done some of the work of researching and collating. (Equally, I think it’s incumbent on each member of a group to contribute in some way now and again, and that would include you!)
• Belonging to a group affords networking opportunities, such as through discussion forums, a newsletter, or conferences.
• It’s very hard to keep up-to-date with news and still have time to do your day job. Belonging to a group is a good way of keeping in the know, such as through a society’s newsletter. Incidentally, on Day 20 I shall be looking at newsletters you might like to subscribe to.
• If the society has a magazine, you can be sure to find discursive articles which go into more depth than the average blog post or newsletter item. Note that my newsletter, Computers in Classrooms, often has discursive articles. See, for example, the April 2010 issue.
• Societies usually put on special events, eg talks, conferences, including expert speakers. Some communities do so too, in the form of ‘webinars’, ie web-based seminars. In fact, sometimes that is the only thing a community does. See, for example, Classroom 2.0 Live, which features a special guest speaker and discussion each week.
• Communities and societies often have online forums, blogs and podcasts.
• Belonging to a group may give you opportunities to get involved in projects. I know, you already have enough on your plate. But doing this can give you greater knowledge and insight into a particular area.
• There may be courses and other professional development opportunities.
• It’s a support network, not just for work-related stuff, but for emotional well-being too. See, for example, Elizabeth Potts Weinstein’s article and video. IN the video she states that after being told in effect that she was useless, she went to her Twitter community and asked for reassurance.
• Being exposed to group discussions and newsletters is likely to give you a wider spectrum of information sources than you might otherwise be aware of.
• There are opportunities to contribute own point of view. Not everyone wants to do so, of course. In fact, most people don’t. But the option is there should you want it.
• Some groups and/or levels of membership give you kudos. That may not be too important to you on a day-to-day basis, but it can help make your CV/resumé stand out from the crowd.

Examples of societies include:

• The British Computer Society http://www.bcs.org/. The magazine is good for in-depth articles which tends towards more technical topics.
• Royal Society of Arts http://www.thersa.org/ A very interesting organisation which has social good as its core aim. Lots of opportunities to get involved in projects and discussions.
• Naace http://www.naace.co.uk/ . This is, in effect, the subject association for ICT in the UK.
• Mirandanet http://www.mirandanet.ac.uk/ An academic society, but one which sets a lot of store by teacher/classroom research. Unlike the other societies listed here, Mirandanet is free to join.
• International Society for Technology in Education http://www.iste.org/ I’d describe this as the subject association for ICT (educational technology) in the USA. Lots of interest groups available.
• If none of these sound suitable, you can always form a local group, eg of fellow ICT leaders or of colleagues from neighbouring school districts or local authorities. Note that I have included only those societies which have a broad set of interests, not highly specialised ones.

Examples of communities include:

1. Social networking groups, eg Linked-In http://www.linkedin.com See, for example, http://uk.linkedin.com/in/terryfreedman This is a good networking community and a source of interesting discussion and news (if you join one or more of the groups available)
2. Social networking groups; use this as a starting point: http://www.educationalnetworking.com/List+of+Networks Note, though, that some of the URLs listed may change because Ning has announced that it is going to end its provision of free networks.
3. Discussion list: Safetynet http://lists.becta.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/safetynet Specialises in e-safety, as the name suggests. I’ve included it even though it is specialised because e-safety is such an important consideration in our work. Note that I have no idea whether this group will continue, because I don’t know what the new UK’s government’s plans are for Becta.
4. Discussion list: ITTE http://www.itte.org.uk/ This is a community of teacher-trainers, specialising in ICT.
5. Discussion list: Ed Tech: http://www.h-net.msu.edu/~edweb
6. http://www.classroom20.com/ Good all-round community with thousands of members.

I hope you find something there which ignites your interest. Your task today is to explore the links I’ve given you to determine which of these, if any, to join.



31 Days to Become a Better Ed Tech Leader -- Day 17: Visit an Exhibition

As an educational technology leader, one of the most important things you can do is to actively look for new ideas. One great source of ideas is an exhibition.

A task a day for 31 daysBut, you say, there are no educational exhibitions going on right now. Really? Well maybe there aren’t, but maybe there are – I’ll return to this in a moment. However, it’s not necessarily that relevant anyway. The point of attending an exhibition is not to just be spoon-fed ideas, but to kick-start your imagination.

So, your task for today is to try to identify, and possibly even visit, an interesting exhibition. Where are the best places to look? Here are 8 suggestions.

• If you live in the UK, have a look at the Exhibition and Trade Fair website. This is very comprehensive, and should enable you to plan ahead if you can’t get to an exhibition in the near future.
• On the subject of planning ahead, don’t forget to pencil in the BETT Show for next January. A cross between an exhibition and a conference, this is a must for any ed tech leader who is serious about keeping on top of their game. You can read my thoughts about it in my BETT Highlights articles.
• Museums, especially science museums, can be a great source of inspiration. They often also showcase very interesting applications of technology. Sometimes they house exhibitions of the development of technology over time. Perhaps you could take a look, and if it looks good arrange to take a group of students along.  Search for ‘museums and galleries’ online for lists of useful links.
• Another source of useful links is the tourist board for your country. Enter ‘tourist board’ into your search engine. For example, the English Tourist Board website lists lots of interesting exhibitions and similar attractions.
• Have a look at the website for your local area: there may be an interesting exhibition not a million miles from where you live.
• In fact, there may be an exhibition going on in the foyer of the Town Hall, or your local library.
• Perhaps a local school has put on an exhibition which you could attend.
• Maybe a colleague in your own school has mounted an exhibition you could get to in the next ten minutes.

Even if attending an exhibition does not, in the end, furnish you with any great insights, not to worry. In the words of the old adage: a change is as good as a rest!



31 Days to Become a Better Ed Tech Leader -- Day 16: Create a Lesson Plan Bank

I am very much a believer in certain principles, which to me are evidence of good leadership:

The WORM Principle

This acronym stands for Write Once Read Many, and originally applied to CDs I believe. I think the principle can be applied much more widely, though. Why the need to do the same thing several times? Why reinvent wheels? In the context of lesson preparation, I think it makes perfect sense to (a) use a lesson plan template, as discussed on Day 14, and (b) for everyone in the team to deposit a copy of each lesson plan they create to a common area.

The latter will happen naturally if units of work are delegated, as suggested on Day 2. But even if that doesn’t happen, it is sensible for the team to start building up a resource bank of lesson plans and associated resources.

It saves work because in many cases it’s easier to start with something than starting from scratch. So if I draft a lesson plan and you create another lesson plan based on it, there are now two lesson plans on the same topic from which others can choose, or from which we ourselves can choose when we come to teach the topic again.

Share and share alike

I don’t think people should work in silos, especially if they’re on the same team. Sharing lesson plans not only saves time, but also helps colleagues see different aspects of the same topic. You can look at a colleague’s lesson plan, compare it to your own, and see something you hadn’t thought of.

Sharing need not be confined to the finished product. Why not use a wiki to share the process of creating lessons? I don’t think this is always appropriate, because the process takes time, and you may not always have that luxury. But it’s certainly worth trying.

Contingency planning

When I was Head of ICT, I used to ask my colleagues to always prepare an extra lesson on the topic, which could be used in a contingency situation. The lesson had to be a stand-alone activity, so that it could be used by a cover teacher without her having to understand everything that had gone before.

My thinking was as follows. When a teacher is out of school, nine times out of ten the work set for the youngsters is irrelevant, and designed purely to keep them quiet. I wanted to build up a bank of activities which were meaningful, interesting, useful and which would not disrupt the flow of the work.

But I don’t have a team!

If, like many ICT Co-ordinators, you don’t have a team because you’re the sole teacher of ICT in your school, these principles still apply, but in a different way. I suggest the following:

• Build up your own lesson bank. You can do that by creating an area where copies of each of your lesson plans is stored, and even drafts of lesson plans: why lose those half-formed thoughts? They may come in handy in the future.
• Join a community of other teachers in a similar position. I’ll be saying more about this later in the series, but one thing you might do straight away is start collaborating with another local school or two.
• Have a trawl around the Teacher Resource Exchange, or any similar sites you’re aware of. It contains lots of great ideas, and everything there is for sharing. You may like to contribute your own.

What now?

As often is the case, none of this can be achieved in its entirety in the 15 minutes I’ve suggested you spend each day on the articles in this series. However, what you CAN do is the following:

• Have a common area set up as a repository for lesson plans.
• Have a look at the Teachers’ Resource Exchange to see if there is anything you can make use of immediately.
• Start talking to your colleagues about the feasibility of producing one extra lesson each for the sake of contingency planning.



Update on 2010-05-12 13:15 by Terry Freedman, Educational ICT Consultant

I knew there was something else I wanted to say! And reading Doug Woods' comments on the Day 15 post has reminded me. I think another important principle is consistency. That doesn't mean that everyone's lessons have to be the same, but should at least address certain issues or contain similar elements, and plans should be consistent in order to make it possible for people to use each other's.n Hence my advocating the use of templates, as long as adhering to the template doesn't become an end in itself: flexibility is always required.

Refurbishment Isn’t The Same As Improvement

One of the places I like to go sometimes is a bar where they have free wi-fi and a relaxed attitude. You can sit there for three hours nursing a single pint (orange juice and lemonade in my case, if you’re buying) without being hassled or asked to leave.

Basically, neither the bar staff nor the owner seemed to care about such things. And as for the clientele, they were all concerned with their own affairs. I wouldn’t call them social misfits exactly but they were, shall we say, characters.

And now they’re gone.

The bar, you see, has had a make-over. It’s been ‘done up’. It’s been ‘upgraded’. It now serves ‘toasties’ and ‘skinny lattés’. It’s more light and breezy. But it’s not my bar.

I’m not, and never have been, a pub-type person. But a pub with free wi-fi and open all hours, now that’s a different matter.

But now that it’s changed so much, I doubt that I’ll be seen there too often. I may venture in there when I need to send an email urgently and I happen to be in the area. I doubt that I will again make it the point of my journey.

All of which makes me wonder: are all refurbishments improvements? Is it possible to have a brand spanking new computer suite, but none of the old atmosphere or user-friendliness?

I visited a school a few years ago in which the computer lab had nothing on the walls. No posters about how to use the equipment. No notice stating who to phone if something went wrong.

“Why’s that?”, I asked my host.

“Private Finance Initiative”, came the reply. “Not allowed to put anything on the walls.”

That should have been negotiated out of the contract before a single brick was laid, in my opinion. But that, and my bar experience, serves as a warning, I think: just because something has been refurbished, or renewed, doesn’t mean to say it’s been improved.



31 Days to Become a Better Ed Tech Leader -- Day 14: Look at the Docs

Today is about documentation. In my experience, this tends to be set aside, for the best of reasons: people are usually too busy. But documentation is important for a number of reasons.

Why documentation is important

• It acts as a reminder of procedures.
• It serves as a reference point.
• It is essential for induction of new staff in your team.

What documentation should be in place?

• Educational Technology Handbook.
• Scheme of Work.
• Educational Technology Self-Review.
• Educational Technology Action Plan.
• Educational Technology Lesson Plans.
• Stock inventory.
• Details of software licence agreements.

What should the Handbook contain?

Think of the Handbook as a reference for new staff, and an aide-memoir for existing staff. What do want them to know? Here are the things which I believe to be very important:

• The ICT vision and philosophy.
• Summary of resources available and how to avail yourself of them.
• Index of Educational Technology Resources or where to find them.
• Rules or procedures, such as for setting homework or using the school librarian's services, and health and safety issues.
• Details of risk analysis if subject leaders are expected to undertake one.
• Reference to where the wider school procedures and rules may be found.

Creating and updating the documentation

Documents such as the Handbook and the Scheme of Work should be collaborative efforts in my opinion. You can kick-start the process of developing them by creating a wiki for the Handbook, populating it with some suggestions, and then inviting others to contribute to it.

The documentation needs to be 'living', in the sense of being referred to and informing actions and planning and not left to languish in a filing cabinet. Therefore it should be referred to in meetings and revisited every so often — I would say at least once a year. It should be given to new members of your team. Indeed, it, or parts of it, could even be given to all staff.

Some notes about the other documents

The Self-Review

The self-review should be carried out at least annually. It doesn't have to be arduous, and it doesn't necessarily all have to be done by yourself. What it amounts to is repeating a lot of what you've been reading about so far in this series, in effect. That is, looking at the state of educational technology, especially the data, and asking the question: How are we doing?

The Action Plan

The Action Plan can be very simple, along the lines of:

Year 1: Buy set of 30 laptops.

Year 2: Develop links with European school.

and so on. But it does need to be continually evaluated in the light of changes in technology, budgets and priorities.

Lesson Plans

In theory these are the responsibility of individual teachers. Also, if your school has a particular generic policy on lesson plans then you will obviously need to follow that. However, the following suggestions may be useful.

If you followed my advice on Day 2 and delegated the creation of some units of work to your colleagues, then the lesson plans will (or should be) included within that.

There’s a case to be made for making lesson plan templates available, especially electronically. Templates help to ensure consistency across the team and coverage of particular types of thing. For instance, one of the items might be ‘Link to the Literacy Framework’. Another advantage of templates is that they save time: it’s much quicker to use drop-down menus or to circle an item than it is to write out a whole sentence.

Stock inventory

There should be an inventory of hardware comprising details of what was purchased, how much for, when, serial numbers and, if a digital inventory system is in place, where the equipment has been deployed.

The purpose of an inventory is that it should be very easy indeed to check if something is missing, see when it will need replacing and move it to a different location.

Hopefully, actually carrying out an annual stock-check and maintaining an inventory is not your job – but it may well be your responsibility.

Details of software licence agreements

Similarly with software licences. You should know how many user licences have been bought for any commercial software that you use. The licences themselves should be locked away, perhaps in the school office.

How does keeping track of hardware, and also of software licences and use, help you become a better educational technology leader? The answer is that keeping track of these things helps you plan future spending better, and also to deploy resources better.

If, for example, the computers in curriculum area A are almost never used, but those in area B are in constant use, it makes perfect sense to move some computers out of area A into area B, or to try to find out why they are not being used, in the hope of changing the situation.

Systems which automate such monitoring, and which can generate reports can save a huge amount of time as well as provide very rich and comprehensive – but simply presented – data.

What form should the documentation take?

All of it can simply be kept in a digital format. Some of it -– the stock inventory is a good example – is much more useful electronically than physically, because you can do more useful things. For instance, you can get a list of items that are coming up for replacement, or instantly find the location of a particular laptop.

When it comes to the staff handbook, I have always kept that in a ring-binder format, with each topic stored as an independent section (which means as a separate word processed document altogether). The reason is that it is easy to update individual parts very quickly.

However, these days I would also have a print-on demand version ready for my team members, the senior leadership team and a couple of copies for reference in the staffroom, plus a few spare for new staff on my team and to cover loss and damage. Getting this done is really cheap these days, and having a handbook that looks like a proper book indicates that you take it all seriously and have a pride in what you do. The bottom line is that there is no need these days for the ‘handbook’ to take the form of a collection of typed up sheets stapled together – it can look much more professional than that.

And presenting a print-on-demand handbook to new team members says, in a way that mere words never could, “Welcome to the team, and congratulations: you’ve joined a bunch of people who take pride in what they do and are going to be taken seriously.”

31 Days to Become a Better Ed Tech Leader: Consolidation Day 2

A task a day for 31 daysIn a sense, most of what we've done so far is looking and listening, and not an awful lot of doing. That's not literally true, of course: looking and listening are activities, as is planning. However, the point I'm making here is that it's better to wait a little while before storming into a situation. As the old proverb says, Make haste slowly.

That can be very difficult to do, especially if you have just taken up the post of ICT leader in a school. You've seen some things which need addressing, and you want to make your mark. That's why Day 6 was concerned with identifying actions you could take that would gain some 'quick wins'. But more profound change, which becomes embedded in practice, takes longer.

So, Week 1 was concerned with gaining a few quick impressions of the state of educational technology in the school. In Week 2 we went a little deeper, looking for hard data and getting other people's opinions.

Next week we do more looking — at something which from my experience is not looked at often enough. Also, it's a time for action, where we look at things you can actually do in order to make the experience of educational technology better for the youngsters, your colleagues and yourself.

As they say in the media: Stay Tuned!

31 Days to Become a Better Ed Tech Leader -- Day 13: Arrange Visits

A task a day for 31 daysToday's suggestion is that you invite a teacher from another school to visit your school, and to try to arrange a visit to another school. Doug Woods suggested this back on Day 4 ('Get out and about') when he said:

I'd suggest walking around other schools to get a view of how they approach things. And also invite other teachers from other schools to visit yours and ask for their impressions.

There is no right and wrong about any of this, but the reason that I have deferred this until now is that I think you get more out of visits if you have done a lot of groundwork first, as I explain below.

Purpose of the visits

There are several good reasons to arrange such visits, for example:

• To help you see your ed tech provision through the eyes of a disinterested third party (note that I said DISinterested, not UNinterested). People tend to see things they want to see, and to get used to the things that perhaps are not quite right. Someone from outside, with no axe to grind, can ask the awkward questions like, "But why do you do it like THAT?", and to share their own experience with you.

• Visiting other schools can give you ideas. When I was involved in ICT inspections, on one or two occasions I suggested that the Head of e-Learning visit a few schools to see what was going on 'out there'. Without that injection of fresh ideas, it is really easy to become a bit stale.

• If you're thinking of investing in a particular type of network, or software, a visit by and to someone who has already done so can be invaluable in helping you avoid some of their mistakes.

• On a longer-term basis, it is often a good idea to forge 'vertical' links, ie with the schools that your pupils are coming from or going on to.

Who should you visit or invite?

If you're in the UK, it's easy to find schools worth a visit in your area. To find out which schools have been accredited with the ICT Mark, or even those which have committed themselves to going down that road, the Next Generation website is very good.

You can also go to the Becta ICT Mark site, but in my opinion that is not as good because it has only ICT Mark schools, not ones which have committed themselves to the Next Generation Charter (as it's called).

For a less 'official' list of schools, go to the SSAT's ICT Register — but bear in mind that schools nominate themselves as being worthy of inclusion on the Register.

You could also ask your Local Authority advisor (if there is one) or your School Improvement Officer.

You might also trawl through the Ofsted reports for schools in which ICT received a good mention, but as ICT is not always specifically mentioned the reports of good schools in that respect may be a few years old now.

Companies can also recommend schools. For example, an interactive whiteboard company will be able to recommend exemplar schools, ie ones which have done great things with that product. In a sense, that narrows the focus somewhat, but in my experience, and from the reading I've done and conversations I've had, doing great things as a whole school in one particular area is usually indicative of a much deeper and broader level of engagement with change management processes and that sort of thing. In other words, it would be highly unlikely, I think, to find a school that was working wonders in its use of interactive whiteboards throughout the school, but which was pretty awful in every other use of educational technology.

Also, if you attend conferences or training days, get chatting to people and, if feasible, contact them subsequently to arrange reciprocal visits.

It doesn't have to be another school. It could be a college or even a company. It all depends on what you're mainly hoping to gain from the exercise.

Getting the most out of visits

If you have invited someone to visit your school, I would suggest asking them to do what you did on Day 4, ie walk about and gain a general impression of what's going on. Unless, of course, you'd like their opinion on a particular thing the school has been doing.

When visiting other schools I think you gain much more from it by doing even a small amount of research. What was their last inspection report like (if you're in the UK)? Are they on the ICT Register, or have they achieved the ICT Mark? What does their website tell you.

For me, part of the research is being done whilst you're attending to your own affairs, which is why I am suggesting visits now rather than on Day 4. I think it's important to have have done some deep thinking first, so that you can ask relevant questions or look for particular aspects at the time: nothing is more frustrating than wishing you'd asked to look at a particular thing when it's too late.

Your task for today

So your task for today is not to visit a school, obviously, as you can't do that in 15 minutes, but to think about what you'd like to get out of a visit to another school, or from someone else visiting your schol. Then have a think about whom to approach.

If you lead a team of ICT teachers, put this topic on the agenda for your next team meeting. Perhaps your colleagues can suggest schools to visit or teachers to invite, and why. If they are nervous about the idea of having visitors, try to explore why. Why is it that they are not 100% confident in what the school is doing in that regard, and what can be done about it?

You can see that even if the discussion results in a decision to not invite others in, that in itself can provide a rich source of data about what needs to be addressed and prioritised as far as educational technology in your school is concerned.