Beyond questions Zondle has a unique Phonics Builder which allows you to create content to support basic skills in reading and writing and that is at the core of my use within our school. Below is a streamline way of getting Zondle making an impact in your classroom.

Getting your pupil data in

Send you the details of those you want set up to use Zondle to doug.lapsley@zondle.com using their specific teacher and children spreadsheets (At some point this will all be possible to do online from within the system). You can do this manually but they have excellent customer support and are very quick at setting everything up. Consider how you want to use Zondle in your classroom and across your school when sending off the details. I originally set up our school with 1 ‘group’ for each year group but am now extend this to have different ‘groups’ set up for each ability group in class. That way I can personalise the experience more and target specific content (topics) at specific groups of children. Don’t worry too much though as once the data is in the system you can change everything around later on as you can see from the school manager screen shot below. It’s all drag and drop with the handy feature on the list of learners on the right of being able to start to type in a childs name and the list will dynamically filter, only showing the child you are after which makes adding to groups pretty quick.

Setting up content for children to use Zondle

If you have made content you will see it on the left as soon as you log in. The other ways to find content (as you can use other peoples) is to click on ‘my friends’ in the green drop down list (top right) or to use the search box to search everyone’s public content. As I have created a huge amount of content to support Letters and Sounds using the phonics builder (if I do say so myself) the plan for my school is for all teachers to ‘friend’ me in the system and then they will have easy access to all the content I have made. The great thing is so can you. With anyone’s content, mine or otherwise.

Once you have found the content you want to add, simply roll over the green ‘+’ icon and click ‘class ready allocations’ and tick the group associated with you as a teacher to be able to have access to that content. Job done.

Removing content previously set for children

I have started to use Zondle on a daily basis in the classroom and so need to regularly change the content I am making available for children. To do this roll over the green drop down list (top right) and choose ‘my class’ then ‘learner progress’ and choose yourself from the drop down list of teachers in your school. A list of the content currently set for groups in your class will now be displayed on the left. To remove the set content, roll over the content (topic) green ‘+’ and press ‘class ready allocations’ and untick.

Getting the children using Zondle Junior

A major development of Zondle that I have been proud to be a part of is the ‘Junior’ element. This gives Primary children a more tailored environment to their needs. Zondle Junior removes all the Facebook, Youtube links of the standard version and generally makes everything nice and ‘Primary’. It allows children to use their username and password at home in a safe environment to carry on with content you have set for them. More than this though, If you login to Zondle Junior in the classroom with your teacher account, or choose Zondle Junior from the green drop down (top right) you will be presented with a list of groups that you are associated with which the children can just click to access their account. In other words there is no need for them to type in their username and password so their time actually learning on the system is maximised. It also means you don’t have to worry when children need support logging in as they just click there Zondle avatar after choosing their group.  To give maximum flexibility I would recommend hunting out a great function buried in your teacher options in the standard Zondle version. To get there, roll over the green drop down (top left) and choose ‘my profile’ then on the left click ‘my preferences’. Ticking the bottom option means that when you log in to Junior with your teacher account it will stay logged in. It also pretty much gets round the ‘time out’ issue as well. This means that if you load up the next day and visit Junior your children can hop straight on without you logging in. If you use Zondle then have lunch and a PE lesson before coming back to using Zondle, you are still logged in and the children can jump straight on. Your account is still protected as if you are logged into Junior and click back the the standard version, you are asked to log in again (stopping the children from accessing any other data). Below are screenshots when you log in to Junior with your teacher account and when you click a group:

If you would like to gain access to the content packs (topics!) I have created using the Zondle phonics builder (covering everything from phase 2 to 5) to support early writing and phonetic awareness, search for me (primarypete) in Zondle and add me as a friend.

So what are you waiting for? Get it set up and used in your classroom today!

This day seems to have been a long time coming. I’ve always wanted handheld devices in our classrooms but since the IPhone with its slick touch screen interface and fairly easy use of the internet there are more plausable reasons than ‘well it would be cool’ and ‘it’s how children learn these days’. Having a tactile and intuitive piece of hardware that brings the power of the internet and beyond (ie apps) to the classroom is a leap forward. Those saying what’s wrong with netbooks I would say they are cost effective at getting 1 to 1 devices into the classroom but I don’t believe them to be particularly tactile or intuitive and would go as far as labelling them a touch clumsy and frustrating (certainly for younger children). Although one word of caution is some Flash content is a bit touch and go with any tablet (generally drag and drop functions which make the tablet screen scroll rather than the flash content. I expect this will be generally ironed out in new content as tablets become more commonplace).

But you need more than a fantastic piece of hardware to impact on learning. I’m leaving the notion of enthusiasm to use the devices out of the equation here. I know the children will be engaged in their learning but long term any technology should be so integrated and familiar that there should only be a minimal ‘buzz’ in its use.

You need a clear strategic plan for how the impact will take place. Beyond ‘we can get some cool apps like Garage Band and they can make their own music’. Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with Garage Band, IPads or schools using the app based approach as long as their plan stems from requiring the devices used to support cross curricular/creative/high engagement learning.

For my school setting the strategic  plan is slightly different. It’s true it would be great to use tablets for creative uses but the priority is to impact on basic skills, which I wrote about back in March here. I want our 2 form entry school to have a year group set of 6 devices which they can share between the 2 classes. Tablets in KS1 and either tablets or netbooks in KS2. The tablets would be used 1 to 1 but more often 2 children to 1 device. I have always taken the approach that sharing, collaborating and supporting each other’s learning is not only cheaper but also creates more effective learning than having a suite of computers 1 to 1. The devices would be used primarily for free based internet resources such as Zondle and ICT Games as well as specifically chosen subscription services such as Busy Things. This means that a tablet that runs Flash is essential (bye bye IPad). Which brings me neatly onto another reason I am taking the internet over apps approach. Apart from the fact they generally cost money, getting apps used well throughout a school will be more problematic than getting consistent use of quality internet sites. Teachers are not all familiar with apps, may require training etc whereas every teacher is familiar with using websites and therefore the fact that they are on a touch screen device as opposed to a laptop or desktop should create the minimum amount of barriers for teachers to use the devices to impact on learning. And don’t get me started on syncing.

I see the implementation of use as being short, frequent bursts of use where, for example, children go on for 5 to 10 minutes each day to develop, refine and consolidate either phonic, reading and mental math skills. Children need to over learn these basic skills and this approach would allow them to achieve success on a daily basis. So every day, in phonics and literacy sessions, children would come and practice phonics and other reading skills for 5 to 10 minutes. In maths lessons they would be used with a specific group of children for the session. In other lessons either phonics, reading or mental maths skills will be the focus for 5 to 10 minutes.

So what device will deliver all the above? In my mind it has to be an Android device. Whilst apps are currently not important, I would like to keep future options open and I think devices like the HP and Blackberry tablets are pretty much non starters for apps. The Android marketplace will mature. Now, there will always be something better just around the corner but right now (August 2011) the current crop are:

Motorola Zoom (way to expensive, heavy and fairly clunky)

Acer Iconia Tab (a cheaper Zoom)

Asus eeePad Transformer (not stylish or light but cost effective and with the option of a keyboard dock that acts as a second battery, a real option)

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (light, fairly cost effective, keyboard option and Honeycomb 3.1 but no second battery)

So it’s a straight shoot out between the Asus eeePad Transformer and the Samsung Galaxy Tab. A big factor in deciding was using the information the children I taught last year gave me (5 and 6 year olds) about the RM Slate and Motorola Zoom which I was fortunate enough to test with them for a couple of days. Their review? They loved the idea of the devices but both were far too heavy and the RM Slate was simply unusable. They had no such problem with the Zoom’s Honeycomb operating system. I assumed they would rather have a smaller device that they could hold in their hands but they were very clear that they wanted a large tablet that they could use with a stand but also have the option of having in their hands.

Where does that leave us? Basically, is the Galaxy tab worth £40 per device more? I think so. It’s got newer technology (it was based on competing with the iPad 2), looks better, is significantly lighter, thinner (easier for small hands to hold) and also has Honeycomb 3.1 which has the advantage of proxy settings being built in so that when you connect to a school network you have the option of adding proxy details. Any downsides? I’m not sure about it’s robustness so would need a decent case for each and has an IPad style non-standard connection (which we will not really need anyway) … and that’s about it. Other small things that help are the loudness of the speakers (on each side rather than the back or bottom or somewhere less than ideal for Primary children) and the headphone jack is on the top so it’s unlikely to be damaged. And the crispness of the display is rather lovely.

So I will be purchasing 12 Galaxy Tabs for our school after the summer holidays, 6 each for year 1 and 2. Our second mobile laptop suite will be disbanded so year 3 and 6 will be set up with 6 each and then if all goes well, next year devices will be purchased for the missing year groups.

So what do you think? Is now the right time to purchase a tablet over a netbook? Does the Galaxy tab do it for you? If you are after something smaller the 8.9 inch version is just around the corner. Do you have any concerns with the strategic approach being taken? I’d love to hear what people think.

Finally, below are some screen shots of the Galaxy tab running various things (click for bigger images). The children in our school when loading the internet will be taken to ‘Digital Wings’ (our custom built learning platform which is basically a set of links on speedtile).

Zondle (most games work with the tablet – a couple that use drag and drop or a spacebar don’t)

Busy Things (a few things don’t work work – dragging and dropping mainly but lots does as well)

Click here to watch a video of Zondle being used on the Galaxy Tab 10.1.

Now I admit to being behind the game in terms of using blogging in school but it just hasn’t fitted with our school improvement plan and so even now we are taking things baby step by baby step. However I have done quite a bit of research into which platform would produce the response required to make blogging a success and impact on learning. In short, Posterous allows anyone with an email address to submit a post, which can then be moderated. This gives huge flexibility for children to post to a class blog and makes things incredibly easy for teachers to start posting. In other words if you can send an email you can and are blogging.

What’s the purpose? Well for us the primary reason to start blogging is to improve levels of communication between home and school. Previously this has been carried out through our old learning platform, text messages, posters on doors and letters. I want us to move to a place where letters still go out but are also uploaded onto our school website, text messages are sent as reminders for things and prompting parents to look at work on our school’s class blogs which would become a one stop shop for everything related to that class. That would be it. No more posters. No miscommunication. Everything in 1 place for busy parents to find. I know that once our staff begin to use the class blogs as a method of informing parents about events etc that it is only a small jump to them using it to share examples of learning. For want of a better phrase, a window into the classroom. The premise for impact on learning being that parental engagement will increase and therefore an increased dialogue will be created between parent and child related to their learning and subsequently the support of learning. Down the line I would love to regularly get individual children blogging by sending emails to their class blog, creating a real audience and purpose for their work, particularly writing. All this can be done using the simple elegance of the Posterous platform without having to spend hours training or administrating. Yes it’s true that because all the class blogs are registered under the same account that I have to moderate all posts but as things take off I can very easily set it so that teachers posts do not need to be moderated and/or I can set up teachers as moderators of their own class blog, whilst I can still oversee everything. There are other free and cost effective solutions out there but purely for ease of use and functionality, Posterous takes some beating.

Not convinced? Ok – here goes… Not only can you blog via email but you can get your Posterous blog to automatically post (Autopost if you will) to other sites you tell it to, eg the schools main blog or a school twitter account. So I have set up our PTA with a blog that noone ever sees but they can use by sending an email to an address and then it will automatically be autoposted to our school website. To be honest, I would consider ditching the WordPress school blog/website in favour of a slightly more limiting look of a Posterous blog if it wasnt for the fact that it has already been introduced!

Still unsure? Right – how about creating a good practice Posterous blog that any of your school’s teachers can contribute to by just sending an email. Or a Digital Leaders website where children could share their expertise in helping around school with various tasks or a child run school council blog all contributed to by the simplicity of an email?

Still not convinced? Ok. I have nothing left! Maybe you could add other uses as comments below?

If you would like to read more about the Kidsmeet structure or find out how to set up your own, visit the wiki here or website here.

Onto the event!

My parallel class teacher and I took four Year 1 children to meet up with a dozen other schools participating, not forgetting a school in Birmingham who were going to use Skype to connect virtually. We hadn’t practiced our presentation much before the day so there was a lot of hard work during the morning by the children, with a little direction from me, to get them ready to present to over 100 other children and teachers. The car journey was an excitable affair, as was our arrival but luckily @joga5 who had driven over 300 miles to compare the event had thought of every eventuality and brought along a superb selection of picture books to read. We arrived early in case any help was needed with setting up but the school’s Head teacher, @smichael920 and the aforementioned @tomsale and @mister_jim had everything well under control. The event itself kicked off with a presentation by children from Hawes Side and what stuck out to me was the impeccable behaviour of all the children in the audience, showing respect and a great attitude when listening to every presentations. I think this was due to the diverse range and style of presentations, the marvellous comparing by @joga5 and the intrigue for the children not knowing what was coming next.

In the first half school after school came and went giving good accounts of themselves with presentations ranging from Powerpoints written, created and read out by the children to singing and drama games to the virtual presentation from @oliverquinlan‘s class in Birmingham. Indeed after that virtual presentation it was our turn. We had decided to keep things geeky and simply go through how to use Aviary Education to edit images and create music, which we had used for our Cinderella and Pirate themes as well as for our school’s art exhibition. As the children were only Year 1 it was too much to ask them to do all this and explain how we used the package in our themes so we stuck to the geeky side of things. This allowed each of them chance to take control of the computer projecting to the room whilst the others explained the process using the provided microphone (a must have). After they had finished their presentation and received a very warm round of applause they strode off to receive goody bag items such as a t-shirt each from the ever awesome Zondle. The children were buzzing after this and when asked later about their favourite part they unanimously said ‘doing our presentation’, an experience which at 5 and 6 years old will stand them in good stead in further years. You can read and see more about our presentation on our class blog, here.

During the break there was a great selection of food an xbox stand to play on and a brief opportunity for teachers as well as children to chat before the second half began. a special mention has to go out to @chrismayoh’s class who had come all the way from Bradford to take part. Around about the same point, time had unfortunately progressed and so in true Teachmeet style the last few presentations were carried out with a smaller audience, which was a shame as they were 3 of the best. Luckily all the participating schools will be uploading their presentations and then having them available for viewing on the Kidsmeet website.

After closing comments including from two Australian Head teachers it was time to depart and return home. The next day I spoke to all the parents of the children involved and it was clear the impact the event had had on their child and the ability to give out the website containing pictures and a replay of the streamed event furthered the opportunity for parents to share in the children’s fantastic efforts.

So, in conclusion was the event a success? Yes. Definitely.
Will it need tweaking? Yes. Definitely.
Will it live long in the memory of everyone involved? Yes. Definitely.

A couple of stand out moments for me were Claremont’s braveness at getting up and singing individually in front of everyone (or year 1′s favourite of the first half), Chris Mayoh’s class’ ability when demonstrating Kodu and the last 3 presentations which were Tom Sale and @enomilies Mereside children talking about their digital pencil cases, @cjs76′s Flakefleet children who demonstrated pivot stick figures for animation and last but certainly not least, James Maloney’s (mister_jim) Staining children who had created a fantastic mixture of live interaction coupled with a clearly child driven video recording involving Brainpop’s Moby.

I was glad I could play a small part in organising the event, but huge credit in particular should go to @mister_jim as well as @tomsale and @smichael920 who were fantastic organisers and hosts.

A conversation that goes on at 8pm every Thursday related to a variety of UK educational issues. Find out more here and here and here.

Why participate in #ukedchat

To connect with other educators throughout the UK and beyond. To reflect on your own teaching and children’s learning. To share your views. To have your views challenged in a professional environment.

How to participate in #ukedchat

#ukedchat is a twitter hashtag. To participate you need to follow the hash tag in a search. You can do this in a variety of ways, for example on http://twitterfall.com or on the twitter website. By following all the tweets that occur with the hashtag #ukedchat you are reading all the conversations that are occurring concurrently. To join in and have your say you need to post a tweet and include the #ukedchat hashtag. If you want to reply to someone you need to also reply to them.

Example #ukedchat tweets

To get high SATS results you can be bored out of tiny mind and get there. To become a learner 4 life you most definitely can not. #ukedchat

@colport there is enough time to reflect. Just as with everything else it depends where you as a T put your time. #ukedchat

What to do after #ukedchat

Sometimes that is it until the following week. However nothing is stopping you or others continuing to use the #ukedchat hashtag and furthering a conversation beyond the fixed time. Sometimes other ideas come out of #ukedchat and filter off in their own direction. You really can get whatever you want out of it.

However, we have not been using ICT to regularly impact on basic skills beyond the occasional use of www.ictgames.com etc. There is good use of matching an objective to class computer use but the 3 computers in each class often lie dormant (including mine). The cold hard fact is that in general, we as teachers still believe that if are doing whole class sessions, then children are ‘missing out’ when they doing something else and would need our support coming back to independent learning without teacher input. We set up activities to support independent learning on class computers (not forgetting the interactive whiteboard) when we find something appropriate and more effective than what is possible without computers, so when we don’t, computers are not used. The extent we look for those little specks of gold dust will depend on individual teachers and the structures (their ‘go to’ sites) that they have been built in to their planning process over time.

In my opinion, this needs to change if we are to make a significant impact on basic skills. I’m talking phonics and spelling in Literacy, number facts and basic understanding of number in Maths. With the right software will the children really ‘miss out’ by using a class computer for 10 minutes each? Can their table partners not go through the modelling process with them? (Helping them check their own understanding at the same time) If this is the case you could set up class computers all day to focus on basic skills with the occasional switching to a well chosen objective focused learning activity. Personally, I’d have the focus being on Literacy as standard practice and switch it to Maths during a Maths lesson before switching back to Literacy for other lessons. Really all I am saying is just as with a teaching assistant, do we use them to support a learning objective with a specific group during a specific lesson or do we get them to support specific skills whatever the lesson, aka intervention groups etc. I’d love to hear from schools who already do something like this and whether it makes an impact, i don’t think what I am proposing is new or innovative, it just makes sense if a focus needs to be on basic skills.

Which brings me to the second part of this post. Hardware. With the finical constraints schools are now facing, as an ICT Leader I have a responsibility to ensure that every penny counts. We currently have no fixed ICT suite, instead we have 2 laptop suites with RM Mobile 1′s. These are used extremely well but inevitably, with PE, swimming or other lessons where laptops would not make a difference to learning, they are not used at full capacity. One of these trolley’s have laptops that are 4 years old and starting to creak. Which leaves me with 3 choices to put forward to our Head Teacher. Firstly, replace like for like as they die. This will ensure continuity of ICT Skills but be very expensive. Secondly, downgrade over time to 1 laptop suite. This will still allow ICT Skills to be taught (it would mean KS2 have laptops for half a day a week rather than a full day) but inevitably some of the cross curricular uses that were mentioned at the start of the post would suffer. It would also keep costs down. Thirdly, disband the older trolley, put 6 laptops in 2 year groups (2 classes in each) and as they die, replace with netbooks or as the hardware matures, tablets. This would be cost effective in terms of turnover of hardware at that stage but could end up being as expensive as 2 full laptop suites if it was then rolled out across all year groups to have 6 machines each. These machines could then be split between classes or each class could have the full 6 for particular lessons or days. It would also enable the basic skills provision outlined above to occur on more computers and therefore have a higher impact on learning. Either that or the 6 mobile devices would not be used along with the 3 class computers not proving good value for money! Of course, it is my job as an ICT Leader to ensure that does not occur and the use of the mobile devices sparks use class computers into life. It’s pretty clear which of the 3 I favour. I love the flexibility of mini mobile suites and am sure ICT skills would still be taught well with the one ‘high performing’ set of laptops in the mobile suite. I’m imagining a future with good value tablets, probably Android or Chrome OS based (Flash support all the way for me – sorry IPad lovers) and therefore primarily used for internet based free and well chosen cost effective sites such as Zondle and Sumdog as well as classics such as www.ictgames.com. I’d love to add something like The Bug Club which would turn the tablets into an engaging, structured independent reading device.Of course use of these devices would not be limited to basic skills support but to make a fast and large impact, this has to be the primary concern.

So what do you think? Have your school been supporting basic skills like this for years already? Do you think there are any significant reasons not to follow this path? All comments and views welcome!

Image Courtesy of robynlou8

The reason to do this? I want staff to be able to easily find software and Internet apps that they can use to support learning of ICT curriculum skills. I don’t want staff to be stuck with the same tools they have used for years when there are more engaging and progressive learning tools on offer. I also want details of progression to be within the Evernote notebook, supporting teachers understanding of the capabilities of learners.

So instead of the Google Doc that has previous had our ICT Curriculum, now there is a shared Evernote notebook. When a teacher wants to view their year group’s skills they click ‘Skills’ and then press ‘ctrl’ (which just as with Windows, allows other tags to be selected at the same time) and their year group.

To select skills for a particular area of ICT, press ‘ctrl’ and then click the area of ICT required in addition to the year group and ‘Skills’.

The real power comes if you uncheck ‘Skills’ which will show all skills and associated programs for that year group or uncheck ‘Skills’ and click ‘Applications’ (whilst holding ‘ctrl’) which will just show the application options for that year group, within the ICT curriculum area selected.

Over time I am planning to add additional supplementary information regarding possible learning outcomes, ideas, progression within each skill and each tool (tagged as applications), planning outlines and possibly the use of ICT in other subjects (particularly Literacy). I believe that if our staff get used to using this system it will provide all the necessary support and details required in the use of ICT in our school.

As part of the evidence gathering process for the AST assessment day it is requested that I show:

• Evidence of successful training, advice and support of colleagues beyond my school
• Evidence of continuing professional development and its impact on teaching and learning

I am always looking to develop my own practice and have always tried to share ideas and resources and support people through my experiences at classroom teacher and ICT Leader level. I am hoping that if you agree, you will be willing to send me a message on twitter outlining either of the above blue statements. If so, please:

• Send the message to @primarypete_
• Include the hashtag #peteictast in the message
• If you are not on twitter and would like to help, please leave a comment on this blog post

Thanks again for everyone’s continued support.

Firstly, we stopped our subscription to the fantastic Bett award winning Mathletics website. This was due to increased subscription costs, the need for pupils to remember multiple usernames and passwords and the admin of running multiple usernames and passwords.

Then our school’s chosen learning platform, Studywiz, went into administration and went through a management buy out, my understanding is this was due to a rapid expansion coupled with the worldwide economic troubles.

Whilst all this was going on I was continue to experiment in the classroom with web tools such as Storybird, Wallwisher, Twiddla, DimDim, Voicethread, Primarypad/Ietherpad, Prezi, Audioboo, Dabbleboard and Timetoast. Then Storybird announced the ability to create class accounts.

Then it was announced that there would be a Google Teacher Academy in the UK. I was in the middle of multiple crises at the time so couldn’t apply but keeping a close eye on the back channels through Twitter and blogs during and after the event confirmed a lot of my thinking.

Subsequently, I discovered the expensive (for 1 account per pupil) but rather impressive looking Myonelogin when cruising Google Apps Marketplace.

Then, this morning I was given access to Aviary’s suite of tools for education (currently in beta) which has similar class account facilities to Storybird and at first glance offers fantastic opportunities for integrating into the classroom.

Phew! Glad that’s over. I realise it may be a bit odd mentioning the past in a post called the future but bare with me…

The starting point for the future has to be where do we want to go? What do we want children to be able to achieve? What effect do we want to have on children’s motivation and enthusiasm? My answer to this has not really changed. I want children to become equipped with the transferable skills, in any curriculum area, that will help them be happy and succeed in education and in life. In my opinion technology plays a key role in this. Not just through ICT subject skills but in supporting learning and enthusiasm across the curriculum and beyond.

Taking that as a starting point, what is the best match with this philosophy out there? Well, as every teacher and every pupil is different, I would say as wide a ranging choice of tools for learning, leadership and management as possible with as simple and controllable administration as possible that each school can tailor to their own requirements.

Getting down to practicalities, looking at the possible tools and associated costs, what is the best combination or outright winner? Well, having moved away from Google Apps for Education in 2009 with a learning platform sitting alongside (I have written about this in a separate post), I think I have a decent perspective on the positives and negatives of running it and running a learning platform. However, cue a Godfather like “Just when I thought I was out… they pull me back in” for Google. The possibilities for cloud storage, sharing and collaboration was the primary reason and is something I have been trying to solve for the last couple of years (previous post about my experiences here). Indeed, a primary reason in the choice of learning platform when moving from Google Apps was because of the promise of added functionality to the very clever ‘eLocker’ file storage system that Studywiz employs (coupled with excellent useability, cutting edge ideas and a good range of learning tools). If you could access and edit documents online it would make the product more complete, although the cost comparison with Google Apps is a no brainer (Google Apps Education Edition being almost free). So with Google Docs pulling me back to Google we could ditch 95% of our school network and move it online, allowing for anytime, anywhere access with privileges.

It’s important to note that if we ditched the school’s learning platform in the future (not happening any time soon) we would be without the learning tools that were the main reason for the move to a full learning platform in the first place. I still believe that even in it’s current state, Studywiz’s tools and useability puts it head and shoulders above its commercial learning platform competitors. The other big arguments I have always used since moving from Google Apps as a reason for deploying a full learning platform is the easy management (some now integrating automatically with SIMS) and the ability for non-ict specialists to create activities for pupils to use, for me the single key reason that a learning platform is necessary.

However…

All the mentions of web apps that can be used in the classroom at the start of this (increasingly mammoth) post, got me seriously considering my opinion about ease of use for non-ict specialists. Most of the web apps outlined are incredibly simple and intuitive to use and will only become more so as time and technology progress. Therefore, what is stopping schools moving to a Google Apps for Education system for communication between staff, with a range of web apps adding functionality and learning tools?

Well one thing really as far as I can see…

Logins.

It would be completely unfeasible to create individual accounts for more than two or three web apps and expect the teachers and children to keep track of all the usernames and passwords, even setting them the same on each account would prove problematic due to the ability for users to change passwords. It would (and has) been manageable for me as an individual teacher to do this for one class but it is no use as a whole school strategy. Therefore the only option going down this route would be to use some kind of single sign on system, such as the one mentioned at the top of the page. The two issues with this would be cost and availability of the web apps through a single sign on system. Our school has 350 pupils and at a cost of $30 a year per user that’s converting to roughly £7000 a year for all pupils. Clearly not good value for money in terms of impact. Now you could say ‘well foundation don’t need access’ etc to get costs down but that really defeats the entire point of having a whole school plan, and my belief is that there should be ample opportunities for children in foundation to use tools as they do in year 6, just different ones. So what is left? Well why not consider a class or year group account that can be shared across the class? With 14 classes, the class teacher responsible for accessing their class, each with their own unique single sign on, that would be less than £300 a year. Tasty. It obviously doesn’t have the same privacy and security due to the shared nature of the account but personally I think it would still be at a secure enough level as long as pupils didn’t have images and video of themselves on the web apps without the correct permissions. I don’t know about other people’s school servers but ours is shared between all pupils and I can only think of possibly one example of a pupil deleting someone else’s work in six years.

As a word of warning, web apps could disappear at any time, especially free ones, so it would be important to plan what to do in case of this occurring if this method was to be considered in school. In my case, I would train and describe web apps in terms of the tool they provide rather than the actual site. For example, when access to Wordle was temporarily taken down, other ‘word clouds’ were readily available.

Perhaps in the not too distant future a single sign on system will be shared between web apps creating suites of compatible tools. Who knows. For now though, after all the above, my long term direction for use of technology in school in order to fullfil the philosophy outlined towards the start of this post is:

Use Google Apps for Education at the system for communication for all staff. That means email, calendars, docs, sites (for the school website – which would also act as a repository of sites for parents, pupils and staff).

A single sign on system is then used to create accounts for each class. Some tools that right now are available are WordPress (class and school blogs), Animoto , Ning even Google Apps itself so classes could have a shared area for online document creation, for example. The myonelogin website says there is a bookmarklet to add your own. I’m not sure how the whole system works and so can’t comment on the extent of additional functionality, but it could be massive! **Updated** I’ve tried out the demo account and the way the system works is you can basically add any website (apart from ones that have flash logins like Voicethread) and you just add the username and password details in the main myonelogin console area. It has a couple of small niggles but it really could actually just…well…work! I have also tested an alternative system (Onelogin) which is significantly cheaper opening possibilities for individual user accounts. Imagine the possibilities with just a few other tools added such as Edmodo, Storybird, Avairy you really would be able to offer pupils a great set of tools for learning and beyond.

Cost wise, with Google Apps only needing a domain name and hosting, the cost for lets say a one form entry primary school of seven classes you would be looking at a base cost of less than £250 a year. Compared with a full vle that’s just insane. Yes it doesn’t offer the same unique login for each pupil but within each tool they still have the ability to show their individuality, use learning tools and develop E-Safety skills (including respecting each other and their work). At that cost, individual schools could pick and choose any commercial sites that they really wanted to push, affording them flexibility without having to pay over the odds for things they just won’t use.

I’d be really interested to hear what other people think. This whole process has been bumbling around my head for a long time now. I’d be particularly interested in hearing what people think about the ‘class’ login as opposed to the ideal solution of an individual login, particularly with regards security. I’d also really like to hear from anyone who has used a single sign on system successfully and really any comments on anything i’ve mentioned!

Image courtesy of Laurence Whittmore.

Having said all this, there is one huge feature missing from our learning platform that I see as integral to any digitally aware school, the ability to access and EDIT documents securely on the web so that teachers and leaders can access 24/7 (replacing the school’s network). The learning platform does feature uploading and downloading of documents, but not in a way that makes it usable as a complete network replacement.

I originally tried testing this system of working using Google Docs as part of Google Apps in 2008, however it quickly became clear that without folder sharing (therefore having the possibility of sharing multiple documents and permissions already set based on the folder) and the ability to upload other file types (such as PDFs, images, smart notebook files etc) it would not be able to replace the school’s network, and that is not even mentioning the large number of security scare stories on the internet that were (inevitably) circling at the time.

During 2009 I tried out Box.net, which allows for document upload of pretty much any file type as well as online document creation. I love the way it integrates with other web systems, such as Zoho, which allows documents uploaded to be edited online. The possibilities seem endless and it’s close to my vision for cloud computing where systems interlink seamlessly as if part of the same system. Unfortunately, for use inside school there were three drawbacks at the time. Firstly, despite several hours on the phone, our LA filter was still blocking elements of Zoho which made editing documents online unusable. Secondly, Box.net makes sharing files almost too easy to make it secure for school staff (1 click slightly in the wrong place and your file is shared to anyone who knows the link). One way around this would have been to pay for interlinked business users which would allow for password protected files. Whilst Box.net offered us a generous educational discount for 5 business users, I was reluctant to commit to another yearly outgoing on top of Knowledgebox Online and our learning platform, especially as I still felt online document editing should be a key part of any learning platform system.

Later in 2009 I tried out Dropbox as well as several of its competitors (e.g. Sugarsync). I went through the checklist that had previously proved the downfall of Google Docs and Box.net. Security (check), gets through filter (check), cost effective (check). I was concerned about the ease of deleting things with one shared account, and multiple accounts for each year group or user seemed like lots of admin time and support for the less ICT literate so I purchased the Pack-Rat (unlimited backups). With all the above secured, I put a test in place with 4 users in school for a couple of months. Everything worked brilliantly, suddenly the possibilities became a reality. The next step was whole school rollout, which in the first couple of weeks was as smooth as silk with our entire curriculum network moved online. Even the less ICT literate staff members, whilst initially moaning about the introduction of another ICT system for them to learn, soon saw the benefits. I thought I had finally cracked it. Then the unthinkable occurred. Somehow massive amounts of the files were deleted. I initially thought someone had done this, however the files were from random folders rather than all in the same location. I put everything back using the Pack-Rat and looked into the filtering issue again. Everything seemed fine. The only possibility I felt that was left was that either a combination of our proxy server and/or the fact that we were simultaneously syncing multiple laptops (15) with the same Dropbox account. A few days later unfortunately the same thing occurred and again a few weeks later. On the third occasion I decided to pull the plug. I was left with the option of creating multiple accounts all linked with a shared folder but I wasn’t convinced that the filtering/proxy issues were not part of the problem and one I would not be able to get to the bottom of. I also thought that ordering multiple Pack-Rats / Pro accounts started to become messy and less good value for money.

Over the last few months, since staff’s eyes were open to the online possibilities, our learning platform’s online storage has been used more for sharing templates, systems documents etc. However this is still very hit and miss and it is currently blurring rather than helping communication (some documents put online, some on the network, some both etc). I have been keeping tabs on all the previous systems looked at for online viewing and editing and there having been two significant developments since the start of the process to find this ‘Missing Tool’. Firstly, the filtering system used by our LEA (Lancashire) has changed, offering far more control at school level. Secondly, Google Docs has evolved. It now offers far more sophisticated sharing options (folder sharing, 1 click sharing across the domain, hierarchical folder privileges) and the ability to upload other document types. Coupled with the ability to use https to increase security (and therefore comply with recommended security levels) and the cost effectiveness, I am becoming increasingly confident that my original starting point could very easily become the answer to the online document editing problem. The only practicality standing in the way is that whilst fairly straightforward once you get used to it, Google Docs like most of Google’s products, has a few nuances to get used to in terms of useability for those less ICT literate and complete online docs is a step further into the unknown for some users over Dropbox. The only other concern would be that because we have tried an online system before, there may be significant reservations from key stakeholders.

Finally, I am aware of Microsoft’s live@edu but think that it makes more sense to stick with Google due to the previous positive experience of it by the school.

So I ask the question: Is Google Docs of 2010 the missing tool that should be adopted as a network replacement for our school? I would love to hear anyone’s answer!

Image courtesy of Pixie Led.