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.

Each post will contain details about how to use one tool. Members of the development group will then plan to use the tool in their classroom and feedback information about how they used it, whether they can see potential for the tool to help enhance writing development, any pitfalls etc. This will primarily take place through a Primarypad ‘pad’ viewable on the same post and be available for anyone to view. All project posts are viewable by clicking the ‘ICT & Writing’ link on the right.

I hope that others outside the school who have used any of the tools before will contribute and each pad will become a rich resource for teachers to develop their use of web 2.0 technologies and children’s writing.

Here are the links to the series:

Writing & Dimdim / Twiddla

Writing & Storybird

Writing & Voicethread

Writing & Wordle

Image courtesy of Stephanie.

So, please post the top 3 leadership decisions (not management decisions) you have made in any leadership capacity and why they have reached your top 3. E.g. as a subject coordinator, deputy head, head, year group leader, consultant to a cluster of schools etc

Here are mine as an ICT Coordinator in a Primary School:

1. The creation of a vision for ICT that is shared between staff, parents, pupils, governors. Reason: These few sentences have given a sharp focus on where ICT should be taken within the school. It gives direction and (hopefully!) motivates.

2. Moving the ICT Curriculum away from QCA units to a skills based, integrated ICT curriculum. Reason: Whilst this leads to significant management issues (e.g. progression, teaching subject knowledge etc) over time, transferable ICT skills, motivation and ICT use throughout the curriculum have been significantly raised.

3. ‘The one that got away’ – Changing the role of the ICT Coordinator into a Curriculum Development Group. Now this as not been a success as yet but I still think this would be a great move, enhancing collaboration, teachers taking more ownership of ICT etc. I just couldn’t sustain it at the time I introduced the structure change a few years ago. Now that we have an established learning platform, I am hoping that a second attempt, with interaction through the LP will support its development.

Image courtesy of Ed Gaillard.

Support videos for Primary/Elementary school teachers on collaborative projects started on primarypete.net. The album also contains general videos related to teaching and learning such as teachmeet presentations.

Web 2.0 Album: Support videos for non-techie Primary/Elementary school teachers on websites with possibilities to enhance teaching and learning.

Software: Support videos for non-techie Primary/Elementary school teachers on websites with possibilities to enhance teaching and learning.

To subscribe to an RSS feed of all the videos click here.

Other great video tutorial sites for Primary School Teachers:

www.ictvideohelp.co.uk

Vision

Absolutely key to everything is to have a clear and concise vision for ICT within the whole school. This should be created in conjunction with stakeholders including parents, learners, staff and governors. The vision we decided on was:

All learners are empowered and inspired by enthused and confident teachers to embark on learning experiences that harness technology and enhance the skills they will require for the future.

In my opinion, anything longer than a paragraph is not a vision. Nor should the vision be an A4 page of bullet points. If this happens, the vision slips into how it will be achieved, which should be kept separate as the core message and ethos will be diluted when trying to get staff and others on board. Our vision is far from perfect, it doesn’t include personalised learning for example, but the vision should be revisited and adjusted as and when necessary. The vision should be repeatedly refereed to, shown on the school website, VLE, start of staff meetings involving ICT etc.

Curriculum

The ICT Curriculum and how ICT fits in with the wider curriculum should be clearly mapped out. In our school, we follow a skills based ICT curriculum. This makes things very fluid but also difficult for staff to make sure all skills are covered in appropriate depth. In order to support staff, I created a series of progression maps for each strand of our curriculum. I also elaborated the ICT curriculum document to include relevant links to previous QCA units, and software, hardware and ideas relevant to each skill. Whichever path your ICT curriculum follows, it needs to clearly flow from the vision and be methodical in how it should be put in place by staff.

Training

There should be a strategic use of training in order to support teaching of ICT within the curriculum. This can seem overwhelming if you are the sole provider in a large school. What has worked for me is to put on occasional workshops and ICT staff meetings which focus on particular elements. However, by utilising a central resource such as the school’s VLE, you can link to a variety of external resources such as how to videos and blog posts as well as store your own staff meeting notes and training resources. This allows staff to dip into the provided training materials when needed and provides continuation of training should the key provider leave their current role.

Assessment

Always a tricky one. I implemented a skills based assessment which was an excel document listing all skills and whether each child had achieved that skill. Whilst this has proved effective in terms of ensuring the depth and coverage of skills taught is sufficient, it is quite heavy handed for busy teachers. It was suggested by our ICT Mark assessor that we use APP for ICT where possible. This currently goes down to level 3. Personally, I think combining the techniques of APP in our existing ICT assessments will prove most effective. Whatever method chosen, as long as there is documentation of ICT levels included and the assessments cover the ICT curriculum, that should be sufficient.

Other things

Resources: Difficult not to focus on if you are under the perception that your school is badly equipped! All I would say is there is no point in having interactive whiteboards, class computers etc if staff are not using them. There is lots of great online free software around now and coupling them with curriculum covering applications like Knowledgebox Online, Espresso and Education City you can provide rich curriculum experiences without breaking the budget.

Extending Opportunities: Whether you use blogs, your school website or a VLE, as long as pupils, staff and parents are using your systems to communicate and continue learning experiences, and you have a plan to extend this in the future then that should be sufficient.

ESafety: A growing area in terms of importance. We use the standard thinkuknow eSafety lessons and materials and have yearly talks by an eSafety expert for parents. This was sufficient in achieving that strand in our ICT Mark assessment.

Final thoughts: I hope that this post is of use to people, it is not intended to be a definitive way forwards and many people will be way ahead of where I have led our school so far. I would appreciate comments and questions from people who are looking to develop ICT and also anyone who feels they would like to add to the areas I have gone into above.

Methodology: The focus for the introduction of Google Apps was to improve staff communication throughout the 2 form entry school by giving staff access to the best tools available.

Initial Setup: Creating the account was a bit fiddly, messing around with dns setting/ redirecting etc but as we already had a cheap hosting account it was relatively straight forward. Initial account setup was fairly quick, simply creating an account automatically created an email account and access to the full suite of tools.

The initial tool used was email. This had not been introduced in school before outside the office staff and was chosen to get staff enthusiastic and using the system. In order to support this I installed ‘Sohails Gmail Notifier‘ on each teacher laptop so that they would be informed instantly of any new email ala Outlook rather than have to check their emails each time they wanted to see if they had any messages. This was a rather lengthy process of installing service packs etc but certainly eased the introduction for staff. Initially some teachers still sent messages through pigeon holes but over approximately 3 months this type of communication stopped and email became more integrated into daily practice.

Calendar: Whilst this process was underway, the reason for choosing Google Apps was introduced… The calendar system. The simple user interface and overlapping calendars makes it a great system for education. Setup however was not so straightforward. In fact I would say it was a pain. Individually setting up every individual on each calendar introduced was time consuming, and this had to be done with any new member of staff. I could have asked staff to go through this process themselves but this would have switched them off from using it. Even after all this, some staff still complained of not having one of the calendars available to them. However, in general once setup the calendar system was the shining glory of Google Apps. Having a separate calendar for staff and a whole school calendar, live to the world made sharing events exceedingly effective. The process of embedding the calendars really picked up pace after removing the staff room whiteboard. Until that point messages and calendar dates were still placed on the board by several staff, leading to confusion about where to check for information. Once this was removed there was only one place to look. In Google Apps. Although this naturally brought some opposition after a couple of weeks it completely died away and at this point email and shared calendars were at the point of being fully embedded into daily practice.

Sites: Towards the point where I could see the email and calendars becoming routine, I introduced 2 ‘Sites’. A public site to be used as the school’s website and a private site for staff to share good practice and access certain resources at home. By removing the previous school website which I had created and maintained, it allowed for more dynamic content, created and maintained by all staff. Parental feedback was extremely positive, however the system didn’t go as far as they wanted. The staff website was less successful. Staff were confused by what was available online as opposed to the school’s network. Rather than giving staff flexibility and additional resources, it was seen as overload. This changed slightly as time progressed as I introduced several google forms, e.g. for staff feedback, technician tasks form etc. The skills based curriculum the school follows was available through the staff site and ICT and Science assessments were available online to complete and analyse.

Overall as a communications tool the systems introduced were extremely effective. To aid in staff being able to navigate around the different elements of google apps I created a html page with visual links to each of the main elements.

Learning Platform: A few months after introducing Apps, I looked in earnest at which learning platform we should deploy. I had previously introduced think.com which learners loved but was difficult to focus staff and learners on using it for learning rather than just for fun. I wanted to introduce a learner focused set of tools that would be able to sit alongside Google Apps. I chose a platform designed from the bottom up for learners, DB Primary. The philosophy was that if a learning platform was going to be introduced, learners of all ages should be able to access and gain from the system, not just upper KS2. Whilst evaluating DB Primary is beyond the scope of this blog, it is worth mentioning the platform has some excellent Early Years / KS1 tools that some of the ‘big boy’ Learning Platforms would do well to introduce. However with hindsight, by introducing a second system (whatever was chosen) I made an error in strategy. 12 months on staff used the platform for certain things but because it was not integrated with the tools they used day in day out, it was not having the impact that I felt it could have. At this point there were other issues to consider such as filtering (e.g. presentations element of docs was being filtered despite multiple discussions with the county – this had been introduced as the school’s multimedia newsletter) and having to manually look after both Google Apps and the learning platform. It was time for a decision. Continue and try to slowly embed the learning platform or take what has been learnt so far by both staff and pupils and integrate this into a new, complete VLE. There are lots of fantastic free web apps out there now that in a small school a secondary school or a school heavily focusing on ICT you could go with google apps, edmodo, animoto etc but I wanted every child to benefit and in the experiences I have had, including attending Moodle training, visiting other schools, that kind of setup works with 1 or 2 teachers rather than a whole school. To create whole school impact and a change in pedagogy, after consultation with all stakeholders, it was decided to change to a full VLE.

For schools thinking of going down the Google Apps Educational Edition route, coupled with other tools or a learning platform, there is no reason it could not provide a complete solution. This was vindicated when we received the ICT Mark in July 2009. I just want to take things further, to make a deeper whole school impact in the way teaching and learning occurs.

There is nothing stopping individual teachers from exploring free resources on top of the VLE, for example as part of our Mario Kart Theme evaluation I used wallwisher as well as a chat room provided through the chosen VLE (Studywiz). The VLE just gives staff a focus, pupils easy access to a range of tools and parents access to their child’s learning.

I would be really interested to hear what others think!