Prezi

Death by PowerPoint is a sad and unnecessary thing. A wise person once said to me 'never use PowerPoint to deliver text to an audience'. I often wish I had heeded the advice.

If we must insist on still using these presentational tools they should at least have some visual interest and be an aid to free thinking.

This is where prezi comes in. It is like a cross between a mind mapping tool and PowerPoint. Have a look at my first brief attempt to get a feel of it;

http://prezi.com/39733/

Impressed?

I am , and so is everybody I present to using it. Perhaps it is just a tool to disguise a bad presentation. Noone will be interested in the message if the medium is so good looking. Or perhaps the message really IS the medium?

Change Management

Having spoken to a Headteacher about the challenges of embedding learning platform use in a high school I feel I have more clarity about the scale of the issue.

It is massive. Schools and in particular high schools are large organisations - pushing through change is difficult because of the inertia such behemoths possess. Management books speak of the different types of people that have to be dealt with to effectively manage change and give advice on changing the culture of an organisation. In schools however the people you as a leader are trying to change are effectivly the gate keepers and the sales people who will promote the change to the 'customers' or 'pupils' as we may still affectionately call them.

School leaders are rightly protective of their staff and students, consious of change fatigue and work-life balance and may balance the potential benefits of a dramatic change in classroom practice with the possible consequences to morale of divisions in the staffroom.

To look toward the future and make brave decisions requires school leaders who have a clear vision of the benefts learning platforms can make to their learners.

5 Learning Platform Quick Wins

What are the easiest ways to make a beneficial difference to a school using a learning platform?

Top five suggestions (in no particular order) that require little or no additional work....(IMHO)

1. Communicating with staff by email, IM, online notice boards, cover lists, school calendars etc - no more pigeon holes or students carrying notes round the school.

2. File storage - cloud computing - no more memory sticks left at home (or school), easy access to school documentation.

3. Communication with students and between students - e.g. electronic submission of work,class blogs, forums, wiki's, even chat and IM as well as good old email.

4. School 'portal' - a common homepage for all members of school community accessible from inside or outside school

5. Celebrating success - publishing examples of student achievement electronically.

All of these can be done without having to generate any new content or even having to digitize things that are not already in an electronic format.

What do you reckon?

21st Century Learning

I am exited about 21st century learning. I am not sure I understand it properly yet but am trying to get my head around it. The problem is, I have been brought up and trained as a teacher using a very different model of curriculum and I am having trouble letting go. Having been bound by perceived QCA dictats and inflexible, results based planning for so long - I think I am starting to breathe fresh air.

I think there are opportunities for learning platforms to do what the name would suggest and support the delivery of 21st century curriculum. Providing tools that facilitate personalised learning and put students and the creativity they desire at the heart of their learning. I am hopeful that learning platforms can be a tool that will motivate learners and give them access to knowledge whilst also giving them a means to learn.

Snow and opportunities for learning platforms

As I opened the curtains this morning and the new day greeted me with usual blizzard I had a thought. As school leaders struggle with their responsibilities on days like this - health and safety of their students in school against missed learning opportunities. What if they didnt have to oppose one another?

What if schools could say: the school buildings are closed today - learning will be happening solely in the learning platform?

It is possible I think. School communities would have to be in the habit of regular electronic communication. LP use would have to be embedded. All (or at least most) classes would have to be using the LP regularly. But it would remove some of the pressure schools are under in these exceptional weather circumstances we find ourselves in.

Learning platforms and speed

Further to the comments I have made before about the 'click and wait' syndrome when people are using the web to present something to me is another consideration;

What effect do webpage load times have on usage of learning platforms?

I ask because of a blog I read about some research google have done that says that for every half a second on the load time for their search results they get a 20% drop in traffic.

Wow. Most learning platforms in use are much slower than google. Maybe one of the ways to increase adoption in classroom is to ensure speed performance is a high priority when evaluating learning platforms?

BBC report on OFSTED's view of Learning Platforms

The BBC are covering an OFSTED report about learning platforms that highlights that while increasing numbers of schools are using learning platforms, hardly anyone is getting the most out of them.

Some of the problems identified are familiar: It is only enthusiastic teachers within schools who are using them effectively, meaning that curriculum coverage can be patchy. They can be used as dumping grounds for rarely used files.

There is some highlighting of positives. An important one is access to learning for the disadvataged in some way; excluded etc. This principle extends though. The agenda for the future should be learning that can happen any time of day for any learner in any place not just in the 5 hours in school lessons per day. How can this be delivered? Learning platfroms can form part of the answer. Personalised learning, again learning platfroms have much to add.

Of course getting teachers and schools to extract the most from learning platforms rather than just seeing them as something to be bought in and box ticked is a challenge but I think it is possible for the culture to change. Especially when new, exiting things become possible only when learning platforms are used effectively.