I visited two schools the other week, each of which illustrated a separate problem with technology in primary schools. Both schools were by all accounts very good schools but each had problems with their ICT facilities.

The first school was a large primary school with a ICT The problem here was that the computers in the suite were running Windows 98 from an NT server. In its time this would have been a very reasonable set up but it is simply not acceptable nowadays to present pupils with an operating system that is so out of date, especially as the operating system is no longer updated and maintained by the manufacturer. I shudder to think what applications or uses of technology the pupils may be denied simply because their computers are unable to run them. If I were an inspector, a governor or a parent at the school, I would be seriously concerned about this. As it is, I am none of these and can only use this as an example of how difficult it can be for a school to maintain and update its technology if either the finance, the understanding or the willingness is not present.

This must surely lead us to ask how much awareness raising needs to take place if we are to ensure that school technology is kept at under 3 years old.

The second school had a different issue. It had a lot of modern equipment, some of it only a few months old. Yet, ironically, its equipment worked less well than the older equipment in the previous school. The problems arose because it appears a lot of the equipment had not been installed properly and some of the new hardware was not well built and were suffering component failure. the school’s problem is that it’s level of technical support was simply not up to the mark. This is a problem which seems to affect almost all primary schools. This school had a technician who visited once a fortnight to solve all technical problems. The technician seemed to be fixing the most pressing issues only as this was all he had time for. Consequently, many issues were lining up and not being fixed for a long time.

I have witnessed this type of arrangement in many other primary schools. I have also seen worse arrangements. In some primary schools, the technical work is carried out by a well-meaning parent, other schools have a technician visit for just half a day a week. Some primaries have a full time technician, though this seems to be a minority of schools and some primaries share support provided by the local High school. In some schools, it may still be the ICT co-ordinator or other staff member who takes on responsibility for maintaining the equipment.

If we want our primary schools to make effective use of technology then we have to find ways of ensuring effective and appropriate levels of technical support.

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I’d like to introduce you to an unusual innovation tool for ICT; the sledgehammer. Before you all turn away, you might like to consider what you could do with a sledgehammer to improve ICT.

The sledgehammer is not usually considerd an implement of innovation, indeed it is more often thought of in terms of destruction. Sometimes, however, you need to destroy something in order to make way for new things, holes need to be knocked out of walls in to make spaces for windows and doors, sometimes whole buildings need to be knocked down to make way for new more modern edifices..

This talk about knocking things down and building new things, may lead you to think I am talking about Building Schools for the Future (BSF). I’m not, … or perhaps I am..

What I have in mind here is a more particular use of the sledgehammer; a use related to the development of ICT within our schools. What I want to suggest is that we can use the sledgehammer to break up all the ICT suites that we find in schools. Those rows and rows of desks filling a room with large desktop computers can hardly be regarded as the cutting edge of ICT. Indeed, if we were to have a classroom with rows of desks, we would hardly be regarded as an innovative educationalist, so why do we tolerate such an arrangement for ICT?

ICT suites, rather than being the ‘cutting edge’ represent a past and dying approach to ICT in education. No longer is ICT a specialism that needs to be timetabled in such a way that it can only be used when it is your turn in the ICT room. Instead, ICT is a valuable tool that should be available to all to aid their learning throughout the school day and beyond.

So why should we spend money and effort maintaining or sustaining ICT suites if they have outlived their usefulness and no longer meet our needs for a modern ICT infastructure? There may be some people, and hopefully they’ll take up this challenge, who believe that ICT suites have not outlived their usefulness. From me though, I give you the sledgehammer, take it and smash up those ICT suites and equip the pupils with modern portable devices so that they can use ICT to support their learning whereever and whenever they need.

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It does frustrate me when I see headlines such as this in the Daily Telegraph http://bit.ly/1lDI7B and then I go on to read how much tools like Twitter or Facebook cost in terms of wasted time.

I use Twitter a lot, and Facebook less so. I mainly use it in conjunction with my work in ICT and education (though I have also been known to tweet about my eclectic musical tastes and my love of Liverpool FC, when they win). A great deal of my use is to enable me to keep a contact with others working in the same or allied fields. In this way, Twitter helps me keep up with some of the latest developments, events and news within my chosen field of work. Sometimes, Twitter keeps me informed before more traditional sources such as TV, newspapers or email. If I have a problem or a question, I can tweet it on Twitter and often get a response from my network of contacts. Similarly, if one of the people I follow tweets a question, I can respond quickly and simply.

So you can see how I tend to use Twitter almost as a training tool as part of my ongoing personal CPD. As such, I would estimate that it is certainly a lot quicker and a lot less expensive than attending an In-Service training course. Yet articles such as we seen in the newspapers do not give any mention of how much these tools save in formal training costs.

Now I’m not saying that Twitter should or could replace formal or professional training but for giving a ‘heads up’ and for keeping me abreast of many latest developments, it appears invaluable. I am sure that many of us use Twitter and other tools in ways that support our work and yet never get a mention.

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