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doug woods

ICT in Education Consultant and Trainer

Archive for the ‘ICT Support and Management’ Category

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ICT training sessions

Saturday, July 24th, 2010

Attic studio: Enough Computing Power?

Not too long ago I led two ICT training sessions which have been very similar in outcome even though the schools were very different.

One school was using Mac notebooks, whereas the other was using Windows machines. The Mac school had been unable to make best use of the software they were attempting to use because the software was essentially Html and flash based and they were trying to run the software on an old version of Internet Explorer. The second school had been unable to make best use of their software because it had not been installed properly on their network, so would not run properly (if at all) and they had not had effective training on it.

At the Mac school, I was able to demonstrate the software using Safari instead of Internet Explorer. Mac fans will say that this was a simple and obvious move to make and may be wondering why it had not already been done. What we have to keep in mind is that in a small school such as this, staff simply do not have the time to explore all ICT possibilities, especially when trying to solve technical issues. The software had previously run OK in IE but new developments and innovations in the software had left IE behind. The staff simply felt that the software was somehow incompatible with their system or required technical troubleshooting which they were unable to provide. The staff wanted to focus upon delivering teaching to their pupils rather than incur costs and time repairing the software. Consequently, they either ignored the software or only made use of those parts that did still seem to work.
This school is very far from being unique in seeing staff become frustrated or jaded by ICT technical issues. It would be true to say that there should be a technician on hand to prevent or sort out such technical issues so that teachers can continue to deliver education to the pupils. However, it it very much the case that primary schools have very inadequate technical support. Having a technician visit half a day each fortnight is quite a common pattern and it is certainly far from adequate in maintaining modern educational systems. Often, problems have to be reported in incident books, which will be read by the technician upon arival, he then has to decide a priority for the problems and try to implement a fix in the short time available. Sometimes telephone support is also available but this may sometimes mean a staff member taking the time to make the call and implement a fix (where possible)by sacrificing time which may better be spent elsewhere.

By showing this school how the software worked effectively on Safari, the school felt the software had been given a ‘new lease of life’ and that they were able to make much more use of it in their teaching. I was also able to show them many aspects of the software which they were unaware existed, simply because they had not been able to use the software.

In the second school, there was an element of frustration because the software had not initially been installed correctly on their network. This sort of problem should be entirely unnecessary but does still occur more often than it should. The problem had been rectified (almost) but the school staff had missed out on being able to use the software to support a number of teaching opportunities. They had also missed out on an effective training session because the system was not working properly.

I say the installation had been ‘almost’ rectified because we discovered that one staff member login did not allow proper access to the software. This was due to incorrect addressing of the program. Once I had spotted this, a quick and easy fix allowed the whole software to work effectively for this member of staff.

With the fix in place, I was able to train the staff on the software and was able to cover much of the ground that should have been covered in the original training session. Again, in this school, the staff felt that the software had been given a new ‘lease of life’ and that they were now better able to make use of it in their teaching.

I guess, in a small way, I may be blowing my own trumpet here in saying that I was able to renew these schools interest and usage of the software on their system. Yet, I feel that this is one of the most rewarding aspects of my training role; seeing staff enthused (or re-enthused) about using ICT or a particular piece of software or hardware.

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Cutting ICT Costs

Monday, July 12th, 2010

Money, it´s a crime

Quite understandably at this present time, there appear to be plenty of thought and initiatives going around as to how to reduce the cost of ICT provision in schools.

I am not surprised by this but I am concerned by it.

I am concerned that it is the perceived need to cut costs that is driving current thinking and, to my mind, this can be a dangerous route to take. Education is not a business, it is not an industry; for us, the bottom line is not our profit or our costs. A school will not be judged or praised on its ability to cut its costs, it will be judged and praised (or criticised) on the performance and attainment of its learners.

There is a very careful path that needs to be trod between cutting costs and maintaining/improving the performance of learners in a school.

It seems to my mind that rather than setting out simply to cut costs, schools need first to establish control of their costs. For this, I would recommend schools look at Becta’s investment planner tool, which I believe is still available online. This tool is not a full TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) tool but it was derived from Becta’s original TCO model. The original TCO tool was more encompassing in seeking to identify costs more accurately and relate them to usage and performance. There is not time or space to detail TCO fully in this article but I would be more than happy to talk to any school wishing to explore a fuller TCO in order to better understand and control its ICT costs.

With the improved knowledge and understanding that TCO brings, a school can identify which costs it can control and any that it cannot. The school is then better positioned not only to identify cost-savings but also to anticipate the effects of such measures. A classic example of cost saving comes from a school believing, rightly so, that it can reduce its costs by cutting back on printing, particularly inks and paper costs. While a school can make savings in this area, a full TCO generally reveals that this is only a very small cost and any reduction is almost insignificant.

Not only can current costs be revealed by TCO but a school will be better placed to explore potential costs/savings for future provision, even to the point of being able to compare different options for continuing or replacing software, hardware and services.

While it has to be acknowledged that there is pressure upon schools and headteachers to reduce costs, particularly of their ICT, I would maintain that it is important first for schools to resist the temptation to make cost cuts without first gaining a better understanding and control that could be brought about by TCO.

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Primary School Technical Support

Monday, April 26th, 2010

Wonderful Dell Desktop!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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