A sunny start to the final full day of the conference!
A History of the Future
The final keynote of the conference was from Ian Neild, BT.
Ian gave a very interesting and entertaining talk on how technology has changed life over the last century.
There is too much to note here on what he said – I’m hoping that his presentation will be made available
Amongst the many interesting slides I saw in the presentation, here are two pictures that stuck in my mind:
- A Barbie USB drive – pull off head and plug into a computer.
- A nano guitar – size of blood cell & with 6 “pluckable” strings!
OK, this isn’t really a good summary of the keynote. It was very entertaining though and just what was needed on a Thursday morning!
Using Moodle as a Core Component of a Local Authority Learning Platform
This themed session was from my colleague Ian Usher, E-Learning Co-ordinator, School Improvement Service, Buckinghamshire CC. Well, I had to go and support Ian, didn’t I?!!
Ian did spend a lot of time talking about Open Source Software and justifying why we use it (Moodle). Unfortunately this meant that only a short time was spent looking at what Buckinghamshire schools had done. Ian only had time to show some examples of uses of forums and we didn’t get a chance to see some of the Moodle courses that schools have made. This was a shame as some of this is good stuff.
It was interesting to see who turned up to watch this (approx 60 in all) including Robin Hall from Becta and someone from RM. It was also interesting to see members of the audience jump in to defend the use of forums by pupils when someone asked what value was added when pupils commented on another pupil’s musical composition and couldn’t they just type the word “sh*t” in there. The value in this case is two-fold. Firstly the pupil was sharing music that he had created at home – not in school – and through this he has been put onto the Able, Gifted & Talented register. Secondly all pupils had the opportunity to give feedback to this pupil if they wished, something that they would not all be able to do in school due to time constraints. Teachers can then help them develop their constructive criticism and evaluation of work from this.
Extending the Primary School through Learning Platforms
This themed session was from Miles Berry, Headmaster, Alton Convent Prep.
Miles is an advocate of open source software and the Moodle VLE.
Miles talked about the work he had done with Moodle at his previous school, St Ives. There was some good use of:
- forums to discuss homework and support each other.
- video capture of work going on at the Interactive Whiteboard to view from home and support homework.
- flash and java activities on the VLE.
The issue of work-life balance was raised by two attendees. This is a good question and needs careful consideration. Although some teacher input is required it doesn’t mean teachers have to work all the time. Leaving it to pupils to support each other and to intervene only when needed is much better, not just for the teacher but for pupils. This allows them to learn how to support and collaborate with each other, plus consolidates the learning for a pupil when explaining it to another pupil.
Miles had done a lot of data analysis to back up the work he had been doing. One example he showed was that using the VLE seemed to improve SATs scores by 2-3 % although this is not statistically significant.
Miles mentioned Elgg and the work he began on this. He said that this brought home-based learning back into the classroom through pupils’ use of the blogging facilities. Miles said that, in a sense it’s “a digital show and tell”.
An interesting and passionate presentation.
Online Social Networking and Teacher CPD
The themed session was from Mark Berthelemy, Learning Solutions Architect, Capita Learning and Development.
This was about Mark’s own CPD and how he uses Web 2.0 tools to enable it.Mark has a learning network – Ian Usher, Miles Berry, Stephen Downes etc – whose blogs, newsletters etc inform him about what he needs to know. Broadcasting your knowledge, thoughts and reflections extends your reach to inform others.
Blogdigger – gives you a personalised RSS feed on what others are blogging. Mark uses Google Reader to put together the RSS feeds he reads.
So should others in an organisation begin blogging to allow them to share their thoughts and experiences and learn from others? The answer is probably yes and there would no doubt be benefits. However there are also issues:
- Managing time so that blogging is just not another job to do.
- Some may not have sufficient ICT literacy to do this
- Some will not want to blog – especially those just ‘coasting’ in their jobs and only doing the minimum to get by and draw their paycheck.
All of Mark’s bookmarks from the presentation are on Diigo under the naace2007 tag.
Mark said that it would be great if the chief executive of a company, LA etc were to start blogging. That’d certainly be interesting to see in Buckinghamshire! Maybe we should get the County ICT Adviser and other ICT Consultants to join me in blogging first…!
A useful and thought provoking session.
The final afternoon
The presentational side of the Naace Conference 2007 drew to an end with two sessions.
The first of these sessions was Expert Panel: Meeting the Challenge. There were summaries of the three theme strands: Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment, ICT CPD and Learning Platforms and Web 2.0 from various members from backgrounds including HMI, Ofsted, QCA, National Strategy and the Naace Executive. There followed an unexciting question and answer session.
The second session was Becta: Responding to the Challenge, chaired by Stephen Crowne, Chief Executive, Becta. Another enthralling question and answer session. Yawn.
Maybe this is why less than half the conference bothered to turn up?!
The Naace Conference 2007 ended with Closing Remarks from Terry Freedman, Chair of Naace Executive Committee.
Was the Naace Conference 2007 any good?
On the whole I would say it was. Yes, there were a few duff sessions and some of the organisation left something to be desired (for example, no coffee on the Wednesday morning). However, most of the sessions were interesting and thought provoking and I found it beneficial. Time now for me to reflect on the Learning Platforms and Web 2.0 stuff I’ve seen and think about how I can do my bit in Buckinghamshire to move this forward.
Tags: Barbie, Becta, blog, Blogdigger, Buckinghamshire, Diigo, Elgg, Google Reader, Ian Neild, Ian Usher, Learning Platform, Mark Bethelemy, Miles Berry, Moodle, Naace, naace2007, nano guitar, Open Source, RSS, Social Networking, Stephen Downes, Terry Freedman, Web 2.0
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