Grumbledook Blogs

This week will see a few blog posts go up.

First will be one already writte, exploring a bit more about sharepoint and web 2.0, next will be talking about why we filter emails and what impact the management of it can have, then finally I will be asking around about how different people feel about the different between hosted and local solutions for sharepoint.

It should be a busy week of meetings as well (when is it not) but I hope to squeeze all three items in.

A recent tweet (or rather a retweet) had the following URL (in which we see ten commandments from a technically savvy teacher to technicians) – http://bit.ly/dpdjFO – and whilst I can understand the intention I just find it opens up the can of worms that is techie/teacher bashing. On places like the TES forums you get techie bashing (interspersed with some common sense) and on EduGeek.net you get the occasionaly rant about clueless teachers (followed by lots of agreement and the odd balanced example of clueful teachers). It frustrates me. It annoys me the two groups of people who could do much when they work together suddenly express a lack of understanding about the other is doing … And then you get some wonderful examples of it all working together.

As a result I am reposting the 10 Commandments, followed by the techie equivalent. I will then stick in my own version … and I make no apology for any trolling that appears to be taking place. As I was poked to respond, I am poking others to rise too!

The ten commandments of school tech support

• [Original]Thou shalt test the fix.
  [Techie]Thou shalt accept that we can only fix things we get told about. Reading minds might get us burnt at the stake.
  [Me]Communication and the processes by which tech support work should be effectively communicated, but all should accept that it is a two way thing.

• [Original]Thou shalt talk to actual students and teachers and make time to watch how technology works during actual class time, not just when it’s quiet.
  [Techie]Thou shalt listen to technicians when they ask questions, give truthful answers about what you expect technology to do and accept that there are limitations.
  [Me]No technology is perfect and some compromise is needed. It means a bit of give and take on both sides. When people want to use technology then try to take the time to discuss how it will be used, how you can measure it is doing what is needed and how you can work out how you deal with changes.

• [Original]Thou shalt not make fun of the tech skills of teachers or students, nor allow anyone else in the tech department to make disparaging remarks about them.
  [Techie]Thou shalt not presume to be all knowing gods yet still argue when a technician tells you it is illegal to copy commercial DVDs.
  [Me]Ok, let us all accept that there are stereotypes on both sides. Users will make stupid mistakes and it will be laughed at, usually when it is the same repeated mistake. Then again, you get teachers poking fun at the higher percentage of technical staff with elements of dyslexia / autism / other stereotypical conditions. Accept that there willing always be this one upmanship whilst each side treats the other as inferior. Also remember that the technically adept teacher and the educationally adaept techie are both at the top of the tree. You are the exception still so when the other makes a scathing comment it might not be aimed at you but a generalisation, try to find out what caused it and help people overcome the problem.

• [Original]Closing trouble tickets shalt not be thine highest calling; thou shalt strive to continually make the learning environment better.
  [Techie]You report a fault then we will follow it up. You are measured by exam results, we are measured by completion of tickets.
  [Me]Now we get onto the weighing the pig arguement. Both sides need to be measured but it is the big changes that need to be understood. Technology and how it helps deliver the Learning Environment cannot be done in isolation. It is a partnership. Every side has something to add. It will fall apart if anyone decides that others aren’t important.

• [Original]Thou shalt not elevate the system above the users.
  [Techie]Thou shalt accept that the system is our priority; it is set up to delivery as much as possible to as many different requirements as you gives us, but accept that your request may disrupt things for others. We sometimes have to work to a lower common denominator. It is part of the greater good.
  [Me]It is all very well thinking that the there is some big battle between users and system but it is a hard balancing act. We are back to the word compromise again. Both sides have very good reasons for standing their ground for somethings … it could be down to legal requirements such as Data Protection, it could be down to the flexibility required for personalised learning. Sit down and explain them and try to have an arbritrator to deal with the hard choices.

• [Original]The network will be never be perfect. Learning is messy. Get thyself over it.
  [Techie]Unplanned growth in computer systems leads to it falling over. We will keep things organised. Get thyself over it.
  [Me]There is a big difference between things just happening and planning flexibility into systems. No system is permanently fixed but you do have to be careful what you change. Again, it is compromise and planning that make the difference.

• [Original]When teaching someone a new skill, keep thy hands off the mouse.
  [Techie]We like to show you how to do things but repeated ‘but can’t you just do it for me’ will result in us just doing it for you. Don’t cry foul. Read our cribsheets, watch our training videos, listen to our advice and instructions. You are just one user of many.
  [Me]The two worst groups of people in the world to train are teachers and techies. Seriously. Teachers expect respect due to their position and techies based on their experience / knowledge. Introducing something new to either is beset with issues. Teacher are appraising you ability to train as well as what you are training them in, Techies are appraising your background before you even get into the in-depth stuff to see if you are a blagger. Teachers forget that the techie might not be an experienced trainer, after all, teachers did a degree and then more training (either as post-grad or on the job) to learn about it. The ability to train people can take time to develop. Give helpful feedback to support staff if you think that there are areas for improvement. You would do that for another teacher … give the techies the same courtesy. Techies do sometimes need to step back and work out what the user needs though … do they need a problem fixed or do they need to learn about the problem, what to do if it arises again and how to avoid it in the first place? This is a judgement call and by asking the teacher involved it can save a lot of problems later on. Also make sure you talk to whoever controls the CPD in the school as you might be in a position to identify training needs for staff.

• [Original] Thou shalt listen to requests with an open mind and respond in plain English.
  [Techie] Thou shalt ask for things in plain english and not buzzwords. Thou shalt understand that whilst with sufficient thrust pigs may indeed fly, it is not a good idea to be under them as they go overhead, be near them when they land and the RSPCA might get a tad annoyed. We will listen but be prepared for the answer to be no. If you ask for more information you will get it, and if you think I am talking down to you by using analogies about roads or cars it is because you won’t understand the short version, or have rolled your eyes when I mention something vaguely technical like CPU.
  [Me]We all have our own language. Lawyers have one, doctors have one, even priests have one. They are used to convey information and context in the most accurate and concise way possible. Translating it can take time, might need to be gone over a few times and is open to misinterpretation. When it comes to asking questions then yes, an open mind is needed, but often more context is needed too. Trying to convey the reasons why a request is made. Simply presuming that because you are a teacher you expect it to be done does not work, likewise just because you are a technical expert it does not mean that you, the techie, can say ‘no’ with no other comment or explanation. Try to come up with a common language to use … it will not be plain English. It will have some technical language in there as well as educational language. It will take time but once you have a good understanding it will help communication further down the line. Try having a glossary of terms for people to use, with examples.

• [Original]Blocking shall be controlled by educators, not filtering companies. Thy job is to enable learning, not enforce behavior.
  [Techie] Blocking shall be generally automated because there is not enough time in the world to check every single site. Just because we are sat at a computer all day it does not mean we are just surfing teh web, checking on dodgy sites. Perhaps if you kept the kids under control they would not want to get to the dodgy sites. And try talking to other teachers before asking for things to get blocked. I’ll happily block that games site that is dmaging your lesson, but you can explain to Maths why they can no longer access a site they pay a subscription to.
  [Me] This is all buck-passing. Get over it. Internet access is too large an area to make it black and white. I have already ranted about blaming technology when it is really about choosing the right tools to aid classroom management. Blocking should actually be controlled by the Head and Chair of Governors as *they* are the people that will get into trouble if things go wrong. It is also a case that the job of internet access is to enable learning but the job of the filters is to prevent inappropriate use. Unless all sides are prepared to sit down, discuss the appropriate use and how it is to be managed then we are just mudslinging.

• [Original]Thou shalt include students and teachers in decision-making about technology purchases and policy. Their interest is not an affront to your professionalism.
  [Techie] Thou shalt include the technical staff in the development of your curriculum. Their interest is not an affront to your professionalism.
  [Me]Again we are talking about planning here. It goes a bit like this. Someone comes up with requirements for what a system should do. This is based on how the learners are going to learn, how the teachers will teach, how things will be communicated inside and outside of the school and what are teh likely future changes too. A solution is put together to fit those requirements, sometimes out of an options papers or feasibility study to make sure all angles possible are covered adn then a group of key people make some decisions based on cost, capacity to deliver the requirements being completely met (or with some compromises). This all takes time, meetings and the experience to know how to do this efficiently, and this is before we get into things like procurement, etc. Companies will pay a lot of money to Project Managers to do all this, but many schools will take shortcuts for very justifiable reasons.
  • 1 – if the support team already have an off-the-shelf answer then they are likely to put that forward as a given option. It is likely to be cost effective because they are using already and will have the benefit of being setup quickly.
  • 2 – They are the technical experts and will often shorten the selection process because they have spoken with other schools about things that work or don’t work. If teachers and students in your school are not involved it doesn’t mean input from other students / teachers has not gone into the decision.
  • 3 – Last minute planning is the bane of the life of teachers and techies alike. Having to make quick decisions will mean not everyone can get involved. Accept that and make sure you plan better in future.
  • 4 – Technology is a tool. Everyone should get involved but someone has to make a decision about it. Battling about who has that power is pointless but it will vary from school to school who does it. Final decision on solutions should be made by senior management, not the network manager or head of ICT (or other head of department actually), but it should be part of the same process of looking at building developments around curriculum use, the curriculum itself, etc.

So there we have it.

Point, counter-point and hopefully some common sense. It has take over a week to knock this out and I know that there are areas for improvement, but I still find the techie / teacher bashing annoying. If it seems that I come down in favour of the techie side of things more than teachers that is because I still believe there is not a fair balance on respect between them. It will be ground down over the years and it is a lot better than were it was 5 years ago … but it is not changing enough for me to be happy.

After my last blog post I have a few emails and messages pointing out that Change Management was often the blocker in teachers and techies trying new things out, that BSF used Change Management and contracts to stifle innovation, that red tape is the bane of education as it is and that we have to think of ways around it all to keep the ideas flowing.

I have tweeted about and pointed people towards Lewisham for examples of how BSF can still maintain bubbles of innovation but what about smaller examples? What about when a school is finally sorting out their change management? Will innovation still be remembered?

Well, I prepared the following video for the EdTechRoundUp TeachMeet as a possible answer of translating change management into innovation management, shamelessly using up other ideas I have come across over the years … most of which I honestly can’t remember where they came from. Some have directly come from previous schools, Brooke Weston Academy and mainly from Lodge Park Technology College … but others from schools visited with the SSAT Futures Vision tours, ICT Register or generally chatting with folk online. If you see something you recognise then let me know … no slight is intended for forgetting things.

What a wonderful week it has been. After a chance to catch up with schools involved in a local Apple RTC project (lovely to see and hear of teachers and pupils excited and engaged by the chance to try something different) we had the first piece of training for our new Technical Champions.

The course is actually the “Level 4 Certificate in ICT Support in Education: Practitioner” and is delivered via accredited training partners using materials from The FITS Foundation. In Northamptonshire our training partner is NEOS IT and we had the pleasure of George coming to Lodge Park Technology College on Tuesday and Wednesday to deliver training to the Technical Champions plus a few others.

A key concept across the whole course was the use of the word management. I know that I joke (quite frequently) about that particular word … even to the point of never using it but substituting the word ‘manglement’ instead … but it is really important in a heck of a lot about FITS. Once you get past the first stage of a service desk pretty much everything else has an element of management in there and this builds into the idea of Change Management.  I’ve written about the importance of Change Management before but it is explicit in the training materials. Without it then any significant change or choice your school makes with technology and learning … well … it is likely to fall flat on its face and it will probably end up being the missing piece of management from the FITS materials … Blame Management!

Why will some technicians, IT Managers and SLT not like what this means? Well, it introduces a large amount of accountability via a group that is central to Change Management (often call Change Advisory Board or Change Advisory Committee) and is likely to contain people like the IT Manager, a member of SLT, whoever looks after finances and then we get onto representatives of the stakeholders at the school. The training was quite interesting when we discussed who should be a representative. Of course people remembered about teachers, some mentioned about admin / office staff, one person mentioned about governors but I was disappointed that I was the only one to raise the students. And this was with a forward thinking bunch too … it got me to thinking that we still don’t communicate 2-way with our students enough and that this is partly down to the ethos of the school more than anything else. At this point people really understood who deep FITS can be involved with school change and transformation … and people were excited by that, a little daunted perhaps but the excitement is important.

My question to those reading this is how would you set up a group to manage change at your school? Do you have one already? Does it also deal with IT changes? Who is involved in the group? If you have student representation how do they feel about being involved?

I know … a typical Tony-style blog … talks about stuff and then asks a heap more questions. Oh well, you should be used to it by now.

One of the things I will be prodding the Technical Champions to do over the next month s to set up their blogs and I will share their links here too.

I have a reputation now for being a bit of an independently minded person … having worked in independently minded schools has helped this view. Some might call me bloody awkward, even troll-like at times, but I do think that it pays off to think slightly differently and to try something different too.

Take the above title. To many it means nothing to but a number of Northants schools it now means that their IT Managers have a chance to be part of that forward-thinking mindset. Since I have been out of a school now for a good 15 months, and before that I was more out than in for the previous 15 months, and not having done a heck of a lot of hands-on techie stuff recently (or at least not officially) I feel that the LA and schools need a group of technically knowledgeable people to develop good practice, become stakeholders in what we do at the LA with regards to technology and to ensure that technology and educational need match up.

So, we are accepting applicants for the role of Harnessing Technologies Technical Champions. These IT Managers (selected via a panel including LA staff, RBC and Becta representatives) will be trained with the new FITS v2 pilot program and supported in implementing FITS in their schools. They will be able to provide support and advice to other schools, to be critical friends to their peers and the LA, to develop and document good practice and then to share it with the world in general.

I hope to make sure they all blog their experience too as part of their development of communication methods so will publish links to these as and when they get created.

The deadline for applicants is the end of this week and we have had good interest so far.

Best of luck to all those who apply.

(I can’t believe I had left this in as draft and not posted it! Originally written on 24th October – Published 2nd November!)

I marvelled last night to receive a message from Drew Buddie about where the plans had reached when looking at what is happening over 3 nights at BETT 2010 (yes, that is 3 nights) and more information can be found at his blog.

It is quite timely actually since myself and Peter Ford were talking yesterday about trying to set a date for a Northamptonshire TeachMeet. We are collecting a number of people on the way who just inspire us so much with what they are doing in their schools or schools they work with that we want to give them a chance to showcase and link with others of a like mind.

We are presently looking at opportunities in May and although I was going to wait until after half-term, people like Drew and Tom Barrett have given me the bug to get things going now. It is worth mentioning that the EduGeek stand at BETT was inspired by the Help Us Get To BETT Moodle stand that Drew and others got going. If not for that idea and the support of EMAP (who have come up trumps for Drew and co this time again) then such ideas would not have happened. Not said it publicly before, but thank you.

So … next step, TeachMeet Northants!

A recent discussion on EduGeek.net was about the introduction of someone above the Network Manager, but line managed by the Bursar / School Business Manager. Full details can be found here.

Since I have just come from a similar role (actually part of SLT and line managed by the Head) I thought I would give a response, which covered most areas.

Yep, this was me apart from not answering to the Business Manager but to the Head (me and BM were both on the SLT).

The Role can take on a number of the following areas but they are, as pointed out by Bossman, an extension of the Strategic Leadership of ICT (a course that Heads / Deputy Heads went on and usually followed up by a team of 3/4 key staff in the school going on TeamSLICT … typical group would be the Bursar / Deputy Head with responsibility for ICT/IT and Head of ICT Curriculum. Occasionally you would also get the Network Manager or the Data specialist or even an eLearning specialist)

Strategic Planning
Break this down into needs analysis, financial planning and sustainability

Strategic Delivery
Break this down into change management, service management and release management

Strategic Review
This is the tricky one IME, but break it down into 360 user feedback (consisting of user feedback from staff, students, SLT and support team … don’t forget to get user feedback from the support team!), suitability feedback and innovation/change studies.

Needs Analysis – You should be providing a system that does what is required to deliver the curriculum, run the school and cover other agendas such as Parental Engagement. It is a two-way things … sometimes the technology will dictate the use and other times the user will dictate the technology. It *has* to be a two-way discussion and will involve conversations with subject leaders, keys staff in the school (eg pastoral care, exams officer, finance, buildings / caretakers, even the school nurse and PCSO) and has to fit around the present School Development Plan. It will feed *back* into the school dev plan too but more on that later.

Sustainability – There is no point in planning for stuff in one year unless you know how it will be paid for in years 2-5 (or longer). You need to refresh equipment on a cycle. Becta have some tools for this (already linked somewhere … will add the link again later) but that ranges from desktops and laptops, to servers, to backup tapes, to network hardware, to printers, to scanners, to … well … I think you get the idea. Consumables are important here too and can easily be forgotten … and we go back to the needs analysis again … just because the teachers need it in year one … they will need it in year two and so on. Digital cameras get broken and lost, batteries for netbooks in science could do with replacing. Try to base it in experience within the school and talking with others. (hey … I bet that place EduGeek could help there!)

Change Management – Oh my … the more you look at change management in schools the more you realise that it is not just in IT that it is desperately needed. Introducing new courses, refurbishing the carpet in classrooms, changing break duty systems … many people follow change management processes based on the important (and oft forgotten) skill called common sense. Important to remember that not everyone follows it in the same way and the key to it being smooth is communication. Strategic planning introduces the chance to take a bit more time and not having to set out an new ICT suite based on the idea of the Head 3 weeks before the end of term! FITS really goes into change management and if people don’t look at anything else in the full ITIL or in PRINCE2 then change management is the key!

Service Management – This is the bit that tends to affect most members here. Small things like the introduction of an SLA help, improved documentation, training, a helpdesk (either physically or as a process) …

Release Management – This is often bundled in as part of Change Management but I have it separately for a single reason. Politics! As much as we might hate to deal with politics in schools it happens, from that little bit of gossip about who earns what for however much or little work they do … through to Union involvement in changes to working conditions (eg teachers signing the AUP often gets reviewed by unions). Not everyone needs to know the full picture all the time. The big picture … yes … but not every little detail. It is not their job, they have to trust you to get on with it the same way you trust them to do a good job teaching / preparing science facilities / looking after the buildings / etc. When to share knowledge is important and both communication and training are the key links between change management and release management.

360 User Feedback – You can only know if what has been planned and delivered is doing the job if you get feedback. It is not a bad thing to have students saying nasty things about the techies … perhaps they are moaning that the filters are too harsh … in which case perhaps more eSafety awareness needs to be done with them. Staff should have a chance to say whether what they use to teach with and what students learn with … that it does the business or not. Often these things may be small items that are tweaked as part of service delivery, but that is based on user feedback … If it turns out that feedback requires a significantly larger change that expected then that goes back into the planning section. Remember that in most sectors you can measure ROI quite well … in schools it is hard (hard in other areas too) and so user feedback is an important metric, similar to up times, adherence to project timelines or timescales in change processes. As the person dealign with the strategy the often missed group are the support team themselves. If they are not delivering is it a training issue? Time management? Sheer lack of time or too great a workload? Are they doing extra stuff such as working in the classroom (eg Music tech as a sound engineer) and they wish to continue (so do the music department) but that has an impact on service delivery?

Sustainability Feedback – User feedback will often result in changes to services, which require changes to financial planning and sustainability. Other areas affect this too. Change in staff in school, courses getting dropped because they don’t give the required results, additional provision is needed, increased cost of particular software or hardware, software and hardware no longer being available …

Innovation / Change studies – The last thing you shouldn’t forget is that these are schools we are talking about. Some schools go with the flow but others push the boundaries. There are a number of examples in this group of early adopters of Windows 7, schools testing Solus, and so on. There are others here who are doing fun and interesting things with VLEs / Learning Platforms, developing software, etc … and there are those at schools at the cutting edge of teaching too. This requires support teams to be damn flexible and accommodating. As I have on a t-shirt of mine … “Miracles we can do today, the impossible requires 24 hours notice … and chocolate … and bottles of coke … and perhaps a pizza …” it goes on …. Someone has to be the middleman between innovation and normal service delivery. Again, it fits into a variety of previous elements including change management, financial planning, etc … but is an important feature. A pilot that has been successful in the school may need to be rolled out school-wide, changing carefully laid plans … you know the ideas I mean. It may be that staff have seen something new at a tradeshow and it changes their future plans. It may be that the support team have evaluated a new solution that saves money, saves, electricity and gives more flexible working (eg TS, Citrix, etc)

So … there you have it … a brief run down of things. I haven’t covered SIMS in here yet, or eSafety, or staff training (though that is part of change management and release management) partly because I would say that next you need to understand the role of data at the school, who has ownership of it within the SLT and so on … eSafety is part of teh wider safeguarding side of things and should fit into the pastoral side of things, involving the head of pastoral care, the child protection officer, PSHE, citizenship, parent support advisor, etc … staff training should be integrated into the general training program that also covers things like lesson observations, leading from the middle, classroom management, behaviour and a heap of other CPD items.

And the last thing … every school is different and the above is just an elementary framework.

I know this doesn’t cover everything, but I would be interested in any feedback from others, based on personal experience or what your ideas would be in this role.

For those that may not be aware I have recently made a permanent change of role. I have been on secondment for a year with the LA and over the summer my job became a full time position so I had to decide whether to apply for it or not … I was a harder choice than I thought, but I did apply, was interviewed and was successful. Pending contracts, notice periods etc I am now at the LA full time … with a new structure in the team, a renewed vigour to get things done and with some fantastic opportunities ahead.

We have 4 Harnessing Technology Managers, each with a focus to a particular area. The LA and agencies; schools and school improvement; technical development and delivery; contracts and projects. For those who may not know I am the bloke dealing with technical stuff.

Don’t read that as I am going back to my ‘Geek’ roots, becoming all hands-on with setting up servers and so forth. I am not. I am translating technical into educational and back again. I recently spouted it off as ‘dealing with integration and interoperability, and ensuring that the appropriate, best value technical solutions are chosen for our schools and by our schools.’ If that is not Manglement speak of the highest order I don’t know what is.

What does it really mean? How will it affect folk in the server room and folk in the classroom? Simples … for the school to do it’s job it has to have tools. Those tools need to be the right tools for the job, be available when they should be, cost the right amount of money for what you get out of them or what it takes to support them, be able to talk to other tools when needed … and it should be able to go from the smallest infant school to the large consortiums of schools sharing students in sixth forms.

How will I do this? Well, there is a strategy from Becta talking about this (Harnessing Technology Strategy) and it fits in with a few other things too.

For many at the chalk-face it will be the delivery of Becta’s FITS program in the county that will be most visible. Becta run a stripped down version of ITIL for a number of years call the Framework for ICT Technical Support. This is about to enter version 2 (version 1.5 was released earlier this year) and covers areas from the helpdesk (from a notebook for the visiting technician through to the permanent support staff sat on the end of the phone logging incidents to servicedesk software) and change management through to service management of external contracts or even managed services.

Others will gain benefit of work done with our RBC to integrate VLEs to the regional portal, development of standards for exchanging data about pupils and staff, new tools and software, sustaining the growing, reliable network as part of the NEN and even simple things such as the chance to regularly meet other technical staff at county and regional events.

The things I am going to miss (and have done this year already)? Hands-on work with the kids. Even as senior manglement I enjoyed getting involved in music technology … getting into the recording studio and helping as a sound engineer. Hands-on with the techies. Helping the Network Manager out with patching servers, unboxing and imaging new kit, testing software. Hands-on work with teachers. Sitting down with a colleague and offering advice about hardware or software, and talking about how it might enhance or change what they do in the classroom. I will even miss Senior Leadership Meetings, and the support you get from one another in the role. It is a hard role to take on and I am glad I had the opportunity … I hope to return to schools one day as well to continue.

But back to my immediate work. A new strategy is needed in this brave new world at the LA. And the old strategy was pretty good … we just needed the staff to do it. The advisory service has now been reshaped, the education tech support was sold off a few years back, the RBC is now a separate but integral body and our schools are as independent as ever.

Over the next few weeks I will be looking at the strand of the Harnessing Technology Strategy I am working on most (there is a lot of cross over between the strands and the four HT managers) which is based around a world-class, joined-up digital infrastructure. I am not re-inventing the wheel, I am not going to be saying that my thoughts are either the only thoughts or even the best thoughts on the strategy … I just want to make sure that it makes a difference in the school and in the classroom … and the stuff that is not apparent is a tad more open … as well as opening myself up to challenge by my peers.

Talking of peers … for those of you who are twitterers / tweeple / twits (though I am sure that TWITS are the fore-runners to TOGs … Terry Wogan Is Tops Society) I would recommend Steve Wheeler’s growing list of Learning Technology professionals to follow. It is not a definitive list, is open to more suggestions, is more practitioner focused rather than Geek / techie focused … but still a good place to find a heap of information and helpful discussion by following these folks.

A thread has popped up over on EduGeek.net about setting up user groups in schools … quite a step forward to have more input into how IT is set up at your school, but it is more than just about sharing a few ideas.

This isn’t too disimilar to one of the learning conversations at TeachMeet Midlands really. I put forward a few suggestions and requirements for this and will expand this a bit more.

1. It has to have the backing and support of your SLT. It may have been your idea, a department idea or their idea … whatever way there needs to be backing and support from SLT.
2. It has to have some defined goals, preferably some that tie into your schools’ development plan, is part of student voice and you have SLT backing that decisions / recommendations made by the group will be seriously considered. 
3. It needs to be tied into staff CPD to ensure that it is not just an elite few who benefit from it. The idea is that IT/ICT is a tool, so you need to work out how to get as many people using the tools and resources as possible. This means sharing by a variety of methods. It could be formal training sessions, it could be just-in-time training via video tutorial, it could be cascaded good practice within departments … the wider the range the more likely you will get uptake.
4. There needs to be a good cross-section taking part in these types of groups … not just the ICT elite … get more mid-range users involved too. Enthusiasm will often be more important than ability, but it is also handy to work with ‘realists’ (not pessimists) who can be critical friends.
5. Do not get disheartened if for every 10 ideas the group has only 1 gets used … it will grow over time. Eventually, you might be lucky enough to have a 50% development rate. Having good examples of who the ideas were used elsewhere can help.
6. Make sure that although only a few people will attend as representatives of the large school community, the conversations / discussions / presentations / videos / software is available to as many people as possible. It is an important factor that all feel included and helps with continuity planning for the group, people will move on, members will run out of ideas or take on other groups and tasks, new or existing staff also need a chance to have their input too.

There are a number of other things that could be put into this list and feel free to suggest more links and examples, this is not a definitive list of things to do, just a starting point.

There is more work to be done on suggesting *how* student voice can have an input in to user groups … I would be interested in hearing of examples.

Friday was quite a fun night really … an eventful start to it as I witnessed a car crash into the central reservation, provided immediate assistance (no injuries, just shock), called emergency services and got my trainers covered in mud.

If you have never come across a TeachMeet before I consider myself lucky that I had my first experience at BETT this year. TeachMeet is a fantastic chance for education practitioners to get together and share good practice. It is a special type of Unconference and has a distinct flavour of fun. Speakers (and anyone can speak) talk about practice and can speak for 7 mins (micro-presentation) or 2 mins (nano-presentation) … with a few longer learning conversations or specialist speakers. The key thing is that it is not a sales pitch … but based on practice, what works in a classroom and no idea is talked down.

I turned up just in time to see Daniel Needlestone talking about the use of Google Apps at his school, and it just got better from there.

Rather than do a transcript of each speaker I’ll just put up a few links of things such as the blogs of various speakers (most have updated their blog with info about what they spoke about), the archived FlashMeeting from the show and to a few other things.

Daniel Needlestone – Google Apps at school http://nstoneit.com/

Steph Beard – Scratch http://scratch.mit.edu/

Ian Usher – Games Design Courses. A volountary group ranging from year 8-13 who designed games in Flash. The course was run via Moodle as the VLE and external experts took part via a remote conference (via Adobe Connect mainly).

Doug Belshaw – http://dougbelshaw.com/blog/ - Doug gave a quick thank you to those who supported and helped him through twitter in his successful application for Director of elearning at an Academy (his childhood school). he went on to talk about the use of blogs in Yr10 History by using http://www.posterous.com/ more details are in his blog post. Also use of http://voicethread.com/,  Google Apps Team Edition (http://www.google.com/apps/edu/index.html) and http://classtools.net/

We split off into two rooms to allow for more specific presentations and I stuck with a dominantly secondary room.

Jose Picardo (http://www.boxoftricks.net/) kicked off talking about communication and how he manages it with hs students, since his school does not have a VLE. Homework was an issue, students don’t know their password for email and don’t really *want* to go out of their way. Links and comments would be put up on http://www.diigo.com/ and messages would be put up on http://www.edmodo.com/ and documents uploaded to http://www.scribd.com/ - I did also consider that possibly using http://www.evernote.com  as an online annotation tool might also be handy to use …

Stuart Rideout – http://www.getplannerlive.com/ a free online homework and planner tool that has been developed and is available to all schools. Very popular with the students and they push staff to constantly update.

Doug Dickinson – http://www.ictopus.org.uk/ whilst being aimed at Primary there are still a large number of resources available via lessons2go … there are also a range of copyright free images via the Pictopus section of the site.

After a short beer break (or J2O in my case) we returned to the first of the learning conversations (this one led by Doug Belshaw) ”Why Technology?” This is 3.19.00 on the flashmeeting session (link at the bottom) and it is better to listen to this. I will try and capture the audio later for this as it has a few interesting points.

Lisa Stevens – http://lisibo.blogspot.com/ talking about updating the school website, http://www.voki.com/ and http://www.twitter.com to interact with other language users across the world.

Laura Walker – http://mrslwalker.com Laura also thanks fellow tweeps for support in her succesful bid to become Director of eLearning (another person who is not an ICT specialist) and talks about how the role of eLearning has changed in schools, no longer just the Network Manager or Head of ICT. Stressing the importance of your PLN (Personal Learning Network). Where do you go from here though in your long term road map? LA? Consultant? Senior Management / Leadership within the school?

Tom Barrett – http://tbarrett.edublogs.org/ demonstrating how he has been testing the SMART table in the classroom. Full details are on his blog but I was interested to hear that there was pretty much no learning curve for the multi-touch functions. It just came naturally … even for those not using iPhones and so on.

Next was the second Learning Conversation (led by ian Guest) was “Are we preaching to the converted?” in reference to getting more people involved with Teachmeet (and similar CPD events) and is on at 3.53.00 on the flashmeeting but does get cut short as the flashmeeting ran out of time. The consensus appeared to be that inspiring folk to use ICT is an important factor. Differentiated training resources, using non-IT specialists (in particulr the ‘middle of the road’ ability staff) to deliver training, having a focused group to help steer ICT CPD and making use of peer support all seemed tried and tested methods.

The last two sessions are not on the Flashmeeting … those of John Sutton and yours truly … I think there is a conspiracy!

John talked about Honeycomb as a tool for sharing ideas, links and other information with students … he might have said more but I was suddenly thinking about what I was going to speak about … sorry John!

Finally (or the graveyard shift as Ian Usher tweeted it) I did a nano-presentation on Community. Part one was talking about the importance of sharing our communities (or PLNs if you prefer) and encouraging more crossover. Highlighted in this was the http://opensourceschools.org.uk/ community, in particular for the unconference and http://edugeek.net.

Part two was talking about engaging with your community and I pointed people at a tool showed to me by Peter Ford for student voice and also demonstrated at a recent conference for Governors in Northamptonshire. http://www.powerleague.org.uk is a handy survey tool and well worth a look.

So, if you want to watch / listen to it all (or just the Learning Conversations) then got to http://flashmeeting.e2bn.net/fm/cbd8ce-4484. Most of the speakers have more information on their particular blogs or links are available if you tweet them.

I think this is a fair summary (?) of the meet … if not then feel free to give me admendments and I’ll update as soon as possible.