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.
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.
On 15th October 2009 Open Source Schools held a seminar on Innovation for LA Staff.
A fantastic day with many wonderful sessions but I thought I would point out my own one first. Tasked with talking about how IT Support teams are making a difference with Open Source I chose to talk about a number of core facts by which I work with schools and projects I have asked IT Managers in Northants to complete.
And twitcam stream for the afternoon session is here and I am the first speaker so no need to scrub through. The morning session can be found at http://twitcam.com/3xoh and http://twitcam.com/3xpf
Further information about the day, discussions about open source in schools and access to other information is available at Open Source Schools.
There are times when you just know that a day is going to be a wonderful one, that no matter how nervous you are about presenting, no matter how tired you may or how much work you have to do for the next day… You just get a tingle.
And that is what I had this morning as I drove down to the Open Source Schools seminar on innovation for LA Staff.
In fact I felt so excited that I started to rethink my presentation and I mentally rewrote it… And then spent some time in the intro reworking the presentation.
A wonderful set of speakers made the event wonderful and rather than do a breakdown of each one I would strongly suggest you visit the streams that were kindly set up an run by Leon Cych (links on the Open Source Schools website).
I’ll make a specific blog post about my session later but I would just like to thank all those who were good sports by joining in, by answering questions and for the positive feedback at the end.
But the thing I really want to blog about is the wonderful tour we were given of Bletchley Park, slightly whistlestop due to the time the seminar finished, but wonderful nonetheless.
We went round in awe and with a sense of reverence, and we are talking about the great and the good of OSS and innovation in education. The feeling that what we do, to help kids and teachers, has a direct line from the work done by the secret many in those huts.
OSS folk (in particular Moodle) have been called men in sheds, fiddling around … And as was said at the beginning of the day, it was the men in these sheds that made a difference.
It gives you hope and gives you the drive to do the best you can.
You don’t get many days like today… and I am glad it was shared with many other like minded people.