Naace, the professional association for those concerned with advancing education through the appropriate use of information and communications technology (ICT) has issued the following press release.
NAACE is hosting a Think Tank today at Holborn Bars, London on Friday 4 June to discuss the Future Direction of ICT in Education.
Mark Chambers, Chair of Naace Board of Management, will host delegates from a broad range of organisations all of whom have an interest in and passion for ICT in Education. Organisations such as NIACE, ALT, DATA, NATE, BESA, SALTIS, MirandaNet and many others will be represented.
It is hoped that following the event a joint statement will be issued to reflect the collective view of the importance of ICT as a fundamental right of all learners.
Naace, as the ICT in Education association and the leading independent advocate for effective ICT that supports learning, teaching and administration, is committed to sharing the outcomes from the Think Tank as widely as possible. In doing so it aims to fulfill the Naace mission to advance education through the appropriate use of ICT.
November 2010 will see Becta closing its doors. Opinion about the success of Becta seems varied and almost polarised.
I came to know Becta in 2005 and was encouraged to see so much evidenced information about using ICT and, in particular, the Harnesssing Technology e-strategy as it was known.
I was further impressed when Becta, following a review in 2007, added to the strategy and in 2008 Phase 2 of the strategy was launched directly responding to the success of Phase 1.
…click here to read more
In 2008 Becta said:
“Personalising learning is critical to the next generation of education. Many of the elements that go into it will be familiar, but it’s important to see how those elements fit together to form a bigger picture. In this guide we’ll focus on clarifying the role of learning platforms in particular and direct you to the resources you’ll need to plan and implement that technology more effectively.”
At the time of publication, the expectation that learning platforms would be fully utilised by 2010 was felt to be realistic if not challenging. Since that time various issues have been raised not least of which relates to the pedagogogical development required of teachers to make this expectation a reality.
Becta’s guide, “Personalising learning in a connected world” is worth revisiting. If you have a learning platform, an audit of its effectiveness and use across the curriculum would be very worthwhile. If your school does not yet have a learning platform, it will be difficult for your students to engage in their learning in the same way and extent as students of other schools, particularly as Next Generation Learning is now a reality for many.
Home Access is the result of a realisation that there are still a significant number of learners who do not have a computer and the internet at home. The benefits of learners being able to engage in their learning while at home are accepted. It is envisaged that more than 270,000 households may benefit by March 2011. The programme will support learners in schools and academies in years 3 to 9 inclusive.
Do you know what aggregation is and are you going to get involved with Home Access and support your parents?
…click here to read more
The Next Generation Learning strategy is now well underway and of vital importance to schools engaged in their evolution in becoming e-mature schools. Almost a year ago I created a short video placing the strategy into the national context and I have published it again here. For many schools it will provide the context they are seeking for moving forward and for others it will serve as a reminder of the direction of ICT in schools today.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHU5vMWitEc
