Merlin John Online

BETT Awards back on despite cuts fears

The BETT Awards for 2011, which had been threated by the closure of Becta and withdrawal of sponsorship, are now open for nominations. And they look like being leaner, meaner and fairer.

Leaner because the lack of time to secure financial backing has led to the categories being pruned, and meaner because firms wishing to enter their products will now have to pay an administration fee. They are likely to be fairer because the overly bureaucratic judging and technical testing regime managed by Becta has been ditched. Teachers and educators will lead the judging and the criteria will be based on evidence of impact on learning.

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Two new conferences fill coalition gap for BETT 2011

Organisers of the BETT educational technology show have stepped in to fill the vacuum left by the axing of the Learning and Technology World Forum, the victim of the coalition Government cuts and the demise of Becta.

World Leaders @ BETT, next January 11-12, will bring together government ministers, policy makers and influencers from around the world. It is one of two new conferences announced for BETT 2011. The other will be UK Education Leaders @ BETT, January 13-14 and aimed at UK educators and policy makers, which aims to provide a “robust debate” on the coalition Government’s education strategies.

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Schools offered tech prizes to register SMART Boards

When a new interactive whiteboad goes into a school who should sign up for the warranty? A teacher. ICT co-ordinator, school secretary or headteacher? Who takes 'ownership'?

SMART Technologies is so perplexeded by the low number of guarantees requested for its whiteboards that it has launched free prize draws for school customers who register online for their free three-year on-site warranty which includes an additional two-year return-to-base promise.

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Teachers celebrate first UK Google Teacher Academy

A two-day celebration of cutting-edge technology and smart learning and teaching at London’s 'Googleplex' marked the 10th Google Teacher Academy and the very first to take place in the UK. The result of two years of grassroots pressure led by UK teacher Tom Barrett, the international event saw 50 teachers, most of them from the UK, accredited as Google Certified Teachers.

"This has been a massively important day for us – for UK teachers as well as teachers outside of the US," said Tom Barrett, deputy head at John Davies primary school, Nottingham. "We now have a primed cohort of people who are Google Certified Teachers and who can go on and spread that message in their schools and in their districts. Also, I think we’ve seen Google show their support and encouragement to those teachers who are innovating, not just in the US but also in Europe and across the world.

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New report highlights SEN funding 'groundhog day'

By Sally KcKeown
Last week a senior secondary teacher told me that his school has no pupils with dyslexia. This may be true. However, given that estimates from dyslexia organisations show that 1 child in 10 has dyslexic tendencies, it is unlikely.

So I was particularly interested in a new report from research organisation Policy Exchange – supported by NASEN, the national body for special needs – which reinforces the view that many teachers have limited awareness of special needs and are not able to cater effectively for young people who need specialist support.

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Gain without pain – how Windows schools can save

Since BETT 2010 Microsoft has been advising schools on ICT savings. Ray Fleming explains why
So the budget cuts have arrived – and it appears that, for the moment, the biggest cuts are in schools’ capital budgets. First we saw the Harnessing Technology Grant cut by £50 million, then the BSF programme was cancelled, and on the same day another £50m was cut from the Harnessing Technology Grant – the only dedicated ICT grant for schools.

There have been various doom-laden forecasts of the impact of these cuts, but although the government has cut the specific ring-fenced ICT spend by 50 per cent, schools have always decided how much of their own budgets they too will invest in ICT to support teaching and learning. Last year, the Harnessing Technology Grant accounted for around one quarter of all schools ICT spending – so the overwhelming majority of investment came from each school’s individual budget decisions, taken after they’d decided on the relative priority of investing in ICT compared to other resources, and their staffing budgets.

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Education Eye opens a broad vista for innovation

Tim Rudd explains the thinking behind Futurelab's intriguing 'innovation aggregator'

Education Eye is a new, free and exciting resource developed by Futurelab. Offering immediate access to a wide range of up to date and relevant information relating innovations in technology and education, it provides an easy way to discover, explore and share new ideas and information that has been drawn together from hundreds of sites and online sources.

For the more technically minded, Education Eye is best described as an indexed, searchable, content aggregator. Put more simply, expert researchers have identified and linked to some of the best content and sources on the web relating to the innovative use of new technologies in education, so that a wealth of information now appears on just one site.

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Hannah's winning muffins recipe - by GOSH

Maureen McTaggart visits the Children's Hospital School at Great Ormond Street
Under the watchful eye of Jenny, the classroom assistant, Hannah mixes together the ingredients for muffins – sugar, flour, eggs, milk and lemon rind. Soon the mixture is ready for the oven and the mess is cleared up. So what’s the big deal you might ask?

The five-year-old learner, clad in chef’s hat and apron, is sitting up in bed and iChat on her Apple MacBook is connecting her to 17 other similarly-clad students doing the same thing in a classroom five floors below. Intersperse with a few feeding tubes, the odd dialysis machine, wheelchair and crutches and the picture becomes clear – we’re in hospital.

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Fresh Inspiration: update of a classroom favourite

Chris Drage finds much to celebrate in 'Inspiration 9'
The Inspiration program has been around for a considerable time and has undergone evolution to the point where the professionally tuned Version 9 has a huge amount to offer all key stage 3-4 and special needs students – and teachers too.

Inspiration 9 is software for visual mapping, outlining, writing and making presentations. It is an exceptionally good thinking and learning tool for visual communication. With it you can brainstorm ideas, structure thoughts and, using both the Diagram and Map views, visually communicate concepts to strengthen understanding.

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Blood diamonds 'not worth fighting or dying for'

Learners across 123 countries discover from victims how some everyday luxuries are paid for in blood
When Jimiyke was 10 he was kidnapped by his sister's boyfriend, dragged into the bush, drugged and forced to fight in the Sierra Leone civil war. His salvation was education, and now he is a key contributor to Rafi.ki's Blood Diamonds Project to share his insights with learners across 123 countries.

Jimiyke's experiences are familiar to children in scores of armed struggles fuelled by "conflict minerals". More than five million lives have already been lost in the DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo) and there are worries that Afghanistan will be the next region to be “cursed” by the discovery of precious minerals.

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An 'open source manifesto' to counter the ICT cuts

Open Source Schools' Miles Berry offers a radical response to the ICT funding cuts
So far, things have not gone particularly well for ICT in schools under the new government. We've seen Becta's funding withdrawn, the Rose curriculum thrown away, £100 million removed from the "low priority" Harnessing Technology grants and now BSF "frozen". Mike Baker's article for the BBC provided a good summary of the story so far.

The worst, I fear, is yet to come with 25 per cent cuts overall in public sector spending. The need to save money wherever possible suggests that open source may be the solution that has been waiting for this particular problem.

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The Innovators - 19 Sean O'Sullivan

By Sally McKeown
“Hi Sean, do you know how to change the background colour on this?” A pupil, Brian, and Jamie, a new member of support staff at  Frank Wise School, wander into the office of headteacher Sean O’Sullivan (above) to get some help and on-the-spot training. Once they have learned how to put a new layer into Pages and change the colour they go off to develop the title page for the class magazine.

The school achieved Beacon status in 2004 and was designated a Specialist School (SEN) in Cognition and Learning in 2007. It has won several awards including International School and Becta ICT Excellence (runner-up) and obtained an Outstanding Ofsted report in 2007 and 2010. While there are many reasons for a school to do so well, part of the magic of Frank Wise is that technology is threaded through all the school activities in a very natural and intuitive way.

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