Never mind the technology, where’s the learning?

“Nobody ever lost their job for buying IBM,” went the phrase in IT departments in the 1980s. Then corporate Purchasing Managers played safe when navigated the often risky proposition of introducing new technology to their companies. Likewise, when it comes to educational ICT no-one making the purchasing decision says later they were wrong, and the bigger the pot, the more certain they are. No-one said they made a mistake in the late eighties and early nineties if they bought Acorn or RM, or SuccessMaker or SiR. All was justified, it was the best possible deal for the art department, the school or all the local authority. Have we learnt by this? Do some still defend their decisions by rubbishing other’s views, or justifying our own opinions with logical fallacies? It seems so.

I’ve already posted on the first shots of the Learning Platform Wars, which are actually about power and centralisation, control over schools, teachers and what’s happening in them. This week another centralising body broke cover. The London Grid for Learning, one of the Regional Broadband Consortia established to roll out broadband access to schools gave far from impartial ‘guidance’ in its “Briefing for Local Authorities and Schools” on ‘Learning Platforms’ when comparing open source alternatives to commercial products and in particular the LGfL’s chosen partner, Digital Brain. I’ll let you read the document, and also Miles excellent de-construction which highlights the absurdity of the statements it makes.

This is only the ‘phoney war’ in which propaganda is the main weapon, wait until the real one starts, then the casualties might be more than pride.

Image credit: IBM

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