The new Coalition Government is steaming ahead with its Structural Reform Plan for Education being published on 13th July. In which their concept of Free Schools is once again expounded:
” … we will also capitalise on the passion of parents, teachers and charities who want to make a difference by making [...]
Two pieces of good news have came out of Becta, if indirectly, in the last few days. Firstly planned revisions to the Self Review Framework will go ahead. (These will be launched on 18th June together with the transition arrangements.) Then Naace confirmed that its contract to administer the ICT Mark would remain in place [...]
There’s been a few international comments made about the closure of Becta and its implications in the wider context of worldwide educational technology, but the most telling so far is the comments Don Knezek, CEO of ISTE made to eSchool News [registration needed to read the whole article]. Don was over last week and met [...]
There’s been two important meetings in the last three days which are beginning to shape the future of educational ICT in the UK. The first was a Naace members’ focus group that happened on 2nd June at the Naace offices in Nottingham. Planned way before the election Naace wanted to get some of its members [...]
Martin Littler in a recent article points out that, “Dead men don’t fall through open windows. Becta did need a kick.” In it he recalls how thirty years ago Becta’s predecessor(s):
” … was responsible for the lively lead which the UK quickly established in all aspects of educational technology. It was tiny then but employed [...]
In all the furore over the closure of Becta, there has been little said that it is not the Government that can close this non-departmental public body. Like so many of our educational institutions, Becta is in fact a company limited by guarantee with charitable status. This charity like all others, it governed by Charity [...]
At the general election, the Labour MP who has represented Waveney since 1997 lost his seat by less than 600 votes. Bob Blizzard had done a great deal for the town of Lowestoft in those thirteen years. I admit I’m biased, having taught with Bob in a local school I knew him well and know [...]
It’s difficult to quantify the last thirteen years of educational ICT policy. Children born in 1997, and now in Year 9, will certainly not recognise a landscape in which one computer in the library, with dial-up access to the internet, was cutting edge, or computer rooms with RISC PCs, a 10Mb network and maybe a [...]
This weekend I heard Sugata Mitra, Professor of Educational Technology at Newcastle University for the first time. Professor Mitra had what he modestly called, “his 15 minutes of fame” last year when Vikas Swarup, author of the novel on which the award-winning ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ film is based, cited Prof. Mitra’s “Hole in the Wall” research [...]
Vital, the ICT CPD service launched at BETT 2010, began its first set of online moderated courses this week. Take-up however has apparently been disappointing. It’s early days, of course, and I believe that the service is a significant step in ICT CPD provision and needs time to become known and develop its clientele. It’s [...]
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