It really is not about finding the killer application or the right bit of content, its about a blend of the different factors that come together to creating stimulating and challenging learning environments. 


In the years I have been supporting schools, too long to admit to, I have seen huge impact in situations where the teacher has limited resources but a creative spark that converts the mundane into a vibrant classroom. I have also seen thousands of UK pounds spent on a product or service that someone deems to be the ‘must have’ service or application only to find that after a while its use and impact withers and eventually is forgotten. 

All of this would suggest that the most significant factor in the adoption of technology in a school is the willingness of staff and pupils to make use of it. The strategy for change management is much more important that the technology itself as the latter is easily obtained and the former is often largely ignored or left to an individual in a school to deliver. 

So what do you need for successful ICT implementation across a school? 
Firstly a leadership team and headteacher who encourage innovation. This does not mean that they take their eye of the issue of standards but does mean that any idea must prove itself if is is to be sustained - the space for the teacher to generate the proof is what the school leadership can encourage and support. 
Second, the teacher needs to be supported in their endeavour and the measures of impact need to be a wider than simply acquisition of knowledge. In many instances the impact is actually more about how learners are encouraged to learn than the learning itself - clarity around what outcomes could be expected from any particular innovation or idea needs to come from the teacher. Doing something because ‘it might be interesting’ is not really good enough in the modern target driven school.

Third is the dissemination of the impact of the particular innovation and the support given to that dissemination by senior leaders and fourth would be the much greater level of support other staff will need to adopt the approach for themselves.

Many years ago now I was fortunate to visit the Alan November conference in Boston and enjoyed a few days with like minded people who thought there was something still not quite right about the education systems on most Western Countries. It may well be that this view is more widely spread but those at the conference were predominantly from the USA, Europe and other western democracies.

The world has changed a lot since that visit but many education systems, certainly in the UK, appear to have gone backwards. A few years ago the UK was regarded as one of the leading countries exploring the potential of technology to transform learning,  that is certainly not the view now. Other countries are pushing ahead, exploring new approaches and recognising that young people are in a very different world from the one that saw the introduction of mass education. 

In 2007 I spoke to two university professors attending an event in the locality and my first question was whether we were turning out the sort of students that their research programmes required - the immediate answer was 'no'.

In this insightful video Alan revisits his main argument, that we need to radically rethink our approach to education in a technological age. He rightly comments on the fact that training a teacher to use technology is only the tip of the iceberg and that shifting the focus of control in the classroom  to become more learner centric is a much greater challenge. 

It is certainly true that for some students school is an ideal experience, but for many they do not flourish and develop their potential until they move out into college, university or work. We all know of children in Primary schools that suddenly lose their enthusiasm for learning when they move into the high school. Some schools do make major efforts to create the sort of learning environment in which individuals flourish but I have yet to see very many classrooms, let alone schools, where technology is used to stimulate, engage and aid collaboration and communication. There are bits of these in a lot of schools and usually where specific teachers have a vision for using technology ineffective and engaging ways.The trouble in many such schools is that once a creative and innovative teacher leaves then the innovation they brought in often withers and dies.

Alan might be fighting a cause that can never be won but it is a battle worth fighting.

I have had a lot of discussions with schools in my area over the years about the use of Open Source software (OSS) knowing that the range of software tools available continues to grow as communities of developers build and share their work. 

While it has been relatively easy to find schools that have used the odd open source software package such as Open Office or Seashore it has been far more difficult to find a school that has gone much further and are using OSS tools for admin, pupil management and within the curriculum.  


The old arguments always seem come up - 'its not industry standard' or 'it may be free but it is costly to support' or 'we have had a look at using open source but staff and parental pressure has made it impossible to change'.

Many of the arguments put forward for adopting OSS solutions are financial ones. The fact that the software is free to use could save a school or college significant sums of money which could be used for other things.

There have also been a number of reports generated by various education organisations and governments seeking to explore the use of Open Source Software for Education. In the UK an organisation called BECTa (British Educational Communication and Technology Agency - now closed down) undertook an in depth research study on the potential use of OSS software. Their report entitled:
'Open source software in schools: A study of the spectrum of use and related ICT infrastructure costs' 

set out to explore the cost benefit of using OSS and demonstrated that savings could be made but that there were issues about the lack of curriculum specific software (something that was prevalent at the time in the UK with software to help deliver the National Curriculum). The report indicated that the take up of OSS solutions were affected by the perceptions of staff and that training issues might mean that it would be timely and expensive to move staff from one approach to a more OSS rich set or resources. Administrative staff were reported to be lukewarm about the use of OSS due to its inability to integrate or inter operate with already existing systems. 

Looking elsewhere in the world a typical example of the type of research is the paper published in International Journal of Education and Development using Information and Communication Technology (IJEDICT), 2013, Vol. 9, Issue 2, pp. 64-84 which was written by researchers in South Africa looking at the potential of OSS in Western Cape Schools. In this report the same issues emerge, integration or compatibility with other systems is seen as a barrier as does training of staff.  

In both reports the pre-existing situation had a much greater impact than any the actual quality or effectiveness of OSS solutions. the barriers seem to be more about integrating with existing products or services or the effort needed to re-train or try a different approach.
In my search for a school that has gone further than most with open source software I discovered  Albany Senior High School in Auckland, New Zealand and their decision to explore the full potential for OS in schools was driven by an educational vision and not by a financial argument. Albany's WikiEducator pages make interesting reading and they set out five key educational arguments for their approach with Open Source Tools. The page also lists the tools they use, which includes some that have been put together by students for use within the school.

Hamish Chalmers is Deputy Principal at Albany Senior High School now responsible for the continued development of their OSS approach building on work done by a former colleague who has now moved on to another post. The fact that the use of OSS continues at Albany pays tribute to the fact that its use has now become embedded in the school and unlike many projects I have witnessed elsewhere disappears when the person who began it is no longer around.

Hamish kindly agreed to speak to me via Skype about their approach and some of the issues that have encountered along their developmental journey with OSS.