BYOT Case Study: Scargill Junior School

RaptDescribing itself as being on the ‘networked’ stage of the continuum, Scargill school’s current Bring Your Own Technology model consists of utilising a wide range of mobile devices in school in order to enhance and support the learning in the classroom. It started with Nintendos approximately 6 years ago. But what prompted Scargill to consider a BYOT approach in the first place?
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Why schools should have a hyperlocal blog

SilSpgErlVtg_0053 Blair ReporterMany years ago there was a television series in Britain called “The Cres”. Short for “The Crescent”, the series followed the day-to-day lives of the fictional residents of a street somewhere in England. Most episodes were engaging and humorous, and made compelling viewing. An article I read this morning reminded me of this, and made me think that a “hyperlocal” blog could work really well for a school.

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3 ways of maintaining privacy

silhouettesHer Majesty The Queen of England serves as an inspirational role model in terms of personal privacy. Despite being in the public eye for 60 years, she has managed to keep her personal opinions to herself. Almost nobody knows, for example, what her favourite tea is (although Smokey Earl Grey has been hinted at). Yet there are many people who seem to announce to the world each time they blow their nose!

The balance between public and private is, of course, a personal choice, and one made more difficult by other people openly talking about one’s activities or tagging one’s photos, and much standard business advice. But if you do want to be fairly private while maintaining a strong online presence, here are some suggestions. You may like to share and discuss these with students, who are also striving to get this balance correct.

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Sorry about my lack of response to comments recently. I will rectify that sson. Thanks for being patient.

BYOT: the policy that dare not speak its name?

CIA Secret Weapon, after Otto MessmerA couple of months ago Mike Sharples, a researcher at the Open University, told me that he had looked at the websites of some of the schools I was writing up case studies on in connection with their Bring Your Own Technology policy, but was unable to find any references to it whatsoever. He came to the conclusion that:

BYOT is the policy that dare not speak its name.

I have to say that although there are quite a few schools adopting a BYOT approach, finding them has not been easy.

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Bring your own thinking

cell phone 2A few years ago I said to one of my team, having been in the new management post for about a week, “How come nobody here ever takes a decision? How come they always ask me what they should do, especially when they know more about their specialist area than I do?”

“Because”, came the reply, “Our last boss always had an opinion on everything, and stuck to it whatever anyone else suggested. So we very soon learnt that there was no point in doing any of the thinking for ourselves.”

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An example of how technology changes things

P1000244I have found the Never Seconds debacle quite interesting. Story in a nutshell, in case you missed it: nine-year-old Martha Payne writes a daily blog in which she uploads a picture of her school lunch and reviews it. Argylle and Bute Council has some sort of nervous breakdown and issues an edict telling Martha that she isn’t allowed to take photos of her lunch, because catering staff are now in fear of their jobs. As a consequence, Martha’s blog gets over 5 million page views in just a few days, the number of comments on her posts soars from around 30 to over 2,300 in two days, and Argyll and Bute rescind the ban.

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Interesting times in ICT

ICT RIPThe phrase “May you live in interesting times” is usually cited as a sort of curse, but can you imagine the opposite, ie living in boring times? Fortunately, especially here in England there is no danger of that for a while, at least in the world of ICT. Here are a few snippets of news which I won’t comment on at the moment because I like to cogitate, reflect, and then cogitate some more before pontificating. As I said in a previous article (10 Obligations of Bloggers), quoting Salvator Rosa, I believe in the adage “Be silent, unless what you have to say is better than silence”.

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