Technology training provides rocky foundations for schools programme

I am writing this in my classroom because our current network is down, which hopefully isn’t the shape of things to come.

Our new school building is almost ready and I am looking forward to using my dual-boot Mac/Vista machines and interactive whiteboard. I also can’t wait to use our virtual learning environment (VLE) to enable my students to embrace technology in the most efficient and useful way.

However, things aren’t actually that rosy for Building Schools for the Future (BSF). In particular, I’m worried about how this new “technology-rich” environment is to be rolled out to my colleagues and, arguably more importantly, the students.

For ICT staff and other motivated ICT users in the school, we have a one-day training opportunity to get up to speed with our VLE – Ramesys Assimilate. The next time we see it will be in a month’s time for one and a half hours and then we go live with 1,000 students accessing the new network and software. This scares me!

I am amazed anyone can think that the level of training and support provided is adequate. I am highly motivated and a self-confessed geek, so any new software interests me and I will play about with it until I am satisfied. However, for less skilled or e-confident staff, the implications are horrendous. How can they be engaged and confident after one and a half hours of use? Will ICT transform the teaching and learning of a class of 30 students with 12 old PCs stuck in the back of a classroom, especially when they run a system with which the staff don’t feel confident? There has been a missed opportunity to get them involved in the scheme.

I spend a lot of my time these days moaning and predicting the end of the world. Maybe I should stand outside school with a board saying “The end of the world is nigh”.

Things will be worse for the students. They will receive no training until they arrive at an ICT lesson. While young people pick things up and are happy to play about with new technology, take them too far out of their comfort zone and their confidence nose dives. I worry that the great things they have achieved already will be lost.

Thanks, BSF, for all the help and support in transforming ICT in education.

Mark Minghella