Making happen

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Making happen

• How lessons learned from deploying a smaller
  scale authority-wide web publishing system in
  East Lothian schools may help.
• David Gilmour, East Lothian Council

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What is edubuzz.org?

• A learning community
• A window on East Lothian education
• A web publishing system

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Whats the connection with Glow?

• Creating a learning community
• Improving sharing
• Modernising learning
• Removing barriers

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But what did we do about

• Staff who dont do ICT?
• Staff who dont see the possibilities?
• Schools afraid to be different?
• Suppression of innovative staff?

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Where are we now?
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eduBuzz is popular

• Every school is involved
• Up to 10,000 visits per month
• 1000 web sites

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Weve real evidence of benefits.

• HMIE Good Practice at Law Primary
• Effective Use of ICT
• Staff wanted to be more innovative in their use
  of ICT. They created a school blog to provide
  information on all aspects of school life and to
  encourage a regular dialogue between home and
  school. Staff worked closely with the local
  authority ICT team to set up the site and then
  took on responsibilities for maintaining it.
• Pupils were given a key role in providing the
  content. Pupils at the upper stages displayed and
  gave an account of their achievements and the
  range of activities that they had taken part in.
  Across the school, pupils used the site to
  provide feedback on school events. At P6 and P7,
  a pilot programme for homework was introduced
  with homework tasks and links to helpful
  educational sites posted on the blog.
• The blog also helped parents to keep in contact
  with their children who took part in the P7
  residential trip and let them know about the
  daily activities. Development and use of the blog
  has helped to promote pupils language, ICT and
  independent learning skills. It has also proved
  to be a highly effective way of highlighting and
  celebrating pupils achievements.
• Law Primary Inspection Report, HMIE, Sep. 2008

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How might this help with Glow?

• Similar problem situation
• Possible transfer of lessons learned

Diagram reproduced from the encyclopaedia of
informal education www.infed.org
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How did edubuzz start?

• Research to improve learning in East Lothian
• A need to stop re-inventing wheels
• The idea of an online learning community

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Early research showed we had to

• Avoid deficit model
• Start from where people are
• Avoid the usual initiative approach

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What lessons have we learned?
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Lesson 1 Train colleagues together

• Avoid training disparate groups off-site
• Train whole schools or departments in school
• Provide plenty of informal follow-up support

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Lesson 2Dont just automate existing tasks

• Look for where technology enables new potential
  benefits
• Be aware of the risk of being constrained by
  existing thinking
• Why are newsletters monthly?

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Lesson 3Its not an initiative

• Top-down initiatives generate push-back
• Avoid invoking the initiative frame of
  reference
• Focus instead on benefits by supporting
  bottom-up ideas

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Lesson 4 Reduce barriers to adoption

• Train to create simple products
• Tailor support to individual teachers needs
• Consider training the students

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Lesson 5 Take time to explain benefits clearly

• People will adopt technology when they perceive
  it to be easy and helpful
• Look for problems technology can help individuals
  to solve

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Lesson 6 Focus on benefits

• Recognise the risk that benefits can be missed
• Dont Do Glow for the sake of it
• Stories of real benefits achieved will spread and
  engage others

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Lesson 7 Encourage evolution

• Look for organic growth
• Nurture new ideas
• Learn by doing
• Dont over-plan

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Lesson 8Create a support network

• Encourage links between schools
• Exploit the network to provide inter-school
  support
• Trust people with the rights they need to be able
  to help

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Lesson 9 Exploit transparency

• Make it easy to see what other schools are doing
  and steal ideas!
• Peer pressure helps change the way we do things
• Creates healthy competition

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Lesson 10Establish continuous improvement
culture

• You cant get it right first time!
• Encourage open feedback and ideas
• Small improvements can provide large benefits

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Stay connected
edubuzz.org/blogs/eastlothianglow

• David Gilmour
• Education Childrens Services
• East Lothian Council
• Email dgilmour_at_eastlothian.gov.uk
• Phone [phone]
• Blog http//edubuzz.org/blogs/david