Push it!

Off for breakfast at McDonald’s tomorrow with the illustrious Mr Ford (we have good meetings in alternative places) to discuss a few things.

First we have our project at a local primary, and the ideas are starting to come out how we can get the kids fired up to be contributors to the world instead of just suckers for information. Looking at things like the use of mobile devices (PSPs, etc) in providing access to materials but also what they are going to create and what difference it will make to some of the targets the school has put out there. The mains targets are reading with boys and writing. A look at the work of folks like Tim Rylands opens up just some of the ideas we can run with, but fitting them into how others are working with the school will be fun.

Next we have a look at what is an ICT Vision. We have all seen those bland, buzzword full documents, with a heap of rhetoric and few examples … well, we want to try and see what a truly generic document looks like and then almost wikify it for people to fill in the blanks with examples. Sounds easy? In that case thank you for volounteering to add items to the wiki when it is available!

Finally we have the toys. ICTiS need to continue to look at emerging technologies, or new ways to use existing technologies … but we don’t really have much time for ‘play’ or coming up with ideas. Time to change that. As part of the primary school project we are going to get a few bits of kit for people to try out and come up with ideas. We are not saying that we are going to write huge schemes of work for schools, but come up with ways (and examples) about how staff can learn to make use of ‘different’ things. How many people use IWBs to advance a slideshow rather than annotating work or resources .. which can subsequently be saved and uploaded to a VLE for students to look at and comment on … or even add to?

So … yes … a few fun hours will be spent just throwing ideas around.