The National Grid for Learning Consultation Paper

Copyright © by Mark Baker 1997

Copyright waiver

Return to MarkChrisSoft home page

The National Grid for Learning consultation paper coins yet another new acronym. Is there a difference between ICT and IT? I don’t think so, since the definition of IT includes computers, electronics and communications. The quantity of jargon that surrounds IT acts as a barrier to many people, mystifying the area and making it seem more complex than it really is. The aim in creating yet another acronym may be to emphasise the importance of the communications element, but I do not think that this is helpful in making technology more accessible. However, I suppose that we are going to have to live with it!

The Government intends to set up a National Grid for Learning, based around the Internet, linking a variety of networks and education services. It will provide a way of finding and using on-line teaching material, such as schemes of work, worksheets and software, with the aim of raising standards, particularly in literacy and numeracy. The Grid will be developed so that it will support teaching, learning, training and administration, not just in schools, but also in colleges, universities, libraries, museums, the workplace and the home.

In effect, they are attempting to take the existing infrastructure of the Internet and encourage the development and dissemination of educational resources using it. The Government wants teachers and pupils to be confident users of information technology.

There was a consultation period up until 8^th December 1997. A model of the grid will be launched in the early part of 1998, with the intention that some of the more advanced services would come on stream in the autumn of that year. It is intended that all schools, colleges, universities and libraries would be connected to The Grid by the year 2002.

• By 1999 all Newly Qualified Teachers would need to become ICT-literate.
• By 2002 serving teachers should generally feel confident, and be competent to teach, using ICT within the curriculum.
• By 2002 all schools, colleges, universities and libraries and as many community centres as possible should be connected to the Grid, enabling perhaps 75% of teachers and 50% of pupils and students to use their own e-mail addresses by then.
• By 2002 most school leavers should have a good understanding of ICT.
• By 2002 the UK should be a centre for excellence in the development of networked software content for education and lifelong learning, and a world leader in the export of learning services.
• From 2002 general administrative communications to schools by the UK Education Departments, OFSTED and non-departmental public bodies, and the collection of data from schools, should cease to be paper-based.

In addition

• Schools should formulate plans for their use of ICT across the curriculum (and particularly for literacy and numeracy), for staff development and administration.

Experience with SuccessMaker has shown that a high quality product, meeting clearly defined needs and backed by excellent training, will result in a world-beating solution. Following this model, it is clear that The National Grid for Learning must contain a wealth of high quality resources, which are clearly targeted and organised. It must be supported by comprehensive, high quality training opportunities.

• Quality is crucial - everything depends on this. Mediocre resources will result in a system which may well be technically satisfying, but which nobody will use.
• Clearly targeted on-going training for teachers and measures to encourage them to buy their own computers are essential if their technical skills are to develop.
• Widespread use of the NGfL within the classroom implies that more hardware must be made available within schools.

The National Grid for Learning must grab the attention of teachers firmly and hold their interest, if it is to achieve the aims set out for it. This can only happen if it contains high quality material and resources that will benefit teaching staff. There must be a strong reason for investing all the time and effort required in acquiring new technical skills. Time is one commodity that teachers do not have enough of. The job involves regularly prioritising and deciding what can be left out. Unless the NGfL contains material that teachers can see is valuable and will save them time preparing alternative materials, then it is destined to become another unused technical tool, gathering dust in the corner of the staff room.

By using the NGfL for their own benefit, teachers will learn the skills and gain the confidence necessary to start leading classroom based activities.

Teacher technical training must be seen as a medium term, on-going process. Giving everyone some kind of initial ICT course will not meet the requirements of the NGfL. For this to work well, teachers must be proficient in their use of ICT.

The training must recognise that teachers currently have a wide range of ICT skills and a range of different needs within their curriculum areas. Over time they may need to attend several courses, but most importantly of all, they must be using ICT skills in between courses. This is where most of the learning and growth in confidence will take place. The courses are there to kick-start the process. Each course must therefore give teachers particular skills that will enhance their effectiveness, to encourage them to use and practice those skills. The allocation of lottery funding for training offers an opportunity to address this.

Government and school managers must appreciate that learning ICT skills takes a great deal of a person’s time.

In order to boost the ICT skills of teachers it is necessary for them to have a computer at home. It is not possible to allocate sufficient time during the day to learn using school computers, even supposing that staff would have access to them. A computer should be regarded as being an essential teaching tool. Purchases of computer equipment by teachers should attract tax relief in recognition of this. A limit could be set, say up to £2000 every four years.

I believe that my own web site (http://www.rmplc.co.uk/eduweb/sites/mbaker) provides a model of the sort of material that could be contributed by individual teachers. The site includes software that I have written, areas that I feel I have a particular level of expertise in, areas where I have been unable to find good material and have had to do my own research and some of my favourite worksheets. I also intend to add some administrative material such as a departmental policy document and schemes of work, that others could modify rather than having to start from scratch. I know from the e-mail comments that I have received that the current material has been useful to various colleagues from around the world. Certainly, they are the sort of resources that I would have found helpful.

In theory, such material could be gathered from many teachers, leading to a rich and diverse collection of resources. The factors that may prevent this from happening are:

1. The time required to adapt the material, organise and publish it in Internet format.
2. Having the necessary technical skills to do this.
3. Having the required hardware and software at home in order to do this.

I believe that these issues define a role for commercial providers. They could collect, select and publish work submitted to them. Teachers would provide the material for them, either free of charge or on a paid basis. I believe that it should be on a paid basis to encourage and reward those who can write the best materials. The commercial providers would allow access to their material on a subscription basis.

The ideal of the Internet is that information should be provided free of charge and this is clearly attractive for the NGfL, given that schools have very limited budgets. I believe however, that it will not be possible to build up the bank of high quality resources on a no-cost basis. We are likely to end up with a mass of material, of variable quality, that is poorly presented and organised and therefore very difficult to access. If this happens, the NGfL will not be used by teachers.

If we become able to tap into the best teacher-produced materials and share these amongst ourselves, then the NGfL could be enormously beneficial - raising standards, developing teachers’ skills and saving preparation time, which could then be used on other projects. Teachers often spend a lot of time reinventing the wheel, creating resources that countless other teachers have already produced. The NGfL could attack this inefficiency. This would be worth paying for.

So far as using ICT for class based activities is concerned, the NGfL would have to offer something over and above existing resources. Currently the Internet is a superb tool for individual research, but does it offer anything for class activity? The Internet based activities that I have read about have the appearance of "flagship events" which would take a lot of additional work to organise. As such, whilst they may well be excellent vehicles for learning, they could not realistically become a regular part of the curriculum in a large number of schools. I feel that more work needs to be done in developing activities that teachers can use as and when they are ready and with little or no additional preparation.

Many schools do not have a high level of technical expertise in house. This seriously affects their ability to teach their pupils appropriate technical skills and to properly run in-house local area networks. Contracting commercial service providers to manage school networks remotely, using telecommunications links could offer a solution. There are schools that have developed excellent ICT facilities and the NGfL offers the potential for the sharing of models of good practice.

Most schools want more computers. They are trying to meet the needs of specialist ICT teaching and cross-curricular activities. Many are also trying to make ILS systems, such as SuccessMaker™, available to as many pupils as possible. The Government is now, quite properly, trying to promote widespread use of the Internet, but this will only add to the demand. How many hours per week are pupils expected to be using the NGfL? No target has been set, but clearly the NGfL will make further demands on the equipment that is available. The likely shortfall needs to be calculated so that its impact can be assessed.

The NGfL, coming as it does with Government support, offers tremendous opportunities to pupils, teachers, schools and ultimately the country as a whole. Opportunities to exchange information, communicate with ease, access quality resources and share best practice. However there is no guarantee of success. It will only work if it has the enthusiastic support of a large body of committed teaching professionals.

Return to MarkChrisSoft home page