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Objective 1: Change the culture of the use of ICT
Update: The Cabinet Secretary has expanded on this objective and set the context in a post on Engage for Education.
Expected Benefits: to more closely align the use of ICT in schools with its use outside of schools; to reduce the cost of centrally procured and managed services; to deliver efficiencies at local level by greater use of technology solutions.
What do we need to do:
Operate school networks separately from local authority corporate networks. The latter interconnect with government secure networks, subject to restrictive conditions set out in a Code of Connection. When applied to school networks, these can lead to a risk-averse culture of security compliance and aversion to change which is at odds with school needs.
How will we do this:
Have a robust and upgradeable network backbone that reaches into every school in Scotland
Have a basic standard for ICT competence in classroom - re-enforced by GTC , Teacher Training Institutions, HMIE ( Education Scotland) , SQA ( perhaps through appointee network and where necessary qualifications)
Work with BBC and other external agencies to promote digital literacy across Scottish society
Have a national learning content repository that supports open educational resources - deposit and access and serves to as distribution mechanism for any closed national content agreements with public or private sectors.
Link and learn from other sectors Higher Education , Further Education and Work-based learning - for learners this is a life long learning issue not a school one.
Develop a single national cloud based service for data, removing our dependence on local systems.
Change the culture of control and "policing of the Internet" within local authorities and schools by removing filters and blocks on Internet access, enabling open WiFi and internet access for all members of the school community and by developing a culture of responsible use.
Through blogs, other web-based tools and the new version of Glow develop a system of sharing educators' ideas and practices, especially for technology use. These ideas should include interesting local and international examples.
Make sure that practitioners have opportunities to regularly take part in on-line CPD. These opportunities should include how technology can enhance learning, teaching, planning and productivity.
Any new version of Glow should embrace and endorse existing on-line professional communities of practice such as EduBuzz, CompEdNet and Sputnik. The future version of Glow should also include on-line communities for those in formal or informal leadership roles. On-line communities should be developed for learners as well as teaching staff.
The Scottish Government should produce clear guidelines for any publicly funded website to ensure that all public web space is interoperable (eg: GTCS site talks to the SQA site and the SQA site talks to Education Scotland etc.).
Government funded education-related websites should lead by example and include tools for collaboration, peer recommendation and sharing (eg: Like on Facebook, and Google Plus)
Scottish Education needs to regularly gather data on how young people are using emerging technologies in their day-to-day lives. This research can help inform changes to practice and future investment. Data could be gathered in partnership with universities, Young Scot and Ofcom.
Many school leaders still need to understand the importance of technology for learning, teaching and productivity. We need to develop communication channels to make sure that school leaders are aware of the potential benefits from a changed culture, for example including opening up networks, filtering, the use of student owned devices and use in emerging areas of pedagogy.
Key Scottish education messages should be communicated through modern internet-based communication channels as well as traditional methods. This will help ensure a wide audience. These channels should include Facebook, Twitter and Google+.