BYOD Case Study: Wildern School

BYOD at WildernWildern School has partially implemented Bring Your Own Device, or BYOD. Students may bring their own devices in as long as the teacher and head of department concerned have agreed that phones and other devices would be useful in a particular lesson.
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Review of Learn for Life News

Leon CychI recently discovered a fairly new educational technology and ICT news service. Published daily by UK ICT veteran Leon Cych, Learn for Life News is a welcome – and different –  addition to the plethora of information sources currently available.

Why “different”? Because it is not just another source of news but, as Leon himself describes it, filtered news. Leon is acting as a human filter of what is currently being discussed on the UK ICT grapevine.

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A is for … Assessing ICT

Apple PieHow would you rate the apple pie shown in the photo? Yes, I know the first thing that comes to mind is probably “Disgusting!”, because my food presentation skills are not what they ought to be. (Believe it or not, the apple pie depicted has not been eaten.) But how you assess my efforts must depend on what exactly you’re looking for. (I realise this is kind of obvious, but please bear with me.)

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BYOD Case Study: Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital

ipod nano vector artThe unique challenge for the Children's Hospital School is balancing the need and desire to enable all long stay students to be able to access their own device with the need for security. Although this challenge is faced by other schools, the uniqueness in this case stems from the fact that 80% of the student population changes very frequently, so the school has little idea what devices students will be bringing.
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7 Ways of Making ICT More attractive

2011/365/95 Harping the BluesYou may not know this, but there is not a lot of difference between a Lee Oskar diatonic harmonica (the type used by blues and folk musicians) and a Hohner Blues Band harmonica. The Lee Oskar is said to have been engineered to give a “sharper” edge to the tone, which suits the blues sound, whereas the Marine Band, being slightly “softer”, works well for folk music too. Unless you’re a purist, there is probably not much in it. As someone once said:

“A difference is only a difference if it makes a difference.”

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Adobe Helps Nurture Young Creative Talent with New Online Courses for UK Students

Adobe has rolled out an exciting series of online courses called Adobe Generation, which are designed to help students between the age of 14 and 19 develop new skills that will put them in a better position when exploring career options in the creative industry.

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BYOD Case Study: St Crispin’s School

cell phone 2St Crispin’s School is a slightly larger-than-average secondary school serving the town of Wokingham, England. An 11-18 school, it has 1102 students. The number of students with special education needs is about average, whilst the proportion of students from ethnic minority backgrounds is below average. Relatively few students are eligible for free school meals.

St Crispin’s was attracted to the idea of BYOD because, as Mike Elward, Assistant Head/Director of e-learning says

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Responsible Use

Girl with a tie, who's the boss now?The general thrust of education these days is on student-centred learning. This is often expressed by depicting on the teacher’s role as being the guide on the side rather than the sage on the stage. Regardless of whether you agree that that’s how things should be (and as it happens I don’t: see Please! No More Mantras!), the often-stated philosophy these days is that students know best.

But does stating that philosophy mean that it is observed in practice?

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