Innovation Profile 147

No hiding place; for whom?

A learning platform is the central, and most significant component of a number of systems in a school/college. All the systems must work together to promote the central aim - stimulating and enabling students to learn.

Increasingly all these systems are ICT-based. Their job is to enable the different actors, students, teachers and parents/carers/mentors, to work and communicate effectively. They also provide the information and support needed for this.

These systems should make working life easier, more engaging, and more satisfying/fun, but they also challenge. When all the 'road-blocks' to doing work are removed, and all the support that is needed is provided, there are no more excuses. When:

• the details of your homework are on the learning platform,
• together with the resources needed and help information,
• your teachers and parents know you have the opportunity to access the learning platform,
• the work can be done and submitted with tools provided online,
• the extent to which you have completed work is easily visible, only a click away,
• and most importantly the work is achievable, relevant, necessary and enjoyable/satisfying,
  then there is no reason to hide from it and no place to hide.

Schools/colleges that are in communities where most students' homes are connected to the Internet face the challenge to get all the components of the overall system in place. The whole is much more effective than any of the components acting alone. Capita Education Services (http://www.capitaes.co.uk) provide both the SIMS.net Learning Platform and the SIMS management information system. Together these show the kind of components needed in the overall system; communication, resources delivery, assessment, student tracking, attendance/pastoral data, course/timetable information and others.

Once students, teachers and parents can each access a screen which brings the information, support and communication functionality they need, frustrations and difficulties can be radically reduced. Working effectively and achieving results then stimulates more effort; achievement can reach new heights.

Of course it is not only the students who have no place to hide. With this kind of ICT-based system in place, how effectively the teachers are using the opportunities created is also very visible.

But so is the leadership provided by the school/college senior management team, in leading the changes in organisation and curriculum approach that will permit and enable their teachers and students to adopt new working practices.

The Capita Profile on our web site will give you an overview of the company and a list of other Innovation Profiles connected with it.

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If you know of examples of innovative use of ICT-for-learning that others would be interested in, please email innovations@eep-edu.org

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