What is an iPad? Consumer delight, or education folly?

I pose the question simply because some people seem confused, especially in the education sector, not because I don’t know the answer. To me, an iPad is a large screen smartphone that isn’t even that smart, not least because it can’t make phone calls. Of course, that doesn’t make an iPad any less desirable. Anyone who has ever used one, or even handled one, immediately wants one. It is as seductive and appealing as any gadget on the market. That doesn’t necessarily qualify it as the personal device of choice for learners in the classroom. The trouble is, because we don’t agree what an iPad actually is, we don’t agree on whether we should go out and buy lots of them for use in schools.

With Netbooks it is easy. If you spend most of your time on the web, and only want to do fairly low level tasks with installed software, then a Netbook represents fantastic value for money. It is cheaper than a laptop, it lasts longer, the battery life is better and it is lighter and easier to carry around than conventional laptops. Importantly, it will run all the web-enabled content out there that any other computer will do. It will handle authentication, printing, and through a wide range of browser plugins will provide access to any feature-rich content going, be it using Flash, Java or Silverlight.

Therein lies the rub. Browser plugins. Apple has decreed that Safari on the iPad cannot be modified, so that means no plugins. Instead, the feature-rich content that would normally be displayed seamlessly on any other computer will only be available on an iPad if the content owner produces an iPad App which can then be downloaded from the iTunes Store. Apple itself then becomes the gatekeeper for all of this content.

Netbook users can browse the web, downloading plugins as they go, and view everything out there from the whole of the internet, in their browser. On an iPad it is very different. Content that would normally require a plugin will be invisible in the iPad’s browser, and instead the user has to switch to a downloaded App. So, to get the same sort of coverage, you would have to install a great many Apps – one for every site that needed it. This is very different to what we are used to. Once you have downloaded a particular plugin for, say, Firefox, you then have access to all of the websites that use the technology requiring that plugin. That is, one plugin gives access to a lot of content. With an iPad App, you just get access to the one website.

Once all the web sites have converted their content to HTML 5, it won’t be a problem. Apple has committed to its Safari browser not only being up there with the rest, but ahead of the pack. However, this day is a long way off. It would take a lot of investment to convert educational content to move away from, for example, Flash, at a time when spending on ICT in education generally is being squeezed more than at any time since the 1980s. I have read many reports of professional users getting around the lack of Java by using Citrix or remote desktop connections, effectively accessing the feature-rich content by using another computer somewhere else via the iPad as a thin client device. The infrastructure required to do this is expensive, and likely to be beyond the reach of many education users.

I am reminded of the days before the Internet when we had an icon on our desktop for each chunk of content we wanted, and there were no relationships between them. On an iPad you have an icon for each chunk of content, the only difference now being that it is delivered from the Internet rather than from a CD or local hard disk. I can’t help feeling we are sliding backwards.

On the plus side, the iPad is extremely desirable. The multi-touch screen is a delight to use – zooming in and out, for example with a flick of the fingers. Although some might say you only need to use this because the screen is small to start with, even though it is bigger than many of its Android based rivals.

The main issue for educators, it seems to me, is to be absolutely sure that an iPad does what you need it to do. As a general purpose web browsing device it has many limitations. It’s no use buying a class set and then everyone needs to access content that won’t work. In a walled-garden of Internet web sites, you can control the user experience. You only set users loose among web sites that work properly. For another set of web sites, you make sure they all have the correct installed Apps. Personally, I wouldn’t want to restrict users in that way. I am more worried about users only being able to view what an App exists for, rather than what is freely available to users of conventional, or should I say, proper computers. And just how does a teacher manage the Apps on a class set?

Compared to Netbooks, the iPad is certainly not cheap. A triumph of style over function carries a heavy price premium. Why is it then, that people want to pay more to be able to do less? Apple themselves are honest about the iPad being complementary to your main computing device. We should therefore think very carefully before making it a pupil’s main device.

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ICT should be about solving teachers’ and learners’ problems, not about creating new ones

In the summer of 2009, my colleague Guy Underwood and I presented a paper to the RITWIT Conference in Cambridge. As I think the issues are just as valid today, I thought it worth reproducing an extract from the paper here.

ABSTRACT

Many teachers’ reluctance to fully embrace technology in the classroom is due to the failure of local and national government, consultants and advisers to properly analyse teachers’ and pupils’ needs, identify the barriers and problems to effective teaching and then design and apply technology solutions to address them. Throughout the last 30 years the reverse has happened, in that technology developed for purposes other than education has been thrust upon teachers who have been told to change or adapt their teaching in order to fully utilise this technology. This has been accompanied by assertions that if only teachers were properly trained and changed their practice then the technology would bring about improved standards.

One example comes from the early 1980s when teachers could use a low-resolution PC with software they often wrote themselves and a large screen TV/monitor to assist in getting over difficult teaching points with a whole class. The same teachers were then given more modern computers with higher resolution graphics that no longer worked with affordable large screens. They lost the ability to use software with a whole class and instead had to contrive individual or paired work around computers, regardless of the preferred pedagogy. This was the case for many years before projectors became affordable.

The second example comes much later in the form of the Interactive Whiteboard which was hailed by experts as a natural extension of the way teachers worked already. Rather than systematically analyse existing pedagogy to see if technology could solve any of problems inherent within it, the technology merely entrenched existing practices regardless of their effectiveness. Thus teachers were given technology that was difficult to use and which ensured that they had to continually face away from the class, and move in front of a display that was never designed, both in terms of its size and position, to be accessible and viewable by all pupils in a class.

The third example comes from the inexplicable failure in schools to exploit visualiser technology that solves many of the day to day problems that teachers and pupils are faced with and which limit their effectiveness. These include showing something small to the whole class, modelling a skill or technique, exemplifying with pupils’ work, peer assessment and having a shared focus for dialogue.

This paper will draw upon the experience of the ICT Test Bed Project and subsequent investment in Barking and Dagenham in which technology solutions were applied to problems identified within the pedagogy as a result of a thorough analysis and stakeholder engagement. This at least partially addressed the issues of teacher training because technology that is readily seen as indispensable in solving many day to day problems in classroom teaching has a much higher and faster rate of uptake by teachers and pupils.

Finally the paper will suggest that policy makers should in future adopt a much more conventional approach to the implementation of ICT solutions, including a systematic analysis of the problems to be solved.

INTRODUCTION

This paper is a brief commentary on the last 30 years of ICT in English education, where a combination of public policy failings and the inability of the technology industry to address educational needs has resulted in not only much wasted investment but the introduction of a range of new problems for teachers and learners to solve in the classroom rather than the solution of existing ones. This position will be exemplified with three examples: large screen displays; interactive whiteboards; and visualisers. The computer itself and the development of the Internet are beyond the scope of this paper.

LARGE DISPLAYS

Between around 1982 when the first computers arrived en masse in schools until about 1986, RF and AV outputs allowed these early school computers such as the RM 380Z and the BBC Micro to be used with large TVs and AV monitors. As the computers were scarce this feature enabled a whole class to see the display at the same time. Inner London schools were able to utilise the previously redundant (after the demise of the ILEA live cable television broadcasts) large specially made DECCA monochrome monitors with their new 380Zs, and this combination enabled effective whole class teaching with a single computer. Clarity from the back of the class was helped by the low resolution graphics.
However, from around 1986 up to around 2000 the newer computers arriving in schools, albeit in rapidly increasing numbers boasted a combination of VGA output (or similar) and much higher resolution graphics. Large VGA displays were prohibitively expensive and the higher resolution meant that these computers were not suitable for using TVs. During this period almost all schools had few effective means to use a single computer with a whole class. There was a period in the late 1990s when large VGA displays (such as the Hantarex range ) became within reach of schools’ budgets but the increasing resolution of the computer output quickly made these obsolete. For the whole class to see clearly, a resolution of 640 by 480 pixels was the highest possible, but 800 by 600 pixel displays and higher were fast becoming the norm.

It was not until about 2000 that large projected displays finally became affordable, allowing the higher resolution screens to be visible clearly from the back of the class. Thus there was a an interval of 20 years during which it was extremely difficult to use a single computer with a whole class, but this had nothing whatever to do with pedagogy unlike the early computers which were designed for use in education, and everything to do with education having to adapt to the equipment developed for business and other non-education spheres. It is not disputed that the increasing availability of computers in schools allowed pupils to develop their own ICT skills, but whereas this was a gain, the ability to teach the whole class with a computer was lost.

Running parallel to these hardware developments was a marked shift in the type of software that was produced and its relationship with the pedagogy it was designed to support.

During the early to mid 1980s, as software could be used with whole class it was often written by teachers to aid teaching difficult concepts . This was alongside development of software for individual or small group use as the numbers of computers in schools increased. However, by the mid 1980s until about 2000, almost all software was written for individual or very small group use. There would have been little point in producing whole class teaching software as few schools would have had the ability to use computers with a whole class as the larger displays were too expensive. Those teachers that did persevere by crowding the class round a small screen suffered the double whammy of difficult classroom management and inappropriate software.

2000 onwards saw a resurgence of software for use by the whole class as projectors became less prohibitively expensive and the interactive whiteboard gained in popularity. The launch of Easiteach by RM in the autumn of 2000 represented a significant turning point.

The relationship between the technology and pedagogy proved to be different in primary and secondary schools. Before the national strategies took hold, the computer fitted moderately well into the ‘carousel’ system prevalent in most primary classrooms. The ‘computer timetable’ ensured all pupils ‘had a go’. However, it was difficult to integrate the use of the computer with the rest of the curriculum owing to the amount of time it took for the whole class to complete an activity and pupils would often have benefited from more effective teacher intervention at the time they needed it. In a sense this was no different to any other aspect of the way the teaching was organised, leading in part to the re-thinking of primary maths teaching in Barking and Dagenham and the national numeracy strategy that followed.

Once the national strategies were adopted by primary schools a single computer (often at the back) of a classroom was difficult to utilise alongside the increase in whole class teaching. Pupils using the computer, often out of context, would be missing out on what the rest of the class were doing. Teachers were often unable to intervene at all.

It was only when cheaper display technology allowed the computer to be brought to the front of the primary classroom for the first time that it could be used to support and enhance the whole class teaching. The fewer opportunities for individual or small group use started to be addressed by timetabled ICT-suite lessons or by using class sets of laptops as funds allowed.

The situation was different in secondary schools, where whole class teaching was the predominant pedagogy throughout all of this period. The single computer at the back of room was always seen as difficult to manage and many teachers saw it as disruptive. IT suites were difficult to book at the times they were needed, as they were often monopolised by ICT and business studies lessons. Teachers proved reluctant to change their teaching methods just so that they could integrate the use of a computer into their lessons. Something that was a reality as far as availability of the computers allowed in the early 1980s didn’t return as an option for teachers until the recent uptake of interactive whiteboards and low cost projectors, although these are only in just over half of all classrooms with penetration outside the core subjects particularly low.

However, positioning the computer at the front of the classroom with access to whole class teaching software and broadband Internet access provides the opportunities to support and enhance what teachers and pupils want to do. It is worth noting that this is a good 20 years from when the first computers were deployed in secondary schools.

USING ‘BOARDS’ WITH THE WHOLE CLASS

‘Traditional’ teaching technology such as blackboards and more recently dry-wipe whiteboards enable teachers to do the following: writing and re-writing; drawing and re-drawing; highlighting, and annotating. However they have always been a backward facing technology in that the teacher and pupil has to keep turning to face the board in order to write or draw on it. The class has always suffered from interrupted sight lines due to the teacher keeping moving in front of the board, and the restricted visible area because the user has to reach all of it. In this latter respect the dry-wipe whiteboard was a poor replacement, in some respects, for the roller blackboard where the ‘active display’ could be rolled up for everyone to have a clear view.

Many innovative teachers, prior to the onslaught of computers, switched to using an overhead projector (OHP). This had the same benefits as the white and blackboards in that the teacher and pupil could write and re-write, draw and re-draw, highlight, and annotate, and had the added benefit of being able to re-use the content as the acetate sheets could be saved. However, it had some significant advantages that made it a much better match to effective pedagogy. It was a ‘forward facing’ technology in that the teacher and pupils could use it while facing the class. It was easier to ensure uninterrupted sight lines as the teacher and pupils remained static instead of moving around in front of the screen, and there was a large visible area on a projection screen that was usually mounted high enough for those at the back to see all of it. In the light of these advantages, few of the teachers using one regularly would have seen any reasons to give it up and go back to using the traditional boards, other than issues with power leads (which shouldn’t be underestimated).

The interactive whiteboard was only a partial improvement upon the OHP in pedagogical terms in that it re-introduced many of the undesirable characteristics that the OHP had eliminated. We saw a return to interrupted sight lines due to the ‘backward facing’ technology, a restricted display size and poor visibility of the lower part of the board (unlike the old fashioned roller blackboard). It even managed to introduce a number of new disadvantages when compared to the OHP, in that there were health and safety concerns around the projector beam , accessibility issues for disabled users and a high price tag. It would be reasonable to ask why, in the light of all these negative characteristics, whiteboards should have been adopted in schools at all.

Partly this is due to the ‘wow’ factor of what could be described as an illusion that teachers and pupils can actually write on the board and move objects around as a result of some special technology, creating the impression of a ‘magic’ surface. In reality the interactive whiteboard is merely a larger version of the tablets or slates that had been used for computer graphics for many years. The interactivity is a property of the software running on the attached computer, which would update the display in the same way in response to a wide range of input devices. The ‘magic’ effect is produced by doubling up the touch sensitive surface as a projection screen, but this leads to both being unsuitable for the task of teaching.

A far more pedagogically appropriate solution would have been to keep the touch sensitive surface and the projection screen separate, allowing both to be fine tuned to the needs of teachers and pupils in a classroom. By using large projection screens and wireless slates, the teacher could have remained forward-facing, the display area could have been much bigger and positioned where all of it was clearly visible from the back of the classroom, and there would have been fewer interrupted sight lines as the slate could be used anywhere in the classroom, not just by standing in front of the display. The interactivity remains the same in both cases, the cost becomes substantially lower, wheelchair users (for example) can use the technology with ease, and there is less chance of anyone entering the path of the projector beam. Not only that, but the slate can be passed easily and quickly around the class, enabling more pupils to take part in moving the lesson forward.

The rapid adoption of interactive whiteboards owes much to Government pump-priming grants for this specific technology, enthusiasm from LA advisers and consultants, and blanket marketing by manufacturers and suppliers. Throughout most of this decade there has been no interest at all by Government, LAs or (understandably) industry for a much cheaper alternative that eliminated most of the disadvantages.

THE EFFECT OF PUBLIC POLICY

It is evident that there were, and still are, misunderstandings at every level – from Ministers and government departments to local authorities. To give just one example of many, the Science and Technology Select Committee reported in 2002 that “they [the DFES] give interactive whiteboards as an example of where developments in ICT "allow teachers to access data and images and share [them] with the whole class, in a way not before possible" In fact, this is an example of the use of a large display screen and has nothing whatever to do with it having a touch sensitive surface. Charles Clarke, as Secretary of State for Education and Skills, professed a personal interest in the application of ICT in schools , and in a speech at the BETT exhibition in 2003 he singled out Robin Hood School in Birmingham as an example of effective embedding of ICT. However, this was based upon the school using large projection screens in place of interactive whiteboards in the majority of their classrooms. In the same speech he went on to describe the use of whiteboards in science, quoting from a teacher at Dixons CTC in Bradford: links to a computer model of an electromagnetic wave; an animated view of an endoscope travelling through the body; X-ray pictures of injuries to a skull; simulations of different forms of radiation; and photos of scientists. What he was describing was the use of a large display screen, not an interactive whiteboard, but he went on to say “the power of the imagination unleashed by the technology in this area is remarkable and takes you to a different league of what can be achieved.”

A few months later, Charles Clarke gave a speech to the NAACE conference in which he said, “...we have to shift away from the actual technology itself, to take the best practice that is being developed and establish it right throughout the curriculum.” However a year later, also in a speech at BETT, he said that “[whiteboards] enable teachers to enrich their lessons interactively with a whole variety of different methods, whether it’s a video clip, use of the internet, multi-media presentations, colour visualisations and even use of their traditional blackboard skills in the way that it always used to be.” Again he made specific reference to interactive whiteboards by describing their use as large displays as a build up to a major funding announcement. Later in the same speech he said, “So today I’m announcing new funding to further extend access to interactive whiteboards” and “this money will enable us to expand the schools’ interactive whiteboard expansion project”. This significant grant funding specifically for interactive whiteboards was in spite of asserting less than a year earlier that we should not focus on the actual technology. The terms of the grant were so specific that it was very difficult for LAs to propose alternative technologies, regardless of the pedagogical considerations.

When the evaluation report of this IWB Expansion Project in secondary schools was released in 2007 it was found that “IWBs are mainly being used: as a data projector which can navigate to multiple screens; as a surface which can generate a dynamic rather than static form of display; to enhance presentation from the front of the class”. Furthermore, “in a secondary classroom the full potential of the IWB does not necessarily rest with its touch-sensitive surface, but rather with the size of the screen and the various ways in which the screen’s contents can be manipulated. This kind of manipulation can be enhanced through judicious use of peripherals”. Throughout this comprehensive report, in the majority of cases, the use of the term “IWB” could be synonymous with “projection screen”. Similarly, in an equivalent report on the primary schools whiteboard expansion project , a number of examples were given of the use of interactive whiteboards throughout the report that were actually about having a large display screen, although this is unsurprising as the authors pointed out that “at present only a small number of teachers have the skills to use a wide range of the interactive whiteboard’s facilities”. These and other reports have failed to properly address the real questions around the appropriateness of the actual technologies employed. These include: “why would a relatively expensive technology with so many disadvantages be specifically promoted instead of much cheaper and potentially more effective technology?” and “how can so much public money have been spent due to a minister’s poor understanding of the technology he was actually talking about?” Ofsted, in their recent report on ICT in primary and secondary schools , commented “There was investment in resources, particularly interactive whiteboards, but this was rarely the result of evaluated need.”

VISUALISERS

Between 1998 and 2002 Barking and Dagenham LEA set out to find ways of supporting and enhancing successful pedagogy with technology and trialled some solutions in a local primary school and at the City Learning Centre. Fortuitously, the Borough was chosen in 2002 to participate in the DfES ICT Test Bed Project which provided £12m of investment in technology and training would be used to transform three secondary schools and six primary schools between 2002 and 2006. The council was under pressure from the DfES to install interactive whiteboards in all classrooms but the earlier work had produced sufficient evidence that there were better alternatives, given the embedded pedagogy. As a result, all the classrooms were equipped with very large projection screens, wireless tablets and visualisers, together with the same interactive software that was supplied with interactive whiteboards.

Visualisers were included because they solved many of the day to day problems teachers and learners encountered in the classroom. For teachers these included showing something small to the whole class at the same time, demonstrating a precise technique (such as a brush stroke, a stitch, soldering) and annotating real objects. For learners these included sharing work with peers, and modelling practice. Teachers and learners will always look for, and use, the most effective ways of solving these problems which the blackboard and whiteboard, interactive or not, have been unable to address.

Through the evaluation of the ICT Test Bed Project in reports commissioned by Becta, case studies undertaken with teachers and an analysis of the Ofsted reports of ICT Test Bed schools it became clear that including a visualiser as part of the interactive technology package had brought many benefits.

However, in spite of the universal praise for visualisers from all the teachers who used one, there has been relatively little support for them from government or relevant agencies throughout most of this decade. There has been no specific grant funding, and visualisers were excluded from the whiteboard expansion projects. Nevertheless there has been, belatedly, some official acknowledgement of their existence, with a reference creeping in to the Gilbert 2020 Report and an example of using a visualiser appearing in two of Jim Knight’s speeches in 2009: “[pupils] are getting hands on experience of specialist digital resources and equipment, having had techniques demonstrated by the teacher on a visualiser.”

The authors’ firsthand experience in delivering the ICT Test Bed Project in Barking and Dagenham and working with very large numbers of teachers revealed a rapid adoption of visualisers by teachers with little or no training. There was an incentive in that it solved so many real problems, and the devices were exceptionally easy to use. This contrasts with the high levels of training and support needed to fully exploit interactive whiteboards.

Although this was less than clear from the ICT Test Bed Evaluation Reports, visualisers are a complementary technology and can be used with both large projection screens and, albeit less effectively, with interactive whiteboards. The extra cost of adding a visualiser to an interactive technology package can be more than covered by swapping an interactive whiteboard for a large screen and wireless slate.

Whiteboard manufacturers have started to address some of the disadvantages of their technology: using short-throw projectors to limit shadow on the board, and mounting these same short throw projectors onto fixed beams above the boards so that the whole apparatus can be raised up to improve visibility. Both are belated and incomplete solutions to problems caused by the technology in the first place.

CONCLUSION AND LOOKING FORWARD

It is the authors’ contention in this paper that the last thirty years have seen many lost opportunities to improve teaching and learning with technology, partly due to public policy inconsistencies and failings and partly due to technology being employed in education that was designed for a quite different environment. Throughout this period there have been many attempts by academics to carry out research on the effectiveness of technology and whiteboards in particular . Much of this research has yielded disappointing or inconclusive results. Invariably the research takes place after the technology has been installed, rather than before, or in cases where it has been possible to take a longitudinal view the choice of technology has been a fait accompli rather than a deliberate attempt to solve problems identified through research as barriers to effective teaching and learning.

The research community has a role to play in informing public policy, not just attempting to validate the effects after the event. We should be employing the same systems analysis processes in education that other sectors use: namely a thorough analysis of problems, issues and barriers to effectiveness, and then design technology solutions to address these. Barking and Dagenham LA alone lobbied the ICT industry for a wireless slate to provide the means to interact with a computer display from anywhere in a classroom but it was three years before the first one was manufactured. Had there been some academic research in this area which influenced local and national public policy, it is likely that manufacturers would have responded more quickly. Similarly with visualisers, a greater uptake would have increased competition in the market. There is still much improvement needed in our education system, and technology undoubtedly has a role to play. However it should be first and foremost fit for purpose. To achieve this, we must ensure that the purpose is clearly defined.

Farewell to the Westbury Centre

If you are reading this, then you probably know me, and if that is the case you may well have visited the Westbury Centre, the home of the Barking and Dagenham ICT in Schools Team for the last 25 years, although I admit that I personally didn't join the team until 1990 when I was appointed to the newly created post of General Inspector for IT.

For all of that time we supported all aspects of ICT in schools, and latterly in Libraries and Museums, from our base in the Westbury Centre in Barking. As ICT grew in importance in education, so the team grew in size and at the peak of the last Government's enthusiasm for ICT in schools, we numbered 30 people, from advisers to technicians and at one time the Council's corporate web team.

The Westbury Centre started out as a primary school at the beginning of the last century and it was not until 1965 that the building became the home for the Barking and Dagenham Teachers' Centre. It is truly a testament to the quality of the school buildings of its day that more than one hundred years later it is now being turned back into a school with a mere refurbishment. The pressure for school places has meant that all available buildings and space now have to be used for school buildings, and it is with great sadness that we saw the last members of the school improvement service relocate to other accommodation in Barking yesterday.

The ICT in Schools Team has found new homes in Roycraft House, the Town Hall, and the Eastbrook City Learning Centre, where they continue to provide ICT advice, support and guidance for schools.

From our perspective, the Westbury provided the focal point for all of our ICT training courses, and support operations, the hub for the £12m ICT TestBed Project, and more recently the Building Schools for the Future procurement process.

Conveniently located near to Barking Town Centre, many people visited us there. We trained hundreds of teachers, we hosted London Grid for Learning sector meetings, we negotiated hard with all our suppliers, we evaluated the latest technology, we entertained overseas visitors and we bonded as a team in a way that only the Westbury Centre could have enabled us to do.

Our first (and last) Interactive whiteboard was installed in the ICT training room on the top floor of the main building, where we ran the innovative year-long RSA ICT Dilpoma course, and all of our early work developing truly fit for purpose interactive teaching tools took place in the Annexe building when we moved the advisory and training parts of the team there, having outgrown our previous space.

So, farewell Westbury, but look forward to another hundred years serving the children of Barking as a Primary School.

Is the Kindle any use in education?

I love my Kindle. I am reading much more, and in places I didn't read before. This is because I carry it around with me always as it fits in my pocket, and I love the fact that it always seems to be charged up. I also like that it remembers my page in in each book I have started. I have loaded it up with enough reading material to keep me going for years, and it still has space for more.

Some important points I am completely comfortable with are that I am not trying to use it as a computer or a phone; I am not expecting full colour graphics; I don't mind that it uses a proprietary ebook format (as converters are available); I like that the screen is not touch sensitive; and the screen size and weight are perfect. I like the lack of a back-light, as it is easier on my eyes. I like that I could annotate the texts I am reading, even though I don't, and I can cope perfectly well with moving the cursor or highlight around using the 5-way controller. Anything that improves on any of these aspects would make it heavier, more costly, and reduce the running time on a single charge. In other words, less good for reading books.

It seems to me that there is a perfect niche for the Kindle in education where it outstrips all the opposition, and that is for literature and history students who have a lot of text-heavy reading to do. Lots of bulky text books to carry around could be replaced by one well stocked Kindle. What's more, students can annotate texts in ways that schools would rather they didn't with paper versions.

However, if I was an A-Level English Literature teacher, I would want a way of organising and managing the distribution of ebooks across a class set of Kindle devices. Currently it is possible with a normal Amazon account to register up to 6 Kindle readers (either the Kindle devices themselves, or Kindle apps on other devices) and share a purchased ebook among them. This would be cumbersome for schools. Schools would need a different system which enables them to purchase ebooks for multiple devices. I have been unable to find out if anything like this is coming, so if anyone knows more, please get in contact.

Giving every student a small, light, unobtrusive, long-lasting and relatively inexpensive device containing all the set books they need for their studies looks like a good move, set against the way this is done at present. Those who say the students could use their own smart phones, or their iPads, or their laptops, are missing the point. They are nowhere near as good for reading, and reading long texts is what I am talking about. A device that is Jack-of-all-trades, is invariably master of none.

Providing a suitable and tested template is used, teachers can email worksheets and assignments relating to the books being studied, directly to each device. Ebooks are never lost, of course, even if the Kindle is. They never get dog-eared, and the pages don't fall out. Sustainability is built-in.

I have spent years yearning for the perfect ubiquitous device but I've stopped now. I have finally realised that for some activities I want a really big screen, a mouse and a full size keyboard, for some I need a pocket-sized high speed communications device, and for some I now need a Kindle.

Amazon Kindle Store

Ebook Conversion software

A few neat products at BETT 2011

Each year, it seems that most of what is on offer at BETT is slightly better or more refined versions of the same things, but this year a few products represented more than just gentle evolution.

First, Casio were showing their new Projector which is based on a long-life LED-based light source rather than a conventional bulb. They claim that the projector will keep shining brightly for around 15 years based on a normal school day. The device itself is extremely slim and quiet and gave a remarkable quality image when displaying high definition video. Casio website

The second product that caught my eye was iRIS Connect, which is a web based professional development tool for evaluation and self evaluation of teaching. A high quality remote controlled video camera with good sound pick-up from a teacher microphone means that an observer can ensure that all aspects of the lesson can be recorded and timestamped against a lesson plan. Teachers can use this by themselves for their own reflective practice, or in conjunction with peer reviews and mentoring programmes. I saw some potential for very similar technology to be used for recording parts of lessons for access by students who either might otherwise have missed a lesson or for revising the lesson content at a later date. iRIS Connect website.

Next, I was particularly struck by a new take on interactive response systems from Jordanian company Ketab Technologies. Unlike the typical handheld devices with number buttons, their system works with paper pads and digital capture pens that write with real ink like any ballpoint pen. This means that the teacher can bring up on the screen an individual pupil's long-hand answers, maths working out, or sketches. Using the pre-printed pads, all the normal multiple choice responses are available too. Ketab Technologies Website

Finally, the wireless slate (or portable Interactive Whiteboard) has really come of age with the latest product from eInstruction, the same team that developed the concept of the wireless slate as an alternative to the IWB ten years ago). This version, the Mobi View, incorporates a small touch-sensitive screen much like a smart-phone from which you can type using the on-screen keyboard, or launch different applications. A dream to use. eInstruction Mobi View website.

Where did I read that?

I still have a lot of books, especially cookery and recipe books. When I decide to cook one of my favourite dishes I'll go to the book shelf, find the book I want, and thumb though to the recipe I need. I can always use the index as a last resort if that doesn't work. I'd be a bit upset if the book wasn't there. Maybe I'd lent it to someone, or forgot to put back in the right place. But that doesn't happen very often. By and large, I know I can rummage through my book collection for many years to come. Of course, once I've found the book I'm looking for, the recipes are always in there, where they always were, just the same.

Back in 1998 when we were running courses for Headteachers and ICT co-ordinators on using the Internet I always chose recipes as the way to get the point across about searching, at the time using Alta Vista, in pre-Google domination days. Think of what you have in your fridge and store cupboards, type the ingredients into the search box and hey presto, dinner. Even the most odd combinations would throw up some interesting recipes. I wonder, though, how many are still out there, on the same pages, on the same websites eleven years later. If not, does that mean they weren't any good?

I think there is a tendency to assume that the content on the Internet just keeps being added to, because we know that there is more and more all the time. Not true, of course. Yes, the amount of stuff keeps getting bigger, but a lot keeps disappearing too. Not necessarily because it wasn't much good, or that nobody wanted to look at it, but for a whole raft of reasons. No wonder the archivists are tearing their hair out, wondering how they can preserve what is essentially a continually changing scene. The British Library runs a web archiving project to preserve web sites that it considers to be particularly important in the UK domain, and there are others around the world, but between them they will only preserve a tiny proportion of the 'lost' web pages. The big search giants like Google visit every web page regularly and cache the content, but their purpose is to enable us to rapidly find what is actually still there, not what used to be.

One of the key advantages of the Internet as a source of information is that it should be up to date in a way that printed matter can never be. It is this relentless pursuit of the currency of the information that drives web editors to continually purge their websites, removing material that no longer has an owner and which can no longer be updated or validated. Just recently I have tried in vain to find a number of useful web pages that I remembered from several years ago, including on our own corporate web site, and there is a strange sense of helplessness when you realise that they aren't there any more and there is nothing whatever you can do about it. I suppose it's similar to the way that early TV and radio delivered live broadcasts before recording and archiving became possible and commonplace. It was about the 'now' only. The Internet is about now and the very recent past, but how long in the past is totally random and doesn't follow any rules.

So the Internet isn't like a very big library after all. They behave in very different ways. The books in the library are all snapshots in time. They are certain and their contents are secure and unchanging. You can reference information in a book right down to the page, the paragraph and the line. With that reference in your hand you can always go to the source. The Internet is the antithesis of this in both concept and its existence.

I have listened to a lot of presenters over the last few years at numerous conferences banging on about bringing teaching and learning up to date and equipping young people with the skills they need for the 21st century and the information age (much of which I agree with), but I find difficulty with the over reliance on the Internet as a source of information, other than when it gives you access to printed material in digital form (such as the complete works of Shakespeare, or a newspaper archive for instance). Many of the information sources that young people discover through searching the Internet are the ephemeral web pages that this blog entry is about. I don't know whether it matters. I don't know if I want this year's students to have access to all the same good material that last year's students found, or the ones before that. There is all the new stuff, after all, and more of it. Maybe it is all about 'now' and maybe that's the way it should be. But why do I feel uneasy? Is a life without books a good thing unless we find a way of replicating the permanence and the certainty?

This BBC News web page from March 2002 has been preserved in all its glory. Maybe they learnt their lesson after losing all of those episodes of Dr Who.

Why do so many teachers stand in front of what they want pupils to look at?

During my first week of teaching back in 1980 in a fairly challenging school in Tower Hamlets I was faced with writing or drawing on a blackboard (one of the roller types) anything I wanted the whole class to see. I was very conscious of my own school days in the 60s and 70s when I struggled to concentrate on what was on the board as the teachers continually stood in front of it, however expert and light footed they were in dancing from side to side.

At the end of that first week I found some technology which would address the problem - an Over Head Projector (OHP). This fundamentally changed the way I was able to interact with the class. I was able to keep facing the class the whole time, maintaining eye contact. I wasn't obscuring the screen by dancing around back and forth all the time. I could ensure that all pupils had uninterrupted sight lines at all times. I used an acetate roll which provided virtually limitless writing space, and what's more when I had to teach the same topic again to a different class I was able to use the same material instead of having to write or draw the same things all over again.

So has modern digital technology improved things still further? In my view, the interactive whiteboard has moved things backwards - literally. Teachers who were using OHPs successfully within a secure pedagogy now are expected to once more start turning their backs on the class, pirouetting from side to side, and using nimble contortions to avoid obscuring too much for too many for too long. Official reports and other publications from the likes of Becta are littered with photographs of teachers proudly displaying the output from a computer on their faces and their clothes. Actually, sometimes it is possible to make out some of the text if they are clean shaven but hardly the best viewing surface for maximum visibility.

Becta health and safety guidelines (issued on behalf of the Government) make it very clear that anyone at the front of the class should never look directly out into the room, in the direction of the projector beam. Even if not looking directly at the light from the bulb there are concerns about the effect on people's peripheral vision. So not only does this particular form of technology take us back to the days of my first week in teaching in terms of interrupting lines of site to the content, but is even worse in that teachers shouldn't turn to look at the class before moving well away from the screen.

So back to my question which forms the title for this post. Why do teachers stand in front of what they want pupils to look at? Before interactive whiteboards I'd always assumed it was because they couldn't afford OHPs. But that can't be right, can it? Interactive whiteboards are much more expensive than OHPs. There must be another reason. Maybe they think that it doesn't matter to have uninterrupted sight lines. Perhaps they should ask the pupils. Would they like family members to continually perform the same antics in front of the TV screen while trying to watch EastEnders. I think not.

I'm not getting at teachers here - they are the victims as much as the pupils. But how would I have reacted to being given an Interactive Whiteboard because some local authority adviser had persuaded the headteacher that 'every class should have one'? Well, I would have used it as a very expensive projection screen. I would have loved all the interactive software that came with it, but of course that runs on the computer, not the Whiteboard. I would have still done all the interesting interactive things using the software, but with a cheap graphics tablet, keyboard or mouse. And where would I be in the classroom when doing this? Well, somewhere which meant that everyone could see what I was doing on the screen.

I am reminded of the Cadbury's Smash advert whenever I pick up a Becta booklet and see another picture of teacher's face decorated with a web site! Those of you of a similar generation will know what I mean.

What future for the projector?

There was a time not so long ago when we dreamed of being able to afford a projector in a classroom so that everyone in the class could see what was being displayed by the computer.

I remember when we bought our first projector for the ICT training room at the Westbury Centre - a phenomenal £4500 which represented much more in today's money. Now a much more powerful and sophisticated version costs just £500.

However, in spite of the technological developments over the intervening years, we still need to sit in a darkened room to get a decent image. That is why active panels (LCD or Plasma) are so attractive because they don't require the lights to be dimmed and the blinds drawn. At the moment though they are too expensive and too small. There is little possibility in the next few years of screens the size we have come to expect when using projectors being either possible or affordable as active panels.

Up to now when we have had the opportunity to build new schools or classrooms we have had to design to overcome the limitations of projectors by cutting down on the natural light hitting the display wall - and actually cutting down on light altogether, so that the displayed image is as clear as possible. It seems problematical to continue to do this, especially for the Building Schools for the Future programme, when the new classrooms are expected to last up to 30 years. During this timescale it is highly likely that we will be able to afford large active panels of some kind. Maybe even LED technology with a high enough reslution which doesn't mind bright sunlight on it.

At last there appears to be a solution to this problem. It doesn't involve making the projectors even brighter and it will allow designers to make the windows bigger. The answer lies in the projection screen - a hitherto neglected component of the interactive whole class teaching kit.

There are not one, but three competing technologies, all designed to allow high contrast and bright images in well lit rooms. They all work by having a surface that absorbs light coming from the top and the sides, while reflecting light from the projector. This gives an image as bright as you would normally only get when the lights are off and the blinds are drawn.

Two of these new products are flexible and one uses a 4mm glass panel behind the surface and therefore only suitable for fixed screens.

We are currently evaluating these new screen technolgies and they look very promising indeed. I'll give an update on this in a future post.