Useful concepts for the head of computing/edtech co-ordinator: keeping computer rooms locked, and having a time-consuming means of booking them

That was the situation in a school I joined as head of computing. The computer rooms were kept locked at all times, but staff could access them any time they liked. All they had to do was get the keys.

Fairly reasonable especially as the keys were kept in the deputy heads’ office, which was open all the time. Except when it wasn’t, which was when the deputy heads were having a meeting, or teaching. In those circumstances, you were kept locked out of the computer rooms for an hour or so. I asked the school office stay if the keys could be kept with them instead, and they agreed. It made sense: there is someone in the school office every day.

That was one problem solved, but there was another one. If you wanted to take a class into a computer room you had to book it first. Again, that makes sense, otherwise two classes might try to use the same room at the same time.

The problem was that each room’s booking timetable was kept in the room itself — and there were three computer rooms (at the time: I later expanded the number to four, plus a computer area for staff only).

Thus a teacher would have to check the booking sheets for each room separately. So think about how much time this would take out of a teacher’s “free” period or their lunch break. They would have to get the keys from the deputy heads’ office (if it was unlocked), check the sheets in each of three rooms (potentially) and then return the keys.

I changed the booking sheets in two ways: I put the timetable for the three rooms on one sheet per week; I put the collection of sheets for the half-term ahead on the staffroom noticeboard.

Hopefully, this is an issue that wouldn’t arise today — at least it shouldn’t, given the (I hope) ubiquity of digital booking systems. Having said that, if the booking system is complicated enough, it could reproduce the same sort of difficulties, just in digital form.

Disincentives

It should hardly need pointing out that this sort of thing can easily put some teachers off using computers in their lessons at all. If you would like to read about an example of what I’m talking about, read this article:

My Worst IT Training Days #2: Another Internet Training Day (Updated)

I don't like to waste a minute. When I was teaching, even the apparent "downtime" was planned. If you have just one hour a week with students, every second counts. So how might you make use of 5 minutes, whether at the start or end of the lesson, or between finishing one activity and starting the next? Here are my suggestions, some of which may be more appropriate to some age groups than others.

Give out homework

This is best done at the start of the lesson, not at the end as is usually the case. The reason is that it gives you more time to make sure everyone understands it and that everyone has made a note of it. This assumes, of course, that you still set homework.

Plan your work

It’s good to allow people 5 minutes before the end of the lesson to plan what they’re going to do next lesson, especially if you’ve implemented project-based learning.

Print out and log off

This takes around 5 minutes sometimes, and is best done not in the last 5 minutes of the lesson, but 5 or even 10 minutes before that. The alternative is to have the kids flying out of the room while their work is still flying out of the printer. In fact, I always barred any printing in the last 15 minutes of the lesson. 

Q & A for revision

This is a good activity for the start of the lesson, once the students have settled down. What do they remember from last time? How much do they understand? (You can gain some insight into that by asking questions that require them to apply what they learnt to a new situation.)

Report on research

One of the few lessons I recall from secondary school, and the only one I actually enjoyed, was when one of the class reported back on some research he had been assigned to do. In that case it was the nature of a mysterious detergent ingredient called DKO. (He came to the conclusion that the initials stood for “dirt knock-out”.)

A more relevant version for us might be to ask one or two students to report on the results of using an AI app for a particular task.

Stimulated recall

This is where you ask a student or group of students to show their presentation or video, but instead of having them deliver a commentary, you and the rest of the students ask them questions about it. Eg why did you do X? Would Y always happen?

Q & A for terminology

A quick test or Q & A related to terminology is always useful, and can be done if there are a few minutes left before the end of the lesson.

Check your comments

As far as I am concerned, there is no such thing as being at a loose end. If a student has finished her work earlier than her friends, one thing she can do while waiting for the next class activity or the end of the lesson is check the comments you’ve made on her last piece of work.Is there something she can do right now in response?

Help a friend

If someone is struggling in the class, perhaps a student who has finished (for now) could spend a few minutes with them to help them out. Note that this should not involve doing the work for them, and you may need to give students  a brief lesson in how to give peer support — and how not to.

Update their e-portfolio

Another activity while waiting for something else to happen is for students to update their e-portfolio, or whatever equivalent you have in your school. For example, if they corrected some work in light of your comments, perhaps they can upload it if they are happy with it. Indeed, they should check when was the last time they updated their e-portfolio: once every few months is probably too infrequent.

Read something

I’m a firm believer in encouraging students to read. If you don’t have a collection of books and magazines available in your room,  they can read articles online. It would be a good idea for you to collate a few useful blogs, news and magazine websites for them to choose from.

I’m sure this is not a definitive list, but hopefully it will prove to be a good starting point. Do let me know if I’ve left something out that you’ve found works well.

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Updated from a previous article on the subject.

There is little I find more annoying than being lectured to by people who have all the answers, but do not engage in (rational) discussion on the subject. 

For example, a deputy headteacher once informed me that his school was going to spend thousands of pounds on instruction technology known as “integrated learning systems”, and that they were going to get the least able students to work on them all day.

I told him that some recent research said that the benefits of such systems was short-lived if all you did was use them and nothing else, and that such intensive use of them was counter-productive anyway. This had no impact at all, because he’d read an article about them somewhere and thought they were wonderful as a result. I didn’t mind his disagreeing with me, but the fact that he did so without even considering an alternative point of view (and one which was more evidence-based than the one article he’d read).

I also become frustrated by people who bemoan the way things are, but do nothing about changing them. For example, we had a really awful postal service once, about which everyone complained. But when I told people I was organising a petition about it, the only signatures which appeared were those of me and my mum! What happened to all the moaners? The next time someone raised the subject with me I told them to phone the Royal Mail.

Fortunately, these days if you wish to try to change things, or even if you “only” want to exchange views with others, there are easily-accessible ways in which to do so. I think everyone involved in the teaching of ICT or its variants should contribute in at least one of the following ways:

Follow discussions on social media

... And contribute to them if you can.

Comment on people’s blogs

Do try to leave comments which move the discussion on rather than “great post” or “”You’re wrong”.

Start your own blog

… And keep it reasonably up-to-date, even if you can manage only once a week. Use it to share thoughts, websites or applications you’ve come across, how a project is progressing – in other words, things that others will find useful.

Contribute to discussion forums

A couple mof good ones I used to belong to no longer exist. I’ve refrained from mentioning others because I haven’t found any that I would especially recommend. I should definiteoly avoid the ones that allow people to sign in anonymously and insult and flame other members.

Contribute to Government consultations

Even if you think that your contribution won’t even be read (which I think is a cynical and mistaken view), you should still contribute. We never want to get to the point where some bean counter in Whitehall, Congress or the equivalent in your country says that, judging by the average number of responses to such consultations, it is not cost-effective to administer them.

Start a newsletter or e-bulletin…

These can be an effective way of sharing information, but be warned: it’s a lot of work (I speak from experience!).

… Or contribute to newsletters and websites

If you come across a newsletter or website you’d like to contribute to (if they allow contributions), but are not sure how, read 50 Ways to contribute to a website.

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My newsletter Digital Education goes out to people with a professional interest in technology in education. It’s free.

This concept is usually applied in the context of a company attempting to break in to a particular market. For example, an obvious barrier would be the need for a massive investment in equipment, which could take years to recoup. In the context of a school, we can apply the idea to the taste of encouraging teachers to use the computing facilities.

You can think about this from the opposite end, so to speak. In one job interview I attended, I asked the headteacher what HE hoped for as for as computing was concerned. He replied that he wanted people banging on the doors of the computer rooms demanding to be let in.

Think of all the reasons that situation might arise — and why it might not. There has to be a DEMAND for using the facilities, and the SUPPLY has to be available too. Let’s focus on the latter. Why might the facilities not be available?

In schools I’ve worked in I have come across the following situations:

Computer rooms kept locked

Fairly reasonable especially as the toys were kept in the deputy heads’ office, which was open all the time. Except when it wasn’t, which was when they were having a meeting or teaching. In those circumstances, you were kept locked out of the computer rooms for an hour or so. I asked the school office stay if the keys could be kept with them instead, and they agreed. It made sense: there is someone in the school office every day.

Tech know-how

Another barrier to entry might be a lack of expertise. One way to lower that barrier to entry is to make the process of logging on to the school network, and then using it purposefully, very easy. In my case I did the following:-

• Installed a menu system on the front end so as to make it easy, once you had logged in, to select the task you wished to perform;

• Wrote a manual that had instructions on how to use one application per page, with one manual per computer;

• Posted how-to notices around the computer rooms;

• Stuck a card containing the login details on each computer.

The equipment

Yet another barrier to entry might be unreliability. In one school I joined, nobody would touch the school network. The reason, I discovered, was that it had a habit of turning itself off at random times with no warning. It turned out that one of the cables in the wall was broken. Once that had been fixed, “all” I had to do was convince colleagues that the system was now robust and reliable.

There are other volumes for other years, but this happens to be the one I was sent for review. My understanding from the Introduction is that it follows a template. It contains a wide selection of articles, including one on how to stack wine bottles, one on fractals as photographs and even one on how to write a book on maths for the non-gecialist.

An interesting chapter on making exams or tests more reliable makes the point that a huge increase in the length of an exam (because of an expansion in the number of questions) may result in only a small gain in reliability.

I have to say that reading that makes me feel vindicated in suggesting, as a quick way of assessing students, the visual check approach that I first encountered in the garage take my car ro for a service. As I wrote back in 2014:

This consists of a list of items and 3 columns for tick-boxes: green, amber, red. A tick in the green box means OK, one in the amber box means "keep an eye on this" and one in the red box means "attention needed". These visual checks could easily be electronic, could be adapted to a variety of topics/processes/skills and could be undertaken in 5 or 10 minutes by pupils themselves, at any time they or their teacher felt it to be appropriate. The traffic light system is a very good way of finding out what a pupil knows — or think she knows — on a given topic. Pupils can also use it to check whether they have the skills set they need in order to carry out the next piece of work.

Getting back to this book, I have enjoyed reading the chapters, although I cannot claim to have understood all of them.

As well as a huge bibliography there are lists of useful interviews, articles, book reviews and even a fiction book: Zombies and Calculus, which sounds intriguing.

I think this could be an excellent resource for teachers of mathematics.