Comments for SharePoint in Education

Comment on Dear Tom.. The things we think and do not say.. Thoughts on the populist appeal of deriding data. by Erin

Erin — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 03:14:21 +0000

Thanks for your responses around the value in using data responsibly. Over-testing certainly exists, but using high quality data to set goals with students and target individuals and groups for differentiated instruction has tremendous value.

Comment on SharePoint Resource Booking System- video demo by Angela Viesse

Angela Viesse — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 01:26:11 +0000

Hello Mike,
I work for the Microsoft Education Partner team and would like to know if I have your permission to get an RSS of your blog posts and display your picture on our site which is targeted to Microsoft Partners working in the Education industry. https://www.mseducommunity.com/Community/Pages/Blogs.aspx

Best wishes,
–Angela Viesse

Comment on E-book v1.1 by How to make a beautiful school SharePoint site - Education - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

Thu, 28 Jul 2011 22:56:41 +0000

[...] The whole series, and a lot of extra detail, is also available in the Twynham School Learning Gateway 2007-2010 ebook [...]

Comment on Animoto Review: Engaging… but educational? by Andrew

Andrew — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 07:06:00 +0000

Whenever I think about Presentation one thing that comes to mind is Power point. Seeing students enjoy Animoto for their presentation, I would like to give it a try as well.
Video would have been fine but just not working at this moment.

Comment on The Personal Learning Environment. Moving beyond the VLE and SharePoint Learning Platform. by Steve Gillott

Steve Gillott — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 20:18:04 +0000

Hi Mike,
That’s a great post.
We’ve always said ‘content is king’, and I’m sure this is the issue with why VLEs never really took hold. In the scramble for e-Learning credits, a lot of content providers (not all admittedly) rushed out content for VLEs that weren’t in any way transformative for learning – merely replicative – and fairly limited at that. It was easy to make that stuff. Since then, there really hasn’t been anything that has progressed Learning Environments past mutiple choice or cloze assessments. There have been some simulations and models, but for the most part, this VLE content has been responsible for keeping learning technologies rooted in the replicative.
Like Susan says, the real key to take learning to the next level would be to embrace student mobile devices and Web 2.0 technologies in order to communicate and collaborate further. This is the world our students live in, and there is now such a disconnect between the classroom experience and that of the outside world that it’s no wonder some of them say they ‘power down’ when they come to school. And it’s not just the teachers who would need to step outside their comfort zone – students would need to communicate beyond their Facebook circle of friends, shifting their mindsets from local to global. We’re doing work with other schools across the world in both Science lessons and Genocide education – videoconferences, communication and international collaboration using wikis – this global, collaborative learning brings experiences that would not be possible without this kind of technology.
I was reflecting on our SharePoint 2010 portal the other day, and whilst it has really developed – the leap in usability from SharePoint 2007 and 2010 was huge – it’s still not quite there yet for schools. Blogs and discussion boards in particular are still very clunky. It’s not easy for children to collaborate, edit, rate, tag, share and reflect on their learning using the out-of-box tools within SharePoint, and we’re still stuck with disperate systems within school in order to provide tools for students to use. Here’s hoping SharePoint v.Next improves those tools!

Comment on The Personal Learning Environment. Moving beyond the VLE and SharePoint Learning Platform. by Lucy Bunce

Lucy Bunce — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 19:51:14 +0000

I’ve had a recent success on a European Comenius project where we got students from the 6 countries to share their work ( videos) on a closed Facebook group. We’d previously used the German school’s Moodle but the students didn’t engage with it at all. Planning to use similar Facebook groups again.

Comment on The Personal Learning Environment. Moving beyond the VLE and SharePoint Learning Platform. by vilsrip

vilsrip — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 22:45:49 +0000

I've made a collage of my personal learning environment as a teacher: My PLE. I'm trying to get this idea across to my students, by letting them use blogs, wikis, and twitter for their projects and homework, always hoping that some of them may realize that this is more than a switch from paper to screen, from pen to keyboard (I keep telling them, too ...).

Comment on The Personal Learning Environment. Moving beyond the VLE and SharePoint Learning Platform. by Tony Sheppard

Tony Sheppard — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 17:30:55 +0000

I have a slightly biased view on VLEs / MLEs / LPs … as I still believe that the technology is not the problem. For a professional geek, I prefer to see technology chosen and used well, rather than used for the sake of using it.

There is nothing wrong with using technology to replace existing tools, or to complement existing tools … as long as it is done with the understanding that there will be benefits. Those benefits might not be directly to do with learning. By moving to the use of technology for accessing worksheets, quizzes, etc you might simply be creating a little bit of efficiency, freeing up teachers and other staff to do other things. As long as you can justify the cost behind this then it is beneficial.

This will only ever be a stop gap though, until a school makes a move from a digitised curriculum to a digital curriculum and a digital community. So many others have said before (and will say again) that a Learning Platform is only used to the fullest when learners are not just seen as users, but contributors, producers, controllers and leaders. This is the same with most communities, not just communities of learners.

If the tools which have been replaced (eg a teacher stood in front of a chalkboard) have been part of barriers to building communities in the past then this needs to be addressed rather than just throwing new tech at it.

As with all communities, there needs to be some social order … and this social group can help shape the community as it moves to the next version.

One thing is certain though, no matter what we may think about replicative technologies … all technologies will eventually be replaced … change is inevitable.

Comment on The Personal Learning Environment. Moving beyond the VLE and SharePoint Learning Platform. by Dughall McCormick

Dughall McCormick — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 09:55:12 +0000

Interesting post, Mike. I agree with the general direction you appear to be taking and will watch with interest as you endeavour to get the technology to support a truly ‘P’LE.

The points made by ‘Big Think’ are so true about replicative technologies! Sometimes I despair at the dichotomy between a transformation agenda and a belligerent adherence to the old (comfortable?) ways of doing things. BSF (for all its controversy) had the potential to truly transform things. However, from my limited experience of BSF schools and new-builds, many a trick has been missed in these one-off opportunities as architects and school leaders merely replicated Victorian learning spaces but with a bit of added ‘glossiness’. This was obviously not *always* the case but I believe it happened.

I, too, am interested to see whether replicative is merely a phase on the journey to ‘transformed’ or whether it is holding things back.

Keep us posted!

Comment on The Personal Learning Environment. Moving beyond the VLE and SharePoint Learning Platform. by Susan Banister

Susan Banister — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 09:42:44 +0000

I completely agree with you, Mike. Learning platforms/VLE’s (whatever you want to call them) have a wealth of tools to enable student-led learning or responsibility-led learning (a term used by my colleague Fiona Aubrey-Smith). Unfortunately they are not used to their full potential in most schools. However using technology in a replicative way, identified by the Big Think, is understandable. It is how we have always taught. And by doing so, the teacher can see the immediate benefits to doing it with paper; ergo they are using the learning platform. If we want to encourage student centric learning, part of the challenge is changing teachers’ behaviour but also making the technology relevant for the student. It cannot be old technology. It should replicate what they are using on the web. What’s more learning should really be anywhere and on any device. Mobile technology is moving very quickly. Schools would be foolish not to start looking at how to reap the rewards of the device in the student’s pocket. Technology is a changing space, the future is in mobile, personal & cloud. The challenge for us who work with this technology is to lead the way and show how it could be done and let the results do the talking.