Learning Platforms Research

From ICT Register Wiki

David Broadfield, one of our ICT Register Consultants has been carrying our research into the effective use of learning platforms and the journey schools made throughout their procurement. The aim of the research is to provide a comprehensive overview of the key issues facing primary and secondary schools in adopting and deploying learning platforms, also the impact of doing so on the curriculum and staff development.

Schools taking part in the research are all Register schools and some have also been working very closely with Becta.

The first section is reproduced below, and you can download the full version of the report as a Word document from here (125KB).

Learning Platform – research document

There have been various recent pronouncements from the government re learning platforms.

The Government's e-strategy sets the expectation that:

• by spring 2008 every pupil should have access to a personalised online learning space with the potential to support an e-portfolio (provided by their local authority)
• by 2010 every school should have integrated learning and management systems (a comprehensive suite of learning platform technologies). BECTa

However for many schools, particularly primary schools, the position is still unclear. Some schools have no rationale for using these technologies to support their work and are therefore either turning a blind eye or adopting solutions because they are coerced.

Learning platforms differ greatly ranging from those that meet the needs of the school as a learning community to those that are little more than a repository for low level digital content. The proliferation of Web 2.0 technologies is further muddying the waters.

This research aims to get beyond a mere description of different learning platforms and their implementation across the country. It aims to report on the rationale behind the decision making process, the stages schools go through, outline the mistakes made and what has been learnt from them, what schools might do differently next time and the impact of learning platforms to date.

Aims of the research

1. To investigate how and why the selected schools have adopted learning platforms and examine their decision making processes.
2. To examine how students, teachers and the wider community make use of the learning platform.
3. To examine the impact of learning platforms on a range of issues, particularly learning.
4. To raise issues for both primary and secondary schools with the implementation of learning platforms (problems, concerns and learning from mistakes)
5. To recommend any action points for schools in choosing and implementing learning platforms.

Download the full report as a Word document (125KB).