Scottish Government

The National Grid for Learning Progress Report Three

Chapter 7: Progress with ICT Training

7.1 Schools - New Opportunities Fund (NOF) training

Over the last four years, the major source of funding for the ICT training of teachers and school librarians has come from the New Opportunities Fund (NOF), (www.nof.org.uk), a National Lottery distribution body established by the Government. Over the period, 23 million has been made available in Scotland. The programme's aim has been to bring all existing school teachers and school librarians up to a published standard of ICT expertise in terms of knowing when, when not and how to use ICT in learning and teaching. Under the rules of the scheme, all training must be embedded in classroom and school library practice.

The training programme is now entering its final phase. All those who wished to take part had to sign up by the end of June 2002 and by that date, 93% of Scottish teachers, in terms of full-time equivalent (FTE) had signed up. All training must be completed by December 2003.

By July 2003, approximately 70% of those who had signed up for training had completed their training. The figures were encouraging, particularly in the areas of primary and special education. SEED encouraged education authorities and schools to support the completion of the training by the maximum number of participants by the cut-off date of December 2003. At the time of writing formal completion statistics have yet to be compiled.

A UK-wide quality assurance group has maintained an overview of the implementation of the training scheme. In Scotland, the ten approved training providers (ATP), underwent a nationally co-ordinated selection process, and the quality assurance of the ATPs has continued to be managed in by HM Inspectorate of Education. Contact between the approved training providers and key stakeholders has been maintained, for example, through the ongoing seminars organised by HMIE. HMIE produced a report on the initiative in June 2002 - Into the Classroom of Tomorrow (www.hmie.gov.uk/documents/publication/itct.htm). This report offers a clear summation of the major successes and issues concerning the programme.

7.2 Further education

As indicated in Chapter 6, the Funding Council decided to end the practice of distributing earmarked funding specifically for ICT-related staff development from July 2002. However, the Council has continued to distribute earmarked staff development funding of 2.75 million in Academic Year (AY) 2002/2003 for general purposes, as part of its strategy for quality improvement. This funding is intended to address the general training needs of staff, including teaching qualifications and management training as well as ICT-specific needs.

The Council has continued to support ICT staff development through the funding of a range of training opportunities, including subsidised pricing of relevant commercial courses, and the provision of free places at some FE sector training events provided by the Scottish Further Education Unit and the JISC Regional Support Centres. The key objective for this support has been to ensure that colleges are able to fully exploit the potential of the enhanced technical infrastructure which has been developed since 1999.

Prior to 2003 the Council had set sector-level targets for the number of staff holding the Teaching Qualification for Further Education. In July 2003 the Council decided to revise its policy, so that in future each college will be expected to ensure that all staff (not just teaching staff) are appropriately qualified and experienced. Achievement of this objective will be monitored through broader processes of quality assurance and improvement.

The Scottish Qualifications Authority has developed a Professional Development Award (PDA) in online learning, which identifies and develops the key skills required by FE staff wishing to exploit the potential of ICT in promoting effective learning. Further PDAs are being developed in a range of related ICT skills.

7.3 The People's Network

Training for public library staff has progressed with 2.7 million funding from the New Opportunities Fund. By March 2004 all public library staff will have achieved European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL) or an equivalent standard in ICT use. These staff can provide the public with assistance in using ICT and will encourage the public to develop their confidence. Local libraries, seen as a non-threatening environment by many adults who might be intimidated by traditional learning establishments, are ideally placed to fulfil these roles.

This view is supported by Professor Peter Brophy in his report on the initial impact of the People's Network, "The People's Network: A turning point for public libraries".

7.4 Communities

Training for people involved in delivering informal and community education has been developed through the Connecting Communities ICT training programme. Funded by the NGfL Scotland, the programme, which is intended to improve the use of ICT in community learning agencies, has been developed by LTS and is delivered by them in collaboration with a variety of appropriate partners.

A separate strand of the Communities channel within the NGfL Scotland website has been developed to support the programme (www.ltscotland.org.uk/connectingcommunities). This site has been used to expand online tutor support and will be further developed this year by the formation and support of an online tutor community and online resources related to the programme.

By summer 2003, 1,500 practitioners had participated in the training. An independent evaluation carried out by the Scottish Centre for the Development of the Community (SCDC) has measured the impact of the training on community learning to date (www.scdc.org.uk/concommunities.htm) and ongoing evaluation will ensure its relevance to community learning.

By March 2004, 2,500 practitioners will have taken part in the training. The final phase of the project will focus on ensuring that the programme has impacted on excluded groups and has resulted in the provision of online material and support for the use of ICT within community learning and development, which will extend beyond the life of the project.

The evaluation has identified the need for further training at a higher level for community practitioners and the Communities Working Group is presently engaged in identifying the possibilities.

7.5 SETT 2003

The Scottish Executive supports SETT (the Scottish Education and Teaching with Technology annual conference) through NGfL funding and other funding streams (www.LTScotland.org.uk/sett). SETT is organised by Learning and Teaching Scotland and Emap Education. Now in its third year, SETT has evolved into a major collaborative learning festival involving educators from across the country meeting to share, encourage and inspire good practice. Approximately 3,000 delegates attended SETT 2003, held on September 24th and 25th 2003.

The exhibition featured more than 100 educational ICT suppliers and presented the largest selection of educational ICT products and resources ever seen at an event in Scotland. Offering visitors the opportunity to evaluate the latest ICT products and to find the most relevant and cost-effective solutions for their teaching needs. At the heart of the exhibition, a number of schools and teachers demonstrated live how they use NGfL Scotland resources in teaching and learning. A new feature for 2003, SETT Goes to the Movies, explored the potential of digital video when pupils assumed the role of a film crew at the SETT film studio.

Attendance at SETT is free for delegates.

7.6 Early Years ICT Strategy

A review of ICT in early years education, carried out in 2001, led to the development of an ICT strategy for early years. The strategy (www.ltscotland.org.uk/earlyyears/ICTstrategy.asp) consists of the four components listed below.

• The document Early Learning, Forward Thinking: The Policy Framework for ICT in Early Years sets out the framework and background to the ICT Strategy. This document is intended for umbrella organisations, local authorities, childcare partnerships, heads and staff of early years settings. It was published in October 2003.
• A programme of training and support for the early years workforce. The programme will provide Masterclass training for key managerial level staff , intensive training for approximately 500 trainers and continued professional development opportunities for the approximately 17,000-strong workforce in early years. All establishments will receive staff development materials that will include core modules and additional information.
• A range of support and guidance materials for the early years workforce to be issued early in 2004.
• A process of monitoring and evaluation to appraise the impact of the Strategy to be undertaken throughout the initial three year project and on its completion.

7.7 The Masterclass initiative

The Scottish Executive-funded Masterclass Initiative, (www.ltscotland.org.uk/ictineducation/staffdevelopment/masterclass.asp) was launched at SETT in September 2002 and has attracted more than 600 participants from all local authorities and at all levels within the education community. NGfL Scotland has held 11 residential training programmes which also resulted in the creation of a large bank of resources. Masterclass members were involved in the delivery of a number of seminars at SETT 2003.

There was also a Masterclass seminar for Directors of Education and one for HMIE in March 2003.

The aims of the Masterclass programme are to:

• establish a shared vision of the potential and challenges of ICT in learning at all levels;
• influence, guide and support pedagogical change using ICT across Scotland;
• provide inspiration and encourage effective leadership in the embedded use of ICT in learning, teaching and management;
• develop and share expectations of good management of ICT at all levels;
• contribute to the ongoing development of a toolkit to support the effective use of ICT at all levels;
• create a community that is able to implement and sustain the vision; and
• facilitate the dissemination of good practice in the use of ICT across Scotland.

Participants in the programme include teachers, managers and local authority officers from all local authorities in Scotland and lecturers in the Scottish teacher education institutions.

Each participant received a laptop computer which is available for use at home as well as within their school or office and attended the four-day residential training course. An online community of Masterclass participants has been established using Think.com. Training in the use of this facility was provided as part of the overall programme and participants are expected to be active in the Masterclass community both during and after the training.

Throughout the residential programme, participants have collaborated to produce a set of high-quality resources for the Masterclass programme. However, all resources will be distributed to Masterclass participants on a series of CD-ROMS and many of these resources are also available to download through the Masterclass community on Think.com.

Feedback from participants has been very positive. The programme has established close links with all local authorities and the teacher education institutions. SEED will continue to support the development of Masterclass in 2003/2004. In January 2004 an evaluation of the programme was awarded to George Street Research.

Future developments will include consolidating the community by using current participants as developers and presenters, providing focussed training programmes, extending the Masterclass community, meeting local needs through a flexible funding model, extending the programme to develop ICT leadership in headteachers and supporting teacher education insititutes to develop the vision of the future teacher.

7.8 Heads Together

Heads Together (www.ltscotland.org.uk/ictineducation/staffdevelopment/headstogether.asp)is a project being piloted in collaboration with Ultralab research facility at Anglia Polytechnic University. The project provides Scottish headteachers with an opportunity to meet in a secure online environment where they can share best practice and debate with policy makers.

The project aims to:

• support the development of management skills of existing Scottish headteachers;
• support Scottish headteachers in their day-to-day role by providing them with a mechanism for mutual support, potential solutions to problems and the sharing and creation of new ideas;
• reduce the isolation of headteachers in small or remote schools;
• raise the ICT skills of participating headteachers; and
• make participating headteachers aware of the potential role of ICT for management and administration, learning and teaching.

During the first phase of the project, in 2002/2003, 750 headteachers received the training and currently 450 have made some form of online contribution to Heads Together. One hundred and fifty members of Heads Together participated in SETT 2003.

The full rollout to all Scottish headteachers will take place by March 2004.