Curriculum and personalizing learning - Teaching with Technologies: The Essential Guide - page 162

Table 8.2 (Continued)

Characteristic Tools should:

Technical
characteristics

· provide one tool with multiple functions, and for multiple purposes,
for example, inspection, school/college, formative and summative
needs. one teacher reported having to work with four different
systems.
· be comprehensive - provide management of all pupil data, for
example, Sen, medical, child protection
· be Web-based - access has to be Web-based for parents and whole-
school/college workforce access
· be robust - 'one crash and everyone loses faith'
· be secure - 'one loss of privacy and everyone loses faith'
· be flexible - with high standards of interoperability between
commonly used packages: e.g. homework information on the learning
platforms should be linked with homework returns by email and alerts
about homework missed
· allow staff appropriate access
· there are different levels of access depending on 'need to know'
· teachers need easy access to pupil/student data which is useful for
lesson planning.

learners. These codes of conduct should manage the development of learner-focused
and authored resources that make effective use of these devices and opportunities.
Learners and teachers are using social networking sites, but this use is usually outside
theformalschool/collegesystemandthiscarriesrisksfortheschool,thestaffand
learners.

Personalizing learning

Personalizing learning using digital media applies not just to pupils' learning, but
also to teachers' learning . While privacy and security issues need to be addressed in
schools/colleges,newtoolsandresourcesthatarecurrentlyinthemarketplacehave
considerable potential value for learning, and include:

• hand-heldandlaptopdevicesincludingfine-grainedcontentandwi-ficon-
nections
• hand-heldandlaptopdeviceslinkedtolearningplatforms
• podcasting(voice),vodcasting(video)andvideoconferencing
• email
• iChat(synchronoustypedchat),backchannels(messaging),SMSandvoice
communication
• increasinglyubiquitousvoice-operatedsoftware.