Why innovation in education will remain an extreme sport

Reading Becta's Impact of Digital Technology paper from the end of last year I was struck by agency's use of the phrase "educational leviathan" (p21), a very refreshing if resigned admission that within this sector, pushing for change is exhaustingly slow and additional levers are needed. Or as Roy Scheider would have said, "We're gonna need a bigger boat".

It's not just that change leadership/ innovation is tough and lonely - it's dangerous too, with the hunter just as likely to become the hunted. Becta's report goes on to explain why we often see only small changes which “fossilise practice” (e.g. Interactive Whiteboards; technology bending to fit schools, in Heppell's phrase) due to the risk of innovation.

Being risk averse is no surprise if you are under constant psychological attack; from the students who are quick to label your teaching boring; the colleague whose lessons always sound disconcertingly fantastic through the wall; from parents who – having been to school themselves – are naturally experts in the field; and principally from an inspectorate which is ready at a moment’s notice (well, 2-5 days anyway) to grasp any teachers’ self respect and confidence and run it through with a demonic trident labelled ‘satisfactory’. Ok, that was a little over the top, but it’s only been three years and I'm still incensed by it.

Such are the internal and external attacks levelled against anything that challenges the orthodoxy in education, an abundance of confidence is needed to innovate, which is why innovators may occasionally come across as self-publicising and just a little bit pleased with themselves. The pressures of the education system do not breed self-deprecating innovators, so we shouldn't be surprised or (too) homicidal if they use Twitter to remind the world hourly of their total awesomeness. Back on point, however, I suspect that we won't see widespread innovation or even acceptance of change whilst the system retains top-down measures of effectiveness and a big stick approach to 'failing' schools.

This paragraph contains a series of massive generalisations and for any teachers reading, I exclude *you* from what follows, naturally, but it must be said... teachers are also one of the great conservative forces in education and it is the drag factor of the current workforce which holds back many innovations. Psychologically speaking, most teachers’ entire career has been a series of daily re-enforcements to the message that they are in charge. 4 years of university and many more in practice have served to underline their self-image of ‘the sage on the stage’. These are the bricks and mortar of the defensive walls we as teachers have gradually erected to protect ourselves from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune (in case your Hamlet is rusty, that was Shakespeare describing Ofsted). Technology, particularly the social kind, is massively threatening to this world view. The resistance we often see in schools towards change is a powerful, ego-protecting mechanism which is neither easily or quickly overcome.

This superb short video ridiculing people's attitude to change may seem like a farcical extreme, but it echoes for me the fear-induced or ego-preserving comments made in hundreds of staff meetings I've attended. Its message is clearly Darwinian though - adapt or perish. I remember thinking on entering the profession that it was probably the most mechanisation-proof career in the world - after all, who'd entrust their child's education to a machine - but just look at 2035 in the frankly scary education futures timeline for a revised view on that!


So, in a landscape where the castle is under siege from without by a vicious collation of enemies and its defenders are too busy frantically pushing away scaling ladders to investigate the possibilities offered by gun powder, it would seem that the cause of change and innovation is hopelessly futile. Prior to my current role, I was a deputy headteacher for four years which involved an awful lot of the management of others and here's a quote from my favourite management book which articulates quite how risky being innovative is:

"There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them. Thus it happens that whenever those who are hostile have the opportunity to attack they do it like partisans, whilst the others defend lukewarmly, in such wise that the prince is endangered along with them."
Niccolo Machiavelli, 'The Prince', Chapter VI

Despair not, there is an answer, but as always in education, you're probably not going to like it; Change has to begin in the local context and requires gifted leadership by charismatic people willing to put in a great deal of hard work over a number of years, all of it in the face of opposition. Change Management is every bit as logistical and process-based a challenge as something like building a new school is, but it never seems to attract the same attention or even a fraction of the funding; there's something which can easily be addressed at a national level.


Dominic Norrish. Follow me on Twitter

A Managed Service metaphor

I often work with schools in the early stages of BSF and one of the important messages to get across is that the ICT Managed Service does not have to be a top-down imposition but, if schools engage fully in the process, can be shaped to suit their needs through a high quality Output Specification.

To paraphrase PfS' Steve Moss at a recent NAACE event, no matter what you think of ICT Managed Services in BSF, they aren't going away anytime soon, so let's focus on making the approach work really well for schools.

When talking to (understandably) sceptical heads and other school staff, I find it helpful to use an example from my 'real life' to illustrate how the MS can be defined and provide real benefits. This is because I have recently opted to take a Managed approach to my requirements for a car Service, and for the same reasons schools are encouraged to.

Rather than buying a car as a capital investment, I have (like many others these days) entered into what is effectively a Managed Service contract with the supplier, under which they provide the car, service it and fix it and give me a replacement if it breaks down; effectively it belongs to them, as does the all the risk. My responsibilities include not damaging it, keeping under an agreed mileage and paying a fixed, monthly fee, for which I get to drive it places.

Unsurprisingly, as the customer, I had a choice in the spec of the car I would receive rather than being given the same thing that the supplier gives to everyone, and it was the same level of choice that a cash-purchaser would have. Schools have exactly this agency in the BSF process, and the Managed Service needs to be understood as the outcome of the SfC and Output Specification documents, rather than being a generic and monolithic slab of inappropriate IT.

Prior to this experience, I've 'fully' owned cars and for various reasons, not done terribly well out of the deal, having to assume the entire risk for their management and maintenance. I cannot maintain my own car and I neither want to or see why I should have to. My interest in the automobile is limited to its affordances (it gets me places quickly and in relative comfort/ solitude) rather than how it works. My understanding of the internal combustion engine begins and ends with the fact that it makes petrol explode in some cleverly controlled fashion, which spins the spinny bit and makes the wheels move. But that's fine; I don't need to know any more than this, my expertise is directed entirely towards driving the thing without incident.

Such should also be the case with schools' ICT systems. I cannot think of many other medium sized businesses (say an hotel, for example) which are so intricately involved in the technical management of the ICT they use, with all the risk of failure that this carries. A Managed Service provides a system which is contractually guaranteed to work as requested, and should allow school leaders and teachers to focus all of their ICT-thinking on what to do with the technology, not how to get and keep it working.

The perception that a Managed Service ties the user's hands should also be challenged. True, if I decide I want to suddenly upgrade my VW Fox for an Alfa Romeo Spider, there may be a small implication for my monthly revenue cost but BSF Managed Service contracts are evolving to remove restraints and are much more flexible. For instance, it is now common for the contract to be structured in such a way that schools wishing to try something new and innovative (previously a big no-no for MSPs, who would be responsible for making it work) can agree with the ICT provider to effectively 'switch off' parts of the ICT contract while the trial takes place. The upshot of this is that schools aren't restricted to the technology specified at the start of the contract and MSPs aren't penalised for allowing this experimentation.

The elephant in the room of course is that even the most advantageous and appropriate Managed Service cannot itself transform how ICT is actually used by schools. The fact that I chose to drive my Managed Service car only between my house and Tescos is not the fault of the car but of the driver's vision. This issue is well understood by PfS and a greater (funded) emphasis on the (visioning) SfC stage and the (making it happen) Change Management aspect was recently recommended by the recent Beyond Buildings inquiry.

To sum up, Managed ICT Services can work for schools, the secret is to get in and drive the process. Here endeth the tenuous metaphor.

Dominic Norrish
Follow me on Twitter @domnorrish

Digital exams - the future of assessment

I write as a serendipitously successful product of the school system and as an individual who found examinations to be, if not fun, then at least a satisfying opportunity to demonstrate how hard I had worked, but I recognise that this makes me a bit weird and not representative of the wider population. So, reading about Ofqual's announcement in last Thursday's Times that children entering primary school next September will sit digital GCSE and A Levels when they reach Key Stages 4 and 5, I was briefly filled with hope that one of the major bastions of our nineteenth century education model was being slated for (very gradual) demolition. Hopeful that is until I read the public's comments at the foot of the story.

The criticism centres around two highly charged points. Firstly that all this will be cheaper for the exam boards to administer, the implication being that for an assessment system to be of value it should be paper-heavy, unwieldy and bureaucratic; I don't pretend to understand this point of view. Secondly, voices of dissent were raised over the effect of online exams on the nation's handwriting. I'll have to admit I'm struggling with the import of this one too.

On the plus side though, potentially thousands of children with perfectly functioning and useful brains but who've otherwise been failed by poor literacy (think screen readers and voice recognition software in tests), social pressures or nerves (imagine exams taken whenever and wherever the student prefers), short attention spans or small memories (with learners able to demonstrate what they can do, not what they know) may just be able to emerge from school with something to show for it. Other than neat handwriting, of course.

Despite the impotent fuming of the Times' readership (and if ever there was a neat demographic overlapping successful exam-passers with those with a vested interest in the status quo, this is it), online examinations seem to be an international trend. The BBC report that the Danish government are also of the opinion that "if the internet is so much a part of daily life, it should be included in the classroom and in examinations" and I find it hard to disagree. Information has been truly democratised (a movement started by Gutenberg in the mid-C15th and continued by Google in the late-C20th) and is available to all, irrespective of an individual's capacity to retain it, so for me one of the key challenges in education over the next decade is to devise assessments which measure how well students do something with all this information. This is indeed the Danish ambition, where the students are "no longer required to regurgitate facts and figures. Instead the emphasis is on their ability to sift through and analyse information"

In my opinion, the most salient argument for open-laptop exams is that the current system does not reflect 'real life' and thus is not really measuring anything that's of use to society. An example from the world beyond school is illustrative here; take a medium-sized organisation (a government department, say), which has occasional tasks or problems which present themselves (e.g. a report which needs to be researched, written, checked and released to the media). Such tasks could be identified, I am certain, in any work context across the UK, but in none of these real contexts would the task be sprung on single employees who are then stripped of their access to the wider canon of human knowledge and experience, quarantined from others and sanctioned against collaborating, given tools which constrain creative thought, speed of work and their ability to manipulate language and told to get it done in 3 hours. No; for the C21st century skills of creativity, problem solving and team work, a different model of examination will be needed.

Real life just isn't like that, so why is our exam system so restrictive? The answer, of course, is *history* (for which read 'inertia' and a fair degree of "If it was good enough for me..." See Times comments above...). Written examinations are a paradigm of assessment dreamt up in the C18th by scholars who lived in a culture and a time where learning and intelligence were judged by one's ability to memorise facts. It's worth remembering that this was an age where books were mankind's only way of storing its collective knowledge; developing human receptacles into which a lot of this information could be poured, stored and rapidly searched & recalled was highly prized and these individuals' storage capacity needed measuring. The written examination was first used in the 1850s to promote social mobility (cue bitterly ironic laughter) but today remain only a demonstration of studiousness or memory, and in some cases both (though not in mine!)

Epistemologically, exams are the logical result of projecting an empiricalist philosophy onto education and politicians love the scientific purity of this; the numbers speak clearly to the voter in the street. However, you don't need to be a genius to work out that there is no 'provable truth' in anything as diverse and organic as a school, you just have to have worked in one, which may explain why this approach remains so enduringly popular in government. Still, this news represents genuine progress and if a career in education has taught me anything, it's that progress in this sector is gained a foxhole at a time. To horribly paraphase a former PM, this is not the beginning of the end but it may be the end of the beginning.

Dominic Norrish, B in GCSE Religious Education ('achieved' by reading St Mark's Gospel the night before the exam).

Follow me on Twitter @domnorrish

Lies, damn lies and quantitative analyses of teachers' perceptions of technology use.

Both BESA and Becta have released reports in recent months which present statistical evidence of how technology is used in education. Putting aside the validity issues surrounding reporting respondents' perceptions as reality, I've been struck again by the (annual) message that change in the national profile of educational use of technology only ever inches forward. Will the pace of development be fast enough to meet the challenges of the next few years?

Purely looking at kit, the growth of desktop PC numbers has slowed (and fallen in Primaries), whilst the number of laptops that schools own continues to rise steadily (BESA report). This may indicate a shift to more mobile models of access and a gradual abandonment of the concept of ‘going to the ICT room to use computers’. It may simply be that laptop prices have fallen to a level where, compared with the associated infrastructural costs of putting in fixed machines, this approach makes financial sense first and foremost. Either way, I’m pretty sure that laptops will soon be regarded as the metaphorical ‘phone box’ between the ‘landline’ of ICT suites and the ‘iPhone’ of, er, students’ iPhones. None the less, if the growth of laptops is enabling schools to experiment with agile spaces and student agency over learning style and outcome, this can only be a good thing.

Combined with improving ratios of computers to pupils (now 1:4.2 in secondaries), the ‘average’ school is now not far away from achieving a theoretical ‘virtual 1:1’ ratio, where quantities/ mobility of devices mean that a computer is available whenever its use is appropriate for learning. The 12% of secondaries that don’t have a wireless network yet must also make this leap before personalisation through ICT can be equably extended to all.

An interesting side point from the BESA evidence; a decreasing number of schools are indicating that their Internet access is 'good' (dramatically down to 41% of secondaries, compared with 73% in 2008). This, in the face of ever-better infrastructure and RBC offerings, can only mean that practices are changing and contention is increasingly an issue. Now, the challenge is to ensure the shift in practice that has seen more kids with laptops accessing video/ Flash on the web is actually focussed on genuine learning activity, rather than edutainment.

BESA’s reported drop in teacher confidence (down by about 10% across the Primary and Secondary sectors) is worrying. What does this represent? Is it that the warm glow of NOF training has finally worn off and teachers now feel in need of further high quality ICT training? I guess that’s an extreme possibility, but I suspect this issue has more to do with a growing realisation of the scope and scale of the digital reality; once you’ve peeked over the cliff edge at Web 2.0, handheld learning and student-driven anywhere anytime access to learning experiences, the height can be truly dizzying. In the words of Douglas Adams, it scares the willies out of me, so it wouldn't surprise me if many teachers felt anxious about the rise of increasingly in-your-face technologies.

Workforce issues have been the consistent Number 1 barrier to change I’ve encountered in any of the schools I’ve worked in and alongside. If we are ambitious for the ‘creeping change’ mentioned in the first para to turn into transformational strides, teachers’ exposure to new technologies, their willingness to experiment with them and to take the risk of using them in anger will be critical. I wait to see the full offering from Vital, but I’m fairly sure that until each school takes a structured, colleague-led approach to both sharing best practice and coaching teachers in the use of ICT, this problem will persist. For some evidence to back up this assertion, have a look at Davis, Preston and Sahin’s article on an ‘ecological approach’ to developing technological pedagogies (British Journal of Educational Technologies, 2009 Vol. 40, No. 5 pp861-878) if you have access to a University library.

Moving on, the growing use of ePortfolios seen in Becta’s research is encouraging, with 1 in 5 respondents reporting that all learners are encouraged to use this type of technology to record their achievements and capabilities. To me, creating a culture across our schools where evidence is routinely gathered, commented on, used to explore next steps and shared between staff, learners and their families is an absolute precursor to the long-overdue overhaul of England’s assessment paradigm. If we are ever, as a nation, to move away from summative measurement of the regurgitation of hastily learned content towards a process by which capabilities and soft skills are evaluated and accredited, schools’ successful practice with ePortfolios will be one of the tipping points.

Less positively, Becta’s analysis of Web 2.0 type stuff is characterised, I think it’s fair to say, by cautious pessimism; “Web 2.0 technologies and learners’ own devices such as mobile phones are used only infrequently in classrooms – there may be scope to further develop their use” (p11), “It may be difficult to reach the target for all schools to be making full use of learning platforms by 2010” (p12) and, commenting on the fact that the majority of teachers do not encourage the use of social software (and that 12% did not know what a Wiki was) “These findings will be somewhat disappointing to those who advocate the importance of the learning potential of social software and social media” (p22). Considering that almost all discussion of innovative practice centres around the use of social media, this is indeed disappointing.

The standout ‘must try harder’ area in my opinion is around Parental Engagement. The broad range of respondents to Becta’s surveys identified this as improving but also as having the greatest potential to have a positive impact if fully embraced. I suspect, however, that additional levers will be required if schools are to make the most of the ambition summed up in the concept of ‘live reporting’, such are the challenges of policy, practice and technical integration required to put meaningful information (e.g. more than raw numbers straight out of the MIS) into the hands of parents in a way which they can easily, intuitively and securely access. On a related note, when you consider how powerfully communicative a relatively low-maintenance web presence can be, I’ll admit to being stunned at the statement that 86% of schools now “have a website”. So that’s just 1 in every 7 which need dragging into 1997 then...

A further (and possibly sunnier) analysis of Becta's numbers can be found in Bob Harrison's piece for the NCSL; well worth a read.

Dominic Norrish (follow me on Twitter: @domnorrish)

Can ICT help fight child obesity?

It is said that obesity is one of the biggest health challenges we face. With millions of children and millions of adults in this weight category it is clear that the excess body fat that these people carry will increase their risks of poor health. Statistics from the National Heart Forum illuminate the trends in this area.

There are many school based initiatives too with one reported in the TES this week about the work of Shotton Hall School in Peterlee, who are using drama to educate students on how to eat healthily.

Discoveries originating in Cambridge have changed scientific thinking in thisfield which are far too complicated for me to blog about here, but covered cells, energy, heat generation and enzyme complexes over 20 years.

Studies in the context of ‘inherent disorders of the human metabolism’ illustrate that some people who are in the obesity category are there through no conscious behaviour of their own. Researchers have found that a lack of a protein called leptin or the way the body uses leptin in the brain can lead to uncontrollable appetite. (p238 The University of Cambridge and 800th Anniversary Portrait). So, it’s clear that some people need as much help as possible to control their appetite.

We can’t begin to use ICT in schools to monitor effects at this level or indeed recommend treatments for students, that is down to parent and carers interactions with the medical profession. What we can do though is use to ICT to understand the relationship between the child we are caring for and their consumption of food in school.

Early cashless catering systems did only what their name suggested; catered cashlessly. What we are now seeing within the Electronic Point of Sale arena is more and more information processing and more and more integration.

More visibility is being granted, because parents and carers can set preferences regarding the quantities and items that a youngster selects for their school lunch. For example, schools, parents, even the student can also restrict certain items –where a child has a nut allergy or a maximum weekly portion number of ‘unhealthy’ food types

More integration is helpful, because systems will allow parents and carers to log in from home to add money to their child’s account and at the same time modify the selection preferences. We are also seeing card and biometric systems that are not only being used for catering but used for registration, access control and also at community kiosks for account creation, and to refresh passwords when they have been forgotten.

We should also remember that many of these systems are competing to evolve into a market leading position, so if you have an idea and the system doesn’t do it now, many companies will develop a functionality if it really adds value. Examples might be if you want to tie eating habits of youngsters to a particular sport to ensure they have the right type of nourishment ,or if you want to reward students with school merits for healthy eating automatically.

Clearly these systems are only one part of a bigger picture but they can certainly help to fight obesity when combined with other school initiatives.

Brendan Geoghegan

How Sustainable is ICT in Further Education?

A question I am often asked what difference in terms of environmental impact can we make when designing our ICT solution. This is something to consider for refurbishments as well as new builds. It is estimated that Further and Higher education has approximately 1.5 million laptops and PCs, 250,000 printers and about the same number of servers. Along with the couple of bob that costs for leasing/ purchasing comes an electricity bill estimated at over £100 million per annum.

Most Principals I talk to have an expectation that ICT will grow – and why shouldn’t they? After all, a well designed ICT system has the potential to deliver real gains and efficiencies for learners. With many future FE learners already enjoying the benefits of BSF investment in ICT, expectations are rising daily and FE is a prime area for augmenting learning and delivering flexible programmes through the use of online learning packages.

With these imperatives we may be expecting (or investing in) a level of growth that is unsustainable (both environmentally and economically). So how might this be mitigated? To some extent we can look to improvements in the technology over time but more importantly we need to make the right choices in system design and utilisation. This, however, assumes that a College is capable and engaged with taking a medium to long term view in implementing their ICT strategy. History teaches us this is has not always been the case, with systems developed using sporadic bursts of funding. The BCF programme offered a real chance to for a College to take a strategic view and design an ICT solution from first principles. Yes, I know ‘strategic’ is one of the most over used words in ‘management speak’, but how many colleges look to five years ahead and identify the goal and put together the plan/ steps/ funding stages to achieve that goal? The following are key areas for consideration:

* Conduct an audit of computing needs for each department
* Establish a percentage of needs that could be met by energy efficient thin client applications (which are rapidly gaining in efficiency and effectiveness and can significantly reduce the refresh cycle)
* Review storage requirements, both current and projected, and consider alternatives to high energy ‘always on and spinning’ in-house storage (a space saving measure that may lead to regaining floor space)
* Assume some servers need to remain on site but move also towards virtualisation of servers
* Prepare to blend these with Cloud-computing and Software as a Service (SaaS) hosting.
* Consider ways to automatically ‘turn off’ the ICT infrastructure when not in use
* Be rigorous in monitoring energy use and balance this with system capacity
* Reduce printing by moving to strategically placed high efficiency multi function printers and print release tracking systems
* Move further to paperless systems using document handling systems that effectively copy and file existing paper documents (and consider how much floor space that would release!)
* Make an informed estimate that within very few years, all learners will bring a WiFi enabled device to college for personal use, and build a system that will allow them access to learning materials whilst protecting your systems
* Make another informed decision that learners like to access materials remotely and at time that suit them. 24/7 learning offers colleges real opportunities.
* Save petrol. Explore the role of Skype-style video for small group tutorials. Lecturers can deliver this from college or home. Also a great support for distance learning and extended hours.

So if that is some of the meat in the sandwich (there is more and much can be done without buying lots of kit) then how would it be achieved?

Well, it’s not news that it has to be a top down and bottom up approach. Whilst that sounds just like the posture one might have to adopt to connect a device to the back on your PC, it really means that there is often an imbalance between the management agenda and that of other staff. An ICT strategy has to be shared and owned by all before implementation. It is relatively simple to set this up but it requires a targeted effort that includes all staff and particularly departmental champions.

Ultimately all parties need to accept that ICT is ‘mission critical’. There can be no 21st Century education without ICT. If this premise is accepted then management, departments and individuals can begin to fully engage in driving that agenda in positive and sustainable steps that all parties can buy into.


Stephen Norris

Why do some educationalists not recognise the benefits of ICT?

I don’t for one minute believe I can answer this question in a few short sentences and I will not set out to. I do hope to illustrate some benefits recognised by those outside education yet supporting it.
Who wants to sit at a computer all day? Certainly not me!
Who wants to take longer than necessary to do a task or activity? Certainly not me!
Who wants to expose themselves to physical danger through a lack of knowledge or preparation? Certainly not me!

Although it is unpleasant to sit at a computer all day it has to be recognised in life, in business and in education that sitting at the computer is not only necessary to communicate but it is necessary for the production of many business outcomes. It is also necessary to improve the speed of production and the quality of these business outcomes. Very often the nature of the outcome is vastly enhanced too by the use of the computer.

At one time the computer associated with my work was a luxury for doing critical path analysis in new product development instead of working on paper. The computer beautifully and automatically identified key moments in development to make sure the right thing was being done to enable the new product to hit the market smoothly.
The computer then became an important device to support me at the end of the day whilst processing my evidence from classroom observations and interviews whilst inspecting schools.

It has now become an integrated part of my working life with ongoing connectivity for communication throughout the day for discussion and document sharing, a way into online documentation and national guidance, a tool for creating documents and presentations, a tool for capturing the views of staff and youngsters in schools and a storage device for the many agendas and meeting minutes.

There are some within education that do not value the contribution that the computer can bring; why is that? Do these people have a good understanding of the computer’s capability? Do these people appreciate the importance of the individual to effectively integrate with a computer when they leave school or college to operate productively in a business, scientific, technological or other employed or self employed environment?

If a student is not fully exposed to the wide range of functionalities of the computer they will not be ready and they will be disadvantaged. Students need to be able to engage effectively with the computer environment and in some cases be comfortable to learn using the technology in self motivated and self directed way. This doesn’t happen on its own!

Developments are ongoing to improve the technology available and also to improve the way technology is used. Within the last 10 years we have seen an incredible shift from the point where complex modelling software needed to run on a local PC, to the point where modelling can quite happily take place on the internet with real time cause and effect displayed well.

The Royal Society of Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Company Pfizer have teamed up to create the ‘Discover Chemistry Programme’. They are concerned about the future of the chemical industry and wish to promote skills in this area. One area of focus in this respect is an initiative linked to Bristol University to distribute Labskills software. This software allows students to experiment ‘virtually’ in the first instance and become familiar with the experimental environment and safety issues. The idea being that students are more confident when they enter the lab, and engage with the chemistry in a more meaningful and safe way.

Some in education would think it a surprise that the Royal Society of Chemistry would promote such virtual working. However, the educational environment is not ideal for all students and time constraints can inhibit the effective progress of many. It is seen very much as a supplement to real practical work.

I hope those in education that fail to see the benefit of ICT will recognise the benefits seen by the Royal Society of Chemistry and also be thankful to the commercial organisation Pfizer for their investment and similarly thankful to Bristol University for recognising the need and developing a virtual environment to make this happen.

I hope that the software is used in the spirit for which it is intended, is used appropriately and supplements the ‘real’ practical work of students. It would be a shame for students not to be able to use the software; it would be a disaster if it replaced real experiments through financial or curriculum constraints.

To read more about the Discover Chemistry Programme visit;

http://www.rsc.org/Education/DiscoverChemistry/index.asp

Brendan Geoghegan