It’s official, training had a low priority in 2005. Remember ESTUICT (Enhancing Subject Teaching Through the Use of ICT)? Silly question, of course you don’t. It is a well-kept secret. ESTUICT was a program of online training designed to be a follow-up to the chequered training scheme funded by the New Opportunities Fund and run by the Teacher Training Agency – it is understood to have cost millions. Unfortunately, schools did not want to buy it so the DfES decided to give it away – except it still hasn’t been done. Apparently it will be launched as a free online service in the near future.
Something you can do now or anytime is Atomic Learning. Atomic Learning is simple. It is just-in-time learning, learning on demand. You must have been on a course where you have been told too much or told something you did not need or thought you already knew. Weeks later you realise that something you snoozed through is needed but it is too late, the course is over and your notes are not clear.
The software for Atomic Learning is web based. Say you want to learn an aspect of Word. You see a screen that looks like Word and a voice talks you through what you need to learn as the mouse moves across the screen showing the actions that you will eventually need to do. Each segment of training is short (one to three minutes). They are easy-to-understand videos that provide answers that you need to know. Want to know how to download a video from a video camera into Microsoft MovieMaker? Simple, go to the Atomic Learning site, find the short video (easy to do) and then play it. Even better, if you are still not clear you can play it again. How often have you failed to understand something on a course but were afraid to ask in case your failings were exposed to everyone in the room? You can play these lessons again and again and no one will think any the worse of you.
The range of tutorials covers most of the common applications for PC and Apple. StarOffice and OpenOffice are also covered. The best way to make up your mind if this style of teaching and learning suits you is to look at the tutorials for Windows MovieMaker. Those are completely free. Everything else is available through subscription.
You can buy subscriptions so that the tutorials can be made available to everyone on the staff and the costs vary according to the size of the school (some education authorities are getting subscriptions for all their schools).
