Jon Case, Chief Executive Birchfield Interactive discusses the benefits of procuring SCORM-compliant curriculum-mapped content for learning platforms and how this can ensure consistency for ICT and huge cost savings for LAs!
Hot on this year's school agenda is the learning platform; a personal online space for students to ensure they can work anytime, anywhere and required to be in place in every secondary school as we speak. Once a Local Authority has this in place for its schools, whether just one uniform platform or several different ones, what's the next step?
All state secondary schools within England should, by now, have established personal online learning spaces for their students. These spaces form part of a wider set of technologies called a learning platform, offering safe and secure access to learning resources 24 hours a day, plus tools for monitoring, assessing, communication and collaboration.
The DCSF and BECTA's current stated objective is to create a consistent platform for the deployment of educational resources, thus allowing schools to purchase curriculum content and plug it into their learning platforms, safe in the knowledge that it will work first time. However, this will only become a reality if learning platforms and educational content suppliers work to a consistent set of standards such as SCORM.
SCORM stands for Sharable Content Object Reference Model. It is an XML-based framework designed to facilitate moving course content and related information (such as student records) between learning platforms, and to disaggregate course content into modular objects for reuse in other courses. Some teachers, perhaps sceptical of the value of a learning platform, have been quick to raise concerns about the simplicity and security of SCORM. Nevertheless, if learning platforms are to make a valuable contribution to secondary school education, the acceptance of a set of standards such as SCORM is essential.
Some local authorities, to justify their recent investment in learning platform technology, are encouraging teachers to upload hundreds of downloadable worksheets, copyrighted extracts from books and multiple-choice quizzes. Is this really the best way for a local authority to maximise its investment in learning platforms, and take education forward?
If we are to convince students to log onto a learning platform from home, it has to be populated with something more appealing than PowerPoint presentations and Word documents previously available from the likes of a school intranet. Surely the best way to get staff and students to start using a learning platform is to populate it with professionally produced, SCORM-compliant educational content.
A learning platform is much more than an electronic notice board or filing cabinet. It's a means of personalising education, of allocating specific resources to specific students and automatically tracking their progress, as well as enabling staff throughout a school to benefit from a common set of resources. Thankfully, commercially-produced SCORM-compliant content can meet all of these elements.
It's true to say that curriculum content suppliers, with some notable exceptions, have been slow to develop SCORM-compliant educational resources, no doubt concerned by the high costs involved and the pending disappearance of e-learning credits. However, BETT 2008, the largest educational ICT show in Europe, proved that high quality SCORM-compliant content is now available; so local authorities shouldn't spend their entire budgets on a platform without setting aside at least some money for content.
What, then, are the advantages of a local authority centrally purchasing SCORM-compliant content for schools?
The most obvious advantage is price. Local authorities possess greater bargaining power than individual schools. As a result, they should be able to drive down the cost price of commercially-supplied educational content and make their budgets go further. The London Grid for Learning, which represents 33 local authorities, has been particularly proactive in its discount requests to commercial suppliers. Individual local authorities are unlikely to benefit from the same level of discount as the London Grid for Learning, but a discount should still be obtainable, dependent upon the number of schools they are purchasing for.
Linked with this, as part of any central purchase, local authorities can also demand additional "extras", such as a minimum number of future updates, perhaps lifetime as opposed to time-sensitive licenses, or even minor tinkering of the content to specifically match the needs of their schools.
Teachers will also reap the benefits. Few teachers have the time, even if they possess the necessary multimedia skills, to produce SCORM-compliant curriculum content equal to the resources available from the leading external suppliers. This issue technically shouldn't even arise, as teachers are paid to teach, openly debate and stimulate, rather than waste valuable hours trying to produce their own multimedia resources. Keith Phipps at King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Boys, for example, calculated his school's purchase of Birchfield's KS3-4 content to be the equivalent of 33 teacher days at £150 per day. In return the school received major coverage of the 11-16 curriculum for 15 subjects - over 16,000 resources in total. Suffice to say, he believes they've got great value for money.
Perhaps the biggest advantage open to any central purchase of SCORM-compliant content, though, is the opportunity it presents for collaboration. A central pillar of learning platform philosophy, such collaboration goes far beyond standardising lesson plans and resources within a school. Local authorities that centrally purchase SCORM-compliant content will not only offer a level playing field in terms of the quality of resources available to their students, regardless of the school they attend. They could even encourage content sharing between their schools, without fear of infringing copyright or intellectual property rights. This is because the licensing arrangements for externally-produced content are usually location or institution specific. The most forward-thinking authorities could even insist upon access for partner schools such as primary feeders for a nominal fee.
The case for centrally purchasing at least some SCORM-compliant content, then, is a robust one, and any authority following this path will undoubtedly encourage its schools to quickly reap the benefits of learning platform technology. That leaves one final question - how can a local authority procure SCORM-complaint content?
The answer's quite simple. Take a look at the suppliers listed in the 2008 BETT Directory. Ask BESA for a list of curriculum content suppliers. Undertake an audit of commercial (non-VLE) software previously purchased by your schools. Or, if all else fails, give us a call!
Further information about Birchfield Interactive can be obtained by contacting Anthony Evans, Head of Marketing; tel: 0800 915 6616, e-mail: aevans@birchfield.co.uk or visit the web site at: www.birchfield.co.uk.