The BETT Show at Olympia this year was really great for us. Lots of friends from all the years we’ve spent in the ICT ‘industry’ as a customer and now as a supplier. Brilliant and loved seeing both sides. The people we talked to ranged from Spanish Colleges through to Heads and leadership teams from UK primary, secondary, public & private sectors who all face the same challenge. They all had the same question:
“Do you do Facebook in schools?”
I heard that people don’t think the learning platform is dead quite recently too? Seems to me that this depends on how broad your definition is of these things and while there are lots of schools still with single BECTA spec platform systems out there, there are other people doing it differently.
My own view is that the learning platform in its original incarnation is deader than a dodo. The opportunities are much greater now to do this differently and the bloated beast of a learning platform that some schools still have will never be a place for parents to come into as well. Just my view.
Many years ago (before Facebook had captivated the masses) I don’t think I was along in buying into the dream that parents would log in to a VLE or suchlike and by osmosis we’d reach them with ‘great stuff’ and stimulate interaction and engagement but that was just a dream. The change management was too great and the costs – well don’t even go there.
Now it seems very simple to me. Go where your ‘customers’ are and if that’s Facebook you’ll want to be making your way down there soon. Yes – it’s their turf as much as it’s yours and yes you’ll feel like someone in fancy-dress at a formal dinner for a while but long term you’ll be glad you made the move.
