Engaging with Home Access

I have no brief to write about the e-Learning Foundation except my own impressions of their work over a number of years. Possibly even before Home Access was a glint in Becta's eyes, the e-Learning Foundation was delivering a much needed service to schools, families and other needy institutions.

Their low-cost lease-buy scheme has enabled many schools to deliver home access and encourage independent and collaborative learning. They have developed a clear expertise in this field and are thus able to draw the highest quality speakers to their conferences. Not only that, they have a number of very useful videos which may be extremely useful for promos at parents/governors meetings etc.

Given that Becta's Home Access Programme will enable many deprived families to gain on-line access and secondly that the more well-off communities may have adequate on-line access there is still clearly a 'shadow-land' of schools lacking equipment or families that don't have access and do not fall within the free school meals category.

As schools move towards that dreamland of 100% home access and when teachers discover that teaching and learning will change dramatically it is essential that the 'shadow-land' families are supported. This, I believe is where the e-Learning Foundation will meet a clearly identified need.

There are two aspects to this solution. Certainly as the e-Foundation has done in the past, there will be a need for for ensuring the provision of appropriate equipment either for schools or families. But secondly, and perhaps more importantly in my view, the e-Learning Foundation is in a position to co-ordinate the support of both parents and pupils in the usage of the equipment. And, yet again, I see the take-up of e-Portfolios as central to all of these activities.

If the previous conference in Leeds was anything to go by, the conference in November will provide an excellent insight into many aspects of the potential see-change in teaching and learning that is about to happen.

See their programme at: http://www.e-lf.co.uk/autumn-09/