Today is the last day to have your say ...

... for submissions to the DCSF consultation document 'Home Access to Technology'.

This consultation seeks views on the proposed Home Access programme that aims to ensure that every family with 5-19 year old learners in England has access to learning where and when they need it through access to ICT resources and support at home.

The executive summary is worth a read.

One of the key aims of the proposals is that:
...This will allow all learners to engage with the curriculum beyond the school day and extend their learning into areas that match their interests, abilities and aspirations. Also learners will develop the skills they will need to pursue and drive their learning and participate fully in the digital world.

The major worry comes from sustainability and support.

Becta have said:
Becta is currently undertaking its third devices mini-competition on behalf of the Access to technology at home initiative. From the information provided by LAs about their requirements and initial feedback by suppliers, particularly at BETT, Ultra Mobile PCs (UMPCs) will feature quite strongly in the mini-competition.

To assist LAs and suppliers in this process Becta has produced a brief technical overview about the suitability of UMPCs as part of proposed solutions for Access to Technology at Home. This information is provided as a generic technical overview and is as far as is practicable independent of brand, instead focusing on key features; the benefits and the challenges that present themselves when considering large scale roll outs of such technologies.

This looks like a big opening for the Asus miniBook, Elonex ONE etc but what a weight of expectation will be places on LAs to administer.

The Functional Expectations of the programme are interesting:

Learning experience

Home Access users shall:

• be able to use solutions to access information on their personal learning goals and progress against them
• have access to a wide range of online learning resources
• have access to a wide range of tools that allow the creation and manipulation of multi-media texts
• be able to access multiple applications and services simultaneously
• have access to a range of collaborative tools and opportunities to share and work with others.

Users should feel ‘ownership’ of their personal educational experiences and the home access solution.

Home access should deliver benefits, especially to families and the community, beyond involvement in the formal educational experience.

Learning environment

Home Access users shall:

• have access to the online learning platform services used by the establishment(s) the learner attends
• be able to continue learning experiences begun in-school when out of school, and vice versa
• be entitled to a solution that protects the user from inappropriate contact and content and ensures data security and integrity regardless of location
• have access to solutions to recover data in event of failure or disaster and restore their ability to engage in their learning in a reasonable time frame.

Home Access users should:

• be able to experience high quality online learning experiences both in-school or college and out-of-school or college
• experience a familiar set of learning experiences over a reasonable length of time
• have a wide choice of home access solutions.

Learning support

School, college and other educational infrastructure shall be capable of supporting a variety of services to all home access users concurrently.

Educational establishments shall be supported, motivated, and measured against changing pedagogy to take advantage of home access.

Home Access users shall have access to formal user support (educational and technical) when needed and within a locally agreed time frame.

There is this bit tucked away at the bottom of the above section:
Educational establishments shall be supported, motivated, and measured against changing pedagogy to take advantage of home access. Notice the word 'measured' in there.

It is fairly obvious to me that there is going to have to be a real shake up in how children/parents/students/teachers access what they want where they want and on what their preferred tool is. Many will have mobile kit that they simply want to use to access a variety of networks. At the moment few schools encourage students to bring in their own equipment and many positively ban usage because (and I hope that this is the reason) their systems can't cope.

I sense exciting times ahead.