This Global Future School is a compilation of a number of projects and sources. It is designed to showcase the: (1) Extraordinary achievements of our partners (2) Ways in which people have communicated and collaborated on-line and off-line (3) Flexibility of this Community of Practice Software Support (COPSS).

* Physical world Engagement Process & Hothousing: Physical face-to-face meeting can be costly for many reasons: monetary, time, environmental and political. Hothousing offers a wonderful opportunity to maximise the value of a physical event as a focal point for a wider community build engagement process, interspersing physical with virtual presence using

* Virtual world Software Solutions: WIKI, messaging, forums and videoconferencing which now allow us to work together on-line ever more simply, easily, cheaply and quickly.

Lets see how it all fits together to provide our vision of a future school updated to December 2008! But just before, let's see the first time ever that Gorseland Primary and Kudawella came togeher in a virtual global school!

1 Thinking Green: from Ipswich to India...

The work started in Ipswich in June 2007 with a teach-in and work on generating zero cost energy by pedal power. The teach-in went well, all were fired with great enthusiasm, yet Tyler got a round of applause from all when he made the remark that he would:

only be smiling when we got this work out to the third world.

As you can see above, little did we imagine how quickly this might happen... The project was first presented at BT's AGM in July 2007. Then the ball really started rolling in BT's Adastral Park in September with a zero cost energy 'teach-in' by the Stoke and St Jo's students with Buhumba School, Uganda, East Bergholt, Suffolk and Nacton School, Suffolk. In an email that day, Stoke and St Jo's students were amazed (and so were we) to realise that their work had already been taken on by our partner school Katha, India...powering a computer!

Katha are a remarkable school... But even so, few of us would have made the connection of IT and the fundamentals such as water, power and sewerage. But Katha have take the Stoke and St Jo's work and gone way beyond in a remarkable way... Indeed, since this was written, the most amazing thing happened. Take a peek: In the first video, we see one of our young Ipswich stars explaining the Bike...then the Bike in the Katha New Delhi School,,,then in a home in New Delhi! India...then providing light in the home!

Building on this remarkable achievement, Stoke and St Jos are now working on the project 'Cool as Ice' looking at the idea of a cylinder shaped container, which sits on the two back wheels of a tricycle. The cylinder would have two compartments inside of it. One has a filter inside of it, which the water is also stored in. The second compartment is where the diseases and dirt from the water flow into. It will also have an outer layer in which a ultra-violet light source will be kept. When ultraviolet energy is absorbed by the bacteria and viruses, the DNA is rearranged and they can no longer reproduce. They are therefore considered dead and the risk of disease has been eliminated.

Here you see the original bike in pride of place in the school entrance hall, then two students showing you can be 'cool'  as well as hard working, then some deep thought, leading to first sketches, then building the LEGO model...then the model itself...watch this space!

Beautiful artwork from recycled materials!

Meanwhile, other schools are joining in and building up the ideas. The really exciting thing about this project from Parrs wood ECOClub working with Koch Goma is:   1 The students have done a lot of work and come up with some great ideas - fine 2 They now have a wonderful sounding board in Uganda with Koch Goma and David Renton of SCN - for two-way learning. 3 They will take these ideas and work them through the design process as part of their design technology curriculum - this is the new bit   As we have seen on other easiCOP projects its always a good start to have a cool idea  but its how to take it to delivery that counts. The wonderful Zero Cost Energy bike idea is testimony to this. A Google search will come up with hundreds of examples of this idea...but its how you take it through that counts.

Parrs Wood ECOClub have already undertaken work on recycling materials and compost. They have used recycled material in these beautiful artwork above and left, and also interviewed key players in the local environment. They have also come up with ideas for water purification (middle picture) and generating light (right).

On my recent visit 10th December, over and above the sheer abundance of ideas however, was the appreciation of the local and global requirement, that solutions from UK might or might not work in Uganda but also that there might be good ideas in Uganda which can be used in the UK local environment.

And this is why its exciting! The idea is the start - its how you take it through the design process that counts. And this will be done as part of the core Design Technolgy curricular activity. That is what Parrs Wood intend to do...more to come! 

And last but not least, at the November 19th 2008 Hothouse, we introduced two new continents to the community with a super video from El Segundo California on their water project with Mexico! 

NB WE can show videos in various ways - click on the image to see this one!

2 Software

There has been much project based activity concerning both the Community of Practice software used in easiCOP and also the Virtual Learning Environment  requirement for schools. The resulting software and applications are presented at the bottom of this section but the intial work is important to describe how the software evolved to meet user requirements.

The initial work with Stoke and St. Jo's also emcompassed software applications work on our easiCOP (this web site) and virtual learning environment (VLE), alongside evaluation of devices notably the $100 dollar laptop intiative and the Apple iTouch. The original easiCOP software application developed supports the community of practice of students, teachers, developers...and all the other members of the community. It uses free opensource Joomla language and modules and is offered to others interested in supporting their own community. It (easiCOP) has a learning platform which uses the same Joomla language and modules. The VLE module is a (variously called) on-line 'learning platform' or 'virtual learning environment' which was developed by Xavier of MTDAnywhere working with BT and Stoke High School, Ipswich to provide the 'proof of concept' - meaning it all works but its not been used for real. And the big question we asked was: How easy is it to take the package and develop it for real? We hoped the open source application could be:

1 Taken on by school or community developers, who would then

2 Develop and take ownership, and being closest to the end users

3 Deliver a fit-for-purpose application

Brownhills Community Technology College has led the development and Watling Street Primary school was the first to go live with our open source Joomla based Education and Social Inclusion Application (EASI). The Brownhills team have developed a very different variant for their own Brownhills Community Technology College, both can be seen below:

The user reaction and developer views are very encouraging:

Headteacher: I am really impressed with how bright and colourful the vle is. It looks professional yet appropriate for a primary school. It is a lot easier to use and navigate than some of the vle's we have tested previously. I like the different menus for pupils, teachers admin staff and parents. Galleries are very good - a professional looking front page. Also very pleased to see our ofsted rep[ort on the front!

Network Manager: We have experimented with several 'free' and 'costly' vle's and from a development point of view the 'Easiapp' has got so much going for it, very easy to adapt and use from both user and admin points of view.

Developer: When I started on the project I had never heard of Joomla or easyapp but after an hour of 'having a play' I found it so easy to customise and use, the best part for me is the ease with which the appearance and feel can be changed without any technical knowledge - FAB

and most recently, we get to the real guts of it as expressed by Teacher and Children: Feed back has been very positive. One class even commented that it looked like the teacher had put more effort into her lesson :) but she assures me it actually took her less time to plan and setup which is a real bonus. Other pupils have commented on how nice it is to have a more interactive lesson and a change from your 'normal' interactive whiteboard lessons.

Students Jon, Nikki and Stephen also have a favourable impression: They take a very pragmatic view. Take a peek!

Fundamentally, the VLE helps them do their work - with useful self management tools reminding them what/when work is required and remote access from home - judged very important. Interestingly, and in contrast to our previous thinking, they DONT want a entertainment type Bebo site - its 'horses for courses'...

Most recently, the team are delivering the Brownhills IT services as a thin client using the £200 ASUS mini-laptop, which interestingly enough has a handcrank...which the school are looking at as a zero cost energy activity... As this project evolves globally, our objectives are to provide a resource which local developers can take over and own, and in doing so work closely with the end users. 

COP Software Launch at November 19th Global Hothouse

The Community of Practice software used by easiCOP was launched at the November 19th Global Hothouse. It allows each project to be managed by a Project Manager - with an array of (allegedly :-) easy-to-use WEB 2.0 support tools including the Dashboard (not visible to a visitor).  

The software can be used to support other Communities Of Practice. Joining a community or setting up a new community depends on the purpose/objective/challenge and whether a community is big enough and/or wishes to assert its own identity. A whitepaper on Community Building addresses this question.

The modules can be put together to form a very powerful VLE (Virtual Learning Environment) reaching from the school to the local and global community. However, we recognise that most schools have their own preferred VLE solution and so it has been very important that modules can be used separate to or fully integrated with a single log-in to existing VLE's.

Modules are:

• VLE including learning management, WEB 2.0 communication tools, (email, blog, forum, chat, student and staff timetables 3rd party applications (thin client), dynamic interface based on user logon)
• Visual interfaces and front end portal to provide extra functionality and an attractive and usable interface to an existing VLE
• DATASync cross database agent module allowing integration between different database-driven applications such as a SIMS interface for an Assessment for Learning application or Timetable generation. 

Here are four projects showing the school VLE, extending to a local community VLE, working globally with easiCOP and a mobile solution for the local community. Click on the pics below to go to the projects:

Brownhills Community Technology College VLE

Brownhills Community Association VLE

Extending Globally

Local mobile community solution

3 Hothousing and Videoconferencing

It is perhaps a surprise to some that it can be extremely difficult to provide usable technology that works...in a school. In many cases, students at home are using much more sophisticated technology than they can use at school. This is due to school network and understandable security reasons in many cases. The challenge is: How can we develop something that gives us both - easy to use yet safe and secure?

Brownhills, Stoke took on an ambitious challenge to provide a 27 screen video wall: The school has a large ethnic minority population, and a diversity of cultures. We are looking to promote this diversity and range of cultures to support the education of the pupils and promote integration in school and in the community. 29% of pupils have a first language which is not English: there are 26 languages identified as first languages Punjabi 12%, Urdu 10%, Turkish 1%, Kurdish 0.7%, Pashto 0.4%, Polish 0.2% & 1.5% (other home languages for single pupils include Chichewa, French, Gujarati, Portuguese, Russian & Tagalong).

This activity, by Brownhills, Stoke-On-Trent, sometimes painfully, sometimes humourously, periodically triumphally, provides a developing 'idiot's guide' to overcome technical communications barriers to achieve happy smiling faces:-) You have to read the project which is essentially a log, but after various trials and tribulations the first amazing experience for most of us was when I was invited to appear on the class whiteboard - clear as a bell! The significance of this can only be appreciated by those who have gone through the pain! Once this was achieved, the project moved rapidly on with a Nov 26th update from the Brownhills Stoke team:

Despite the 6,000 mile distance, the video and audio were surprisingly clear and all were able to make themselves understood. The response time was almost instantaneous, with little delay at all. One can only imagine...This is the way forward, we are sure, to be able to deliver into schools a way of broadcasting lessons from around the world that will, as one of our students put it quite succinctly, 'Revolutionise education'.

We have come a long way...We are flexing our muscles videoconferencing globally, as can be seen from these wonderful screensaves when working with Buhumba School, Uganda - who have no electricity... The screenshots capture the moment when Buhumba students Mujuni and Jovias see a computer, Internet and themselves on WEBCam for the first time ever!

Below are two young people in England and Sri Lanka working together:

Some spectacular videoconferences can be seen on the iCOOK website: How do we webcam?! 

Perhaps our most amazing experience putting the technology together was at the Novemer 19th2008 Global Hothouse in London:

Latest feedback...TEACHER: How fantastic the day was. There is such a buzz...a lasting memory...truly an amazing experience and one which will lead to greater things . SENIOR ADVISOR: An amazing experience for the young people as well as adults! Fabulous job keeping everyone engaged...technology and communication across the world...how did you coordinate all that????!!! BT VOLUNTEER: I feel enriched for having been involved as a volunteer...event was a great success in many ways...the children and teachers enjoyed it...I cherish further personal and professional development opportunities. GLOBAL CHARITY PARTNER: Such a great opportunity and definately the way we want to go...I love the user-generated content and I LOVED the live video conference...So inspiring! TEACHER: Whirlwind of activity, especially meeting children from other schools and of other ages...confidence has sky rocketted, a day we will talk about for a long time...learn about other schools projects and solutions to real problems. TEACHER: Lovely to hear how all these amazing projects are progressing and transforming lives...it really was an amazing day

(Click here to see this in Chinese!)  (or Hindi!) (For fun)

We held our second London hothouse on November 19th  from 1-5pm at BT Centre, 81 Newgate Street, London, across from St Paul's tube station...and also by videoconference with Parvinder and children from Katha, New Delhi, India!  See the:

 Hothouse pictures on iCOOK by Sue..or the Animoto Video by Hardev

which capture the event better than I ever could. Please take a look if/whenever you need cheering up! Here's a couple!

In the first we see the students speaking with Katha, India live: How amazing to link up across the world as we did and hear your children sing Happy Birthday to Jared (2nd left)  In the second, there is a little story attached: We dont usually award personal prizes to students - we use any money for our global schools. But, on this occasion, my 5 year old grandaughter and her friend made 20 handpainted mugs...and everybody seemed to want one! So I asked our Hothouse students: 'Who doesn't want one? and one hand only went up - from the boy in the second picture. When I asked him why he didnt want one he replied: Because I've had so much fun already!  So...by common consent, he was awarded the first ever easiCOP prize winning mug!

And we had a fabulous day! Here's a wonderful video from the Hothouse with some cool dancers! (borrowed from the Rhythm N Beans project for a couple of days). It's a big file to download but....it's worth it! especially if you were one of the dancers! NB Controls might be hard to see at the bottom... Click here or on the image to see!

4 Supporting Educational Communication and Collaboration

All of the above technology developments are to support educational activities as in these lovely innovative projects described below: The first section decribed the first year school-to-school projects. The second describes how three wonderful projects have grown to go beyond single pairs - to hopefully fully leverage user-generated exter content!

Single school-to-school projects

Buhumba School, Uganda together with East Bergholt Primary, Suffolk 9-10 year olds have come up with some wonderful ideas for a WEB site – focusing on lifestyle similarities and differences, learning and games!  East Bergholt and Buhumba Uganda have already developed a rich relationship in activities such as below. The East Bergholt children are having fun learning how to build a Buhumba brick oven, and the Buhumba child is showing how the oven is lit...but they have never met each other...

David Renton of SCN-UK the charity responsible for the Buhumba Lunch programme has has helped the schools build the partnership. David enlisted the services of Ann who has the internet cafe in Kabale.

David explained that a Cambridge company/charity gave the computers she has (5 so far), and the Buhumba images of Mujumi and Jovias in the section above are from the Internet cafe!

It was a wonderful moment when we saw the Buhumba students on the WEBCAM - it was their first experience of a computer, Internet or WEBCAM ever. Mujuni and Jovias, visa permitting, will be visiting us with Headmaster Jackson in the New Year! ...

In January, 2008 Jackson, Mujuni and Jovais did indeed visit the UK and attended our regional Hothouse in Suffolk. Mujuni won the video competition and...rather incredibly used the £100 to...build a school building!

From the May edition of beansTALK! we find that:

Mujuni's £100 prize became 330,000 Ugandan shillings and has been used to complete some school builidings which had stood half-built for years. The prize was timely as it enabled the school to take advantage of an offer from the District Council for 100 roofing sheets, which would have been no good without the bricks they mad and used to build the walls thanks to Mujuni!

Nacton Primary are working with Katha, India on storysacks! with the Nacton school teddy VISITING India!

The first pictures captures the moment when the Nacton children looked at the storysack brought over from India. It contained fascinating stories, finger puppets and much more.

As Headmistress said: We are at the start of a journey

 This journey included the Nacton Teddy visiting India, where he was received by the Katha children days before Christmas 2007.

THIS IS THE PICTURE USED AS THE BACKGROUND FOR THE EASICOP FRONT PAGE!

These pictures serve to remind us that our project is primarily about human-to-human relationships, which technology can support and enhance. 

Kudawella Primary School, Sri Lanka and Gorseland Primary School, Ipswich are working together on a fascinating WEB site called iCook! focussing on food but in doing so, going far beyond to tell us how people live! They've already featured it on TV!

This collaboration offers many possibilities to explore and contrast healthy eating, global differences and learning, local peoples’ recipes. There are many synergies with the East Bergholt/Buhumba and Nacton/Katha projects.

After the Tsunami struck Sri Lanka in 2004, Gorseland school twinned with Kudawella School in the Hambantota district on the southern tip of Sri Lanka via the Adopt Sri Lanka Twins Project. Gorseland wanted both to raise money for the Kudawella school children and maintain communication for ongoing support, friendship and joint projects.

The schools are keen to explore how they can integrate curriculum areas with global communication from both cultures. The schools want to understand how a community of practice, where they can share experiences and harness social networking, can enhance the experience of pupils from both schools.

Most recently, the Kudawella first time experience with Internet, and their work on it, was reported in an email from the Gorseland teacher:

Just received this from Samanthi. I think it's wonderful. To think this is the first time the children have 'met' the Internet and then seen their own work on it! This is one of your 'wow' moments!

I think this is the sort of thing we have all been looking for, so I've forwarded it to Tony and Tim. (And Darron). Talk about global communication!

Since then...we have really taken off and on May 22nd had a first Gorseland - Kudawella international, MOBILE, videoconference. Even more wonderful perhaps, we found that the Kudawella school had used their Gorseland BT prize money of £1000 to replace their school band intruments and costumes lost in the Tsunami AND provide Internet facilities and monthly Internet bill. We can't wait until we see and hear the band live over the Internet!  Have a listen to the school band!

Multi- school projects featuring expert user generated content and resource

Here are some wonderful projects which have evolved from these activities! Take One Tune, Rhythm N Beans and iCOOK! See more of these wonderful projects on:

The Rhythm ‘n’ Beans Project is all about making a real connection between children in Suffolk and the community of Buhumba in Uganda through films, photos and activities. We hope to challenge the stereotypical ideas children and adults in the UK may have about Africa and encourage respect and understanding. The films and photos take you on a journey to the green and fertile hills of Buhumba, there learn about the children's school and home-life, listen to their thoughts on education, their dreams for the future and find out about their ecological impact on our Planet. And what can we learn from Buhumba to improve our lives and build stronger communities for the future? You'll be amazed at just how much the children of Buhumba can teach us!  Here's the video from Uganda!...and here is when Irene came over to teach us to dance!

The iCOOK site compares life in Gorseland Suffolk with Kudawella Sri Lanka, and on iCOOK Sue reports perhaps the biggest step so far!

 iCook!

5 Encouraging Self Esteem and Aspirations

For some in the so-called first world, the most important objective of education is to foster self-esteem and aspirations. Some of our UK teachers have reported that this is a big, growing problem. In contrast, perhaps surprising to some, our UK teachers with global experience have reported that their third world partner students have greater self-esteem and aspirations, for example India:

This offers a huge two-way learning opportunity...

In Peckham, England, Abdullah Ben-Kmayal runs young people football teams Bethwin.

Skeikha Bint Nasser Al Missned addresses the need for social inclusion be it in the 1st, 2nd or 3rd world:

We need to focus on our youth because it is the next generation who will construct the ethic and a new understanding between ‘West’ and ‘Islam’. It is time we stopped looking at youth population as a problem to be solved, both in the Middle East and Europe, and depend on them to be part of the solution.

Looking to the future, a wonderful opportunity for global learning is offered by the Olympics. During the bid for the 2012 Olympic Games, the BT Education Programme worked with a partner to develop some ideas for Communication and Collaboration activities based around the Olympic Games in 2012. The overall idea is to create a long term project in a number of schools which will chart the Community changes influenced by the Olympics preparations in the UK, but particularly the London East End. The project will be media and arts/drama based, but its pedagogical goal will be a focus on Speaking and Listening skills enhancements for the participants. It will be a long term project covering the 6 years to the Olympics and include a conclusion following the completion of the Olympics year.

We have already made a start with sport with a wonderful opportunity to support the long term Essex - Jiangsu cultural exchange starting with a sports project involving fourteen Essex schools paired with fourteen schools in China.

We will take an already planned exciting sporting activity and provide prior, during and post communication and collaboration support using easiCOP. WE also add a third 'C' which we believe will be very important: Coaching.

Read all about it...in Chinese!...or in English!

 体育馆田径节

艾塞克斯－江苏体育合作与交流

（运用体育作为抓手来推动埃塞克斯郡和江苏省之间的教育和文化交流）

  一种独特的以社区支持贯穿始终的体育节活动 

6 Full circle: Thinking Green from Ipswich to India

The achievements have been inspirational. Imagine Tyler who, at our kick-off meeting for zero cost energy in Ipswich, got a round of applause from all when he made the remark that he would:

only be smiling when we got this work out to the third world.

The work by Stoke and St Jo's has received wide acclaim within educational circles,notably in the Times Educational Supplement and featured in a keynote presentation video and case study at the Specialist Schools Technology Conference 2008.

We salute also the wonderful work of Katha. Katha is a very expert inspirational school and who demonstrate with Stoke and St Jo's that learning is very much two-way between first and third world.

We salute, in particular, the teachers because it is they who at the end of the day go the extra mile to make it possible for their children to achieve these wonderful things.

And we conclude with Tyler's best moment when he saw the zero cost energy bike being used in the New Delhi home...to generate electricity...to create light...to allow this young child to...Take a peek:

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tony.houghton   |SAdministrator |2008-12-17 13:10:11 Latest additions Dec12 2008

tony.houghton   |SAdministrator |2008-12-12 17:29:18 This version of the Global Future School was updated just after the 2nd Global Hothouse London Nov 19th 2008

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