[Fsfe-uk] Friday's AGM - education and AFFS

[ian]

Hi,

I'm the one who talked about the Office of Fair Trading etc. Thanks for
giving me the opportunity to speak.

I was asked about perhaps providing some support for AFFS in the
education field. I would be pleased to do this and thought giving you a
quick resume of my background in this field might help. 

Taught in 4 LEAS and one independent school, mainly science and maths,
some PE. Involved in IT from the early BBC days. Built an intelligent
seismometer using a VELA data logger with my A level physics group which
involved writing a fairly crude assembler in BBC BASIC for the 6802
processor in the VELA - thems were the days ;-)

Appointed to Senior Management responsible for science and technology at
Kingshurst CTC, the first of the Tory Gov's flagship education project.
Full Panorama programme on the college, Midlands TV documentary, royal
visits etc and I showed the first reporter from the Times Educational
Supplement round so I'm used to dealing with TV and press in
controversial areas. Wrote an electronic registration and school
reporting system for the College because the "industry" people couldn't
get theirs to work properly for ages ;-) So I'm really a bit of a hacker
at heart.

>From Kingshurst moved to CTC Trust as curriculum director maths/science.
Devised Graphics animations for Central TV for Johnny Ball Reveals All
and a few other IT bits on the side like the mathematical model for a
hot air balloon flight simulator for Lloyds Bank. But gradually didn't
have time for more computer stuff. Most significant thing to come out of
the Trust was the Specialist Schools Programme which is now this
governments main "expensive" initiatives planned for all Schools.

Ended a 3 year contract with the Trust in 1993 and went freelance.
Helped schools apply for grants for building new science/tech labs and
to become specialist schools. I recently provided consultancy to
Southampton City Council on 3 new schools being built through the
Private Finance Initiative (PFI) so I have quite a lot of experience of
planning building and network infrastructure in schools. Also acted as
IT consultant for Tribal Group PLC in bids to take over failing LEAs.

Was a Registered Inspector with OFSTED and led around 15 inspections of
schools. I'm still an assessor for the National Professional
Qualification for Headteachers but don't have time or inclination to do
any more inspection or NPQH work. However, these qualifications give
credibility when dealing with Headteachers, DfES mandarins etc and Heads
have the most power in schools.

In 1998 set up IRL Computer Systems Ltd mainly as a result of demand
from consultancy clients to provide more flexibility and lower costs in
IT equipment supply. WOn Midlands small business of the Year in 2000. We
have 2 companies ZMS Ltd provides consultancy, a lot is related to
helping schools achieve specialist school status and the half million of
additional funding over 3 years that goes with it. IRL under the
trademark The Learning Machine provides equipment, in some cases to the
schools I get through for Specialist School Status. Since an element of
Specialist school status is to be innovative, its not too hard to get
some GNU/Linux built into the schools' plans and they have money for
equipment and training.

In summer 2001 we installed our first Desktop Linux school, Woodlands
Primary in Tonbridge in Kent in collaboration with Fen Systems. We still
have to do a lot of Windows stuff but our main interest is in expanding
the free software business and getting wider adoption. To this end I
have taken some individual steps:-

INGOT accreditation. see www.theINGOTS.org. This is designed to get into
a gap in the education accreditation system and provide an income
generator for key free software development that is needed to make
getting our free software networks into schools.

Links with Birmingham Uni. Just started to try and get undergraduate
projects to focus on free software development for schools

Alliance with Simply Click - this is a company providing enclosed web
site environment for school communities. They are keen to provide added
value through links to free software sources, promoting INGOTs etc. They
are already in nearly 200 schools including every school in Swindon LEA.
Web stuff seems to all work OK with Konqueror ;-)

Developing individual projects in schools. eg St Monica's Language
College a free software language lab is under discussion. School will
use some of specialist school grants and I have an ex-colleague looking
into European funding. I also have a couple of schools planning young
enterprise schemes to get pupils to refurb older computers, install and
set up free software on them and provide as a resource to the community.

Sorry this is so long, but unless we know what others are doing and what
expertise exists, we will not be able to make best use of the resources
available.I have probably missed some things but this should give you
the gist. Most of my work is at grass roots levels with schools. Once
this starts to get established I expect LEAs, BECTa et al will come to
us which is a better position to be in than constantly trying to shout
into deaf ears.

-- 
ian <address@hidden>