The funding tap
Water Tap II by damozeljane I recall a time when we were offered money to fill our schools with more technology by building small distributed small "pods" of computers. It seemed as if we did this before we could engage in discussions what we could do in these small rooms. I was on a union advisory board and had the deepest respect for the departmental facilities manager who did his best without a teaching background to explain what he as trying to do and what the building program was trying to achieve.
The bath started rocking when I asked for the research evidence that underpinned this eLearning initiative, citing small case studies that were interesting but hardly evidence of improved learning outcomes. I suspect that nobody wanted create a splash by test the depth of the learning pedagogy underpinning these works in case it would turn off the funding tap. It is a pity that the really hard questions were not being asked.
Given that schools were allowed to spend around 10% of the grant money on architect fees, I wonder how much on these projects should be spent on reviews and basic research .. or perhaps even teacher training?