Finnberry does Ed-Tech

I've lost count of how many weeks it's been but I have now been working from home since 18th March. Now I am quite used to working from home, as I previously did two days in the office and the rest remotely. My husband, Neil did an occasional day working from home but largely was a daily commuter. There are some genuine concerns about letting staff work from home as a regular thing. One of these issues is whether it is really possible to keep team spirit and a sense of connectedness (is that even a real word?) I think this depends to a significant degree on the management of the team and the willingness of all members to engage online. This is where I am so lucky to be part of a team that gets on well, enjoys being connected and generally is willing to do whatever it takes to keep that team spirit high. We've been using Teams (part of the Microsoft 365 suite) to book and participate in online meetings. This afternoon, we had our weekly huddle. This is a 15 minute meet...

If I were in a position to start afresh with online learning provision, what would I choose? This is a question that I've been asking myself over the last few months. I guess it's really part of a bigger question of what our education system could look like if we built it from scratch, with no preconceived ideas of what it should be. So would I go for an all-singing, all-dancing VLE or would a combination of individual online tools be more useful? Would I be prepared to pay or should it be free? Are there certain things that are more important in adult learning than if I were in a school? So many questions! So many options! Somewhere down the line of thought processes, I ended up looking at Microsoft 365 for Education. That's where I'm currently at. This morning, I've been playing around with Microsoft Forms. Forms looks like a good-ish tool for doing quizzes and surveys. It would also lend well to learning activities where learners need to gather opinions o...