|
|
A window on education
An interview with Stephen Uden, Education Relations Manager, Microsoft UK
By Clare Richards |
Whatever you think of their global dominance, you can't ignore Microsoft in education: as in business, the company's products have become integral to the IT infrastructure of UK schools. Powerpoint and Word are almost as standard in the classroom as they are in the workplace. This prevalence is likely to increase since the signing of an agreement last year between Becta and the software giant, which guarantees schools lower prices for Microsoft products. Becta estimate that the deal will reduce the cost of software by 22-37% and save UK schools £46m over three years. This deal is very important for Microsoft too - not only will it help to embed their products in the education system, it will ensure that tomorrow's consumers are fluent in the use of Microsoft software.
At the other end of the spectrum is the open source movement - a difficult competitor for Microsoft in the education market, since open source software is free. Despite the open rivalry between the two sides, Stephen Uden, Education Relations Manager at Microsoft UK, has positive things to say about the open source movement: "It's provided an effective means of creating some types of application software, and has provided a great model for community support which we have learnt from when constructing teacher communities and IT professional support communities," he says. However, Stephen still believes that the commercial software route is the most effective way of developing 'mission critical' system software, something all schools need.
According to Stephen, Microsoft UK owes a lot of its success in the education market to the close relationship they have with schools: "Many of the people in the Education team are former teachers. We work directly with a network of 30 schools, and teachers and students are involved in the design of our products and programmes. We ran an event this year to get feedback from teachers on how Office should be developed for use in education, and the School Agreement licensing programme was developed in consultation with a panel of teachers and school leaders," he says. But will this close relationship lead to an increasingly industry-driven education system? "I don't think education should be driven by industry, but there is great value for all parties if industry gets more involved in education," says Stephen. "This can take the form of providing work-based learning opportunities or working with qualifying bodies to ensure that learning is relevant to the workplace," he says.
These ideas echo the recent report of the Tomlinson 14-19 Review, which Microsoft welcomes. "The reform of vocational education included in the diploma system is long overdue and will help us address the shortage of 30,000 skilled IT people," says Stephen. "We are particularly pleased at the removal of the artificial distinction between academic and vocational qualifications; after all, IT, medicine and law are all vocational subjects. We are also pleased with the inclusion of digital literacy as a core skill alongside literacy and numeracy. Already, 80% of jobs require use of a computer. This is not about teaching young people which button to press, it's about familiarity with finding, evaluating, synthesising and presenting digital information," he says.
Stephen is very positive about the role for computer games as engaging learning experiences and feels they are underused in schools. "When they come home from school, my children immediately pick up and play games that require them to manage resources, solve problems and make decisions," he says. "It's not a solitary, but a highly social activity, playing multiplayer, sharing tips and comparing performances," he says. Microsoft sees a lot of potential for the adaptation of existing games for learning environments, for example, they are working with US universities on using Zoo Tycoon 2 to develop an understanding of business. However, Stephen sees a bigger opportunity for games specifically designed for learning "without compromising the fun, immersive and engagement elements", he says. He uses history as an example: "imagine exploring Roman Britain, interacting with a number of representative characters on the way, to solve a mystery."
Looking to the future, does he think that classrooms and computer interfaces will look different in ten years' time? "I think that one thing we can say is that IT will become an integral part of the classroom, rather than something that students go off to do. Interaction with technology will be much less around typing and more around pointing and talking. Tablets and electronic whiteboards already favour pointing, and work on natural language recognition at Cambridge Research offers the prospect of a more verbal and intuitive interface than at present," says Stephen.
In terms of hardware, Stephen is very excited about the new Tablet computer: "it's such an intuitive and natural interface for young people to use". For all its high tech capabilities, the Tablet seems to me to be rather like an old school slate - but with a delete button rather than a damp sponge. Nevertheless, it is a slate through which you can store all your work, many resources and access the internet - undeniably useful, though presumably expensive. "Once a full array of application software is available and the hardware folks make them smaller and lighter, they will become a core element of classroom learning," predicts Stephen. If Microsoft has its way and schools are able to pay, it looks like the school bags of the future might be a lot lighter than they are now.
Links
Microsoft UK: www.microsoft.com/uk
Becta: www.becta.org.uk
November 2004
|
|
