The document discusses the use of Collaborate, an online collaboration tool, in schools in Northern Ireland. It notes that Collaborate is available to over 20,000 adult users through the Education Network for Northern Ireland. The education minister announced a new contract that will provide schools greater flexibility and access to online resources. However, getting teachers to adopt new technologies like Collaborate poses challenges to the existing culture and practices. Developing structured partnerships between schools helped encourage use of Collaborate for shared education projects. Face-to-face interactions via Collaborate helped build understanding between students from different communities. Principal support was also key to the success of these online collaboration initiatives.

1. The use of Collaborate in schools
in Northern Ireland – Needs Must!
Eamon McAteer, C2k
eamon.mcateer@c2kni.org.uk

2. Context
• Education Network for Northern Ireland (ENNI)
• Started on 1st April 2012
• Providing IT Infrastructure for 1,100 schools
• Single sign-in portal, MySchool
• Range of eLearning tools
• Collaborate available to 20,000+ adult users in the system
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3. In announcing the new contract the Education Minister,
John O’Dowd said:
• “This significant contract, representing an investment
of just under £170million over the next 5 years, will
offer schools greater flexibility and choice.
• “It will give teachers and pupils access to the best
learning resources from across the world and will bring
these resources into the classroom. Access to the
‘digital classroom’ and its e-learning tools, lessons
and resources will also be possible from any internet
connected device, 24 hours a day - allowing teachers,
pupils and parents to work in real partnership to
support learning.
• “The communications and e-learning elements of the
service will support real collaboration between schools
allowing them to work together to deliver a shared3

4. Changing Culture
• Challenge to embed eLearning in the practice of busy teachers
• Does the technology work?
• Why use Collaborate and not Skype/Facetime?
• Do I have the skills?
• What are the benefits?
• Do the children know more than I do about videoconferencing?
• Why not dedicated videoconferencing equipment?
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5. Emerging Issues
• Time – focus on numeracy and literacy
– Not directed to eLearning
– “Never enough time”
– Some schools dedicated time by committing to a partnership with another
school
• Change –
– Some schools saw massive opportunities for eLearning but didn’t know
how to gauge who was doing what
– Some schools fully engaged with staff to measure their needs and
requirements for training and support
Everyone was positive about the changes and benefits of
benefits of eLearning

6. Issues relating to uptake
Positive + Negative -
Anywhere/Anytime Time constraints
Skilling pupils Teacher skill level
Statutory requirements Change Management
Motivating pupils Lack of Strategy

7. Small group activity (7 minutes)
• Break into groups of 4 or 5, ideally not from your institute/city
• Appoint a chair/speaker
• List three interesting facts about your country/city/culture and
make another statement up, in other words a lie!
• We will quickly ask the speakers to read their four statements, we
will vote as to which isn’t true
• Hopefully this activity will show the breadth and depth or
backgrounds those people in the room have
• Did we have fun? Did we learn?
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8. Developing a culture of Collaboration
• Training alone wasn’t enough
• Needed a structure for teachers/schools to buy into
• Must be simple
• What were their needs….Shared Education? But How?
• A mix of synchronous and asynchronous online learning activities
• Generic topics that all schools could buy into and wasn’t
dependent on timing or school curriculum
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9. Our School Project – eLearning Partnerships
• 6 week initial programme
• Broken into the following weekly topics
– Our School
– Our Food
– Our Sports
– Our Role Models
– Our Jobs
– Our Holidays
• Shows similarities and differences in the communities and builds
understanding
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10. Collaborate in Shared Education
• While the use of aVLE is extremely important to exchange
• Face to face via Collaborate helps develop friendships that can
break down barriers
• When the children meet physically they have a sense of knowing
each other
• Trust and enthusiasm with teachers is important
• Principal support and engagement is key
• No parental disapproval or questions from either school
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11. Questions?
• Have you any questions or comments?
• Thank you for listening and participating in this presentation!
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