Support
The development of educational computing in the UK began in the early 1970s. This has resulted in a wealth of knowledge, experience and artefacts. It is timely now to look at these materials and to represent them as an accessible and substantially complete collection of one nation’s pioneering and world-renowned innovation.
The archive needs support in the form of sponsorship, partnership and volunteers - please complete the volunteer form or contact Richard Millwood directly if you can help fund this vital project.
Aims
The proposal is to:
- disseminate the archive so that past successes (and failures) can better inform the future potential for learning with ICT;
- enhance the archive by using the internet, emulation, video digitisation and virtual reality techniques to provide access to artefacts which have become difficult to view, operate and maintain;
- expand the archive so that it represents the range of innovations and practice in educational computing with personal stories, interpretations and analyses.
Audience
Many will have an interest in this archive. Specifically:
- Public - parents interested in home & school learning with ICT, those interested in its history;
- Learners - children researching projects about technology and learning;
- Teachers, lecturers and trainers - in initial and in-service professional development;
- Researchers - engaged in policy, educational technology and pedagogical research worldwide;
- Educational managers - decision-makers considering purchase and implementation of ICT learning resources;
- Policy makers - regional and national decision makers when considering effective ICT strategies.
- Industry - eager to benefit from effective ideas and wishing to see their contribution over time.
Online visitors and face-to-face viewers of the archive will be encouraged to add their comments and stories.
Methods
The project will create specific interpretations and representations for each of the audiences and will enhance access to the archive in five ways:
- using multimedia, emulation and virtual reality techniques to provide interesting and stimulating representations of historical artefacts;
- recording in digital formats the experience of many of the participants in educational computing innovation in the form of oral and video histories;
- digitising existing video materials and software from the collection and indexing them for viewers to see how educational computing was pioneered;
- categorising and recording its collection in a publicly-available database on the internet;
- providing a publicly accessible location where the archive and all supporting resources can be used.
Objectives in 2015
- preserve the existing collection through finding suitable accommodation;
- employ staff / identify volunteers / recruit doctoral students to catalogue the existing collection;
- source additional artefacts to grow the collection;
- create an organisation with charitable status to permit a long-term, self-sustaining mechanism for funding;
- plan a representative, substantial national archive of UK educational computing which is open to the public;
- establish a world-wide-web site which publishes the searchable database of the archive collection and a selection of representations of software and hardware artefacts, personal records and official documents;
- Seek funding for the sustainability and activity of the archive.
