Research by both industry body Besa and Becta, the government's education technology agency, has highlighted a degree of reluctance among schools to embrace learning platforms. According to the Besa study, only 42% of primary schoolteachers use learning platforms and 22% of primary schools have no plans to implement one. Meanwhile, the Becta survey makes the point that, "it may be difficult to reach the [government] target for all schools to be making full use of learning platforms by 2010."
If individual schools are failing to accept the benefits of learning platforms by themselves, would a more centralised, directed strategy be more effective?
Avoiding the piecemeal approach, Glow is the world's first national intranet for education. Managed by Learning and Teaching Scotland (LTS) and delivered by RM, the educational computer and software supplier, Glow is joining up pupils, teachers, schools and local authorities across Scotland.
Surprisingly, Scotland is the first country in the world to do this. Each of the 32 local authorities has their own local roll-out. The exam board, teacher trainers and the inspectorate are wired in. At the moment there are 150,000 active users but there could be as many as 750,000 if all teachers and students participate. Numbers could be swelled further if parents join in.
The benefits are clear: schools across the country can share resources and expertise and work can be delivered to students online and marked online. As such, the system is viewed as an essential part of the way that Scotland's new Curriculum for Excellence is supported.
What can schools and local authorities in the rest of the UK learn from the collective experience of Glow?
Mel Philipson, manager of the Northern Grid for Learning in England, can see the advantages of the Scottish system in that, if everyone is using the same learning platform, there is a better chance of cooperation between local authorities and between schools. But others argue that a collective learning platform would give individual schools less flexibility.
"The one size fits all concept does not work with learning platforms," argues Matthew Eaves of Cleveratom, creator of the Thought Park platform.
Brenda Bigland, head of Lent Rise school in Buckinghamshire, agrees. They use a version of Moodle from WebAnywhere that has been tweaked to fit the school.
"It was chosen for its simplicity and the ease with which teaching assistants could populate it with resources and quizzes," she says. "Some software from 2Simple has been bought in. Parents can use the site and see clearly how well their children are doing and how well targets are being met."
Several developments in learning platform technology will be on show at Bett. They include the online reporting facility from Fronter which enables parents to access the platform to see reports on the behaviour, grades and attendance of pupils, and the new Studywiz Parent interface which provides parents with mobile access to their child's progress, attendance and behaviour.
Exhibitors also include Frog , which has been nominated for a Bett award as ICT company of the year.
There is a growing realisation that fun, creativity, and engagement should come before software features in learning platforms, says Frog's managing director, Gareth Davies.
"Features are important, of course they are, but they are irrelevant if no one wants to use the software in the first place," he argues. "Software needs to wow people, it needs to be fun and engaging. It must reward the efforts of its users emotionally."
