Hal MacLean

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

(Margaret Mead)

Introduction

Hal is the Director of Learning at Cleveratom Limited, which is a company he has started with colleagues in December 2006 that explores ICT, learning and creativity.

Cleveratom has three core activities summed up in one sentence:

“To nurture opportunities for creativity and learning, using new and emerging technologies”

Cleveratom advise on the use of ICT for learning in both physical and virtual spaces. They also develop online social software tools and websites. Finally, they design, develop and run workshops which use digital technologies for creative learning.

Background

Hal’s backround is in education, having spent many years as a teacher in Essex. He became a Headteacher in a busy ‘Grant Maintained’ Primary School and undertook extensive re-modelling of the learning spaces. He was a member of Essex County Council’s Equal Opportunities working party where he collaborated in writing ‘A World of Opportunities’ and was also a member of the county working party for school buildings. He was a pilot member of the ‘Talking Heads’ online community, later to become ‘Talk2Learn’ run by the National College for School leadership (NCSL). He was invited to be a member of the steering group which helped establish the virtual arm of the National College. He left headship in 2001 and joined Ultralab at Anglia Ruskin University where for five amazing years working with probably the best team in the world for action research projects, under the leadership of Professor Stephen Heppell.

Online Communities of Practice

From 2001 to 2003 Hal was involved with a number of influential online community projects, including facilitating for Talking Heads. His main role was to establish and run the community for Fasttrack Teachers for the Department for Education and Skills (DfES). These were research projects which attempted to find out the extent to which online communities could support teachers and school leaders. They were run in partnership with the NCSL and eventually were handed over to them to continue to run. From these pioneering projects the NCSL has continued to support online learning and has since developed ‘Talk2learn‘ as the core software for this. Many of the key features of this software, and of several other virtual learning environments, are directly attributable to the work of Ultralab and Oracle who created the original ‘Think.com‘ software for the research phase.

Other work at this time included the eViva project (KS3 ICT Assessment), EveryObject.net (A collaboration with the Department for Culture Media and Sport and V&A museum), Establishing Designmyschool.com (working with the Design Council), establishing and facilitating on the ‘Ultraversity’ project (a three year online degree course based on workplace learning) and working with other departments in the University to help establish online learning courses.

Building Schools for the Future (BSF)

Much of the work Hal has done since 2003 has been focussed on school design issues, specifically considering distributed schools and how school buildings affect learning. He managed the ‘DesignMySchool’ project with the Design Council, and now regularly talks about the impact of design in learning spaces, and how it affects learning.

Hal acts as a consultant within BSF, primarily advising on how ICT can be used to support and extend learning. He has worked with bid teams on different ‘waves’, including Durham, Kent, Newham, Salford and Barnesley. His role is to understand the ICT requirements and identify what opportunities there are for learning activities, and how the future of learning can be influenced through providing an excellent ICT solution.

Cleveratom have developed the ‘designmyict.co.uk‘ website for Becta and continue to refine it according to user feedback.

Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs)

Virtual Learning Environments, or Learning Platforms, are being introduced throughout the UK within all schools. Cleveratom evaluated the extent to which VLEs have been implemented in the Yorkshire and Humber region as part of a project with the YHGfL Foundation, resulting in a book (Virtually There: Learning Platforms) and DVD being distributed to all 2000 schools. Copies are also available outside of the region and are being sold as far afield as the United States. The book is a series of case studies which offer advice and guidance to schools hoping to implement (or revise) a virtual learning solution.

At a school level Hal acts as a consultant to explore the needs of the school, the progress made to date and the processes still needed in order to establish and embed virtual learning most fully. This means more than just creating learning objects, and aspires to schools embracing social constructivist approaches to online tools.

Personalised Learning

Hal has an in-depth understanding of personalising learning and how schools and organisations can introduce effective approaches for their students. Working as a consultant to colleges and schools, Hal is able to identify and articulate ways in which personalised learning can be implemented with greatest effect.

Digital Creativity

An area of considerable interest, the use of digital technologies to enhance learning forms a large part of the work Hal does in schools. Working with colleagues, Hal has helped design and implement a number of high profile activities for children and adults to explore how video, animation and audio (to name a few) are able to provide extensive but appropriate challenges to learners. He was part of the facilitation team for the BBC on the pilot tour of BBC Blast, working in different cities across the UK to run workshops and events for young people.

Hal has been researching the use of DVD technologies and participates extensively in online discussions (in some cases as forum moderator) with people from around the world to help better understand and develop the medium. He regularly publishes work to be reviewed and used by the worldwide DVD authoring community and maintains a web site dedicated to the use of Apple’s DVD Studio Pro software, at www.dvdstudiopro.co.uk. Cleveratom have continued to develop innovative scripts for DVDs and many of these are given away freely. One such is the highly regarded ‘video jukebox’ script which allows a user to pick a selection of clips in any order and have them play back in that order.

Much of the work Hal has been involved in is in collaboration with colleagues and can be found at http://www.digitalcreativty.org

Other Interests

Outside of work, Hal enjoys playing the drums (something he’s been doing since the early 1980’s) and being involved in the world of Rugby. As a player he represented Essex and Eastern Counties (many years ago now), has coached a successful youth team, but now runs a web site to help teams make fixtures when theirs have fallen through - his playing days are probably over for all but the most social of games. The Fixture Exchange is not run for profit, but as a service to youth rugby. It donates all of its proceeds to worthy causes, including S.P.I.R.E, the charity which supports families of those unfortunate enough to have become paraplegic through playing rugby.

Hal is a photographer and videographer, DVD author and Apple computer enthusiast.