In contrast to the HHL awards ... Wolverhampton e-Services Team have been awarded the BECTA ICT Excellence Award 2008........ In the "Support for Schools" category.
Hi Dave
Congratulation due to you and your team once more!
I'm sorry that you're disappointed with the outcome of the
HHL Awards but I'm sure that the other 25 finalists who didn't take away a crystal star also felt a little twinge of disappointment too. In contrast to the Becta ICT Excellence Awards, the HHL Awards are intended to celebrate international innovators and innovations who are specifically working in the field of learning using mobile or ubiquitous technologies.
As you know a number of your team and practitioners from the Learning2Go initiative were nominated and rather than pitch one against another or choose between individual nominations the
judges decided that it would be fair to combine these nominations into a single nomination for Learning2Go which then went onto be a finalist in the Primary Category along with Wilsden Primary's e-Learning initiative and Radstock Primary's PIC project.
Once the finalists were announced winners were chosen by public vote, i.e. teachers, parents, learners using SMS and Wilsden won. And why not? The SMS system was externally moderated and multiple votes from the same number were discounted. Only international finalists were at a disadvantage but we still had a winner from Australia.
Really everybody who made it to the finals were winners and in fact the objective of the HHL Awards was to simply demonstrate that mobile learning is not simply a small pond with a few big fish but is a huge pond, highly populated with fish of all sizes!
The only award that was not voted on by the public was the Special Achievement Award. As announced on the evening, a shortlist of nominees was drawn up by the
judges and then a lengthy afternoon was spent agreeing who would win and the decision was unanimous. This award is not a "Lifetime Achievement Award" but intended to spotlight an individual who had, in the opinion of the
judges, most impact or made the most innovative progress during the past year.
Dave, I feel your comments offer somewhat of a disservice to the hundreds of nominations, the
finalists, nearly 10,000 public voters, the
judges and ultimately the
winners. The HHL Awards was a celebration of everyone with some special recognition for a handful but it didn't make anybody else less important or valuable. Let's celebrate each others achievements, after all if the tide rises so do all the boats.
Yourself and the Learning2Go project was highly visible throughout this years conference with appearances in at least 4 sessions and featured in the main conference session themed "Three of the Best" that preceded Lord Puttnum.
Google "
David Whyley" and anybody can see the support and recognition that you and your team have received from this vibrant community. And you know I have personally been a supporter from the very early days of L2G as you have of HHL.
As always, more power to your elbow but also more power to everybody else too!
Cheers
Graham
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