ony Richardson is the man in charge of ensuring the online arm of the new National College for School Leadership works as it should. This is no small challenge, considering it is the most innovative and potentially troublesome element of what is a pioneering venture in itself.

The 48-year-old Londoner has a long educational career behind him and says the job was “too interesting not to do” when it came up last year. Most recently chief adviser for Northampton LEA, Richardson first became interested in the use of technology in education in the Eighties as a Solihull primary head, when his school won funding for an intranet and databases for pupils to use.

Joining Birmingham LEA in 1990 as IT adviser, he worked with Doug Brown, now in charge of the National Grid for Learning for the Department of Education and Skills, and Tim Brighouse, the city’s chief education officer, before being promoted to senior primary adviser.

Harnessing the power of the Web to help heads get through the mountains of information they have to deal with was indeed a strong motivator driving Richardson to take on the NSCL Online role. However, he was even more excited about the potential to let school leaders interact with each other as and when they need to.

More than 9,000 people are now registered with the college’s two online communities, Talking Heads and Virtual Heads. “It lets users learn from one another by sharing their ideas,” says Richardson, “as well as giving them quick access to relevant research and information they need to do their jobs.”

Through Talking Heads, for example, heads of schools in special measures can have private exchanges, “breaking the isolation” of the job. Virtual Heads, meanwhile, is aimed at school leaders - mainly deputies - taking the National Professional Qualification for Headship. As well as letting them communicate with their colleagues online, all course modules are available with tutor support.

The learning materials were developed by Ultralab, Professor Stephen Heppell’s educational ICT research outfit at Anglia Polytechnic University. Talking Heads and Virtual Heads were set up using the Think.com online “community” created for education by Oracle.

Richardson is keen to highlight the two services’ other key feature - allowing school leaders to make contact with policy makers through a regular series of “hot seats”. He believes they are an “incredibly powerful tool because people feel they’ve got direct access” and he stresses it’s no one-way street. Michael Barber, formerly head of the DFES’s Standards and Effectiveness Unit, was involved in one such debate and Richardson reports that comments made by some heads altered Barber’s views on aspects of the literacy and numeracy strategies.

It is this mix that makes NCSL Online ground-breaking and, in Richardson’s view, incredibly important. “It’s about networking people together to share practice,” he says, “and about giving headteachers the ability to shape policy and thinking at a national level.”

The other aim of the college’s online division is to help heads become confident and more knowledgeable about technology. According to Richardson, this is crucial if ICT is to become embedded in schools and supported by funding from their own budgets.

With this aim in mind, NCSL has been working with Ofsted and the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency on a pilot programme that sees heads visit schools that are implementing ICT effectively and helps them review their own school’s position. Some online learning is included, along with opportunities for participants to improve their own technology skills. “We think this is needed on a national scale,” says Richardson. A recent Oftsed report came to a similar conclusion.

As schools implement increasingly sophisticated IT equipment, support becomes a growing concern. Although heads are responsible for ensuring the necessary technical help is available, Richardson says they need guidance in formulating solutions to deal with an increasing ITburden, particularly for smaller primary schools.

“We do need to look creatively at how additional support can be provided for schools to make sure that the technology infrastructure actually works,” he says. “We have to ensure schools have sufficient resources in their budgets to do that.” Financing the replacement of equipment is the other challenge.

Richardson believes that if Britain wants to keep making progress with ICT, heads must have “a very secure understanding of just how ICT can improve learning and how it can improve organisational effectiveness”. Without that, he says it will be impossible for them to realise the “massive implications” of innovations such as the proposed digital curriculum being discussed by both the Department for Education and Skills and the BBC.

With between 40 and 50 per cent of registered users taking part in the communities - a much higher figure than the typical six per cent usage rate for chat rooms - it’s clear NCSL Online must at least be doing something right.

www.ncsl.org.uk