Never mind the technology, where’s the learning?

… they can both be impersonated on social networking sites.

According to the Manchester United website:

The club wishes to make it clear that no Manchester United players maintain personal profiles on social networking websites.

Fans encountering any web pages purporting to be written by United players should treat them with extreme scepticism.

Any official news relating to Manchester United or its players will be communicated via ManUtd.com.

and teachers in various Local Authorities have also been told to close their social networking accounts. Manchester City have also advised their players against setting up social networking pages despite the club having its own twitter account and winning a Golden Twit last November.

The reasons for taking such actions are often similar, to protect both the organisation and the individual. Manchester United’s statement is aimed at warning fans about impersonation accounts (although Twitter has a verification scheme for celebrities) and teachers are not immune from the same problem (see third comment).

Image credit: Ian Muttoo

Last year I asked whether BETT was where it was truly at, this year my doubts were swept away, not by the hundreds and thousands of products on show, but by the slow but sure “takeover” of teachers and educators in the back channel and fringe. Like Diagon alley all sorts of exciting things were going on invisible to the Muggle world. BETT 2010 was noteworthy for the presence of practitioners who through their commitment and sheer persistence began to infiltrate the world’s largest (according to Dominic Savage of BESA speaking at the Minister’s Address on the Wednesday morning) exhibition for educational ICT. Last year, I said,

“The essence of good learning, and therefore teaching, is the engagement of students within a context they can relate with. BETT is about the old-model ‘commercial’ world of educational ICT, while perhaps the really interesting stuff is being done elsewhere, with tools that typically cost nothing and by engaging learners within their ‘environment’. There is no formal exhibition or display for this type of activity except distributed on the web of course. The prospect of a ‘free BETT’ meeting on the fringes is tantalising …”

this year, three free evening events took place. On Wednesday there was TEDxOrenda organised by Drew Buddle (there’s a great running blog post by Joanna Jacobs if you need to catch up with the event). On Thursday there was AmplifiED’10, which took a barcamp approach, and on Friday the TeachMeet itself, all attracting important sponsors, including Becta for the last. But most significant of all was TeachMeet Takeover in which standholders donated 30 minutes or less to allow teachers to ‘takeover’ their stand to share inspiration for free. At the same time, Theo Kuchel’s and Leon Cych’s, with support from Mirandanet, live-streamed debates and interviews were perhaps of more use and impact than the seminar programme.

So what might this tell us about the way in which BETT, or indeed future conferences and exhibitions might go? It’s still early days, and perhaps any sort of prediction would be foolish. But one thing’s for sure, things are changing, and they are changing for ever. A number of BETT bloggers have already alluded to the theme I adopted last year, Bill Lord for example states,

“The disappointments for me were the further evidence that there is a disconnect between the corporate sector and the educationalists they are trying to sell to. No-one would believe that we are about to enter into one of the toughest times budget wise for primary schools in many years.”

One might say that the present government is counting on it. Just see my last post, item C, in which I quote, “Our vision for school improvement support is one where schools … have free access to high-quality CPD and training products, through the internet …”

Image credit: Danny Nicholson

Update:

It’s also perhaps interesting to note that the offers to TeachMeet Takeover were almost exclusively from commercial enterprises. Tom’s interesting reflections on the concept and learning points for next year spurred me to think that there are non-commercial standholders at BETT who should be supporting them, for example Becta and The National College to name just two.

Tags: bett2010, teachmeet, tmbett2010

Back on the 4th December the DCSF published its timetable for school improvement. Lots of the announcements were already known, 1-to-1 tuition, the School Record Card, but what perhaps did not make the press was the demise of LA advice and support services and their replacement by a “market place” of accredited providers. These changes are covered in Chapter 3 of the document, Your child, your schools, our future: building a 21st century schools system - Timetable for action. Here’s a quick synopsis:

A) Role of LA changed; devolution of ’school improvement resources currently held centrally’ to schools; co-ordination through ‘Govt Regional Offices’:

3.4 The role of DCSF in school improvement will be focused on building capacity to enable local authorities and others to discharge their school improvement responsibilities effectively. This will be within a framework of support that schools, SIPs and local authorities themselves can draw on. To enable this, we will devolve to schools most of the school improvement resources currently held centrally, and many of our field forces, grants, and subject support programmes will be decommissioned to fund self-improvement. Those that remain will be co-ordinated closely and we will explore the idea of using Government Offices to provide a focus for this work in each region and to provide a two-way flow of information between local authorities and the DCSF.

B) National College to deliver SIP programme not Strategies, Licence to Practice introduced; all SIPs to be re-accredited:

3.23 The current activities undertaken by the National Strategies will be maintained up to March 2011, when their contract ends. The National College will take responsibility for delivery of the SIP programme from April 2011, although it will undertake development work in the transition period, learning from the experience of the National Strategies in running the programme.

C) School identifies priorities; ‘use their resources to actively seek out and draw on any support, expertise and professional development they need’ (note the list of where this might come from):

3.29 Once schools have identified their priorities, they need to set out their plans to secure the improvements required. They will need to use their resources to actively seek out and draw on any support, expertise and professional development they need, sharing their own good practice, and supporting their partners where they can. Our vision for school improvement support is one where schools:

• look in-house, so that good practice that is already within the school can be shared and applied consistently;
• draw on school-to-school support, with local authorities facilitating partnerships to spread expertise between schools;
• have free access to high-quality CPD and training products, through the internet; and
• can draw support from a varied, innovative, and competitive market of providers, which schools pay for from their delegated school improvement budgets.

D) It is the schools that commission from a ‘diverse market place’ of providers; there will be ‘central QA’:

3.32 Rather than the DCSF commissioning support which is then provided to schools, resources will be delegated to individual schools for them to use to commission the specific support they need, to meet their individual challenges. We will support schools to do so, by establishing a “market place” that:

• identifies a diverse market of school improvement services and suppliers; and
• includes central quality assurance, so that schools can feel confident in the services they commissioning.

E) These providers will be provide a range of products and services; focus on ‘engagement by a range of providers’; establishment of a ’single portal with a common Directory’:

3.33 Across the range of curriculum support and development, and school improvement activities, the DCSF will invite providers to identify products and services to meet schools’ needs and secure coverage of gaps in the market. The focus will be on developing arrangements that facilitate engagement by a range of providers, and allow schools to commission support with ease, by establishing user-friendly ‘commissioning’ arrangements, including using a single portal to access a common support Directory. This will be accompanied by guidance and good practice training for all users.

F) QA scheme will accredit providers at different levels; SIPS ‘trained to help schools operate these new arrangements’:

3.34 We will also develop arrangements to quality assure these providers, with different levels of accreditation from a light touch ‘health check’ to be a member of the market, to a more rigorous process to identify, for schools, those providers who have a proven record of securing strong improvement. In developing the role of the SIP, we will ensure that they are trained to help schools to operate within these new arrangements, helping to identify and broker the support that schools require.

G) LAs to be commissioner for its underperforming schools, and broker and facilitator for others; LA will, ‘not provide support directly’:

3.64 The local authority will be a commissioner for their underperforming schools, and a broker and a facilitator of School Improvement services to ensure that appropriate support is available for schools, but will not provide support directly, other than through the SIP. Consultancy currently operated by the local authority will be radically reduced and refocused on coordinating and commissioning support for underperforming schools which do not demonstrate a capacity to improve on their own.

H) Primary schools to need more support in change that perhaps others; LA and SIPs to ‘provide key commissioning support roles’:

3.65 We recognise that primary schools in particular may have more limited experience and expertise in commissioning services. It will therefore be important to ensure that they are supported in this role. We expect the local authority and SIPs to provide key commissioning support roles, particularly for underperforming schools causing concern.
Our current trials with Priority Learning Local Authorities are exploring how the new approach to school improvement can work,
how local authorities can lead system change, and how effective practice can be shared widely. This will include developing
regional school improvement hubs, linking local authorities, and providing regional training and professional development.”

So my take on this is that LAs role will be taken to a core. One might argue that consultants presently employed in support roles in LAs and funded by the Strategies may be recruited by the new accredited and commercial providers. However, given the economic climate it is very likely that the devolved money will be less that it is at present, and, given these providers will be competing for commissions, not only with themselves, but with other forms of support such as school-to-school, partnerships between schools etc.. I can see the workforce of consultants being reduced, and those employed, working over much larger regions than present LAs. It might be that these commercial providers adopt an ‘freelance’ approach given the diverse nature of this market, and the degree of specialism these people might need. Finally, I’m a bit cynical about some LAs not attempting to still provide the support by setting up business units and trying to get accredited, or having a close relationship with a provider to which they have redeployed staff, after all what does, “will not provide support directly” actually mean, and only if SIPs are forbidden from selling or recommended support services, can a competitive “market place” have a chance of success. Certainly it will take years to establish a culture in which school recognise they have choice and exercise it freely in some areas of the country.

The Conservatives have not pronounced on how they view schools being supported, but given they have already made pronouncements that would make schools more competitive with each other, if anything they will go further in creating a market place for support.

Image credit: Matthew Burpee

Tags: education, support, localauthority, consultant, consultancy

A recent survey by the National Literacy Trust found students that blogged and maintaining profiles on Facebook and other social networking sites were more likely to enjoy writing and believe they were good at it. The online survey involved 3,001 pupils aged 9-16 from England and Scotland.

The survey reports that 79% of young people write regularly and that technology-based formats were the most used. For example, 82% of young people wrote text messages at least once a month, 73% wrote instant messages, and 63% wrote on a social networking site. Of non-technology based writing, 77% wrote notes or answers in class or for homework at least once a month followed by 52% writing notes to other people. 56% had a profile on a social networking site while 24% had their own blog. 57% of those who blogged said they generally enjoyed writing compared with 40% who did not. Those who had a blog or profile on a social networking site also appeared to be more confident in their writing ability: 61% of bloggers and 56% of social networkers claimed to be good or very good at writing, compared to 47% who had neither. They also held more positive attitudes towards writing and computer use, and viewed writers more favourably with nearly 60%  believing that computers allow them to be more creative, concentrate more and encourage them to write more often.

Apparently, such web activity was also credited with encouraging children to engage with more traditional forms of writing. Those who were active online were “significantly more likely” to write short stories, letters, song lyrics and diaries than those who had no online presence, the study found.

Given the present Home Access initiative, it’s perhaps interesting to note that students who receive free school meals in this study were not more or less likely to enjoy writing or to write regularly. There was no relationship between socio-economic background and enjoyment of writing, writing behaviour, linking writing to success, views of writers, computer use, or attitudes towards computers. However, pupils who did not receive free school meals rated themselves as better writers than pupils who receive them. The lack of confidence in writing among these pupils is also reflected in their attitudes towards writing, with more free school meal pupils than non-free school meal pupils agreeing with the statement that they have trouble deciding what to write.

The report concludes that, “it is paramount that the school curriculum reflects and utilises writing forms that young people enjoy and engage with in order to demonstrate that writing is more than a compulsory task: it is an essential life skill.”

The full report is available as a pdf.

Image credit: James Emery

Tags: blogging, socialnetworking, writing, survey, literacy

You might have picked up on yesterday’s Radio 4 Today programme a short piece on how the Danish government are running a pilot in which students taking final year exams in secondary schools will not only be allowed to use laptops, but have full access to the internet. There is only one simple rule, you cannot communicate with anyone outside the exam room, but otherwise no website is banned or filtered, not even Facebook. It’s interesting to note that while the UK has spent so much money on technology in schools, we still require students to write their answers on paper. In Denmark, students have been allowed to use computers in exam rooms for over ten years, and use of the internet is seen at the latest extension of this. I’m sure in the UK, despite advances, there would still be a ‘hue and cry’ probably led by the tabloid press into the very notion of computer use let alone internet access in the exam room. The nation’s lack of trust in its education system (if it’s easier to access, standards are lower) and mis-trust of technology (if it reduces the barrier of ‘hard graft’ and enables higher order skills) manifests itself in the notion of students ‘cheating’ when using technology for learning or study. In Denmark, their prepareness to take the risk of cheating is tempered by a fundamental belief in the integrity of their students. As one teacher put it, “the main precaution is that we trust them“, which is backed up by the comment of one 18 year old student, “It’s possible to cheat but I think we have so much respect and self discipline, so we won’t do it.” A notion also held by their Minister for Education, Bertel Haarder, who believes, “The internet is indispensible, including in the exam situation. I’m sure that is would be a matter of very few years when most European countries will be on the same line.” The challenge remains the culture in which such ideas do not seem out of place.

Image Credit: Jon Nicholls

Tags: exam, internet, danisheducation, educationculture

In his latest post, Ewan takes the cudgel to Local Authorities that have banned social networking citing a call by Carol Rozwell, a Gartner vice president, at their recent symposium for corporates to loosen up on social networks in the workplace. In it he feels embarrassed that most education authorities continue to be “ignorant of the possibilities” despite both the example and innovation of groundbreaking work he was a part of. I feel for him, like many innovations in education, putting change at the forefront of education practice has always been difficult and is the scourge of our profession.

Carol Rozwell’s premise, that, “humans are social creatures and that there’s more to employee relations than a paycheck for work performed“, is not a new one, and can be more easily applied to education. After all, few learners have the incentive of payment for learning let alone in compulsory education systems. Together with such incentives as deferred gratification, the joy of learning, and success, social interaction is not only a basic motivating factor to learn (and I could argue that these incentives are but sub-sets of this), but also the way in which humans have always learnt. As Miles recently pointed out, “the most highly valued learning still occurs as social experiences“. So I simply ask the question whether or not there is a real choice with regard to our use of technology in schools? Shouldn’t we be developing a social learning strategy?

Take for example the use of Learning Platforms and VLEs. Some might argue that these are best used as delivery systems for content, knowledge and even the expertise of the teacher. But evidence is already emerging that where these systems support learning effectively is when they are used in a social learning context. Indeed, this can bring about rapid changes in the culture of learning in the institution that we begin to talk about the ‘transformation’ word.

Image credit: Jay Cross from Ross Dawson

Tags: sociallearning

Girl helps a friend to log on to the wi-fi, Northern Uruguay

Uruguay is the first significant country to provide a laptop for every pupil attending a state school. While Niue, led the way back in August 2008, Uruguay is the first country with a significant population to provide such a programme. Part of the One Laptop Per Child scheme, the laptops have cost approximately £159 each including maintenance, training for teachers and internet connection. This represents less than 5% of the country’s education budget.

Issues with staff remain the same worldwide however, as one headteacher reported:

“We have a lady who’s been teaching for 30 years and when they gave us the computers and the training, she asked for leave because she didn’t want to have anything to do with the programme. Later she changed her mind and now computers have changed the way she teaches.”

The use of the laptops is at the discretion of the teacher and it seems some teachers are not including computer use in their lesson plans. The full story is on the BBC News website.

Image credit: Lightripper

Tags: olpc, uruguay, laptop

If you have not read the report published by Youthnet and launched at the House of Commons yesterday, it should be a on the top of your catch-up list. Apart from the use of the “Digital Native’ cliché, the research findings by Professor Michael Hulme not only makes an interesting read but debunks many of the ideas that have been prevalent over the last few years. Although the research covered the 16-24 age group, so should not perhaps be applied to students of a younger age, it becomes relevant when you realise that many young people today cannot indeed, “live without the internet” (75% claimed they could not), and it is “a ‘natural’ space for young people“. Here are some of the most interesting facts:

1. Over three quarters of young people thought the internet was a safe place as long as you knew what you were doing. With over ten years of experience of using the internet, they have developed strategies for proof verification that go beyond both older and younger groups. They are confident yet somewhat circumspect and wary. Most importantly, they believe their knowledge and competence is sufficient to manage risk.
2. They seek out several data sources or look for ‘mass’ collaboration when assessing websites. The ‘wisdom of the crowd’ is significant and evidence of others being active on the site, particularly from their peer group is sought. Other clues include:
   • Professional reputation;
   • Offline reputation (including having professional staff with resources to gather definitive and credible information);
   • Previous personal experience with the site;
   • Proof of neutral affiliation (.gov for government site; edu for education; .org for non-profits);
   • Tone of the writing (neutral versus opinionated);
   • Elements of style (use of quotes, pictures, by-lines, newspaper layout).
3. They seek out credibility which is conferred in a number of ways. Brand recognition for example. Well-known brand news sites such as the BBC are regarded as accurate. While interestingly Wikipedia gains authority from its open access, ie. it is available to open modification and censorship rather than emanating from a single authority. They “assemble their views using new and old technologies and from on and offline relationships to build a personally verified position”.
4. The internet possesses several characteristics that make it particularly powerful as a means of seeking advice during what can be highly personal and traumatic life stages. “The significance of the internet as the single first-advice source is illustrated by it its ranking in the top three sources across all issues. When one takes search, online forums and online help-sites together the internet is first source for a quarter of the sample in the case of each issue.” Why was this? While, anonymity was the single most important reason particularly for young women (convenience is more important for young men), young people also expect co-operative use of the internet. They expect to be able to receive and give advice and this plays a key role in a site’s credibility. Where sites lack the opportunity for sharing they are seen as authoritarian and are distant from their audience.

The report provides some useful conclusions for those providing support and advice to this age group and how they might go about producing an effective web-space for such a purpose. As educators, perhaps working with younger people, how might we learn from this report? Some questions that come to mind:

• Do we rely on filtering rather than really considering developing the strategies this generation have learnt to adopt without help?
• Do the Learning Platforms we have introduced facilitate sharing and co-operative methodologies, or are they top-down and ‘distant’ from their intended audience?
• Is the very notion of anonymity on these systems ever considered?

Image credit: Roberto Rizzato

Tags: digitalnative, michaelhulme, youthnet

Miley Cyrus, the 16 year old actor who is best known to young people as Hannah Montana caused a bit of a stir last week by quitting Twitter by deleting her account. Her response came in a YouTube rap, in which she says she’d started, “living for the moments” and wanted to start “living for people” instead. For her Dunbar’s number has taken its toll. I can sympathise as I’ve also had doubts about my use of Twitter, and its effect for entirely different reasons.

In that earlier post I particularly concentrated on how micro-blogging affects your ability to blog, but had not reached any conclusions on how it affected my own personal learning style. Over the last few weeks, I’ve become a bit clearer on that aspect, with the result that I’m tweeting less and blogging more. Such a conclusion has made me reflect on the way in which we, as educators, need to consider these tools and their use in the classroom. Are we using them to develop certain generic skills (reflective writing, synthesis etc.), ICT skills relevant to the age we live in (working online, information gathering and distribution), or specific subject-related skills eg. writing style development. Pretty basic questions that have been relatively simple to answer when it came to previous adoption of technology in schools ie. when technology was used to replace previous methods. For example, writing with a word-processor, and even the use of calculators, which provoked debate at first, but now is part and parcel of the toolkit.  It’s that human-tool symbiosis, that Richard talks about that both holds us back, but also provides us with this dilemma when it comes to the adoption of new technology, and why its introduction can cause fierce arguments for and against.

Miley’s video is here:

Image credit: Sarah Clarke

Vital is the new name for the ICT CPD service to be provided by the Open University and e-Skills UK under a £5.6m contract. Back in August I said they had their work cut out, not because of what they might provide, but because of the competition, free or otherwise that this market presents at the end of the 1st decade of the 21st century. Very sensibly they are not setting up bricks and mortar regional centres to try and deliver traditional face-to-face CPD, but offering a range of blended learning opportunities with different mixtures and at appropriate venues, such as schools, ICT Centres, or maybe even your local wi-fi’d coffee house.

Vital was soft-launched at this weekend’s Naace AMAC conference, and the enthusiasm and commitment of Debbie Forster, the Programme Co-ordinator is infectious. She and Peter Twining of the OU will certainly sign people up to the concept, and I wish all the luck in the world to them. That said, they still have a huge mountain to climb. Firstly there’s the natural inertia of educational change. Not only do they have to bring about a collaborative and trusting atmosphere to the CPD scene among providers, they also have to bring about a ’step-change’ in the way in which ICT CPD might be delivered and viewed by teachers. Their strategy is to map provision, support other providers by linking to them and avoid re-inventing the wheel. But it seems unclear what quality assurance mechanisms they might employ, or how they might change the practice of those providers to offer dynamic and appropriate offerings to bring about that step-change. The offer to use the OU’s online systems to provide a coherence is there, but this might suggest to some, a lose of control over their content and customer base. It may by a step too far, only time will tell.

Debbie and Peter’s joint presentation to the conference can be found below.

To follow vital on twitter: @Vitalcpd

Tags: vital, ictcpd, ou, e-skills, naace, naaceamac