Digital Pointers - response to Tom Whitby's blog post

http://tomwhitby.wordpress.com/2010/05/27/digital-pointers/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

This is such an interesting post from Tom Whitby - and some thought provoking comments also. As I have multiple roles in my life as an educator I find that one of the main issues is trying to understand *why* some people (and I am sure this doesn't apply only to teachers) are more open to change than others. I also don't think that this reticence applies only to the use of technology.

As a deputy head teacher in the UK, I lead the in-house PD programme and I also happen to teach on a Masters in Education programme with the Open University. The most often cited reason for not joining in with voluntary PD is lack of time and yet the Masters students (almost all practising teachers) say that they do the course to improve their understanding of learning and learners and to improve their practice. This last year, I was able to get our school programme accredited through the College of Teachers and yet still only about 10 out of 60 teachers have found time to do the course.

I am also studying again myself - an MA in online and distance education - fascinating if sometimes difficult stuff.

Colleagues and I have set up a small group to investigate the special case of online pedagogy (or should it be andragogy - or even idagogy?). It's going to be interesting to see where this goes.

A final thought is something that a few school colleagues have tried to develop this year - an Innovations Group. Next year we are going to try to extend this to a few other schools. I will also be resurrecting our school PD directory where teachers can volunteer for peers to observe them - for example creatively using technology.

It's frustrating but exciting ..... not sure about the age thing. I've seen a few summers now but still like to try things out. There maybe some correlation but I don't think that's the real problem. I think it's more the old adage of if you want something doing, ask a busy person.

How can you measure the success of technology in education?

This is a piece of writing for my study course (H800, week 11 activity 1) but I would be grateful for any comments on the ideas within it. These are my personal views.

The online debate in the Economist (2007) considered the proposition “This house believes that the continuing introduction of new technologies and new media adds little to the quality of most education”. This debate, apart from being asynchronous due to its online context, was a traditionally styled debate with proposer, opponent, comments and questions from the floor, and so on. There were some fascinating projects discussed, revealing the engaging use to which new technologies and media can be put in educational settings. Some statistics were quoted which really did not reveal any grand truths – because, of course, they were measuring something different from what was being investigated; I shall return to that issue presently.

The big question, in my view, is something that Sir John Daniel (the proposer) refers to in his opening remarks: “we usually focus on improving existing teaching systems whereas technology is better used to create new learning systems.” He continues this theme in his rebuttal remarks when he points out that Robert Kozma (the opponent) also sees this as a a key issue. Daniel writes, “most uses of new technologies have been conducted within the traditional educational paradigm." He highlights the fact that Kozma’s opening statement concluded with the question “What if advanced technologies were used to ignite a major transformation of the educational system?” In terms of my own development, and choices made by teachers, this is a very important consideration. The problem is that, realistically, the choices are not made by teachers in classrooms but by administrations systems and even by central government.

The first guest commentator in the debate, Professor Linda Darling-Hammond, hits the nail on the head when she points out that “As we move into the 21st century, the nature of learning has to change to promote critical thinking and problem solving and to encourage applications of knowledge to new situations.” This relates rather strongly to a recent (2009) BBC video made by Lord Puttnam “We are the people we’ve been waiting for” (based on a traditional story by the Hopi Elders, Native Americans). The message here is that today’s young people (at least in the affluent West) have at their fingertips great resources of knowledge and global networks and also face great problems concerned with economic, social and natural issues. They need to be provided not only with the tools to be adaptable, creative and resourceful, but also an education geared at developing the skills to use those tools. A recent inspirational talk was given to teachers at the Creative Transitions conference (2010) by Kieran Osbourne in which he pointed out that if we are to produce creative individuals who will fulfil this role which history has allotted them, we need to have creative institutions (schools and universities as well as businesses).

The third guest commentator in the Economist debate was Don Knezek. He highlights my concern at the start of this discussion - that what is being measured does not reveal much about what is being investigated. For Knezek, the following are the key metrics:·

• Learning outcomes geared to a “digital, global and media rich information society”;·
• Development of a “deeply engaging” educational environment; and·
• A means of rewarding a variety of successes.

The comments from the floor include concerns about filtering and blocking systems in schools, universities and businesses, banning of the use of mobile phones, skype and other similar technology due to restrictive practice. As one such commentator (ptdrumm) writes, “There’s no use of the most modern 21st century digital stuff if the teachers are still in the 19th.” (sic)

The open universities (such as the UK’s Open University) are also considered in the debate as to whether or not their blend of people and technology really does lead to quality as well as quantity. In Daniel’s concluding remarks he points out that for too long the educational and academic world has defined quality “by those you exclude”. This is true right through the educational system, certainly in the UK where secondary age students are judged not on what they have achieved but how – so that vocational qualifications are still seen as inferior to more traditional ones or else we have the idea that we will merge the two (14-19 diplomas) and so lose the quality of both: Knezek’s variety of successes.

Returning briefly to Daniel’s opening remarks: he points out that some countries dream of universal secondary educational access whilst others worry about boys dropping out of school. This, too, links to Knezek’s points, in this case that we do need to consider engagement and not fall back on our tried and tested approaches – because they have not been tried and tested in the new context in which we find ourselves as educators today.

When considering what has this activity has taught me about my own practice, I need to refer again to two of the roles that I have as an educator, which are closely tied together and which I hope complement one another. As a Professional Development leader in a secondary school and as a tutor on the Open University’s MA in education, I believe that it is my duty to try to keep abreast of educational debate, including that related to new technology. That is why I undertook to study the ‘H’ series of courses in the first place. I do not mean that I attempt to learn about every new technology and pass this information on to others but I do try to disseminate ideas, concepts, resources and sources of information. Encouraging colleagues to become more reflective, more receptive, more risk-taking (my new Three R’s!) is my major passion. Two years ago, a colleague was kind enough to refer to me in her retirement speech as “the most innovative teacher I have ever worked with” – the problem is that in the ensuing two years there has been so much more innovation! I doubt that without my engagement with colleagues at the Open University, staff development events and the ‘H’ modules I would have made as much progress.

References

The debate overview can be found at The Economist website.

Puttnam's (2009) video can be seen here

Kieran Osbourne spoke ate the Creative Transitions Conference at Shirley High School Performing Arts College on 18/5/10

CPD planning - help please

wondering about use of Open Education Resources (OER) for the following planned teacher PD sessions at my school next year - BUT where are the resources please - any help?

MiLes = middle leaders, differentiated sessions

chi prot, internet, hw, behaviour, rewards

induction and pastoral system at SHS inc NQTs/BTs and mentors

SEN and ICT

Igroup, Public Service, EPQ, enrichment, WRL, health & nutrition

NQTs mentors and MiLes - making presentations

rewards and behaviour

SEN and ICT

Igroup, Public Service, EPQ, enrichment, WRL, health & nutrition

1) trips and budgets (MiLes)2) effective classrooms

1) IWB training 2) memory training

curriculum development and AfL

NQTs mentors and MiLes - consistency across school

SEN and ICT

Igroup, Public Service, EPQ, enrichment, WRL, health & nutrition

portfolios inc CLT/COES

behaviour managment - 1.5 hours

AfL, access inclusion, diferentiation

being an outstanding form tutor

dealing with parents, carers and outside agencies

SEN and ICT

Igroup, Public Service, EPQ, enrichment, WRL, health & nutrition

curriculum development and AfL

multimediain the classroom

behavour management

community cohesion

NQTs mentors and MiLes - leadership

SEN and ICT

Igroup, Public Service, EPQ, enrichment, WRL, health & nutrition

numeracy across the curriculum

listening skills

curriculum development and AfL

SEN and ICT

Igroup, Public Service, EPQ, enrichment, WRL, health & nutrition

Innovations Goup presentation

NQTs mentors and MiLes - monitoring, evaluation, action planning

re-purposing OER

This was my little attempt at editing: from the Open University's Open Learn resource (H800 weel 10 activity 8)

Teaching for good behaviour

Introduction

We need to move away from a focus on 'what the teacher does' to 'what learning and progress (L&P) is being made'. Of course, the teacher has a good deal of control over this L&P and understanding this will enable us to ensure good behaviour through engagement with learning. In the 21st century, knowledge development may come via many sources and the teacher needs to know how to utilise these so that teachinng is not so much a 'stand and deliver' activity as a collaborative exercise. This unit considers the format of lessons, how lessons are delivered, how to present lesson content in an interesting and creative way, and the development of "engaging lessons".

I chose this topic as I am currently engaged with trying to change the focus of lesson observations in the school where I am a deputy head and CPD leader. I can see that this idea of repurposing will be very interesting.

How does it all link in with the study to date on learning design and sharing resources? Well, at my school, we have weekly Continuing Professional Development (CPD) sessions that staff (teaching and support, governors) can use towards a qualification accredited by the College of Teachers (Certificate of Educational Studies). This has gone well and this year we had three longer sessions which were 'differentiated' for middle leaders and others. This has go me thinking about my plans for next year and I want most of the sessions next time around to be differentiated - I would also like to get staff working together in a collaborative way on their own CPD so I think that online resources and structured activities might well be the way forward.

I like the idea of being able to use OER, re-purposed for specific contexts. Hey why reinvent the wheel right?

The Memory of Social Networks

This is all a bit nebulous still - any comments gratefully received.

Social Networks, bridging and stigmergy: The Memory of Social Networks

I have just been watching a great TEDTalk: Nicholas Christakis on “The hidden influence of social networks” http://bit.ly/d2USZw via @Aaron_Eyler on Twitter. It made me think back to a recent posting about bridging individuals: “Who’s the vital link in your social network?” http://is.gd/bYMXs via @GuyKawasaki also on Twitter. Both of these took me back to an idea that I came across when I first became interested (OK hooked on) Twitter - Mark Elliott’s concept of stigmergic collaboration. Oh and I also watched the DVD of the film Avatar this weekend.

Recently, I was chatting with my sister-in-law. Now my brother is a great guy but, hey, she’s been married to him for almost forty five years! That’s a long time in anyone’s estimation, I would say. Anyway, it also means that this poor lady has had to put up with me for all that time (since, yes, he is my older brother). We were chatting about how we wondered if people nowadays expect more, maybe even too much, from life than we were given to understand was likely when we were young. This might sound just like two grumpy (ahem) mature women and what is the link with this blog post? Dear reader, please bear with me as I try to put my thoughts together on this one.

Christakis mentions that way that we sometimes catch a stranger’s eye – maybe on public transport. Have you ever thought that you have been able to ‘make’ someone look at you in that situation? He relates this to ripples in the social network, and even to the social memories within our networks. I was trying to get my high school class (actually religious studies class but we look at a range of ideas) to think about this today: what is a ‘community’? Can we ‘make’ things happen – think about flash mobs for example. Does this fit with Elliott’s concept that we lay a trail (stigmergy) through our social network – and perhaps these synapses are in some way genetically coded (as Christakis suggests) and so that vast neural connection in the film Avatar is not so far-fetched?

But who are the key players in these social networks? Researchers at the University of Southern California http://is.gd/bYMXs have indicated that it is the bridging or connecting individuals that have the most influence – be it in terms of health or more social factors.

So, time for me to go back to my chat with my sister-in-law. I am thinking that these networks - social, physiological, genetic, neural, interspecies even – must be three dimensional ... maybe even four dimensional since time is also involved. What we expect from life used, perhaps, to be affected by a more limited network or community. Now that many of us are connected in more global terms, this may affect our life expectations as well as what we can donate to the group consciousness. But this is not as sinister as the Borg collective. To me, it is about embracing a collaborative way of sharing ideas, being comfortable with partial theories, not trying too hard to make sense of it all.

This video maybe links some of these ideas – even though it’s an ad:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PnWFlzF3dE

And finally, an image from Avatar – if you haven’t seen it, it won’t mean that much,

http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100127190510/jamescameronsavatar/images/b/b6/Saving_grace.jpg