CC Image - Maistora Att-NC-ND

On Monday 24th May, it was announced that BECTA is to close; the main victim of the bonfire of the education quangoes. It has elicited a huge range of responses in the community from the hand-wringing to the vindictive. My interest in it all is that my former colleagues working in CLC’s round the country will be affected as BECTA had provided capital funding for many of them for the last 2 years. What happens now for CLC’s remains to be seen.

There have been many great posts on the closure from some bloggers that I really respect,  so I wanted to devote some space in my own blog to collating a few of them. If you think there are others I should include please let me know.

Tony Sheppard

Steve Wheeler

Graham Attwell

Miles Berry

NAACE (Mark Chambers)

Rory Cellan-Jones

Thinq

John McClear

Heutagogic Archive

Dan Roberts

Glyn Moody (ComputerWorld)

madamepsychosis - by-nc-nd

Over the last 2 days I’ve been following the tweets from the #bectax (link) and #gbl10 (link) events. It’s a great if slightly frustrating way to keep up with goings-on (frustrating ‘cos it makes you wish you were there).

I’ve yet to deliver a presentation or workshop where there is an active  backchannel and don’t have any planned yet but the thought of it does make by blood run cold rather.

These are my current thoughts about it which I wanted to capture and then possibly revisit having experienced it properly.

Why I don’t like the idea…

• Paranoia – I remember making soto voce snarky comments about a lecturer (his name was Peter Cundill) during a session he was running while I was a snotty under-grad. I was showing off and he was particularly unhappy about it. I’m ashamed of it now because I know how that sort of behaviour would affect me. To feel like a whole audience is having a discussion about you and your message whilst your doing it I think would throw me right off my concentration.

• Control – this is especially true about presentations where the twitterfall is visible behind the presenter. If I’m putting together a presentation I spend a lot of time getting the visual side as stripped down as I can. If the audience want to follow what is happening in the backchannel then by all means they can follow it on their own devices. But unless I say otherwise the podium is my space and I want to control the message that is delivered from there.

And now for the other side…

Why I love the idea…

• Feedback –  What a fantastic motivator to make your presentation the best it could possibly be! My aim would be to get tweets that were agreeing, disagreeing, offering alternatives, building ideas etc. What I wouldn’t want to see is comments highlighting a weak presentation style. I know I’ve delivered poor presentations in my time and yet the feedback from delegates is very complimentary and polite. People who haven’t appreciated I suspect have chosen to remain silent and anonymous (at least to my face!). The backchannel appears to be fearless even though it’s not necessarily anonymous.

• Interaction – OK, I mentioned my need for control before but I love engaging audiences and getting their thoughts. With Twitter you have an amazing tool for doing that in a much broader way than by raised hands and voices alone. I hope I would be brave enough to open up questions to the backchannel. If I was watching a presentation like that I think I would be really engaged.

• Networks – A perusal of the backchannel comments after an event is a great way of finding out the individuals who have a real interest in the topic you were discussing and that’s a great way for establishing those links.

• Engagement – I’ve heard some people argue that if people are tweeting during a presentation they can’t be concentrating on it. You could say the same thing about taking notes in that case! With Twitter people can take notes in a much more socially constructive way and that is likely to make your presentation MUCH more effective anyway.

So, on balance I think I like the idea providing I can keep on my toes as a presenter!

The most exciting thing about it is that it turns a presentation into much more of a social event. To some extent that means that the training I had on how to be a good presenter is gradually becoming obsolete – that was based much more on the one to many delivery model.

I also think it makes a conference hall a much more honest environment where people are able to express themselves in a way that they perhaps didn’t on their paper feedback forms.

Whether I’ll still believe that after having gone through the experience remains to be seen!

Hi all,

I’ve been asked by Edge, a charity “dedicated to raising the stature of practical and vocational learning”, if I would host a stream for this debate taking place on the 22nd March at 16:30.

I’m not endorsing Edge’s manifesto but having said in my previous post about being nervous for the future of education it seemed a good opportunity to help facilitate some discussion on the topic.

I don’t intend to make a habit of hosting other people’s material on this site.

My blog theme didn’t like the embed code so you can access information on the debate on Facebook here and the debate will be hosted on Facebook here.

Fear - by Mark Sun on Flickr (CC)

As part of our MSc we’ve had to read a paper by Guy Merchant (2009) on Web2.0, new literacies and the idea of learning though participation. We were asked to provide a response on it in a form of our choosing. I thought I’d have a go with Audioboo as I haven’t really had a chance to play with it.

You can read the paper here. It’s well worth it if you are interested in web2.0 and social networking for eductaion.

My response was just a quick thing about the relationship between participation and engagement on one hand and fear on the other and how it links to reading I did as an undergrad about fear (informed or otherwise) influences behaviour in real landscapes. The book was by Yi Fu Tuan and can be found here.

I don’t draw any radical conclusions as this was more a way of recording some thoughts.

PS – Sorry about the tag cloud – slight issues following updating the plugin…

Cell by skatejpg CC on Flickr

This idea has been knocking around in my head for a few days. I’m not even sure it’s a practical suggestion but when you’ve got an itch you gotta scratch.

There’ve been quite a lot of new developments regarding CPD in the UK recently, the most obvious being the arrival of VITAL so it’s occupying a bit of my brain.

I’ve blogged before (and here) about my disillusionment with traditional CPD models where learners choose courses from a list, turn up and then hope to goodness that it changes their skills/behaviour. In many cases it might, but it seems like a hopeful scatter-gun approach to learning, not very effective if you are managing CPD for your staff.

I really like the Enquiring Minds model that Futurelab has written about where learning is directed by the learners, establishing a community that effectively teaches itself or drafts in outside help (professional or otherwise). It’s worth a look at and it’s being put into practice all over the shop (this for example).

The thing that interests me is the challenge of managing this group of learners especially if you are in a large organisation like a school or university. Groups of learners would have to be of a size that was self-sustaining without being overly big.

Also, not everybody wants to learn about the same things at the same time so how do you manage learning where the needs are so fluid?

And this got me thinking about Cell Groups. If you’re not familiar with the term, in a nutshell they’re a way of organising fellowship groups in churches (no wait, come back!) where a large congregation organises itself into small fluid groups where membership can grow and change over time. If a group becomes too large to sustain it is free to split. If members of one group feel they are a better fit elsewhere then they can join a different cell.

I was wondering whether this sort of model would work for CPD.

• In a school different cells would be formed for different special interests depending on where individuals’ needs for development lay, for instance, aspects of SEN provision, social networking as a learning tool, new literacies etc.
• Each cell would direct it’s own learning, collaborate, share experience and comment on each other’s progress.
• Within a cell, leadership wouldn’t necessarily be by any one person. It could be fluid or even non-existent, relying on leadership by consensus.
• When an avenue of development is judged by the group to be exhausted then the cell changes its focus or disperses and members join other cells or split to investigate other avenues.
• If individuals feel they are better served in different cells then they can switch mid-stream with the new group helping to support the new arrival in catching up.

The key thing is that these mini-communities

It’s all quite Darwinian. If it worked well then, with a bit of gentle direction,  the cells would form around topics that were of most professional benefit to the learners themselves and therefore the institution.

It could also be quite chaotic and difficult to manage from the leadership’s point of view. Is that necessarily a bad thing? Not sure. The role of the leadership team would be to support learners in taking their development seriously and helping them to reflect and put into practice. With learners owning their own development the benefits would be greater than just plonking someone on a course and hoping for the best.

I’ll probably find that it’s already been in use for years and I just hadn’t noticed. Typical, really.

So, itch scratched. I’ll probably read this in a few weeks time with my head in my hands but the reason for having this blog was to record ideas, however naff.

If you have any thoughts on this I’d love to hear from you.

Go on, put me straight.

CC Flickr image by Rakka

Here’s another entry to the D-Ed Pool and it’s an interesting one as it’s a service I quite liked but also is a good example of one of the main pitfalls of using web2.0 tools for education.

Fliggo was a build-your-own video sharing site which I originally viewed way back here. The applications for education were plentiful. You could in effect create a TV channel for your school or class and protect it the same way you could protect a wordpress blog (controlling who can upload or view, add comments etc) with the added bonus that you could import videos from YouTube thus getting round most education ISPs’ filters.

A few weeks ago it stopped allowing me to upload videos and now it’s not even allowing me to login. In November Fliggo was “rolled into” Vidly a Twitter video service and the create-your-own aspect of the site was quietly put to bed. Have a read of Fliggo’s blog post – it’s quite illuminating.

Why is it important for educators?

It tells us somethings about the nature of the web2.0 at a time when it’s really taking off for teaching and learning.

1. Services like Fliggo take time and resources to build and then maintain. There is a lot of altruism on the web but it’s not limitless. People need to eat. I think I remember @dougbelshaw saying in a blog post that the web2.0 “free lunch” was a but of an illusion (sorry if that’s a misquote, Doug). In Fliggo’s case they needed to make a commercial decision and that didn’t include keeping Fliggo going.
2. The 2nd point is related. In the 11months or so since Fliggo was released the nature of the social web has changed. Twitter seems to be where the people are(and therefore, the money). Fliggo was catering for a need that appears to have vanished with alarming speed.

It’s one of the principle risks of using many web2.0 tools that there is no guarantee that it will be there when you want it. Many services are still in beta. Some may never come out of beta and slowly die a death as the venture capital funding runs out or you’ll find that features that were once free are now charged for.

I talked about this previously and Fliggo is a case in point. The way we as educators use web-based technology needs to take this fragility into account and we have to be more agile and flexible than some people have been used to.

RIP Fliggo (no flowers, please)

CC Image - /Joe on Flickr

I have to be careful not to get too excited when a gizmo lands on the desk for us to evaluate at Sheffield East CLC. Having said that I was really looking forward to getting my hands on the iPod touch after hearing so much from other schools and CLC’s about using them.

I’ve had a few weeks to play with one now, although we haven’t used them with students yet, so I thought I’d capture my initial thoughts as an aide memoire for later. As with most things my opinion is likely to change but at least having this as something to refer back to might be useful.

What the iPod does is documented much better elsewhere so I’m not going to discuss that.My main point is a question, really, based on a conversation I’ve had with my boss. It’s this…

To what extent does the iPod Touch actually contribute to pedagogical change?

I start from the assumption that mobile learning is about transforming how learning happens as well as when and where.

The iPod is a great device for delivering content which is what it was designed for. It’s fun and a breeze to use for listening to podcasts, watching videos, looking at websites etc. It gets a lot harder when you try to actually create stuff and contribute.

Text input is fine for short spells but that gives quite a narrow field of ways of getting students to contribute to their own learning. If you want students to capture audio you’ll need to invest in earphones with built-in mic (which can cost up to £20). There are some nice audio apps (AudioBoo being one) but transferring sound out for use elsewhere can be a pain.

The lack of camera for stills and video is a big miss and would open up the door to myriad possibilities for developing visual literacy.

Also, a browse through the apps store for education titles is pretty uninspiring (although there are exceptions – I hope to do another blog post about some of my faves in the near future). Most are about drill-and-practice skill honing or showing information (sometimes in quite engaging and attractive ways, mind).

I don’t buy the idea that by giving a student a mobile device so they can access delivered content anytime and anywhere makes it a learner-centred experience. You need to maximise opportunities for  the learner to record and reflect on their own experiences and the iPod isn’t quite there yet although it’s a step in the right direction.

They key thing, though is that the device on it’s own isn’t going to be transformative other than perhaps adding novelty or increasing engagement. The learning culture around the device needs to find ways of using its capabilities to allow the learner to create and reflect more easily.

I’m not down on the iPod. I love it as a device. I just think that anyone investigating it as a learning tool should think as much about the environment the iPod will be used in as much as what the machine can do.

What are your thoughts on the iPod? Put me straight if you disagree…

I was trying to come up with a fun way of explaining web2.0 this summer (a little like our VLE animation from last year – starting to look a little dated now) and came up with a stick men thing but gave up because I was boring myself. This is much better than I would have managed.

I particularly like way she divorces the ideas from the technology and her positive-thinking approach.

Cheers Sacha.

Travis Allen is an 18-year old student from Georgia, USA who has started something called the iSchool Initiative. In brief, he is an advocate for getting technology into the classroom in the shape of iPod Touches.

He makes the argument that if all students had the Apple devices running a collection of apps there would be considerable learning, cost-saving and environmental benefits for schools. Check out his manifesto on YouTube.

A few reflections:

• Firstly, I wish more students took such an interest in their learning. I vigorously applaud Travis’s efforts and I hope his school/college is taking him seriously.
• The benefits of using mobile tech on a one device per student basis are well documented and certainly Apple owns the market at the moment. No one else comes close yet.
• I do feel slightly uneasy about the exclusive Apple nature of the proposal, though. I admit there is a lack of credible alternatives right now but when you are beholden to one supplier for hardware and content there may be problems further down the line. What happens if Android really takes off in 24months time and has a killer education app?
• For me the ideal situation would be when these core apps are available cross platform (I don’t know enough about the market to know if developers are making apps available for Apple and Android etc). That would then free up the students/staff to choose a device tailored to their needs.
• Travis mentions a cost of $150 per student. Is this just his cost per device? Is it one off or per year? What about wireless infrastructure? Content creation and management? I’m sure he’s right about cost savings, but his headline figure looks too good to be true.
• Travis argues that there can be communication between staff and students “anytime, anywhere”. If you have the iPod device you need wireless internet access. Go out into the field and you lose connectivity. The iPhone brings all sorts of technical complications but is actually a more exciting device. Some of the augmented reality apps that are starting to surface could transform field trips and opportunities for informal learning.
• Lastly, the restriction on websites available to those “dedicated to eductaion” seems a little draconian. Where do you draw the line? Is Twitter educationally useful? YouTube? Facebook? It feels more like a proposal to calm the fears of worried parents and staff and is therefore a political rather than pedagogical move. If you lock down access to the internet you risk losing the benefits of collaboration and creativity using web2.0 apps.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t have adowner on this. Travis’s idea is exciting and is a great vision for the future. Follow him on Twitter and give him feedback and encouragement.

Travis, if you’re reading this please comment back and keep us updated about your progress.

Here’s the long answer…

Training courses are comfortable. I’ve been a trainer in different sectors for 11 years now and there is a time-honoured process for identifying a training need, devising a course, evaluating it and then starting all over again or buggering off.

Also, for learners, courses are comfortable. You sort of know what to expect; leave your desk for a day or two, find out some new stuff, discard the stuff you disagreed with then get on with life pretty much as it was before the course.

I’d be happy to bet that of all the training programmes I’ve been a part of, maybe 50% have been good value for money.

That’s not because I’m a rubbish trainer.  It’s because if you want real transformation to take place the learner’s environment and culture has to change as much as their brain. 2 days in a training room ain’t gonna do that.

For web2.0 specifically you are faced with a model of technology that doesn’t behave like traditional IT.  It’s much more flexible, available, ephemeral and fragile than what most people are used to.

“Train” people how to use particular web2.0 apps and before you know it the tech landscape has changed and people are cross at you for wasting their time! Check out Henrico Dolfing’s slideshare about why web2.0 is a fragile beast. (Thanks James Clay for posting it)

So, do 2 things…

1) Forget about ICT – for the moment anyway. Breed a culture at all levels on both sides of the staffroom door that thrives on change and novelty. Students will need that skill when they step outside the gate. That way the school’s use of ICT will flex and bend with technology, not try to shoehorn old technology into new curriculums (curricula?).

2) Let students do the choosing of how they use ICT.  This frees teachers from having to keep at the bleeding edge of technology when their real job is helping students to learn.

Obviously, it’s going to be much more complex than that so let me know how you would refine this. Or tell me what the right answer should be…

Image – Noodlepie 6n Flickr