Platforms, Pedagogy and Personalisation

I went to BETT in Kensington Olympia last week for three days to enjoy the show but also to take notes about 'learning platforms' in England and more generally, advances in the
'personalisation' agenda south of the Scottish border.
There were plenty of companys ready to sell a tested learning platform and the seminars were full of presenters addressing the issue of personalisation in learning.
In the halls and stalls my first stop was the National Education Network stand.

Jim Henderson LTS, described to me some of the very useful resources available across the UK, through this network. Glow is at the top of the board: a Scottish solution with more to offer than many of the English based platforms. I lso saw Glow at the RM stand in Olympia 2. This where I saw a Alfred Wegners's tectonic plates in motion on an amazing globe.

I moved on to take a closer look at some of the learning platforms,VLEs and content behind this network. There were a number of stands offering useful information about personalisation and learning. Here are a few that I intend to revisit online:

The National Education Network
http://www.nen.gov.uk/
Department for Education and Skills
http://www.dfes.gov.uk/
Becta
http://www.becta.org.uk/
Student Voice
http://www.schoolsnetwork.org.uk/
LP+Safari
http://www.lpplus.com/
http://www.shirelandlearning.co.uk/


Fronter (see London Grid for Learning)
Frog
http://www.frogtrade.com/
Gaia Technologies Plc
http://www.gaia-tech.com/






Netmedia Education (Espresso group)
http://www.netmediaeducation.com/
Clipbank (Espresso group)
www.channel4learning.com/clipbank
http://www.espresso.co.uk/
I also went to some seminars and found two very interesting speakers.
Personalising Learning-whats in it for me?
Bernie Zakary, Becta
“emerging technology is agnostic: it can reinforce traditional teaching or be used for self paced programs of learning”
“learning platforms are like car dashboards”
“teachers have a responsibility to design learning programs: personalising for the learner, with the learner and by the learner”
“every child should have access to an online learning space”
“teachers need more information about LPs and what to use first (functionality)”

Ten steps closer to the ICT pedagogy we need.
Ralph Taberrer
DCSF (keynote)
“In the UK,we have high standards in ICT and pedagogy but do not get all the benefits we should (improving life chances)”
“Other countries in Europe, are doing better with less technology”
The Ten steps (I think) are:
1. Self review and improvements in school management of technology.
2. More consistency in quality of teaching with technology.
3. Understand young people and their digital literacy better.
4. Allow learners to publish more often in school time.
5. Give parents more access to the school.
6. Remove artificial separations between formal and informal learning
7. Give clear advice on what to learn and how to learn.
8. Make the most of new technology; content and devices.
9. Provide an education service which is customer focused and personal.
10. Invest in change.

Santa in France

As usual our ski holiday over Christmas was excellent. Even better because there was good snow and sunshine all week. This was great for my children who are just beginning to discover the fun of skiing. It is great for me helping them to do that.

As usual we exchanged presents on the 24th so we can all ski on the 25th. But this is the first time I have had to explain about Santa.

The children were asked to hide in their bedroom because Santa was coming over the hill (the headlamps of a piste basher were seen from the balcony). Santa was fooled into thinking all the children were asleep and was happy to leave the presents, on time. Not only that but he assured us that he had left some in Scotland at our house on the way to the French Alps. Two Christmases, brilliant!
I must check the route on Google earth.

Christmas Future

Christmas is a time to be with your family. Before my children came on the scene I would spend the days between Christmas day and New Year mountaineering in the Scottish Highlands. Withdrawing from people to the wilderness of the Cairngorm Mountains. It is a distant memory but I still remember my mother saying "people should not be allowed to go into the mountains at this time of year, it is too dangerous!". And of course every year we read stories about mountain rescue teams and deaths in the mountains. We feel for those lost in the dark, cold mountains of Scotland. They are mixed feelings and our fears are often heightened by the bright lights and warmth of Christmas.


Paradoxically we admire those who go to the mountains or who are able to withdraw voluntarily. We also see the ability to survive in adversity, to be physically or emotionally tough as a great asset. It was no surprise to me to read an article in the Guardian newspaper about 'great survivors' this Christmas. People who had survived extreme circumstances: such as plane crashes in the Andes Mountains. Experiences such as these are super 'real'. Survivors never forget. In a society where we are becoming more fearful of risk, riskful events seem to be more interesting to us. In a society where we are becoming more middle class and more connected we are more fearful of being disconnected or left on our own.
As we pad towards safety we occasionally look over our shoulder to see a trail of lonely footsteps in the snow. Have you seen Sean Penn's film Into the Wild? Not to be confused with The Call of the Wild, also a recently released film about adventure in Alaska. Sean Penn relates closely to the main character in his film, Chris McCandles:

It is a role, you suspect, Penn's younger self would have fought tooth and
nail to play, a character whose wanderlust and extreme attempt at
self-determination he identifies with wholeheartedly. 'Chris was a kid in search
of a place to belong,' he says, 'a place that would accept him as he was. His
quest was a quest for goodness and purity. It woke up some stuff in me, for
sure. I totally support his decision to go outside the comfort zone, even with
all the risks he took. The way I see it, whatever it takes for you to be truly
alive in this life, short of intentionally hurting someone else, you have to
do"

I often think about the type of character Chris Mcandles is and am sure that there are many other young men and women like him. He is certainly not alone in his need to escape. Guy Grieve talks about his more recent experience in the wilderness of Alaska:

Three years ago I took my life into my own hands and travelled into one of
the most remote wilderness regions on earth with the intention of living there
for one year. For some time my family and I had been trapped within an all-too
common scenario, living separate lives while I commuted hundreds of miles each
week to a job I hated, in order to pay a mortgage for a house that we could not
afford. Our family life was crammed into the weekends, and was fraught with the
tension of pretending we were happy, when in fact we were screaming for escape.
Through the week, I only ever saw my children asleep, as I left before they got
up and returned after they were in bed. On a good night, if the traffic wasn't
bad, I might just fit in a bedtime story. Then Juliet and I would cram down a
meal together before we collapsed into bed, ready to start the routine all over
again the next day.

Also, have you seen Will Smith in the film I am Legend? This is the third film of this story by Richard Matheson (1954) the last being the The Omega Man with Charlton Heston (1971). The story is basically the same; an individual survives against all odds. There is violence and there is lonliness. This is a film that revisits our darkest fears and basic strengths, as with 'Into the wild and Chris Mcandles'. It is not back to nature but it is a film about being lonely 'it's all about the unsettling silence, not the noise'. The type of silence Mcandles would have been comfortable with.
There also some key differences between the remakes of 1971 and 2007. The 21st century film is different in that the main character is reconstructed. In the same way that Sean Penn reconstructs a view of Ian Mcandles by describing him as a travelling philosopher, so too is Will Smith's character reinvented. He is very different from the previous 1971 character in that he does more than just survive he looks for a solution; a biological cure to a viral plague. He wants to be more than a survivor he seeks to be constructive and participative.


The winter months are a good time to reflect on risk and loneliness as integral parts of our biological makeup. In an increasingly digital and soft skills world how will this hardwiring evolve? This brings to mind that great science fiction film, 'Bladerunner' because it is about digital loneliness. The loneliness of a high spec short life military robot who is about to die. He has fantastic memories of battles in outer space and has led an exciting adventurous life. He has no real family only the painful realisation of the value of living and sharing.

Santa's World

The holidays are coming and I will soon be driving to Le Grande Bornand, near Annecy with my family. My children, age two and three are looking forward to seeing their grand parents and Santa in France. However, my daughter who is older than my son by thirteen months has, already, asked some difficult questions about Santa: when does he visit, what will he say and how does he get here? I am waiting for harder questions to follow and I have resorted to the google earth blog for a little help, to find out how Santa gets to France.

http://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2007/12/google_earth_and_santa_claus.html

Performance and class size.

At this time of year teachers in secondary schools across Scotland are pushing pupils to get the most work out of them before the festive season intervenes. They know that teaching will be increasingly overtaken by assessment after the holiday, when the new year ages rapidly and pupils rush towards revision and prelim exams.
It is interesting that the news papers hark the school holidays with three types of story about education. I have read articles on these three topics over the last week:
1. School League Tables and performance of local authority schools, relative to fee paying schools
2. Arguments for and against setting limits on class size.
3. The Quality and Equity of Scotland's school system (and scrap Standard Grade).

These stories have appeared in various magazines and newspapers but it is useful to look at what they have in the common. The first two topics are old favourites but the third is new: shockingly there is more difference between pupils in a successful school than there is between the best and worst schools in Scotland. There is also more than a hint of overlap with the English agenda and the government vision for improving the learning experiences of young people. The big idea these articles have in common is well known: that education is a positional good and that schools are steeped in a culture of individual performance. We, as parents or teachers, are often confused becuase we want both a fair system for all and the best for our own children. Newspapers make money from our fear of personal failure or more often our indignation that private schools are able to do so much better than our local schools, no matter what.
Some questions come to mind. Why should we be surprised that people, or professional institutions act in such a competitive way? Why should we be surprised that private fee paying schools look for a positional advantage in society, through small class sizes or coaching learners for exam success? Should we simply follow their lead and encourage schools to have a system of schooling based on competition and individual exam success (even if this means distorting the model with larger classes than those found in private schools)? Many parents and teachers do not see any need to move away from these old models of schooling: I am not one of them not least because they are divisive.
In my mind there are very good reasons for a national review and for scrutinizing the inertia in our school system by reflecting critically on our existing values base.
"The cultural renewal of Scotland’s people cannot occur through schools alone—in part because there are strong social pressures to use schools as instruments of positional advantage in a highly competitive world. Lifelong learning through further and higher education will become increasingly important as older age-groups seek to adjust to changing environments and demands on them. But the disposition to lifelong learning is itself closely linked with the extent and quality of an individual’s experience of school. So the openness, responsiveness and effectiveness of Scotland’s schools remain vital.” Reviews of National Policies for Education - Quality and Equity of Schooling in Scotland

http://www.oecd.org/document/18/0,3343,en_2649_37455_39744402_1_1_1_37455,00.html
Better education in this century is about developing learners with an enhanced capacity to engage with learning or problem solving, for life. This means deconstructing old teaching spaces, old teaching approaches, top down management and the hidden curriculum. The idea that, what pupils learn through competition or examination skill is frankly, no longer sufficient for the world of work. The idea that most of our schools should compete on terms set by an exclusive system of education as found in the fee paying sector is not attractive to me. We should, however, support all schools in their aim to have smaller classes, because this means, quite simply, that good teachers have more time to help learners and facilitate better learning. Better teachers do better with smaller classes. What is more we can see this logic is the accepted logic: as more and more subjects in Scottish secondary schools are capped at class sizes of twenty pupils; in music, art, science, languages and others. However it is unfortunate that this logic runs short of certain subjects and those pupils who are left behind in those subjects. This may eventually become a union or work load issue because large classes nearly always mean more work and more preparation for teachers but less interaction and less feedback for pupils.

The existing structures and inertia that we see in secondary schools are supported by subject discipline divisions and their own hierarchy in a school. In the same way that doctors have more professional status and privilege in society, science holds more status and resources in schools. The subject divisions have been politicised and democracy is coming to the curriculum. This type of deconstruction and essential change is evident in the new curriculum and the new approaches to teaching and learning it demands. We now have Curriculum for Excellence and Assessment is for Learning both of which require new ways of working in schools and new definitions of knowledge. They also demand more collegiality amongst teachers and more collaboration between pupils with the aim of providing synergy for lifelong learning. This is a great project and it rests critically on two things: values and technology. This will allow us to work smarter and communicate better with each other. This will also help address the obvious demand for improved personal choice: in the classroom by personalising learning and in the profession by giving more autonomy over the curriculum to teachers.

It is my belief that it is important to redefine the terminology we use in discussing how we can change schools: for example we need to move on from less than useful arguments about class size and exam performance. The challenge is to find the right language to describe our problems. This is happening and increasingly that language is more technical as we describe the how and the what. Teachers must increasingly make reference to the theory of learning in a context which includes computers. Teachers are challenged to find the time and space to model life long learning behaviour, to discuss useful knowledge with young people and to engage with them in an authentic and purposeful way. We are all challenged to find better ways to measure achievement and to describe success in our schools.

Inanities of the internet

It seems appropriate that I start this blog with a subject of sufficiently high order. Cultural 'fragmentation' and the 'revolution' that we are experiencing as a result of new technologies. As I had hoped when I was thinking about starting this blog, I have found good material, quickly. Ironically I am using Doris Lessing's recent acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize for Literature, to do the very thing she complains about in her speech, blogging! Without quoting large parts of her speech, it is fair to say that she has on the one hand drawn attention to a real problem which is that perhaps some people do spend a little too long in front of screens but on the other hand it is very wrong to assume that those who have an interest in emerging technology or indeed make good use of improved access to information or communication tools are wasting their time.
From reading her acceptance speech, I would not say that DL has a narrow understanding of what knowledge is but I would say that she has little understanding of the power of technology to create learning communities or new understanding through online conversation. Lessing has a real and serious concern: that people do not read enough that their thinking lacks depth and of course that potential authors may not write books.
While I struggle for the words to make my own points useful I envy the writing skills of Lessing and other brilliant authors. Still I hope my writing improves and I am by the way, by blogging, trying to answer one of Lessing's questions : "Have you found a space, that empty space, which should surround you when you write?" I once worked in Kenya for a few months and was lucky to experience real quiet and wilderness in the deserts and jungles there. Here in Dundee there are very different types of desert and jungle and it it is very difficult to find a similar sense of space. Increasingly, I do not have time to visit the mountains, which are close bye, and give more and more time to work and domestic tasks.......... but I hope to find some parcels of time for this space.