Also on the web: 03/09/2010 (a.m.)

• netp.pdf (application/pdf Object)

  I'm looking forward to reading this. At first glance it looks like it proposes a similar set of arguments to the ones I used in my tak on why schools cannot ignore Web 2.0, which I gave recently at the ICTLT Conference in Singapore. I have to say that words like 'leverage' put me ff a bit, but still. I think the subject matter is worth reading and discussing. I wonder; is this the USA answer to the UK's Harnessing Technology'?

  tags: Learning with technology, educational technology, netp2010, ICTLT2010

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5 Minute Tip: Using Your Phone As An E-Reader

How can you read stuff digitally on the move if you don't have an e-reader and don't want to use a laptop?

I have just returned from Singapore, where I was invited by the Ministry of Education to give two Spotlight presentations at the ICTLT2010 Conference, on the subjects of introducing Web 2.0 into your classroom, and into your school. Because of weight restrictions and for the sake of convenience, I didn't want to take reams of paper with me, and I didn't want to have to read everything on a laptop either, as the one I took with was a fairly large one.

The solution? I used my phone instead.

Who needs an e-reader?

I have a smartphone, meaning that I can synchronise appointments and contact details with my computer. It also comes with a suite of applications like Word, and Acrobat Reader. I found that trying to read documents on the small screen is a challenge: you either need microsopic vision, or not mind scrolling furiously every few words.

However, I found that reading my presentation slides in pdf format worked very well indeed. The file was much smaller than the original PowerPoint version, and was perfectly clear, as you can see in the illustration. It meant that I was able to look at my slides very easily and without any fuss, whilst in situations like drinking a coffee in the airport lounge. I would highly recommend this.

Here's what I did (I'm using Office 2007).

1. In PowerPoint, go to Save As -> PDF or XPS.
2. Select the Minimal Size (Publish online) option.
3. Connect the phone to the computer, via a USB cable.
4. When asked what sort of connection, select ActivSynch.
5. Create a suitably-named folder in My Documents on the phone.
6. Copy the file across from the computer to the phone in the usual fashion.
7. View the file on the phone by going to Program -> File Explorer and then navigating your way to the file.

I shall be doing a lot more of this from now on!

The world according to Potter Part 2 -- Opposites Attract

There is an updated version of this article here: UPDATED! The World According To Stephen Potter

In this brief series I am looking at the concept of "one-upmanship", as developed by Stephen Potter, and exploring how the observations he made 50 years ago might still be applicable in the world of educational technology today.

Background

As I said in the first article in the series (which contains much more background information), his books are concerned with the study of how to be "one up" on other people. Although they are written very much tongue-in-cheek, they are clearly based on real-life observation. I first came across them 40 years ago, and have read and re-read them over the years for their humour. However, I find myself more and more discovering that a number of aspects of modern life may be found in these books, despite the elapsing of half a century, a fact which I believe puts them on a par with other classics such as Parkinson's Law and The Peter Principle.

To summarise, the 4 main books he wrote on the subject were:

• Gamesmanship, or the art of winning games without actually cheating
  
  

• Lifemanship, which was concerned with the application of the principles of gamesmanship to everyday life
  
  

• One-upmanship, which was a further extension of Lifemanship, and
  
  

• Supermanship, or the art of staying on top without falling apart.

In Potter's world, the practitioner of one-upmanship, or Lifeman as he or she is known having completed the Lifemanship Correspondence course, has one overarching thought: that if you are not one up then you are, by definition, one down.

Looked at in the cold light of day it sounds ridiculous, I know. But Potter very accurately described people and practices that you and I see almost every day of our lives. So suspend your disbelief and bear with me, as today I look at the law of opposites.

Presentational dissonance and self-contradictory names

As I have said in the past, in describing activities for which I coined the term "presentational dissonance", some practices are inherently conttradictory. Examples that spring to mind immediately are:

• Authors who write books about self-publishing -- for a publishing company, and
  
  

• A lecture I attended once which lasted well over an hour -- on the importance of participatory learning techniques.
  
  

• More recently, one might add those globe-trotters who visit different parts of the world to deliver lectures on the benefits of e-learning and the interactivity of Web 2.0.

But there is a far more powerful manifestation of this sort of thing: the conjuring up of names for initiatives which are really the precise converse of what the initiatives are actually about.

For example, three or four years ago in the UK there was a welfare initiative called "Supporting People". Under this initiative, the hours of work of wardens in sheltered accommodation were cut, and sometimes reduced to zero, thereby placing at risk some of the most vulnerable people in our society. When I enquired why this was being done, I was told that the organisation concerned had chosen to do it: apparently, it was not an inherent part of the policy itself. Well, maybe it was, and maybe it wasn't, but the point is that once Supporting People came on the scene, some people stopped being supported.

A more recent initiative, this time in the Health Service, is called Fit for the Future. Note the clever play on the word "fit", which in this context means fit as in healthy, and fit as in suitable. Apparently, in the future there will not be traffic jams, and there may not even be accidents and emergencies. Why else would my local Health Trust be using Fit for the Future as a means by which to axe perfectly good locally-based Accident and Emergency units in hospitals, and force people to travel to a modern hospital that can barely cope now, let alone when that happens? In other words, like "Supporting People", "Fit for the Future" seems to me to mean the exact opposite of what it sounds like it was supposed to mean.

But the prize must go to "Building Schools for the Future". I am not referring to the programme itself, which has achieved some success, but the name. If you think about it, it contains the seeds of its own failure, making success that much more difficult to achieve. After all, if one were to really start to think futuristically about education, one might hesitate to think in terms of schools at all. And as for building, would that even merit a mention, except perhaps as a footnote?

The Potter dimension

So where does Potter fit in with all this? Well, before I tell you, here is a little more background information which will prove useful to you. Potter's "day job" was English lecturer in the University of Oxford. So there is a kind of in joke running throughout the books whereby Potter gives spurious academic-sounding names to types of behaviour. I'll go more into this in another article, but to give you an idea of what I mean, he came up with such immortal terms as "Trojan Horsemanship", "Book Reviewership" and "Derby and Joanmanship" (with its associated phenomenon of "still-ridiculously-in-love-with-each-othering"). It will therefore come as no surprise to learn that Potter came up with a very apposite term for what I've just been describing.

In the Supermanship book, there is a riotous exposition of the natural one-upness of babies, and how to counteract it. In one paragraph, he says that as well as being undermined by the baby itself, parents will also start to be got at by external forces in various guises. He writes:

"Baby Literature makes itself felt first, and Baby Instruction. Many prettily got-up booklets start with the dictum 'Enjoy your baby'."

To this last point is appended a footnote which states:

"This is known in Yeovil [where the Lifemanship Correspondence College is based] as 'The Petrification of the Implied Opposite'."

If the term "Building Schools for the Future" is not a superb example of the petrification of the implied opposite, I don't know what is. Another example we might cite is "e-learning credits" which, when this form of funding first appeared at least, had everything to do with digital content and nothing to do with e-learning, and involved no type of credit in the usually-understood meaning of the term.

Implications for educational technology

So what does all this mean for the educational technology subject leader? I'm not interested in having a dig at the names of initiatives just for its own sake. After all, things have to have names, and the pithier and more evocative the better. But from the point of view of, if you like, the consumer (ie us), we have a responsibility to try and tease out exactly what any new initiative entails. Does it really mean what we took it to mean at first glance? What does the small print say? Is it deliverable? And is it even worth delivering? Can we deliver it with our existing policies rather than spending time and energy setting up new structures?

And let's be clear about this: some initiatives really do do what it says on the tin. Harnessing Technology is about finding ways of harnessing technology in the service of learning. The Hands-On Support funding of a few years ago was very much concerned with providing practical, in-class, support for teachers using educational technology. It's only by scrutinising the various policies, strategies and initiatives that we can get behind the soundbite of the title to determine what it's really all about, and sometimes what we discover is actually good!

And if it does turn out to be an example of the petrification of the implied opposite, it is our responsibility to try to ensure that the initiative lives up to its promise, rather than down to our lowest expectations.

This article was first published on 31 October 2007.

Managing Change: The Importance of Vision

Back in the 17th century, if you were unfortunate enough to have had a vision, and stupid enough to admit to it, you'd likely be burnt at the stake or locked away on the grounds of insanity. But these days, having a vision is de rigeur if you are to bring about change in an organisation effectively.

There is a lot of research which shows that if you want to transform educational ICT in an organisation, you must have a set of guiding principles -- a vision -- in place. You have to know what it is you're striving to achieve, not in terms of the nuts and bolts of what technology will be used and how, but in terms of the educational experience of the students, teachers and parents.

Moreover, the research, and experience, tells us that the vision has to be shared by all, not just the lone ravings of a madman. Ideally, then, it should have been developed by all.

Three of the things I always check when I'm evaluating the ICT provision of a school, whether as an ICT Mark Assessor or an independent consultant brought in by the school or the Local Authority, are as follows:

One, does everyone, including parents and, of course, the youngsters, know what the vision is?

Two, did they have a hand in framing it?

Three, is the school achieving it?

Interestingly, I find that much of the time the parents and students know what the vision is if you ask a question like, "What do you think the school is trying to achieve?". If you ask them about visions, they give you a kind of sidelong glance that suggests that they think you're slightly unhinged. It's a salutary lesson: most of the world does not speak in corporate jargon.

If a vision is good to have, having two or more must be even better, right? Unfortunately, no. Researchers Peck and Sprenger, in their chapter on one-to-one educational computing in The International Handbook of Information Technology in Primary and Secondary Education (Springer, 2008), which I shall be reviewing, advise against falling into the traps of naive innovation. One of these is having too many disconnected initiatives.

Even Ofsted, the UK's school inspection body, said in a recent report on the impact of the National Strategies, that:

... the frequent introduction of new initiatives had led to overload and diminished their potential effectiveness.

Try telling that to the people and organisations who are continually coming up with new initiatives and projects to make educational ICT even "better". A couple of years ago, I worked out that there were forty educational initiatives, policies or projects that involved ICT in some way, that affected schools in England and Wales. There may have been more, but when I reached 40 I stopped counting.

Perhaps our 17th century ancestors weren't entirely wrong after all!

The world according to Potter Part (1) Going Metric

There is an updated version of this article here: UPDATED! The World According To Stephen Potter

In this brief series I'd like to see how the writings of Stephen Potter might be applicable in the world of education -- and, in particular, educational technology -- today. Writing predominantly in the 1940s and 50s, Potter codified the art and science of "one-upmanship". In so doing, he not only inspired a generation of undergraduates to put his theories to the test and invent new "ploys" and "gambits", but inspired the making of a film ("School for Scoundrels") and, perhaps more importantly, was taken seriously enough for the term "one-upmanship" to be cited in academic books.

His books are concerned with the study of how to be "one up" on other people. Although they are written very much tongue-in-cheek, they are clearly based on real-life observation. I first came across them 40 years ago, and have read and re-read them over the years for their humour. However, I find myself more and more discovering that a number of aspects of modern life may be found in these books, despite the elapsing of half a century, a fact which I believe puts them on a par with other classics such as Parkinson's Law and The Peter Principle.

So, with no further ado, let's see what Potter has to offer the educational ICT (Information & Communications Technology) subject leader in a school, Local Authority or School District. For this to make as much sense as possible, imagine yourself to be of a certain mindset: that of regarding every waking moment as an opportunity to place yourself, or appear to be, in a superior position to those around you. It may all sound too far-fetched, but as you read on I think you will start to recognise people you know....

I have already written about this in the context of getting ICT embedded in a school. In today's article, I should like to explore the wonderful world of statistics.

I don't know if you have noticed, but every presentation by a Government spokesperson consists of at least 5 minutes (and often much more), of statistics. Whatever the topic under consideration, there is always a section that goes something like this:

"Since we were elected X years ago we have more than doubled the number of Y, and over the next 3 years we will increase this by a further Z percent".

We hear it all the time in presentations about educational ICT in the UK, but it appears in every other branch of public affairs too.

The thing about statistics, though, is that so much depends on context, even if the figures themselves are (a) accurate and (b) not subject to interpretation -- both of which assumptions are highly dubious for a start. For example, if an educational spokesperson were to announce that the Government will spend an extra £10m on in-service training for teachers over the next 3 years, that sounds impressive until you work out that, in the UK, that amounts to just over £22 per head, or around £7.50 (approximately 15 USD) per teacher per year. (See http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=1765 for the statistics on which I have based this calculation.)

Now, there is nothing startling about this per se, but what is interesting is the fact that it is completely disarming unless you (a) happen to know the underlying stats and (b) can do lightning fast calculations. The point is, by the time you have even had a chance to think about it, the moment is gone, and the speaker is on to yet another "fact".

Interestingly enough, Stephen Potter recognised the power of this sort of approach. In "One-upmanship" there is a chapter called "Doctorship", in which Potter discusses the important topics of medical studentship, doctorship, patientship and healthmanship. (I will be examining Potter's use of terminology in a future article.) In a footnote he says:

"An effective statement in the right context can sometimes be: 'I have had 140 days' illness in my life.' Listeners are unable, without a lame pause for calculation, to know whether to commiserate or admire."

So how does this apply in the context of educational technology leadership? The answer is that in today's world, metrics are all-important. I personally believe that that is how it should be, but it's easy to be fooled by statistics which sound good but which, on closer examination turn out to be less than desirable or even meaningless.

For example, I have no idea why any teacher would want their students to receive thousands of comments about their work, because not only is that volume of comments unhelpful, it is completely unmanageable, as I have already said recently (see, for example, the October 2007 edition of Computers in Classrooms, which is available via a free subscription).

I also think most RSS feed readership statistics raise more questions than answers, and that (for my website at least) Technorati's statistics are fictional. More importantly, the metrics given out by companies need further scrutiny.

For example, a technical support company that claims that 99% of its call-outs are rated excellent inspires no confidence in me whatsoever. If the company has 10 employees, each doing one job per day, it means that over a two week period one of those jobs or days will not be rated excellent. That sounds quite a lot to me.

Similarly, a web hosting company that promises 99% "up time" may actually be promising that you may have to put up with the site being "down" for 15 minutes a week, assuming a 25 hour school week. Even if we leave school out of it, given the global nature of communications, I don't want my website to ever be down, not even for 5 minutes a week -- and even then, I want it to be planned for so that I can put a notice up and warn people. Yes, I know I am asking for the impossible, but my point is that statistics like "99% up-time" are meaningless unless we understand the context in which they are cited.

As an educational technology leader, you should at least know some important statistics. When evaluating the quality of a school's ICT provision (at the request of the Head of ICT or the Principal), I make a point of asking a number of questions which involve facts and figures and which the Head of ICT should either know or have immediate access to. It is astonishing how many don't. For example, do you know if there is a difference in attainment in ICT between girls and boys in your school? If so, is it significant? Do you know the cause? What are you doing about it?

As well as knowing some basic figures, you should also know what they mean. Statistics are often given a spurious veneer of credibility by the addition of a graph. I recall one teacher showing me "before" and "after" charts to illustrate how much his students had progressed over the last term.

"But what were the tests actually measuring?", I asked.

"I don't know", came the reply. "But the point is that whatever it is, it has gone up."

Getting back to Stephen Potter, he was making a wry observation about the cavalier use of statistics. Although he wrapped it up in a humorous, not to say unlikely, package, he was alerting us all to be on our guard.

This article was first published on 20 October 2007