Getting permission to go on an ICTcourse or to a conference

So, you’ve discovered a conference you’d like to attend, but there’s a real possibility that your boss will say “No”. What can you do to maximise your chances of being allowed to attend?

The suggestions which follow cannot, obviously, be guaranteed to succeed. However, they will almost certainly give you more of a fighting chance than the usual approach, which is just to ask for 3 days off. The trick when talking to supervisors is to make your problem their problem, and their problem your problem. Let’s start with the first, making your problem their problem.

Making your problem their problem

Reasons to be allowed to attend

It’s a big challenge keeping up with current thinking and research and practice, so a conference can be a very useful way of doing so very quickly. The issue is: will you get more from going to the conference than you could obtain by other means? In this respect, two factors come into play.

First, does the conference, or a particular theme or strand of the conference, deal with something you’re especially involved in?

For example, are you running a particular course, are you about to buy and implement a particular type of learning platform, are you about to enter your students for a particular examination? These kinds of needs, if addressed by the conference, are powerful arguments in favour of your being permitted to attend.

Second, do the speakers have particular expertise in the area of concern? Note that this is not the same as “is the speaker famous?” If you’re about to start a new course, and the main speaker is one of the writers of the course, or from the relevant Awarding Body, that is likely to be much more useful than an entertaining but, ultimately, empty talk by a well-known personality.

There is a need to network. Even the best schools can become complacent or out of touch, if they have no external reference point by which to judge themselves. When I used to do inspections of schools’ ICT provision I often found myself recommending to the subject leader that s/he starts to make visits to other schools to see what they’re doing. You can’t really pick up good ideas from reading about them in quite the same way as you can by actually seeing the ideas in practice and asking questions of the appropriate people.

In fact, networking is so important that whenever I am involved in organising conferences I ensure that there is time for people to meet informally, and I always try to have this billed in the programme as “social networking” or “networking”, as opposed to “Bar”. Having “bar” as a timetabled activity almost invariably elicits the response “Why should I have to pay for you to go on a junket?” The fact that it takes place in your own time doesn’t make any difference, because it’s the perception that counts in cases like this.

Making their problem your problem

1. Minimise the disruption. If it’s possible to set work that requires very little effort by another teacher, but which is still useful, then do so. For example, you could set everything up on the school network in advance.

You can also compile folders for each lesson. Imagine being a cover teacher, and handed a folder containing the instructions to the class “Log on and click on the X icon”, a list of students’ names and their login details, and simple instructions about what they have to do.

2. Minimise the cost. While you’re away, the school may have to hire a temporary teacher. There are two main ways you can try to avoid or minimise this cost.

First, it may be possible for you to organise cover within your team, if you have one. This make sense from a learning point of view, because it means that the students will still be being taught in your absence. However, if your co-workers agree to this arrangement, you must negotiate a quid pro quo whereby they will not be asked to cover others’ lessons in addition. In other words, nobody should end up doing more cover work than they normally would.

The second is to see if there is a possibility of volunteering to assist with the conference arrangements, or to speak at the conference, in return for a free place and money to cover supply teachers. Obviously, not every delegate will be able to enjoy this kind of arrangement, but in my experience most of them never ask.

As I’ve said, these approaches are not absolutely guaranteed to work, but one thing is for certain: they mark you out as a professional who believes it’s their right to have access to continuing professional development.

Robot rights

"I will NOT have any daughter of mine bringing a robot into this house!"

You can just imagine the family rows of the future, should technology ever reach the point where it isn't possible to distinguish between humans and non-humans merely by looking at them.

And what of the ethnic monitoring forms of the future? Will employers have to ensure that a certain percentage of its workforce is non-human? An ethnic monitoring form of the future?

An article in the Daily Telegraph reports that people have already started to think about such matters:

"Society must decide if it is willing to accept relationships between humans and robots before the machines become so sophisticated they start demanding rights, a legal expert has warned."

I recall reading a short story some years ago in which a person discovers that they're not human, but a robot, and has to leave his job because of antagonism which I suppose would be classified as 'robotism'. It gives grist to my mill that, as I argued recently, science fiction can be a great starting point for discussion in a whole range of areas.

Furthermore, as this story in the Telegraph shows, the pace of technological change is such that we cannot assume that just because something is still confined to the fiction area of the bookshop it is not worth thinking about for its implications in actuality.

What Anna Russel, the legal expert referred to, has done is to extrapolate from current technological developments to potential problems for the future. This kind of exercise can be quite useful in getting students to think about the (possible) effects of technology on society, which is part of the National Curriculum in England and Wales and the curriculum of other countries.

What's RSS and why is it useful?

Here's a quick guide to RSS, which you may have seen mentioned on websites and blogs. (Note: I've written this guide with the complete novice in mind. If you already know what an RSS feed is, think about bookmarking this article in order to refer to it colleagues who are less knowledgeable than you. Thanks!)

What does RSS stand for?

The most commonly accepted answer is 'Really Simple Syndication'.

What does RSS let me do?

It makes it easy to do two things really easily. Firstly, it lets you read the articles on your favourite websites all in one place, using an application called a 'feed reader'. Secondly, as an extension of that, it lets you collate the latest posts from several blogs all in one place. It doesn't have to be only blog posts. It could be latest comments on someone's blog, or their most recent tweets in Twitter, or anything else that has an RSS feed.

Taking the first point, it means that you don't have to traipse from one website to another to check if there is anything new: new stuff will show up in your feed reader automatically.

How do I obtain a feed reader?

Just search for the term 'feed reader' and then find one that suits you. You can have one which is installed on your computer, or one that resides on the web. I prefer the latter, because it means it doesn't matter whether you're sitting at your own computer or not when you feel like checking for new content. Some installed feed readers let you synchronise with a web-based one, meaning that you potentially get the best of both worlds.

Popular feed readers include Bloglines and Google Reader, which are web-based. For other readers, look at this article about feed readers.

Update: since this article was written, Google has decided to discontinue its RSS Reader service. There are plenty of alternatives, however. Check out RSS isn't dead: the best Google Reader alternatives. Read the comments too, as there are suggestions in there as well. Feedly has been cited lots of times in articles. I myself have started to try one called The Old Reader, which seems quite nice.

How do I subscribe to an RSS feed?

If you've installed your feed reader's browser toolbar, you should be able to do so by clicking on 'Subscribe', if the blog or website has been set up to allow this. Otherwise, look for an icon like this: and click on it; your feed reader should do the rest. If it doesn't, right-click on the icon and select the menu item which reads 'Copy link location' (or similar), open your feed reader, and then paste the link into the New Subscription box. Don't worry: it's all a lot simpler and quicker than it sounds.

How do I read new articles?

Just open your feed reader and see what, if anything, has been added to the various websites since you last looked.

Conclusion

RSS makes it easy for you to keep up with lots of reading in a shorter period of time than would probably otherwise be the case, because you're not racing all over the internet from site to site.

If you're a teacher, it can also benefit your students. For example, if your school uses a virtual learning environment (VLE) you could set up areas for students to visit where the latest headlines from a range of websites are displayed. That could be used purely for reference, or you could incorporate it into lessons. For example, the first five or ten minutes of each lesson could be spent discussing what's new in the world of hospitality and catering, or in business and finance. At the risk of sounding clichéd, the uses for RSS are limited only by your imagination.

I hope you have found this useful. Feel free to comment on the article.

18 highlights from the 140 Conference

Yesterday I attended the 140 Character Conference in London, where I met up with Bill Gibbon, Neil Adam and Bill Lord.

From left to right: Neil Adam, Bill Lord, Bill Gibbon, Terry Freedman

Here are 18 highlights, any one of which could be the start of a rich conversation. I think if you take the volume and variety of the presentations overall, you would have to conclude that any schooling which does not address matters such as etiquette in, and use of, Twitter and other social media is not really a fully rounded education at all. Anyway, here are my ‘takeaways’.

I love the idea of Buy A Credit. Donate £1 and you get to have your name listed on the credits of a film. The money goes towards financing said film. What an ingenious idea. @buyacredit.

In the eracism slot, Kyra Gaunt told us that racism gives us the opportunity to be courageous.

Apparently, one fifth of businesses in the UK are on Twitter.

Several people, such as Stephen Fry and the lady from SB Buzz reminded us that Twitter is a relationship channel, not a sales channel.

Alex Bellinger told the story of a high street florist which engages its customers with Twitter. The plasma screen in its shop, displaying Twitter conversations, attracts curiosity, and then converts. This would probably be a good tactic to adopt in a school setting, both as a way of engaging other teachers and, on open days, parents.

I liked hearing from Dean Landsman and Dean Meyers that an augmented reality system tried out in New York provided the information that, in a particular direction, the nearest tube was 3,000 miles away. This is almost science fiction: think of the great creative writing you would see if you used this anecdote as a starting point.

In the musicians’ slot, Manny Norte started a sentence with the words, “M and M comes from an age…”  That was only 5 years ago! He went on to say that if M and M were starting out now, he would almost certainly use Twitter to engage with fans, as part of the marketing strategy.

I have to say that, in the ‘brands’ session, talk of ‘humanising the brand’ all sounded very cynical to me. Why not just be upfront and admit that Twitter is part of the marketing mix and be done with it?

JP Rangaswami, chief scientist at BT, asked why we couldn’t subscribe to a car park’s Twitter feed. Brilliant idea: you’d know which car parks are full in advance. After all, Tower Bridge has a Twitter feed and sends out alerts when the bridge is about to go up.

Josie Fraser gave an excellent talk about retweets, followed by some fake stats. I didn’t realise: RTs are a rarity apparently.

If you’re a consultant, maybe you miss the buzz and gossip of the office? Federico Grosso suggested that Twitter is actually a gigantic water cooler. Nice idea! Does that mean, then, that home-working is now not only technically possible, but feasible from a ‘human’ point of view too? A question for business studies students perhaps?

Some of the more ‘switched-on’ police forces, both here and abroad, have used Twitter to find missing persons and murder witnesses. Chief Inspector Mark Payne explained how using Twitter as a two-way information stream allowed the police to be deployed in the most efficient way during demonstrations, and to keep the public informed of what they were doing, and why. Question for citizenship students: is this a step towards policing with people rather than the policing of people?

The education session was interesting. James Clay stated the obvious (which is often necessary) when he said that “We need to get educational leaders to understand the value of social media.”

I was impressed by Ruth Barnett, of Sky, who emphasised the need for integrity when quoting from sources like the ‘Twitterverse’. For example, when covering the recent troubles in Iran, Sky apparently did its best to ensure that the tweeters it obtained information from were people who had already been reporting on it before it became the hot topic.

I also thought what she said about the challenges of networking with China was very interesting: they use a different character set and different networks. I’d also add that they probably have a profoundly different world view. All cultures differ, of course, which is what makes all this so interesting and, ultimately, rewarding.

Vikki Chowney made the point that, at the G20 conference, live blogging was difficult because of the volume of data being thrown at the audience. Twitter became, in effect, a tool for live blogging. That’s exactly what goes on at many conferences these days, of course.

She said that Twitter closed the gap between politics and people.

Finally, the author Thembisa Mshaka listed the differences between celebrity and stardom; for instance, a star has a tireless work ethic. She said, in a way reminiscent of Malcolm McLaren’s talk at the Handheld Learning Conference, that mediocrity becomes the order of the day because it is so easy to get away with.

 

An end to paid writing?

Paid writers

Does the existence and widespread availability of the web mean the end of professional, ie paid, writers? Stephen Downes thinks so. He asserts:

"It's a funny thing, how often I read articles that say, in one breath, that internet technology is one of those that "changes everything" and in the next breath talks about how people will still be paid for writing. You know, if everybody's doing it, people aren't going to be paid for it any more. Take reading - it used to be, kings and lords hired scribes not merely to write but to read their correspondence. And of course the average person would depend on a monk or a priest to read the Bible for them, much less any more mundane communication. Try getting yourself hired as a reader today! And imagine the laughter you would face if you boldly asserted that you would no longer share your reading unless people paid you money!"

I believe he is wrong, both about reading and writing.

Reading

  • Over 5 million people in Britain can't read or write today (see this video although, as one of the commenters says, the teacher in the video uses 'laying' when he should have used 'lying', which is rather unfortunate given the subject matter, but still). Presumably many of them have to have people read stuff to them, and possibly even pay for that service.
  • We do have paid readers, and we call them 'actors', 'poets' and 'news readers'. As Geoff Martin says in a comment on Downes' blog, "… even today we get professional readers - take the narrators of audio books, or the people who read the news."
  • When I have managed teams, I have often asked a member of the team to read a report to me and then let me have a summary of it and suggested actions. It's not that I can't read myself, but that it was a better use of resources to ask someone else to read it for me, thereby in effect paying them to read for me.
  • As a person who has some understanding of business and publishing in particular, but who is not a legal expert, I never sign a contract without having an expert read it over for me and then give me their opinion. As a member of the UK's Society of Authors and Federation of Small Business I pay subscriptions, partly in order to avail myself of this service.

Writing

Similar arguments apply to writing, where too we find the themes of necessity, convenience and expertise, and an economic argument.

  • The people who can't read or write need someone to write letters and fill out forms on their behalf. They may not always pay for the service, or pay directly, but the need for such a service is there.
  • It's true that anyone can write about anything. However, if you want something to be written by someone who actually knows what they're talking about, you may well want to find an expert in that field and pay them.
  • If you want something to be written well, again, you may need to pay someone. There are loads of people who think they can write, but who are actually pretty bad at it. Don't believe me, or think that's my ego talking? Have a look at Angela Hoy's collection of 'worst book proposals' .

    I have an interesting example to share from my own experience. A couple of years ago someone commissioned me to write an educational ICT strategy for a Local Authority. One day, I was in a meeting with him, and was astonished at the ease with which he could reel off figures -- accurately -- without reference to any notes. When I told him that afterwards, this is the conversation which ensued:

    Client: Well, everyone has different strengths. For example, I couldn't do what you've done, and write an ICT strategy.

    Me: Of course you could. All I did was write down what we both know about.

    Client: No, I'd sit there staring at the blank sheet of paper, not knowing where to begin.

    What was going on there was what is known in economics circles as the Law of Absolute Advantage. I was (perceived to be) better at writing than the client, and he was better at remembering figures than I was, so it made perfect sense for him to concentrate on the numbers while I focused on the writing.
  • But what if he had been better than me at both skills? That's where another 'law' of economics comes in, the Law of Comparative Advantage. In a nutshell, although the client may have been better at both skills than me, if he was comparatively better at the number skills than the writing skills, it would still have made sense for him to pay me to do the writing.

For all these reasons, I don't think that people whose earnings derive from writing need worry too much about paid writing opportunities disappearing any time soon.

Web 2.0 Project: Bill Lord's work

Name: Bill  Lord

Project title: Virtual Balloon Race

Application type: Twitter

Age range: 5-7 years

Description of project

Three KS1 classes (aged 5-7 years) will be using Twitter to microblog daily as one of a range of strategies to develop writing.

They will also seek to use Twitter to make contact with schools across the world.

They will also use Skype later in the year.

I met Bill today at the 140 Characters Conference, and his excitement about this project was palpable! Follow Bill on Twitter, where is username is @joga5.

Benefits of using Web 2.0

Motivation,Participation,Collaboration,International links

URL: Follow the project on Twitter: @giraffeclass

Are you doing interesting work with Web 2.0 applications in your school or college? If so, why not contribute to a new ebook containing ideas that other teachers can pick up and use? Further information is right here:

http://www.ictineducation.org/home-page/2009/10/14/web-20-projects-book-deadline-extended.html

 

Is the teaching and assessment of text messaging an example of falling standards in education?

The Daily Telegraph today reports on the fact that a forthcoming GCSE examination (for the benefit of non-Brits, the GCSE, or General Certificate of Secondary Education, is taken at 16) includes questions on text messaging. The paper writes:

"In a move described by education campaigners as the "ultimate in dumbing down", pupils will be asked to write an essay on the etiquette and grammar of texting."

I've learnt that you can never take anything the media says about education at face value, so I decided to look up the new qualification for myself. I have to say that, before I did so, my reaction to the news was, well, reactionary. It seemed pretty pointless, at the very least.

Having thought it about it some more, and looked at the new qualification, I have come to the conclusion that the AQA GCSE English Language GCSE (Spoken Language) looks like a fairly interesting qualification.

The section on text messaging is brief, and is under the heading 'multi-modal talk'. The 'blurb' reads:

"This topic deals with new technologies that alter the demarcation between traditional areas of spoken and written language – MSN, text speak, etc. It opens up the ambiguity of imprecise language and, what seems like limited subject material, can actually prove a fertile ground for further analysis."

I think that sounds like a fine set of aims. We live in a modern world; who writes letters any more? Actually probably everyone at some point, especially when applying for jobs. Do young people know that text-talk is not always appropriate? Anything that can help them understand such niceties is to be welcomed.

Shifting gears slightly, there are also positive things to be said for being able to communicate an idea in 140 characters or fewer. Being able to do so is quite an art. In fact, I would suggest that one really good form of assessment (in any subject) would be to ask students to summarise the main points of the lesson in the equivalent of a single tweet.

Brevity often leads to creativity. See, for example, these examples of award-winning fiction in 140 characters. Have a look, too, at this competition for start-up stories in 140 characters. True, it's sponsored by the National Venture Capital Association, so it's not altogether a disinterested party, but it's an interesting idea. If I were an employer, I would specify that job applicants send me their CV (resumé) accompanied by a letter of application comprising no more than 140 characters; it would certainly cut down on the reading, if nothing else.

Going back to the qualification, there is always a danger of taking something out of context. I had a look at the draft assessment paper they've knocked up, and it's not bad. For example, one of the things which caught my eye was this exercise:

"The web host of a creative writing web site approaches you to submit some writing for it. This month’s theme is “Work”. You have complete freedom in your choice of form, but are asked not to make what you submit longer than 1000 words. In this case, ‘work’ could refer to paid employment, work experience, training for work or voluntary work. Write your piece for the web site."

Writing for the web is, in many respects, different from writing for print, especially as far as story titles are concerned. Given that many job entrants will need to write for online consumption, it would be a good idea to address it in an English qualification.

I'm not an English specialist, and I'm not a marketer for the AQA, but this qualification seems to me to be definitely worth further investigation.

I may have more to say on such matters after I've attended the 140 Characters Conference in London tomorrow (17 November 2009).

Reduce, re-use, recycle: 3 steps towards the paperless office

I wonder what 'visionary' came up with the concept of the paperless office? This is an idea that could have been born only in the days before personal computer technology was ubiquitous, at a time when it was peripheral to our everyday lives.

Paperless office?Quite apart from our natural tendency to prefer something tangible to something which, in a physical sense, seems not to exist at all, we are just not designed to do lots of reading on a screen. Eye strain and other computer-related ailments are all too easily acquired when people try to achieve what is, when all said and done, impossible.

Reading on a screen is a different experience to reading on  paper. That's why several studies have shown that people skim text on screens more than they do text in print,and why a whole industry has grown up advising people how to write specifically for the web. (A good summary may be found here: http://www.paperhat.net/articles/how_do_people_read_on_screen/.) It will be interesting to see whether the same reading limitations will hold true, in the long run, for ebook readers, even the ones whose screens purport to emulate paper.

Yet every so often I visit a school which prides itself on having a virtually paperless environment. I find that hard to believe, but more importantly, as it's such a difficult goal to attain, why not be pragmatic and adopt the green lobby's mantra of 'reduce, re-use, recycle' as their motto?

Here in the Freedman household we strive to abide by these principles. We reduce our use of paper by only printing out stuff when it's absolutely necessary, and then using both sides of the paper when we do.

We re-use the paper by using the blank side, when there is one, for things like shopping lists and telephone messages. We have attempted to re-use paper by putting it back in the printer's paper tray.
The trouble with this though is that at least fifty percent of the time it screws the paper up, which results not only in wasted time but in even more paper being used. But worse still is the embarrassment of turning up at a meeting with a sensible breakdown of costs on one side of a sheet of paper, and some political blogger's rant on the other. It hasn't actually happened to me yet, but give it time.

More often than not, I forget or don't realise that there is used paper in the printer. I set it to print a 30 page report while I go off and pummell a cat (everybody needs a hobby), only to return to a completely useless stack of paper, and the need to use even more.

We're especially good at the recycling bit. We shred a lot of our paper in order to safeguard ourselves against identity theft. The shreddings find their way either into the cats' litter tray, or to our compost heap. The rest goes into a recycling box which is collected once a week.

Of course, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and one must always be alert to the possibility of unintended consequences. Like the time I set out recycling sacks in the computer suites in order to encourage the pupils to put discarded print-outs in them rather than the waste paper baskets. The volume of printing increased dramatically overnight, which I could only summise was due to the fact that the pupils thought it no longer mattered since they would recycle unwanted results. I was right: as soon as I removed the bags, from the pupils' sight at least, printing returned to its normal level.

I'd be interested in hearing your views on all this. Do you strive towards being completely paperless, for instance? What do you do?

Web 2.0 Project: Chris Leach's work

Here is a thumbnail sketch of some interesting work that Chris Leach is doing with Web 2.0. It is taken from the forthcoming second edition of the free Web 2.0 projects Book which was published last year -- over 11,000 copies downloaded! The book itself will contain even more information, so look out for that early in 2010! 

First name: Chris

Surname: Leach

Title of Project: Gunpowder Plot

Application Type: Social networking

Age range: 9-11 years

Brief description of Project

 Creating a twitter account for Robert catesby, leader of the Gunpowder Plot. Children researched the events after Fawkes's capture and then scheduled tweets using Hootsuite. He gained over 60 followers.

URL of project: http://www.twitter.com/LCS_RCatesby

Are you doing interesting work with Web 2.0 applications in your school or college? If so, why not contribute to a new ebook containing ideas that other teachers can pick up and use? Further information is right here:

http://www.ictineducation.org/home-page/2009/10/14/web-20-projects-book-deadline-extended.html

Shock tactics: 7 ideas for teaching with technology

Shock tactics

One of the hazards of teaching youngsters about educational technology -- well, any subject I suppose -- is that it's all too easy to become predictable.

What's a database for? Storing data. Yawn. What's a spreadsheet for? Modelling. Snooze. Yes, I know that we have to address such things -- indeed, would be failing in our obligations if we didn't -- but sometimes it does a lot of good to be a little 'left field' about it all, where possible.

Here are some ideas.

1. Look out for modern dress productions of Shakespeare

One of the best I've ever seen was a production of Julius Caesar. There were many fine moments in it, but the two which really stood out for me were the following:

In Act 1 Scene 2, Cassius says to Casca,

"Will you sup with me tonight, Casca?",

to which Casca replies,

"No, I am promised forth."

I the production I referred to, Casca didn't answer straight away. Instead, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a PDA, flipped it open, checked it for a few seconds, closed it, and put it away, and then said,

"No."

"I am promised forth."

Marvellous! Needless to say, the audience laughed its collective head off.

Later in the play, the action takes place in Mark Antony's camp. In this production, as the curtains draw apart we saw someone putting sheets of paper through a shredding machine. From an Eng Lit point of view this is wonderful, because it sows a few seeds of doubt in the audience's mind: what's being shredded, and why? Is Mark Anthony as squeaky clean as we were perhaps led to believe?

A very good film is Ian McKellan's Richard The Third, in which the first scene opens with a tickertape being transmitted. There's a discussion about technology in itself. If you teach modern history and you want to convey what Hitler's Germany was like, or a Citizenship teacher wanting to discuss ethics and loyalty, you could do a lot worse than show this film.

2. Bring old stories up to date

Similar to the first idea, this is all about getting the class to think about how modern technology would have been used by historical figures.

A good one I tried once was about Jesus. Instead of preaching the Sermon on the Mount, perhaps he'd have used YouTube. What difficulties might he have faced (a) getting his message across to as many people as possible, and (b) being believed?

Once you start to look at these things in a modern setting, the ideas, and even the language, seem less remote. In this way, focusing on modern technology can help to make subjects like history and Religious Education more comprehendible.

3. Look for alternative ways of presenting concepts

For example, I love this spreadsheet poem.

It's another way of getting the pupils to think about mathematical relationships. You could ask them to work out the relationships for themselves, before showing them the poem. You could devise a much simpler one, and then ask them to do the same.

4. Use technology to help you see things in different ways

I witnessed a very effective art lesson (for teachers) once, in which the tutor gave out digital cameras and instructed the teachers to go out and take pictures of textures. "Get right up close and personal", he told them. And they did: close-ups of brickwork and carpet tiles, to mention just two, were enough to stimulate discussion about texture, pattern, colours and shadows.

5. Use your imagination

Or rather, get the students to use theirs. How could a writer make use of a handheld camcorder, for example? Or, turning this idea on its head, what yet-to-be-invented gadget would be a real boon to an author?

You don't have to know the answers to such questions, because the important thing is the discussion and presentation which ensue.

6. Get reading

rocket

In the current issue of The Author, the Society of Author's magazine, there is an article about the use of historical fiction in the teaching of history:

"Rebecca Sullivan, CEO of the Historical Association, a charity that exists to promote and support the study and teaching of history at all levels, [said] 'Fiction can engage pupils and open them to more thought and study. Teachers use historical fiction because it improves historical understanding in pupils.'"

How much use of fiction do teachers of ICT use? There are some rich pickings, such as:

Asimov's Laws of Robotics

The dialogue between the astronaut and Hal, the all-powerful computer, in 2001: A Space Odyssey

The marvellous piece from Asimov, The Machine That Won the War

The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin

Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keys,

And last but not least, the brilliant news flash, 'Time travel is possible'

These stories can be great starting points for discussion, not only in the educational technology classroom, but for other subjects too.

7. Designing the classroom

Finally, a nice activity is a project in which pupils, working in groups, have to analyse the classroom and come up with ways in which it could be enhanced with technology. Part of that will have to include any refurbishments which may be necessary to accommodate the changes (such as a storage facility for a class set of mp3 recorders).

Needless to say, groups should present their findings and ideas to the rest of the class and even, if there's a particularly mouth-watering idea, to the Principal.

The thing that all of these ideas have in common is that they stray from the 'norm', and that gives them a bit of a punch.

What 'outside the box' ideas have you used to teach technology, or with technology?

If you enjoyed reading this article, you will probably find this one useful too:

More Shock Tactics: Making ICT More Exciting

10 ways to become an inspirational teacher

Yesterday I attended a Westminster Forum event on testing and assessment. It was an excellent event, not least because something I have been saying for years was validated.

It has always been my contention that if you love your subject and teach it well, your students should do well in the final exam. Yesterday, a member of the audience (whose name I unfortunately failed to catch) stated that it has been found that the students of teachers who teach in an inspirational way achieve better results than students of those who teach to the test. This chimed with Bruce Dickson's observation, based on 50 years in education, that inspirational teaching turns pupils on.

I agree. So what can we do about it? It's generally held to be true that inspirational teachers are born, not made. I am not altogether convinced by that: I think it's possible for most teachers to be inspirational. Here are some reflections on these matters.

1 Throw out the syllabus, at least one lesson a week

Some of my best lessons were the ones I 'planned' driving into work or on my way to a lesson. A few days ago, for example, there was an article in the news about the English government deciding to pass a law making it compulsory for the police to retain the DNA samples of innocent people for six years. That's too rich a story to be shelved until I'm covering databases, in six weeks' time or whenever.

2 If throwing out the syllabus for a day is too risky, then throw it out for 10 minutes

That's right. Why not start each lesson going through the news, or picking up on one or two stories that have an educational technology aspect to them?

3 Use the pupils

If all that sounds like too much extra work, allocate the work to pupils, age permitting. Assign the task of gathering news items to three pupils per lesson. Their homework will be to spend a bit of time together deciding on the best two or three items. Assuming you have a class of 30, by the end of term all of them would have done this.

Think of the skills they will be learning and honing in the process: news spotting, collaboration with each other, discussion with each other as they each argue the case for ‘their’ item to be included, and presentation skills.

They will also, of course, be demonstrating their understanding of ICT itself. Otherwise, how could they select an item for discussion at all?

4 Use a photo

Try taking a photograph (or finding one on Flickr), and then asking your pupils to identify what educational technology they can see, or which is implied.

Where's the ICT?

Image by Terry Freedman via Flickr

 

5 Turn the tables

Ask your pupils to take photos and then explain where the educational technology is, or why they think the photo is relevant to the subject.

You could do this every couple of weeks. Alternatively, ask each student to take and print off a photo, and put them all on the noticeboard. Where there is a spare five minutes at the end of a lesson, select a pupil at random and ask them to explain their photo. Or somebody else's.

6 Work with other teachers

One of the things which I took away from yesterday's conference was the following, from Professor Mary James, of the University of Cambridge:

"Teachers who 'get' Assessment for Learning,

are themselves reflective learners;

collaborate with colleagues;

go to see good practice in other schools."

So how about getting together with your English colleagues and set up an extended writing exercise involving educational technology - as the subject matter, not just the means of producing it? For instance, how about a short story or a haiku on the theme of identity theft, virtual friendship or technology going wrong?

7 Invest time in reading

There are lots of interesting blogs to read. Just set up a Google alert for 'ICT in Education' or 'educational technology' and you'll find them. A few I really enjoy reading are Paul Blogush's blog, Shelly Terrell's blog and Di Brooks' blog. I like them for different reasons. Try them out for yourself.

I have already made the case for maintaining a (small) educational technology library at school. There are some really interesting books around, not all of which are to do with educational technology as such. For example, I am currently enjoying Howard Gardner's Five Minds For The Future (listed on http://www.ictineducation.org/books-from-amazon/).

8 Definitely visit other schools to see what they're up to

When I was inspecting schools' ICT provision I had to say to the ICT leader, on more than one occasion, "You need to get out more." Even the best provision can often benefit from the injection of fresh ideas and perspectives.

9 Go to conferences

You may pick up new ideas, and get to make new connections with like-minded others. There are at least three interesting conferences coming up in the near future:

Transforming Learning Through Creativity and ICT, Liverpool 27 November 2009. Features Keynotes by Sir Ken Robinson, Tanya Byron, John Davitt and Ben Johnson. Phone (+44)151 233 3901 to book a place.)

Or there's the 140 Character Conference in London on November 14th: check http://london.140conf.com/for details.

School won't let you out? Then how about the K12 Online Conference, which starts on November 30th. See http://k12onlineconference.org/ for details.

And don't forget Mirandamod for some serious seminar-style discussions via FlashMeeting (and in person, if you can get there). See http://www.mirandanet.ac.uk/mirandamods/for topics and dates.

Also, Classroom 2.0 takes place on the internet every Saturday at http://live.classroom20.com/(I shall be talking myself -- hopefully not to myself! -- on November 21st.

Finally, you ought to try to get to a Westminster Forum conference now and then. As well as featuring speakers who are experts in their field, they last only for a morning or an afternoon.

10 Join a club

I think it's important to get involved, or at least belong to, offline communities too. That's why I'm a member of Naace, the British Computer Society and the Royal Society of Arts. Attending events is another way of meeting new people and being exposed to fresh ideas.

Once someone starts to feel inspired, they're more likely to inspire others. By adopting these sorts of strategies, and encouraging (and allowing) your colleagues to do the same, you're helping to create the conditions in which inspirational teaching can flourish.

I doubt that I have covered the whole range of ideas here! I'd be interested to hear your ideas for encouraging inspirational teaching.

Web 2.0 Project: Silvia Tolisano's work

Here is a thumbnail sketch of some interesting work that Silvia Tolisano is doing with Web 2.0. It is taken from the forthcoming second edition of the free Web 2.0 projects Book which was published last year -- over 11,000 copies downloaded! The book itself will contain even more information, so look out for that early in 2010!

Name: Silvia Tolisano

Application type: Around The World with 80 Schools, Video Conferencing

Age range: All age groups

Description of project

Schools connect with other schools around the world through a short 5 minute video conference call.Students introduce themselves, share something special about their location or culture and ask a data collecting question.Over 200 schools are participating

Benefits of using Web 2.0

Motivation,Participation,Collaboration,Global Connections & Collaboration

URL: http://aroundtheworldwith80schools.wikispaces.com/ 

Are you doing interesting work with Web 2.0 applications in your school or college? If so, why not contribute to a new ebook containing ideas that other teachers can pick up and use? Further information is right here:

http://www.ictineducation.org/home-page/2009/10/14/web-20-projects-book-deadline-extended.html

 

Business thought leaders and their relevance to educational technology leadership 03: Frederick Herzberg

This is article 3 of a series of 3.

Frederick Herzberg was a psychologist in the USA who
developed the hygiene theory of people's
productivity at work. What is the theory, and how
can it help the ICT (educational technology) leader?

Herzberg can be placed in the Abraham
Maslow school of thought, in that he believed that
people's motivation could be explained in "human" terms
rather than "scientific" ones. He distinguished between two
kinds of factors: hygienic and motivational.

The hygienic ones are those which help to prevent job
dissatisfaction, but do not in themselves promote job
satisfaction. In other words, they are like good hygiene: it
does not in itself create good health, but its absence can
lead to ill-health.

Examples of such factors include, working conditions,
salary and working relationships.

Motivational factors are those which positively promote
job satisfaction, and include achievement, recognition and
responsibility.

So how can you, the ICT manager, make use of these insights?

Hygiene factors

As far as the hygiene factors are concerned, you consider
the following:

Working conditions
Staff should have access to the best equipment, not the
worst. In other words, if you find yourself being offered a
sum of money to spend on educational technology, ask
yourself how it might be used to make teachers' lives
easier.

Make sure that the environment is kept pleasant -- and
hygienic. For example, if you have a technical support team
ask them to implement a schedule of keyboard cleaning.

Working relationships
There is not much you can do if two people dislike each
other, but that is not the point. As a manager you need to
be seen to be above their differences, and to be completely
impartial. That means, for example, being prepared to give
everyone a chance to give their opinion in team meetings.
It also means not going out for dinner or other kinds of
socialising with just one or two people. Team means are
fine -- a good idea, in fact -- but anything else could be
seen as favouritism or at least a lack of impartiality.

What about motivational factors?

Clearly, you will probably not have the power to promote
people to a higher position -- but you can make sure that
members of your team are given opportunities to take
responsibilities that may help them gain promotion in the
future.

Also, giving them some degree of control and flexibility
over what they do is a very good way to motivate people,
and to harness their natural desire to do the best they
can. You may think that in these highly prescriptive times,
that kind of delegation is impossible. not so.

One of the things I used to do, for example, was to ask each team
member to take responsibility for a particular unit in the
scheme of work. That meant devising the lesson plans and
the resources for the rest of us to use, and making sure
that we had received training so that we knew what we doing
and how to do it. The only non-negotiable element in all
this was the set of objectives that had to be achieved. The
result was not only a well-motivated team, but also a much
richer set of lesson plans than I could have devised on my
own, or which could be found in a book.

Job enrichment
This article would not be complete without considering job
enrichment, which is an extension of Herzberg's hygiene-
motivation theory. It includes factors such as giving team
members more control, and using more of their abilities --
and extending the ones they have through training.

You will immediately recognise that the example I gave a
moment ago of team members taking responsibility for a
unity of work can be seen as an example of job enrichment.

But we can also learn something else from Herzberg's job
enrichment theory, although you probably know it already,
and that is the importance of professional development.

It is probably also crucial to extend what team members do
to areas that are slightly beyond their comfort zone:
everyone needs a challenge, if only to prevent boredom in
the long term. But this option can be fraught with
difficulties, and so will be covered in a separate article.

As you can see, it is possible to take the theories and
findings of a clinical psychologist and apply them to the
leadership and management of ICT.

14 ways to make your school website better

Let's face it: most school websites are pretty boring. True, some have improved a lot in the last few years, but they're mainly the exception that proves the rule.

Looking at most school websites is like taking a trip back in time. No interactivity, no sense of community, no updates for weeks, if not months.

In short, no life.

There are ways in which you can ensure that your school's website is not only vibrant, but stays that way.

Regard the website as a publishing medium, not a technical one

This may seem a bit of a no-brainer, but in too many schools the 'powers-that-be' delegate the task of website maintenance to the Head of ICT. That's like delegating the job of producing the school prospectus to the Head of English, on the grounds that it uses words.

Regard the maintenance of the website as a collaborative process

Why should only one person be responsible for generating the content, keeping it updated and publishing it? If several people were involved, and if all staff were expected to contribute to the site in some way on a regular basis (once every half-term, say), the website would almost look after itself.

Regard the school website as the website of the school

The 'school' includes pupils, parents, support staff and even the local community, as well as teachers and the Principal. It includes more than the curriculum and sports activities. See the next point too.

Show what the school is really like

School websites often talk about what a great job the school does, usually through a combination of lists of examination results and photos of people on a sports field or at a computer. Yawn. Why not have pupil bloggers on the website, discussing what they do and why, and what they like and don't like?

Why not a blog?

With that in mind, consider having a school blog rather than a website, or have a website which incorporates a blog.

A blog can be updated quickly and easily, and lends itself to participation by allowing comments to be made on the articles posted.

You can go further than articles

How about a school Ning in which parents can get into blogging and discussions? Obviously, it would have to be moderated, but think of the dividends in terms of goodwill and excitement.

Or how about a weekly, or monthly, opinion poll to engage parents?

It doesn't even have to be about the school itself. A question like "What do you think of the new Vetting and Barring Scheme? would generate some interest, and may even provide some good ideas for the school. It should certainly give the school management a good idea of where parents stand on the issues involved.

Nice target, shame about the approach

The main aim of most school websites is to attract new pupils. They have a corporate kind of aim, but not a corporate kind of approach. Most commercial websites give stuff away. It doesn't cost them much, but gives people the impression they are not just after your money.

How come I have never seen a school website that gives stuff away?  For example, how about a downloadable sheet about keeping your child safe online? How about one explaining what the National Curriculum levels mean?

Don't have a 'latest news' page...

... Unless you really are pretty sure that you can keep it going. There is little worse than seeing that the 'latest news' is three months out of date -- which it may be, given end of term exams followed by a long summer break.

Have a publishing schedule

It makes life a lot easier if you have a good idea of what you're going to write about and when. There are key times of the year, of course: reminders of holiday dates, and parents' evenings, for example. There are also key times of the week, such as setting the tone on a Monday morning.

Blog ahead, if possible

One of the features of a blog I now regard as a must-have is the ability to write a post and have it appear at some time in the future. It means that you can bash out a few articles all in one go when you have the time and energy, and set them to publish at the rate of one a day automatically.

Another handy feature, if you can get it, is one which 'unpublishes' articles.

Write draft posts

A blog post is referred to as a 'draft' if it has not been published yet. It's incredibly useful to be able to have articles written and ready to go live, but not necessarily automatically. Why? See the following point.

Be forever timely

Taking the above three features together, it is possible to write an article called, say, 'Big basketball match tomorrow: don't forget!', have it appear the day before the match, and then disappear on the day of the match.

As well as keeping the articles timely, and therefore relevant, it also paves the way for putting up two further articles: 'Basketball match: the big day arrives!', and 'Basketball match results'. This is where the draft articles come in. True, you can't write much detail about something that hasn't happened yet, unless your name happens to be Nostradamus, but you can write something which is almost certain to be true, such as:

'The basketball team looked resplendent in their kit as they marched out onto the pitch. Nerves? Maybe, but only their coach would know, and he wasn't telling!'

All you have to do on the day is take a quick snapshot, upload it along with a caption and a bit of text about the weather or something somebody said,  and hit the Publish button.

Regard the school website as important

That means, giving whoever is responsible for putting it together and maintaining it or co-ordinating everyone involved some proper time to do it in. Or exemption from doing (some) cover/substitution.

Or even a bit of extra salary perhaps?

Business thought leaders and their relevance to educational technology leadership 02: Jack Welch

This is article 2 of a series of 3.

 

In this series I am exploring what the educational ICT leader can learn from business leaders and thinkers when it comes to performing the educational technology leader's role.

So what can we learn from Jack Welch, the legendary CEO of General Electric? Although schools and GE are very different types of institution, you may be surprised to discover that school leaders could benefit from adopting some of Welch's strategies.

What Welch was about

There are a some basic principles that characterise Welch's approach and philosophy:

He was not prepared to suffer mediocrity. IF GE was not number one or number two in a particular field, he would close and sometimes sell off that section.

He adopted a similar attitude to his staff. He reduced the number of employees at GE by nearly 120,000 in the course of 5 years, because he preferred to have a lean, efficient operation to a bloated, inefficient one.

Still on the subject of staff, he divided them into the top 10%, a middle 70% and the lowest performing 20%. His aim was to develop the top 10%, help the 70% achieve what they wanted to, and minimise the time, energy and resources spent on the bottom 20%. In fact, if an employee didn't shape up, he got rid of them.

Having said that, he did not punish failure. If someone made a mistake, he thought it was important to help them regain their self-esteem. He was, you might say, big on motivation.

He was highly competitive on his company's behalf, and communicated his vision to his team. This manifested itself not only in a desire to be number one or number two in each field in which GE operated, but also in terms of a reputation for quality. Unlike many educational so-called visionaries, Welch had his feet firmly on the ground, so his vision could actually be put into practice.

What it means for you

So how might we translate all this into the context of a school? Clearly, the subject leader for educational ICT does not have the same powers of hire and fire, nor does she have the same ambitions in terms of profits and sales. Or at least, not expressed in those terms. Let's go through the above points.

There is a tendency and certainly a great deal of pressure for schools to adopt new courses and qualifications, or new approaches, before they have the resources in place to make a success of them.

Taking the example of a secondary school in England, are you able to deliver excellent results at Key Stage 3, GCSE, 14-19, and, in the longer term,the ICT Diploma, and possibly A Levels? You need to identify what you are good at delivering, and why, and what you cannot deliver well, and why not.

It may not be feasible for you to pull out of the "market" -- but then again, it might be. For example, is there a possibility of developing links with a neighbouring school or college, in order to each specialise in a particular are? Or perhaps once you have identified where your weaknesses lie, you could share resources.

Sometimes, it is possible to drop courses. In one of my jobs, I decided to discontinue a low-level course in graphics that was, actually, delivering good results. Why? Because I thought the course was so simple that (a) it didn't stretch the students in any sense; and (b), because of (a), I didn't think the qualification was worth the paper it was printed on. I dropped it in favour of a much more challenging course, which proved only slightly harder to achieve the same degree of success in, because students rose to the challenge.

Interestingly, this had a knock-on effect on some of the other issues listed above.

Firstly, the ICT department started to gain a reputation for quality, as it started to attract the hardest working students rather than the idle ones. That, in turn, led to better results which led to more "top" students choosing it in their options. In fact, in the course of two years, ICT went from being a "sink" subject to one for which their was more demand than places.

Secondly, it started to attract ICT experts to teach it. Whereas previously anybody could have taught the graphics course, the new course needed a subject expert. In fact, I managed to persuade the headteacher that the subject, and therefore the students, would be much better served by a tight team of 4 or 5 teachers, all experts in their fields, than double that number who knew just enough to get by -- and, being committed to teaching just one or two hours a week, had no obvious incentive to spend much time developing their knowledge and understanding.

This all raises another issue: how do you measure success? There are the obvious measures, such as examination results, but I decided to judge myself and my team by a harder set of criteria: how many students opted to do the subject once they were no longer obliged to; and, even more difficult, how early in their school career did they make that choice? By adopting a systematic approach, I was able to start seeing students decide to opt for my subjects a full two years before they needed to.

Developing staff is all-important. What professional development does your team enjoy? What responsibilities have you delegated to them?

Vision is important, and here are three questions for you to consider:

  1. Do you have a vision for educational ICT in your school?

  2. Does your team know what that vision is, and do they subscribe to it? Indeed, have they had a hand in shaping it?

  3. Is the vision one which can conceivably be realised, or is it all "pie in the sky"?

Conclusion

Ultimately, although the energy industry and the education service are superficially very different, in terms of what motivates people to do well, and other forces which affect performance, they are not that different at all.

The next article in this series will be published at the same time tomorrow morning.

See also: 

Business thought leaders and their relevance to educational technology leadership: Abraham Maslow

 

 

Web 2.0 Project: Paula Naugle's work

Here is a thumbnail sketch of some interesting work that Paula Naugle is doing with Web 2.0. It is taken from the forthcoming second edition of the free Web 2.0 projects Book which was published last year -- over 11,000 copies downloaded! The book itself will contain even more information, so look out for that early in 2010!

Name: Paula Naugle

Application type: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs Skype Call, Skype call

Age range: 9-11 years

Description of project

My 4th graders in Louisiana and Jan Wells' 4th graders in Kansas read the book Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs together via a Skype video call. Both classes practiced their reading fluency and voice before performing for each others' class.

Benefits of using Web 2.0

Motivation,Participation,Variety of means of expression,Ownership,Attention to detail,Peer assessment,Forms of literacy,Collaboration

URL: http://pnaugle.blogspot.com/2009/09/cloudy-with.html 

Are you doing interesting work with Web 2.0 applications in your school or college? If so, why not contribute to a new ebook containing ideas that other teachers can pick up and use? Further information is right here:

http://www.ictineducation.org/home-page/2009/10/14/web-20-projects-book-deadline-extended.html