Tories unveil 'co-op school' plan

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7083878.stm

Is it just me that finds the idea of US style local school boards outside of local government control mildly disturbing. We already have state fended academies teaching creationism and intelligent design. My concern is that this is just another way to move education in England and Wales back into the 19th Century.

Yes the process works in Sweden. That's because Sweden has a totally different culture. They understand that better education doesn't mean more schooling. Given that in the UK the general populace's only experience of school is their own experience, allowing the public to control the next generation of schools would be like putting public transport planning in the hands of the oil companies.

What we need is for politicians to stop using education as a point scoring exercise. We need less targets and more thinking, less schooling and more learning.

Perhaps this might happen under the 'co-op' banner, but I'd bet on more religious schooling and segregation,a further shift of resources towards the suburban middle classes and absolutely no improvement in provision for the poorer segments of society - except now the blame will be laid squarely at the feet of their own 'co-ops'.

The new green paper...

Well here it is, the green paper explaining the Government's reasons for making education compulsory until 18:
Raising Expectations: Staying in education and training post-16

I've read the executive summary and it all sounds logical and well meaning, but I'd suggest it's just more of the same to bring 16 and 17 year olds into line with the rest of the compulsory skills agenda that this administration loves: they wish to "provide young people with exciting and valuable opportunities to develop skills that will set them up for life ". They really didn't read Kennedy at all did they? What about learning to learn? What about a learning society? How, exactly, do skills help someone live? The Government's thinking is still entrenched in industrial revolution thinking - How do we build a better worker? Given that most of our problems are social, surely it behoves us to ask how do we educate a better person?

So the Government will keep all 16 & 17 year olds "studying for recognised qualifications". All well and good, but that's just paper. It won't help people live more creative and fulfilling lives and compulsion is NEVER a good way to motivate learning - B.F. Skinner told us that. Even the behaviourists, and I'm not suggesting that human learning can be so easily quantified, recognised that to modify behaviour you need a reward schedule and that small but close rewards always work better than distant, long term benefits. So what's better? Punishing teenagers until they learn - and the disaffected minority will see this extra two years as punishment, promising £100,000 extra income over 50 years of labouring, or perhaps something a little less conservative (and yes, Conservative while we're at it), a bit more radical, a little more high tech, creative and forward thinking.

Let's throw out the certification and teach teens to think, to create and to work. Rather than making them wage slaves at 16, and poorly waged at that, why not give them the chance to create their own economic start-ups? Two years to make it in business, or creative media or whatever else they are good at. If the taxpayer is funding them, let's fund them to use the talents they excell at rather than spending two years trying to fit a square, and very resistant peg into a round hole. Yes, it will be challenging. Yes it will need some really open minds. Yes it's going to take time and money and resources to do properly and it has to be done properly - this is not a cheap fix. Yes, you ARE going to have to ask these young adults for their ideas, their thoughts, their opinions and their co-operation; you might even have to start treating them as people and not just numbers. But, if you have the will and the vision this could be the gateway to tomorrow that compulsory stills for all most definitely isn't.

Powered by ScribeFire.

More Potential References

Read Write Plus, DfES, National Tests

Better Basic Skills

A Fresh Start - Moser Group

Lifelong Learning .co.uk

Constructing and reconstructing school technology in England and Wales

David Layton

The British government has claimed that no other western country has given such prominence to technology in the curriculum for all pupils of compulsory school age. The paper considers this innovation in the national curriculum of England and Wales from a number of perspectives.
SpringerLink - Article

Formative Influences on Technology Education:
The Search for An Effective Compromise
in Curriculum Innovation

George Shield

Successful curriculum development in our schools and colleges relies on compromise and interplay from a number of interested parties, some of whom are competing for recognition and resources. The interests which these factions represent vary and are not immediately apparent. While to some, the basis of curricular innovation lies soundly in the philosophical ideals of the educator whose sole concern is the successful development of the full potential of the child, to others the curriculum is perceived as having more instrumental aims which include the interests of the state and society at large.
shield.pdf (application/pdf Object)

JTE: Williams
Technology, and certainly technology education, can be characterized as more of an activity than a discrete body of content (McCormick, 1996). Techno-logical knowledge can be divided into procedural knowledge which relates to the activity, and conceptual knowledge which relates to the body of content (Hennessey & McCormick, 1994). There is probably more international agreement among technology educators about the activity of technology than about the content of technology.

JTE v11n2: Williams

An International Overview of Curricular Approaches and Models in Technology Education
Paul Black

Technology is a peculiar subject in that its status and its nature have been subject to radical changes in recent years. The subject is seen to serve several aims, which are given different relative priorities in different countries, and there are many traditions that are associated with competing pressures in the re-definitions of the subject. These changes and varieties are further complicated by the different curriculum models within which a reformed subject is meant to fit and play a specific role.

JOTS: An International Overview of Curricular Approaches and Models in Technology Education

Learner Management
A central assumption behind innovations in education and training over the last 20 years has been that learners need to take greater responsibility for the direction and pace of their own learning. The rationale for this is provided by an analysis of the contemporary social and economic order which highlights instability and change as core conditions. A discourse of 'learner-management' has emerged, linked with techniques of personal development planning and recording achievement, which appears to offer learners the possibility for individual autonomy and control. The article examines some of the assumptions embedded in this discourse, questioning the relevance of the rational decision making model, and the origins of the 'character' of the self-managing learner. 'Learner management' is viewed as a discursive form of power, shaping subjective understandings of what it means to be a learner, a manager, a person. It is suggested that this is not the only discourse of learner management available, and that education has a role to play in mapping more creative and diverse forms of learner identity.
Taylor & Francis Group - Article

Learning from ATI

I've been looking into podcasting as part of the new technologies part of my role and more than I thought of Sean and Adam's session must have sunk in than I thought. The whole RSS feed bit can be a little problematic, but that's the think that actually makes the difference to just posting mp3s to a website.

The ability to actively choose to subscribe to content is a key activity that allows subscribers to automatically download new content as it is made available. Some definite uses for schools here in both producing content and making pupils work available for evaluation.

Growing Up Digital

How the N-Gen (Net Generation) interact with digital media.

Growing Up Digital

Fischer's papers

Gerhard Fischer has published a number of papers (see previous post) related to technology and lifelong learning. The general thrust of these is that technology alone is not going to be a panacea that will transform us into a learning society. There will also need to be a shift in attitute ("mindset") from consumers of knowledge to producers of solutions, a re-design of software to allow users to remodel it to fit their needs, a shift away from using ICT to simply "automate rather than innovate" (November) and a radical change in the learning environment away from training by teachers with little or no understanding of the learners jobs to collaborative problem solving that is directly relevant to the workplace.

He would seem to sit within the current heterodoxy of lifelong learning, suggesting that lifelong learning should not be about taking individuals out of their usual environment to study for qualifications that bear no relationship to their specific role. Definite nods to Illich in that schooling is the problem and that there should be a shift toward learning experiences where the facilitator may be as ignorant of the solution as the students, but together they can work towards that solution - touches of Dewey's progressive methods there too.

Fischer also points out that creativity and innovation will be vital for societites of the future, "working smarter" from Drucker, and that lifelong learning should be about how to develop these traits in individuals and groups. He also points out that creating consumers is a problem that is a barrier to this and that changing our model of education from a consumer model with passive learners into a model that moves beyond Skinner and Taylor and integrates work and learning and makes learners active contributors in their learning.

This methodology is reflected in the methods used in the ATI where groups are assigned tasks which are made up of a number of criteria and it is up to the group to interpret these and provide solutions to the problems that they encounter with the help of their peers and advisors. Often some of the more technical problems need the input of a large group as it may be an issue that no-one has previously encountered. An example of this was when attempting to create an animation of a book opening and a page crumpling up and rolling away. In that instance we were lucky enough to have a large group with some useful insights and the creators of the software on hand to explain some of the tricks that could be brought to bear. After several attempts to animate a large, and heavy, book opening and much head scratching that a chance observation by a passing member of another group pointed out that we should just film someone opening the book and only animate the page crumpling thus saving us hours of work tring to produce a movable support that would allow us to prop the book open and remain hidden. By carefully framing the shot we caputured what appeared to be a self-opening book in about 10 minutes!

Digital media means procrastination...

Interesting reading in the articles posted. One of the reasons I chose to use an online lived-learning journal was that I could update it wherever and whenever I needed to. This, the thinking went, would mean that I could record observations within minutes of the action taking place rather than when I next had time to sit down with a paper journal.

It would seem, however, that this freedom from sitting down with a physical book and writing up my experiences has, as at least one of these studies has suggested, tended to lead to less entries and, possibly more importantly, less timely entries than I would have expected from my previous expreience with "old technology".

Part of this must be due to pressures of work and life; because the journal can be updated instantaneously there is a definite tendancy to "do it when I finish this". What actually happens is that the updates tend to be put off until I realise that if I don't catch up with two weeks of information it will be lost.

This would, perhaps be the experience of the students in the studies. Because the material is always available it can always be studied later. The issue then becomes one not of studying, but of time management. Rigid lecture times force students to attend and to make space in their day for the lecture. The ability to study any where at any time can lead to continual procrastination.

Perhaps what is happening is the evolution of just-in-time learning. That's certainly how I work in my job. If I need to know how a video conference recording device works I go and read the manual; usually I only read it just before I need to do a task or even (often) as I do it. As information and knowledge become evermore available and compartmentalised I suppose it is natural that a similar model would perhaps evolve in students - the "Net Generation" are growing up with information at their fingertips and entirely new attitudes to learning. Good or bad? I suppose that depends. Perhaps we have to look at our education system moving from information transfer to information processing models.

Higher Education is moving in that direction. Sadly our Government seem to want to focus lifelong learning on information transfer and skills rather then information processing and processes. Schools, by and large, are only just seeing the alternatives and why change is necessary.

Another issue with long posts has been that the technology, whilst flexible, isn't as reliable as it should be. By their nature browser based applications are always prone to lost connections. In the case of this journal a lost connection could mean 30 minutes typing. This has lead to a combined strategy of either writing up posts in a word processor first and then cutting and pasting or saving the post after every paragraph (as now). The former method reduces the flexibility of the system, I have to be using a machine with WP software, and is more time consuming, the latter disrupts the train of thought and intrudes on the creative process.

Also, wonderfully flexible as computers are, they still aren't as instantaneous as a pencil and paper. They can be intrusive, noisey, slow to turn on and even handheld devices lack the discretion of a paperpad and biro. I've never been asked what I'm doing when taking notes via paper & pen, but audio recording and even taking notes on a handheld often prevokes comment and has occasionally been seen as an invasion of privacy. I sometimes think that Big Brother would be able to carry on unnoticed as long as he monitored everyone in person and recorded everything on paper!

References on flexible coursework delivery

Flexible Delivery Damaging to Learning?
Lessons from the Canterbury Digital Lectures Project

Preparing courses for flexible delivery and distance education is normally a timeconsuming and expensive process. The results reveal some surprising social implications of making flexible delivery available to students at a residential university. Early in the trial, many students expressed an intention to use the system, but few did. Late in the course, many students stated that they urgently needed the system for revision, but even fewer used it. At the same time, lecture attendance appeared to be lower than normal.

Flexible coursework delivery to Australian postgraduates: How effective is the teaching and learning?
The educational implications of non-traditional delivery methods at postgraduate level are not yet well understood. A major question is whether advantages of access and flexibility are accompanied by trade-offs in learning experiences and outcomes.

Online, off course Education Guardian article from lecture.

Reference: Can E-Learning Spur Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship?

Taylor & Francis Group - Article
The Internet has already brought about far reaching changes to our lives. More recently it has started to transform education and we have witnessed the emergence of e-learning. This paper proposes that e-learning can potentially reduce, and even eliminate, longstanding geographical, cultural, and logistical barriers prevalent in the traditional delivery of education.

Potential references: Papers by Gerhard Fischer

Gerhard Fischer's Publications
A complete list of publications online.

Lifelong Learning - More Than Training
Learning can no longer be dichotomized into a place and time to acquire knowledge (school) and
a place and time to apply knowledge (the workplace). Today's citizens are flooded with more
information than they can handle, and tomorrow's workers will need to know far more than any
individual can retain.

Lifelong Learning: Changing Mindsets
Lifelong learning is an essential challenge for inventing the future of our societies; it is a necessity
rather than a possibility or a luxury to be considered. Lifelong learning is more than adult
education or training — it is a mindset and a habit for people to acquire.

LIFELONG LEARNING AND ITS SUPPORT WITH NEW MEDIA
Lifelong learning creates the challenge to understand, explore, and support new dimensions of learning such as: (1) self-directed learning, (2) learning on demand, (3) informal learning, and (4) organizational learning.

Symmetry of Ignorance, Social Creativity, and Meta-Design
Complex design problems require more knowledge than any one single person can possess, and the knowledge relevant to a problem is often distributed and controversial. Rather than being a limiting factor, “symmetry of ignorance” can provide the foundation for social creativity.

MA Course 6

THe last two sessions looked at Motivational Theories and Leadership styles.

The various motivational theories including McGregor, Maslow and Hertzberg were examined and compared.

We then looked at Belben's team roles by completing the exercise and a discussion ensued about how useful these psycho-profiling tests were - most people had completed similar tests before and had usually been profiles in different team roles depending on hteir mood or the group they were in and so on. We mostly agreed that the process of thinking about the different roles that make up a team was often useful, especially if it was a new experience. This then led into Truckman's (Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing) theory of the stages that teams move through.

We also looked at Style Theory and Situational Theory and how these could be used to examine Leadership. Style theory places a managers style at points on two continuums: Concern for people and Concern for production. Style thory suggests that all managers have a default management style that they will fall back on. Situational theory, conversely suggests that different situations require different management styles and that the management style should match the kills and motivation level of those being managed - high skills but low motivation will require a supportive manager whilst highly motivated, but less skilled workers would need directive management.

MA Course 5: Assignments

Last Thurday's session started with an overview of what we have covered so far:

Beginning with Managerialism and the increasing application of private sector theories (few of which were taken up wholescale) into the public sector in the 1970s & 80s (where they were often applied in full with little regard for what had been learned in the private sector). There was a drive to weaken Trades' Unions and increasing emphasis on the right of managers to manage - previously public sector workers were seen as being administrators handling public money on behalf of the public.

We then looked at the structure and types of organisation and the culture of organisations. From this we examined some of the classic and modern management theorists and examined how management and leadership have devolved in the past few years - management now seems to apply purely to middle-management and the theories are very much descriptive whilst leadership is the province of senior managers with "visions". Many theories of management have now become theories of leadership, with the additional book sales that brings ;-).

Having brough the theory together so far we then examined what each of us was planning to do as an assignment. This was very much a chance for us as a group to discuss ideas and the early points definitely seemed to clarify later contributors thinking.

The biggest problem that most of us had was that our ideas were far too broad in scope or that we were trying to answer more than one question. For a 5000 word assignment we need to be particularly focussed. My idea was to examine the relationship between the stated management structure/style and the staff perception. After discussion it was suggested that perhaps the focuss should be shifted slightly along the lines of the work done by Handy to compare staff perceptions of the organisation with their ideal organisation. This would make data collection easier as each returned questionaire contains both parts and the study potentially less prone to other effects by reducing the number of variables. In addition it may be possible to examine how closely the responses match both for staff and managers or by grade.

This was probably the most useful assignment preparation session I have yet had whilst at the UCE. It focussed our attention on the questions of what and how. The agreement seemed to be that this approach helped everyone crystalise their thoughts, from those that had copious notes to slackers like me with a single half-formed idea that came out of a discussion with another member of staff.

Very, very useful: I must remember to update Jim's comments book.

ATI 2005 day 4

http://www.flickr.com/groups/ati2005 - photographs
http://tinyurl.com/6uhbv - ati evaluation


Richard Millwood keynote: presentation available @ http://improbability.ultralab.net/
Acting director Ultralab.

Potential - new capability augmented by tools. Growing global awareness in children & we should give them a chance to be moral leaders.
Society needs our children to be - Citizens, we want Peace, functional wealth - no pot of gold this can't be ignored. Culture.

From examinations we are rewarding - people who work alone, people who use memory but don't search, sit still & silent, only use paper and pens, forget.

Expression - what learners do
Evaluation - deciding if it's right.

Audience - thinking thoughts in response to listening watching or reading - does it make sense to me.
Presenter - speaking playing performing or doing - do other people understand me? Very important to do for extra feedback.
Writing, drawing, proving, planning or computing - feedback in a formal way.

Learning: to fulfill potential, to satisfy needs, together.
seeking for evaluation, persisting with different formulations until satisfied with feedback. Articulation of what you are trying to do is a learning process. Learning through explaining ideas to other people. Expression very important.

License to give children expressive, creative activities with group evaluation.

Learning with ICT:

inspire motivation - not just a better pencil. Culture of tools - civilization is founded on tools - live & breath tools. ICT in its widest forms is not just something on the side it is symbiotically linked to learning AND everything we do. It is functional!

enhance expressive creativity

empower evaluation

support perserverence

Tests for learning with ICT: expressive creativity + evaluative power

Dimensions in creative work:

Audience: articulating to others - self indulgent
Narrative: telling a story - effecting a reaction
Control: author determines - audience chooses

Last dimension newest. We are now a nation of channel hoppers - why? Because we have the tools to make choices. But at the other extreme we like the cinema. How do we design for the end of the spectrum where the audience make all the choices? That's the challenge.

Creative about...
strategy, creativity, vision, management,research,costs,conceptualization, collaboration, critique, development, evaluation, production, presentation.
What creativity means - lots of time and space.

Productivity v Creativity
Educational strategies...

QC - QA
teaching machines - learning tools
standardization - standards
interaction - participation
predictability - innovation
content - community
ivory tower research - practitioner research
piecemeal - joined-up
societal outcomes...
low value economy - high value economy
cultural conservation - cultural enrichment
dumbing down - smartening up

Why do we do creativity - not just for learning but for society.

Timescales: 10-20 years we are at the beginning of a revolution in education.

Challenges:

Unleash creativity...
...And collaboration

Rethink assessment - the biggest brake on change
trust the next generation...
...and teachers!


Discussion

Standards - need for open standards agreements to allow easier archiving and retention of work.

Tools - capability to become the heart of the education process. Is there any possibility that the politicians and society can embrace this? Need for this to be driven.

Assessment - deforming creativity. Models of learning matched in simplicity only bY models of assessment. Need to encourage and build on practicioner knowledge - critical mass could then allow practicioners to drive change.

Rethinking assessments is the challenge.


Mini ATI with David etc for all of SED advisors - link advisors etc.

My final note there of the keynote session reflects how I felt - that if we could just get some of our school advisors on one of these courses it could make such a difference. One of the big frustrations that we always have is that we have all this tachnology at our fingertips, but getting the message out to school leaders can be so hard - even something as technically simple as giving away some free software can be fraught with negativity - why? what does it do? whay would we need that? what if it doesn't work?

It seems that many of the educational thinkers in ICT are also thinkers in creativity and empowerment, though the challanges seem immense at the moment.

ATI 2005 day 3

Day 3: project day

Course evaluation - tinyurl.com/6uhbv

Day 3 is very much a do what you want day where in addition to learning new skills on an almost need-to-know basis indiviuals really get to grips with the processes of creating films rather than focussing on skill aquisition.

There were a couple of key group learning moments in this day just like last year. A group of us were trying to animate a sequence with a book opening and a page crumpling up. After much head scratching a passing peer suggested off-hand that it would be much quicker to just film the book opening (rather than animate it and then just animate the crumpling page.

The second one was that it isn't always necessary to do things in order. By crumpling up the page and animating the sequence in reverse it was far easier than tring to animate a piece of paper crupling into a ball. THe final shots were done with some increasingly less creased photocopies.

All of these were almost eureka moments that individually, or even as a small group we might have struggled to solve in the available time, but the large community came to our rescue pitching in ideas and possible solutions. In turn we through our own ideas into other peoples projects.

I also managed to find time to be filmed by various other groups and to complete a film to music sequence (all six 1/2 minutes) of one of our bands songs. I was really just doing it for pleasure but was persuaded to submit it. Definitely worth doing - seeing it on the big screen was something else! And it got applause!!! Just shows how important that evaluation stage is.

ATI 2005 day 2

Day 2 - Workshop Day.

Day 2 began with a keynote by Gerry Holsgrove, a writer and performer, which I missed as I had to dash back to Brum overnight. I have been told that one of the key elements was that teachers should ensure that pupils' creativity is expressed and that teachers' don't impose their creative ideas on pupils.

Podcast of it here :)

Day 2 Keynote

The remainder of the day is mostly manic - four workshop sessions between 9.30 am and 8.30pm. There was a wide selection of courses available, so the following can only cover those that I attended and shouldn't be taken as a prescriptive list :)

Session 1: Advanced DV Techniques with Oscar.

This session concentrated on film and animation production and how to shoot better footage and capture better sound. It was very much an open session; Oscar had prepared a list of what he thought were interesting topics and the group chose from these.

The session began with camera technique and how to shoot better images. The group discussed the ways in which depth of field and focal length could be used to separate the foreground subject from the background. We then used these techniques to film some footage in groups.

We then discussed sound and some equipment and techniques for capturing better sound - there was lots of input from the group on this on how to solve problems.

Finally Oscar demonstrated how to film with green or blue backgrounds for chromakey work. The key factor is producing an evenly lit backround, whilst avoiding shadows from the lighting on the subject. We also discussed the use of subject lighting and what to avoid (flourescent lights & mixing of light types).

Session 2: iLife in the Curriculum with John

This was an even more open session. Much less practical than other sessions, but much more student driven. It concentrated primarily on what was a creative project and how could it be realised. We were asked initially to list what we thought made a good creative project and then we discussed various aspects of these answers.

My initial responses:
1. Engagement - in making and viewing
2. Do-able in given time with available resources
3. Appeal to a broad spectrum of learners and learning types (multiple intelligences, personalised learning & individualisation)
4. Storytelling - a narrative gives focus

Other responses:
Ease of manageability - kit, time, task, individulisation
Media skills - photography and art links
Creativity & problem solving

We discussed these ideas as a group and reflected upon them throughout the remainder of the session.

We then looked at the idea of a project being more than a single activity leading to an outcome. We also looked at how exact, unambiguous instructions lead to exact replicas, whilst a list of parameters only would lead to students "filling in the blanks" and relating the instructions to their own experiences and ideas and would thus allow them to be creative. As an example we analysed a series of adverts - what made them similar what made them different? How were they constructed? How would we create a task to create similar adverts without being prescriptive.

Some ideas for creating projects were put forward such as using a random selection of ideas in a randomly selected style using slips of paper. We also looked at projects based upon emotions such as creating film to go with emotive music such as Holst's Planet Suite or creating music with a similar goal - to portray emotions.

Such project focus on doing rather than an academic model.

There was much discussion also of how this model of teaching and learning fits into the current model of assessment. At one end of the spectrum of views was the belief that the current models of assessment are just wrong: that criteria assessment models are never going to produce citizens of the future with real creative abilities. At the other end was the belief that the current model is, if not the best model, then model that we have and that whilst the idea of letting pupils have free reign is laudable it still has to be marked and that has to fit into the current educational process.

Personally I'm an idealist - I'm with Illich to a certain extent. It would be nice to have education that taught children how to think and create rather than how to pass GCSEs. Yes language and numeracy and science are important, but surely those skills (and they are just skills - a means, NOT an end) can be taught by doing other more creative things.

Quote of the session was from a child in a film - "Try it and delete it if it doesn't work". There's a lesson for all of us there about experiential learning.

My list of final responses to the question, "What makes a good project?"
1 Cross-curricular activity and collaberation
2 Embedded ICT - ICT is a tool, a fantastic and wonderful tool, but it's what it enables students to do that is truely wonderful.
3 Personalised learning centred on creativity.


Optional Session: Advanced Final Cut Pro with David

See, even when given the option of a bit of free time I'll go to a lesson. To be honest this was more of a play session for me. As David remarked, I probably know more about editing with FCP than he does, but since most of my work is firmly rooted in factual presentation I don't get to play around with chroma key effects very much.

This session was, like Oscar's, built around the idea of taking a selection of topics, investigating the tools available and how to use them and then actually using those tools ourselves to explore how we might use them in our future work.

It occurs to me that these sessions, like many IT related subjects could become very didactic if not handled well. Computer software will only react to set commands and if you want to achieve an effect you almost have to work in a certain way. So that using the tool becomes, if not drill, then at least a series of definite instructions. The challenge in teaching these skills is to keep in mind, and to develop in the students minds, that these are just skills, like using a spade or planting a seed. The real creativity lies in the application of these skills, along with other skills such as writing, speaking, operating a camera and acting that combine in synthesis to create a narrative in exactly the same way that using the skills of digging and planting combine with others to create a garden.

Perhaps the real issue in current education, particularly for schools, but increasingly in post-16 and FE is that the methods used to guage the attainment both of the student and of the institution focusses almost exclusively upon the aquisistion of skills and not upon the ability to synthesise and create. Much of the current administration's focus is upon "learning skills" to enable people to "find jobs". Is that what education should be about?

We run an annual digital storytelling competition in the West Midlands. More and more schools are submitting entries and we have begun to run training for those schools that wish to take part to teach them how to use the tools which they can then use to produce the stories. Though I am always amazed at the quality of entries each year, given the short amounts of time that these films are usually produced in, I'm still disappointed that the training that we do focusses almost exclusively on the skills of cutting and pasting clips of film and not on the process of speaking through the medium of film. It is a little like signing up for a class in creative writing only to be shown how to type, cut and paste words in a word processor. Obviously these skills are necessary to write using a word processor or to edit film on a computer, and learning new skills can speed up or ease the production process, but it is still the process that generates the outcome, not the skills.

I think that is why I love the ATI so much. Day 1 is always about the process - go and make a film, go and write a soundtrack to a film. Yes, we'll teach you just enough skills to do what you want to do, but it's the outcome that is important. People may have been bored rigid by the umpteenth version of the Cardiff film at teh end of day 1, but it was the film that was being critiqued, not the skills used to produce it. I'd hazzard a guess that no-one could tell which was made using Garageband and which was produced using Soundtrack (or Logic for that matter!).


Session 3: Podcasting and internet radio with Sean & Adam

Given that this was the final session of a very long day I was having real problems just listening to what Sean was saying about these new technologies let alone creating any media.
Sean's was probably the most cutting edge of the day's sessions. Some of the attendees felt that it was a little too vague, but I felt that it was possibly the most interesting and stimulating - perhaps I've just spent too much time editing video!

Podcasting is the merging of internet radio and blogging; it allows audio weblogs in mp3 format to be posted to a blog site. This isn't particularly new - the great thing is that by generating an RSS feed of the blog it is possible for clients agregator software to automatically download new content from subscribed sites. Once downloaded the audio files can be automatically copied to an mp3 player allowing you to listen to then away from the computer. This is probably what has led to their rapid growth more than anything else - there are not only music podcasts but current affairs shows, chat shows, technical shows and light entertainment shows all in podcast form.

Of course you can listen to podcasts on a computer. Also, although the name may imply otherwise, you don't have to use Macs and iPods to create and listen to podcasts. Podcasts are mp3 based and can be created by any software capable of creating audio files in that format (for instance the wonderfully free Audacity). Similarly podcast agregators are available for most computer platforms and will work with any mp3 player.

Podcasting is definitely something I'm looking forward to trying and it will certainly make producing "radio" programmes easier for schools.

The session also looked at the production of media for newer GPRS and 3G mobile phones. Neat, but limited at the moment until more people own phones with the capability (or perhaps sour grapes as don't have one!!). For those that are interested the latest versions of QuickTime can now compress video files into a format that can be downloaded to these phones.

ATI 2005 day 1

Day 1 of the Apple Teacher Institute 2005.

This is my third attendance at the ATI having been in 2003 & 4. It is a four day residential course/workshop/seminar on digital media and the curriculum.

The teaching for day 1 begins after lunch with the usual preliminaries and then a keynote lecture by Neil Brand an actor and film composer.

We were taken on a journey through film and sound examining the relationship between score and visuals and prompting us to think about how sound can be used to reinforce the visuals or to run counter to the visuals (Vertigo, Mississippi Burning, an early film about four people in a Berlin Park). Neil used film to demonstrate the points he was making asking us to work through the "spotting" process. At various points he would stop the film and ask us what we though the film or music were trying to convey and what we thought would happen next.

We examined the titles for "Speed"; Neil showed us how, although the titles (descending through a lift shaft) had little to do with the overall film the soundtrack subconsciously took us through the entirety of the film somewhat like and overture.

In the case of "Vertigo" when Jimmy Stuart was following the wife, the score was constructed to allay our sense of foreboding so that we felt the same sense of shock and surprise as Jimmy Stuart when the wife throws herself into the river.

The penultimate piece was purely an exercise in spotting - could we see the important scenes and pivotal moments in a few minutes of footage. What messages did the visuals convey and how did they maintain our interest?

The final piece looked at how music can be used to soften the impact of violence or disturbing scenes. In "Mississippi Burning" Alan Parker uses music over the scene of the black church-goers being beaten by the Klan members to initially soften the impact of the images. The soundtrack is at odds with the images and it isn't until the music stops dead that the whole horror of the scene rushes in at us.

Neil asked us to watch for this "trick" - in the hands of a director of Alan Parker's integrity it is a powerful storytelling tool, but it could also be used by a more unscrupulous director to manipulate the audience. An interesting observation was how much music is being used in news programmes...

The remainder of the day was spent learning to use Garageband and Soundtrack to create music for film. The session was organised as a seminar/workshop. It began with a taught session that covered the mechanics of the software. We were then left to work individually or in groups to create a soundtrack for a pre-recorded piece of footage with support from the tutor. This gave us time to reflect upon the task and produce a creative piece of work using the available tools.

We also had chance to discuss with others and to learn from each other. Much of the learning that went on was peer based with those with more experience of the software enabling others to achieve the results that they wanted.

The day culminated in the evening with a showcase of the students work for the day. Which gave everyone the chance to see their own work and to evaluate it in the context of others work. This evaluation session is a key factor in creative endeavours - not only is it the pay off for the hours of hard, sometimes frustrating, work, but it is also a learning opportunity. How did others approach the task? What did I do that was good? What was not as good? How would I do things differently next time? What have I learned? It really is a reflective process and fits very well with models of learning such as Kolb.

MA Course 4

Session covered modern management theories and contrasted them with the classical theories. These theories are aimed less at the organisational structure and focus more on the concept of getting the right person for the job. The theories (Drucker, Peters & Covey) focus on what managers should be doing and the pactices that they should adopt - eg Covey's 7 habits.

A useful session. Again the class discussion was a stimulating and useful part of the session. We wandered off topic a little again, but even that was useful - organisation anicdotes help me to think about my own organisation in different ways.

These were mostly around the ways that different leaders have made changes in organisations that people felt had made a difference. Also how the theories struck chords in the participants though there was a felling that some of the theorists (notably Covey) strayed too far into the "guru" with maxims and sayings - all a bit David Brent!

References: DfES White Paper

The new White Paper on skills has been released. More grist for the mill...

DfES: Skills: Getting on in business, getting on at work White Paper

MA Course 3

The last session covered classical management theory and began with the types of businees organisation and then worked through the theorists between 1910 - 1976. The classical theories focussed on getting the organisation right and was mostly about structure and function.

Writers covered included Fayol, Taylor (scientific management) and the Gilbreth's, Gantt, Mayo & the Hawthorne studies, Urwick (from Fayol), Brech (social process), and Weber (legitimate authority and bureaucracy).

On the teaching side of things I'm beginning to think that the Cisco course is too prescriptive and not really that well suited for adult learners. I've decided that in order to help the students integrate the theoretical knowledge better the course work and practical work needs to be better integrated into the sessions. Too often the students try to avoid the practical work until the end of the course.

The case studies also need to be re-written to focus on the problem solving aspects of the work rather than concentrating on too many specifics. It would probably also help to make this a group excercise to allow students to interact with each other as this could reinforce learning and enable students to share experience. It would also free up the equipment for general lab work and skills tests which do work through the specifics and allow more individual and group work time with the hardware.

The format of the course could also use some revision - from discussions with the students it seems clear that twilight sessions aren't necessarily the best option. The concensus is that a day session would be more productive and allow the students to get to the session more easily as it is always harder to get out of work than to travel directly to a course.

Again insight into the barriers to lifelong learning from my excellent students. Other barriers seem to be around finding time to study and with keeping up to date with the curriculum. Given that the course was originally designed to be taught to US high school students it is aimed at a large number of short sessions, something that just isn't possible for adult learners, it requires the students to do a large amount of reading in their own time and this seems to be the area that causes problems for students. They then use the taught sessions to catch up on the reading rather than the practical lab work.

The nature of the assessment tends towards being closed - a multiple choice final assessment on the theory content. The case study does allow for some creativity and problem solving, though the skills test is again an exam although a practical one. As an instructor the only leeway is in the way that these components, and any other additional ones, add up to the final pass/fail for each semester.

References: DfES

Some DfES and related references on LLL

The 14 - 19 Gateway

Online Publications for schools: Product details

How e-learning fits into the other DfES strategies.
e-learning Strategy

MA Course 2

Organisational Culture and Managerialism

Wow heavy title, but essentially in two parts (in reverse order). Managerialism is the wayin which public sector organisations like ours have been forced to adopt some of the practices and trappings of the private sector - finacial control, the idea of best value, performance indicators and the breaking down of organisations into ever smaller units.

In our case we seem to have gained some of the freedoms and power of a private company whilst retaining much of the baggage of the public sector. We are expected to be fully traded (we get no direct money from council tax, we can only raise money by selling our services. Great except that we aren't allowed to make a profit or carry money from one year to another. Also a real private company is responsible only to it's shareholders and customers (if it wants to stay in business). We have to be responsible to the council tax payers who concerns are generally with getting as much as possible for no cost. Hmmm...

Worse, a private company knows how well it is succeeding by its turnover and how much profit it makes. We have to jump through expensive, time-consuming hoops to show that we are spending money wisely. And we get CPS and Ofsted inspections - and we are one of the few departments that is supposedly fully trading with the commercial sector. I guess that's managerialism at it's worst.

We also looked at various organisational cultures, both the writers that examined them and the types of culture they identified - power cultures, role cultures (silos, that's us) person cultures and task cultures.

Another Week...

I've been so lax in not updating this site. Then, when I finally get chance the browser and my stupidity consign the post to digital oblivion.

On the teaching side the Cisco courses are coming along, though I'm concerned about the two students who are starting to fall back slightly. One took a long break and the other has had trouble with binary maths and subnetting and neither have completed Semester 1 yet. I've been patient, I realise that they are both very busy at work, but if I don't start cracking the whip soon it could begin to affect the other students.

I also took did some electronic whiteboard training this week. I was disappointed by the lack of people the would get up and use the board. I guess I need to be more pro-active in encouraging student participation, but I'm aware that they may be like me and hate to be called up in front of others. Still my compromise was to offer short 10 minute refreshers to them when they had presentations ready to deliver.

I'm also not very good at questioning students and getting them to help with the learning of others. I don't do it frequently enough, though when I do I find that the silent strategy does work - leave a long enough gap and someone will fill it! I think I also need some other strategies though. Back to the books.

On the learning fron the first MA session was on Asignment writing - still useful even though I've done a similar session 3 times now - there's always a new idea or thought that comes out.

The second session was the beginnings of the course proper - "managerialism and organisational types". The group work was very useful in seeing how others perceive their organisations and made me think a bit about how I see my organisation.

The second half of the session looked at organisational types and we were asked to draw a picture (NOT a diagram) of how we saw our organisation and its structure. I think this was a little like therapy for some, but I found it a little hard to come up with a pictorial version of how I think and feel about my organisation. The best I could come up with was a gunfight with the different parts of my organisation vying for power and with external influences constantly pressuring us.

I still can't draw though.

Seredipitous Learning

Something else I learned today... If you've just finished typing a blog entry, but the browser won't upload it to the site, DO NOT copy the text to the clipboard and then "end process" the browser! Bye-bye browser, bye-bye clipped text...

I hate technology sometimes.

White Paper: White Elephant?

Well it's finally here. In the wake of Mike Tomlinson's reports and his recommendation of an overarching structure for 14-19 qualifications the Government have published their new White Paper on 14-19 Education.

I've yet to read it - I've just printed the introduction - but the media reports suggest that Tomlinson has been sidelined and we are back to the same old Academic stream for the bright & "skills for everyone else".

More once I've read & digested it...

Teaching Thoughts

Working through the online assessment system for our Cisco Network Academy Programme has made me realise how much more thought tends to be put into online delivery systems for the student experience than for the administration of the system. It takes my stdent a couple of clicks to open an assessment and then it's all point & click. To enable the assessments and, even worse, to change them is a task of mamoth proportions.

A current debate raging on the instructors site is whether to increase the maximum allowable time for online module tests from a day to something sensible (for those of us that use them as formative assessments) like a week. The split seems to be along the lines of shools vs adult ed - schools want the exams restricted to class use, proctored exams whilst anyone using the academy in adult/further education want to be able to let the students use them as and when they like to reinforce their learning and understanding. A classic clash of Pedagogy meets Androgogy and never the twain...

Understanably those school teachers that use the exam for summative assessment want secure "uncheatable" exams. That obviously clashes with the adult educators who don't care if the students check to see the answers as long as they are learning from them. The problems occur when students from the latter model choose to post cheat sheets for those students in the former regeime.

The answer would seem to be the same as for those teachers that complain that the internet allows pupils to chet at essay questions - adapt your assessment model to one that precludes such practices. Adopt some of the features of Androgogy - make your pupils responsible for their learning and find some alternatives to replace the module tests that show research skills and the ability to think critically, synthesis information and to produce interesting solutions to problems using good methodology. Possibly a radical approach and may involve more work in the short term, but isn't it more rewarding for pupils and teacher than ticking boxes?

Another Start

Well this was supposed to be a lived learning journal beginning last semester, but due to the death of my father, the Christmas holidays and the the manic run up to my wedding in February nothing much happened on the diary front. I'm not sure how much happened on the learning front either and I've got a fair backlog of reading to get through, but that's just a pretty good example of how life-long learning needs to fit into people's lives and not vice-versa.

That's possibly the biggest lesson that the Government should be taking onboard about life-long learning. Unlike children, who's entire lives revolve around education (should be learning, but not sure that it is), adults have lives already crowded with responsibilities, activities, families and formal learning has to find a space in that. Instead all the current administration seem worried about is that we all have a level 2 qualification in Literacy and Numeracy, though not English and Maths anymore, which raises a question about those that are perfectly literate in a community language: does that count Mr Blair?

Anyway, having begun once and failed, this semester seemed like a better choice from a teaching and learning point of view. The next MA module begins on Thursday (no I've done nothing about the last one Tony - this is it!) though yet again it wasn't the one I wanted to do, but I had a pretty limited range of choices anything on a Tuesday or a Thursday due to my current teaching and music commitments. We're back to learning fitting in! So "Management in Post-Compulsory Education" it is then; this has become the year of adult ed modules for me after a year of school modules last year - fitting I suppose since I have a foot in either camp.

This semester I'm also attending the Apple Teacher Institute in Cheltenham for the 3rd year running which is a four day workshop based learning opportunity on Digital Media and other ICT school technologies. This may contrast well with the MA course in terms of learning and teaching styles and methods.

In addition my two CCNA courses are fairly well bedded in with the pilot course down to a core of three tenacious students and the second course holding steady with 9 students who all seem largely committed to completing the course - interestingly it's the internal staff that don't seem to let things slip a little.

So teaching and learning all happening. All I have to do is to keep updating this on a daily basis.

Some assorted links used in previous MA assignments

DE About the department: history of education
Encyclopaedia of British History: Education 1750-1950
History of Education: Selected Moments
Choose the Best Search for Your Information Needs
The Education Reform Act of 1988

A beginning...

This is a diary of learning experience for my MA Education: Lifelong Learning module. Being a mad technotype it seemed a reasonable idea to put this together as a blog that can be updated from wherever I have internet access rather than carrying a book around with me all the time. Plus it will already be in a type written form if I need to quote from it or use extracts.

The initial idea for the assessment is to examine my teaching and learning in one or two areas and compare and contrast it. That, combined with a study of the relavent literature, should provide a solid basis for the assessment.

We will also be using action learning sets for this MA course and I have to admit I'm not sure how these will work - it's sort of group therapy for learning as far as I can tell. The general principle seems to be that a student brings part of their assessment work in and it is examined (in a structured, but informal way) by the rest of the group to provide avenues of exploration & new thinking. A sort of brainstorming excercise perhaps. It will be interesting to see how it works especially as my assignments are often hopeless until the last few weeks before the hand in date.