Technologies for Learning Workshop Introduction Initial ... · Technologies for Learning Workshop The Boathouse, Aberdour, 09.30 – 16.00, 15 October 2010 Introduction This is a

1

Technologies for Learning Workshop The Boathouse, Aberdour, 09.30 – 16.00, 15 October 2010 Introduction This is a note of a workshop run by International Futures Forum as part of the initial exploration work contributing to the potential development of a Scottish Government Technologies for Learning Strategy. It was convened by Deputy Director, Curriculum Division, Jackie Brock and facilitated by Graham Leicester and Rohan Gunatillake. This report is a straight record. Other participants blogged and tweeted in response to the day: those links are best accessed via the entry ‘Technology and Schools’ on the IFF Blog. Initial Investment Decisions: The Present The session opened with a simple exercise in which participants were invited to allocate 7 investment ‘chips’ across a portfolio of possible options, and based on their existing experience, understanding of evolving pedagogy and of the capabilities of people and technologies in and around the education system.

2

The task was completed by individuals, who then compared notes in pairs, and finally made their investments on a large public chart. The resulting collective pattern is shown overleaf. The resulting pattern shows a high concentration around ‘infrastructural’ investment in the broadband/wifi network and in teacher CPD. One ‘other’ suggestion was for greater attention to the maintenance of existing hardware. Investment in ‘personal budgets’ was interpreted by many as a general investment in greater local autonomy. Other suggestions included investment in ‘leadership’, the disadvantaged, tax breaks for hardware purchases, and on moving beyond the ‘21st century classroom’ concept to building a model 21st century school.

The group was invited to reflect on the pattern overall and made the following comments:

- We prefer teacher CPD to ‘training’ – the former includes peer to peer support, especially the support of ‘super users’. It is broader than tech training;

- Need to restore spirit of lifelong learning amongst teachers. They can learn in

diverse ways like children. The science teachers network is a good example. So too the edublogosphere – all on open platforms;

3

- Broadband and CPD are basic. The tipping point will come with leadership – including on the issue of inequity;

- Investment in handheld devices would be wasted. Children have their own

smartphones. The state does not have to supply them. Just allow their use, and fill the gaps in provision where necessary;

- There is still a big gap between teachers’ capacity and children’s. Need time

for this to close;

- Can we walk the talk? Use Glow for CPD – and design for serendipity?

- Why has teaching lagged behind other sectors in tech adoption?

- The requirement for consistency is in tension with experiment (within schools and across Scotland). But Curriculum for Excellence should change that;

- Policy differs from school to school. Some things are allowed in one authority

and not in others;

- We need a set of common values to configure bottom up/distributed authority;

- Digital Entitlement: what can we promise to all children? At the moment we live in a Tale of Several Cities;

- ‘ICT competence’ is not a sufficient test of teacher competence in practice;

- Initial teacher training is vital;

- We need greater school autonomy – for spending and other decisions;

- We need national infrastructure, policy and standards and then local

autonomy. Just need to beware inequity;

- We need freedom to choose as schools and teachers the best tech for the task;

- Technology could easily be used to enhance lots of existing learning

experiences. Learning from Glow: The Past The second session took a step back to consider a similar exercise six years and more ago – the context of the development of glow. Participants had been asked in advance to come ready to discuss the experience. Small groups were invited to think about Glow’s origins and how things have panned out since: what did not turn out as well as expected and what turned out to be surprisingly or unexpectedly good? What were we assuming at the time we developed Glow and made our investment that turned out to be questionable and led us to be surprised, eg assumptions about:

- student behaviour - school culture - broadband access - education policy - rate of change of technology

4

This generated the following set of observations about Glow’s history and the assumptions that turned out to be questionable. We assumed:

- equity would be achieved, access for all: but broadband did not become universal, local authorities did not invest, pathfinder projects did not scale;

- leaders would take up Glow;

- training would be cheap and available;

- teachers are now subverting the process, using Glow’s modular capacity;

- Glow would not be clunky, would work first time, would generate instant

excitement and optimism;

- all schools would have access to all parts, and a national directory would be part of the platform to aid communication;

- it would be safer to help learners to swim in a closed goldfish bowl rather than

the real world of the internet (just like a school building);

- Glow would grow with the times, keep up – but tech has advanced really rapidly, beyond Glow’s ‘ossified’ specifications;

- Glow would solve lots of our problems;

- being first in the world, as well as feeding our national pride, would lead to

revolution! (aye, right);

- parents would become involved;

- we would recoup the investment by selling Glow to others – and reinvest the profit to stay ahead of the game;

- Glow would enhance learning, add tools: mixed success – we can find the

tools now elsewhere;

- Glow would not apply to private schools (but it should);

- Glow would be the solution to the problem of people not sharing and collaborating.

In addition, one of the early architects of Glow was in the room. He offered a particular view on how expectations had been far more realistic amongst the development team. There were indeed high expectations ‘out there’ that Glow would do everything. But the developers always knew it would be version 1, not perfect; that anything over 20% uptake would be success; that involving the 32 local authorities was itself a triumph and that this phase would just ‘set the foundations for when things get interesting’. There was a lot of discussion about the question of ‘safety’ – whether the achievement of a ‘safe internet environment’ for children has been a triumph (it

5

seemed like it in the context of moral panic around the internet at the time of Glow’s development) or a missed opportunity to learn how to be safe in the real world. Thus, at the end of the session, perhaps the deepest assumption of all emerged:

- we assumed that there needs to be a Scottish education intranet. Challenging Assumptions: The Future The final session before lunch was turned over to a presentation from IFF Fellow, musician and theorist Pat Kane to explore some of the ‘fertile ambivalences’ of the present – that could play out in many different ways in the future. Pat had been asked to address the three initial framing concepts – experience, pedagogy and capability – from the perspective of how they might evolve over the coming decade, taking both a hopeful and a worrying perspective on each. His talk is available in slide form here, as an audioboo here (part 1) and here (part 2), and on video here.

Pat was invited to conclude his review by considering, in light of the whole morning’s discussion (of the present, the past and the future) what one piece of advice he would give those preparing the learning technologies strategy; what ‘rules of thumb’ (or heuristics) he would offer to guide wise investment and decision making in an uncertain environment, and what he would suggest we scan for in the emerging environment to make sure we are not taken by surprise years later when our present assumptions turn out to be questionable (as they will).

6

Pat suggested the following:

- Advice: be aware of the big narrative of societal development. Epochal change is possible. And we cannot remove the possibility of disaster from the horizon.

- Rules of Thumb: techne originally means ‘art and skill’. See ICT as part of a

continuum of arts and skills. Seek out continuities and connections with other disciplined social and cultural practices (music, engineering, languages etc). Promote active learning – and play as deeper and more multi-faceted than screen games.

- Scan For: developments in neuroscience and psychology where there is a

big, solid, scholarly debate that we need to be literate about. Look for where the very new meets the very old: there are deep human continuities that are now expressed through ICT. And keep an eye on open source cultures and how they are developing.

Synthesis: What Does All This Mean For Tomorrow’s Strategy? Following lunch the group reassembled to consider how to catalyse the rich material and discussions from the morning session into something useful to guide the development of future strategy. To accomplish this four groups were asked to take the morning’s conversation as background for an exercise that would identify:

(a) the big questions that any strategy in this area will need to address;

(b) the ways in which these questions might be addressed if handled in a typical ‘Seeing Like a State’ way (a reference to James C Scott’s book on the limitations of straight line policy thinking) – thus generating a set of warning lights for policy makers in this area;

(c) some principles, heuristics or rules of thumb for the architects of the future

strategy to bear in mind in order to avoid the pitfalls of the (b) approach and honour the intelligence in the discussion today.

Participants self-organised into four groups each of which would take a different perspective on the strategy (and therefore what it has to address) – pupils and young people; teachers; government; and Glow. Here are the results – big questions and vital things to take into account in framing strategy from these four perspectives. Pupils and Young People

- What does success look like? - Why do we stop working with ‘real’ problems, and stop playing, by the time

we reach S2? - Why can’t I use my usual tech and behaviours in school? - How can the context for learning be more meaningful for all students? - Why do we do ‘fake’ things in school? Fakebook instead of Facebook. How

are we going to learn to judge how and when to share (part of being a responsible citizen)?

- How can we bridge the closed and open cultures inside and outside school?

7

- Can we have a ‘policy dimmer switch’ for students and teachers (ie turn up and down the levels of control as necessary)?

- How can we balance trust for the pupils and the duty of care? Will a dimmer switch do the job? Can we rely on trust, plus consequences if this trust is abused? Where do the authorities stand on the spectrum between control and unconditional positive regard?

- How can we blend provision within and outside learning institutions using technology, so that learning is really an ‘all ages, all stages’ thing?

Teachers - Is there a baseline entitlement to be offered: covering technology in school,

connectivity, wireless access, a standard toolset, access 24/7 in and out of school, and freedom to use diverse hardware?

- What do our pupils need to learn in today’s and tomorrow’s digital universe? - Do we need to teach languages? Or just information literacy? - Can we share the costs of hardware provision with eg parents, sponsors,

others? - Are we up to the task as teachers? What is an acceptable level of skill or

competence in technology? Is initial teacher training appropriate – or is there too big a gap in context between training and the school digital environment?

- Do we really need to change? Are we as a profession really up to engaging the big overarching social narratives that Pat Kane introduced?

Glow

- Can we start again, designing from the principles of basic pedagogy? - Can the new Glow be an e portfolio – for everyone, including educators?

With sharing levels and discretions that permit more openness, including access for people outside school;

- Should there be a compulsion element to ensure adoption? - Can the new Glow be open to all – non-school learners, on the MIT open

courseware model? But we must then pay attention to the culture of the institution and the outside world. There are two paradigms in play. Don’t assume that they will mix easily or naturally (or at all);

- When we develop the new Glow we must start with the problem(s) it is intended to solve and the impacts we want it to deliver.

8

Government - How can we benefit learners, and provide value for money, best use of

resources in straitened times? - What is the role of government in this area? To ensure reliability and equity; - Can we become more open source in our policy development: rapid

development, fast cycle time, agile? - How flexible can we be in terms of education delivery models? - What are the new partnerships we can enter to advance the strategy in this

area? - Is there a ‘hacker ethic’ to be encouraged amongst teenagers and other

pupils? Hacking as a creative space? Can we embrace that as government? Are we ready to see teachers as engineers, makers, prosumers, tinkerers, taking ownership of what is available and subverting it for the sake of the task and the learning? Google time (20% freedom)? iTunes governance (self-regulating)?

- When people say they have heard all this before, how can we make sure that becomes a cause for hope (that the message is now getting through) rather than frustration (that the penny has still not dropped)?

Wrap-up The meeting was drawn to a conclusion by Jackie Brock from the Scottish Government. She thanked everyone for a full and very useful day. She commented on the novelty of the experience of finding the meeting already communicated to others outside the room before it had even finished: an unusual experience from someone used to circulating the record after the event. Invigorating but also slightly scary: probably as some teachers feel standing at the front of a very different classroom when the children are on the network and enabled to use it. However this was a very positive sign for the development of strategy – that there were already others involved and that the conversation would spread. She invited suggestions for how to remain in touch with the process and looked forward to further discussion ahead. Graham Leicester 20 October 2010

9

Appendix Participants: Jackie Brock Sandra Campbell Andrew Brown David Gilmour Rohan Guntillake John Johnston Sanjin Kaharevic Pat Kane Graham Leicester Ollie Bray Laura Mason Ewan McIntosh Kenneth McLaughlin Con Morris Gordon Neill David Noble Martin O’Neill Andrea Reid Bruce Robertson Colin Smith Frank Crawford Joe Wilson Neil Winton Gillian Penny Nick Hood Jamie Petrie Aileen Monaghan Helen Donaldson Laurie O’Donnell Fearghal Kelly