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doug woods

ICT in Education Consultant and Trainer

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Keeping ICT Moving Forward

Wednesday, July 7th, 2010

bike 300x225 Keeping ICT Moving Forward

It was @DobeLou who tweeted one Sunday morning ‘Forward not backward in ICT’ with a link to her article by the same title. http://bit.ly/90AaWg . It is a phrase that echoes my own sentiments and, I feel certain, the sentiments of many others involved in ICT or Educational Technology in England.

You will notice that I say, England, in the previous paragraph, I do so without any intentional slight to colleagues in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland; I’m simply not sure what the situation is in those areas, with their different funding and organisational arrangements. I daresay, there are concerns there too but, initially anyway, the cuts seem to have hit English education hardest.

Currently, there is an atmosphere akin to despair mixed with confusion. Having pressed forward for many years in developing ICT and the use of technology in education, the country seems to be plunged suddenly backward by decisions (some might add indecisions) and actions taken by the new government.

Initially, it was claimed that the actions were taken owing to the financial situation left by the previous government. However, it soon became evident that the actions were based on other reasons. Money previously earmarked for school ICT was diverted to other areas, not quite sure how that ‘saved’ money, and it became clear that the new government had no policy position regarding supporting education with technology.

There are, however, hundreds of us at all levels of the profession who know and believe in the power and place of education technology. It is down to us to continue to press and support the work of ICT in education, to continue to demonstrate its effectiveness and to continue to explore new potential that it opens up.

I recall the very early days of educational computing, when no one believed in the place of computers in the classroom save for a few ‘pioneers’ and forward thinking ‘whizzkids’. It was a time when those of us who were ‘early’ adopters of the idea, would meet with fellow enthusiasts to share and discuss what we felt would be a revolution in education, (we were careful not to use such terms though). Perhaps now is the time to return to such an approach and the building blocks are already there via the Teachmeet movement, so long as we can get out of the ‘echo chamber’ and get our message across to a wider audience.

There are many aspects of educational technology nowadays that are different from those days in the 1980s when enthusiasts were meeting to share and to discuss ways forward. The biggest difference is that we now have a body of evidence on both good and poor practice in the use of educational technology. This has been built up over the intervening years and we can now use this evidence to justify our use of educational technology.

A problem remains, however, that all this evidence has never been fully collected and collated. Much of it exists in musty archives or in the minds and personal records of individuals. It would seem that now is the perfect time to attempt to draw this evidence together and to create a solid foundation of evidence upon which to base future development of educational technology.

To my mind, it would not matter that some of this evidence could support one particular approach to educational technology while other pieces of evidence could be used to support a different approach. Educational technology can be both versatile and embracing; it can be used in support of a range of pedagogies. It is not necessary for us to have a common vision, just a common desire to make best use of the technologies.

It is my firm belief that a future education system without the use of educational technology would be both poor and wrong. The only people to suffer in such a system would be the learners and the only people to benefit would be … well, really, I don’t think anyone would benefit!

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Transforming Learning

Saturday, June 26th, 2010

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My approach to transforming learning (Learning Transformation) is a combination of three elements;

  1. CPD/training
  2. Change Management
  3. Project Management

First, though, we have to establish why learning transformation is important. The current capital build programmes are placing a lot of ICT and technical resources into schools;

  • if those resources are unused, we will have failed,
  • if those resources are only used in the ways such resources are currently used, we will have failed,
  • if those resources are used by learners, staff and the community in innovative ways, we will have been partially successful,
  • will we have been successful only if those resources are used by learners, staff and the community in innovative ways that lead to improved achievement, experiences and opportunities.

CPD/training

I believe that training is fundamental to learning transformation. If we want the resources to be utilised in new and engaging ways then users need to be both trained in using the resources and allowed to explore the potential of those resources. The training, however, needs to go beyond operating the hardware or software and focus on the usage with different learners. After all, why have expensive face-to-face ‘instruction manual’ sessions when we can read the instruction manual?

I feel that the CPD needs to be balanced between ensuring that all software and hardware are effectively covered or explored and that each trainee is able to draw up and follow their own ‘learning path’. We have to remember that not all users will be starting from the same point and that not all we be able to adapt or adopt the new ways of working with technology. Each one, however, is a valued member and should be allowed to proceed at their own pace and toward their own defined goals.

For me, the focus of learning transformation is about the learner using the technology. So the training is not so much focused upon getting the staff to use the technology as much as on getting the staff to allow and facilitate the learners to make use of technology. We are moving away from the learner being a consumer or passive recipient of technology and moving toward the learner becoming the active and creative user of that technology.

Change Management

There is obviously a lot of change going on around the whole capital build programmes in education; new construction, new resources, new facilities and new ways of working. All these changes need to be managed in order to avoid them getting out of hand or failing to materialise. What I am concerned with in change management, though is slightly different. I am not principally concerned with changing systems, changing services, changing specifications etc.; these aspects are more usually covered by protocols such as ITIL, FITS or project management procedures.

What I am much more concerned with is change management of people. Staff in a school are the most important and the most expensive resource available. They need to be valued and treasured. If we are going to involve them in a lot of change, they need to feel part of that change and to understand that change. Few people really like change and welcome it, most of us like to be able to control the change in our life or to feel that the change is going to be of benefit to us. If people do not understand the change and its benefits, then they can become resentful and entrenched in existing ways. If that is allowed to happen then we are only creating a barrier to learning transformation.

So my approach to change management involves skills taken from counselling and coaching, which allows people to express their concerns or fears while empowering them to move forward and benefit from the changes around them.

Project Management

It occurred to me that soon after becoming a consultant, that a lot of my work involved project management and working with project managers. This is why I studied for my project management qualification, so that I could better work in such environments.

Learning transformation, along with building design, ICT specification etc., does not exist in isolation from the rest of the capital build programme. It is a project that is part of a much bigger set of projects or programmes. As such, it needs to be carried out in alignment with these other projects or programmes, some of which may be on-going, some completed and some yet to start. In order for it to be successfully implemented, learning transformation, needs to follow the project management procedures in place across the rest of the programme. It is important, therefore, that those in charge of the learning transformation are also skilled in the ways of project management.

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Learning Score

Monday, June 14th, 2010

I confess, I have only recently watched this video. I cannot believe that I have not heard of or seen Learning Score before; I can only say that I must have had my head buried deeply in the sand.

Learning Score appears to be a fantastic tool for devising lesson plans. These things had been the bane of my life as a teacher and I’m sure the same is true for many other teachers.  Hours would be spent drawing up lesson plans either by hand or on a word-processor; it was probably the most tedious of all teacher tasks. Also, as John Davitt says in the video, you were never really quite sure how the lesson would appear in reality (and there were many times when the reality hardly matched the plan!)

What I  immediately like about the software is that it looks appealling; it’s not a word-processed grid or template that the teacher has to squeeze everything in. It’s interactive and it links dynamically to other resources. What made it appeal further for me is the potential to link  to resources on a VLE. So if you’ve been spending hours days uploading content onto you’re VLE now you have an easy way to make use of them instead of just letting them lie there. Or if you’ve not yet started loading content onto your VLE, now you have a good reason to start!

I’ve not used the package as yet but if you are able to save the Learning Score files onto the VLE then I can envisage further potential arising. What I’m envisaging is having a Learning Score containing links to other Learning Score files. Each of these Learning Score files would represent a lesson plan and the Learning Score we’re adding them into would be a Scheme of Work. Hey, if we then save the Scheme of Work as a Learning Score file and link in other scheme of work files, aren’t we creating a syllabus, then a curriculum etc..?

At points in the video, John alludes to collaborative lesson planning; with the learners having a say in how much time is spent on a particular part of each lesson. I very much like this idea, not least because it helps the learner have a bit more responsibility for their learning and having a say in the way the content is being presented to them. It also, of course, could help them manage their workload.

How about going a step further and having the learner draw up the learning score themself? Each learner could have their own individual Learning Score setting out what they are going to do, how long they are going to spent on each part of it and what resources they are going to access, possibly also indicating what ‘output’ (essay, video, discussion etc) they are going to produce. Let’s then say that they each present their Learning Score to the teacher for approval. The teacher examines each one and approves it or suggests modifications such as extra resources that could be used or alterations to timings.  The learner then takes their own Learning Score away and embarks upon their own learning path.

I’d guess that another beauty of the package is that it needn’t be confined to class lessons, the Learning Score could cover time spent on activities at home. As I started writing this paragraph, I was thinking of learning activities from home and thinking of supporting Home Access but I guess the term ‘activities’ could well include social or leisure activities … mind you I don’t know if the package has icons for some of these ‘activities’ ;) Nevertheless, the possibility of using the package to include home learning is intriguing.

Overall, this looks a great piece of software that I’m sure many teachers would love. It has great potential for supporting innovation or transformation in learning. I do feel that not just teachers but also learners would love to use it. Maybe this resource should be made compulsory for any school involved in BSF or Primary Capital building programmes?

 

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