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Disappearing from the Radar … (nothing to do with volcanic ash)

Sunday, December 5th, 2010

1413647425 89a744710d m Disappearing from the Radar ... (nothing to do with volcanic ash)

Only a short while back, I wrote a blog post entitled ‘Working with what You’ve Got’, little did I realise at the time that, with the possible curtailing of BSF and other capital projects, working with what they’ve got might become the only option for schools.

I still stand by what I wrote in that post. The starting point for any transformation in learning must start with what facilities or provision a school has already.  To a small extent, this may be an indictment of the BSF programme where huge amounts of money and effort has been put into supplying and equipping schools with new ICT equipment and yet no or little transformation in learning has been evidenced as yet. I’ve heard it said that this was because the transformation was laid at the doorstep of the change agenda, which had a different budget. Hence this may have allowed more money to be spent on ICT infrastructure but it also led to a divorce between the ICT and transformation. Perhaps it is now time to remarry the two!

I also feel part of the problem is that ‘Learning Transformation’ is a vague concept. It is a concept that is positively received and you will find few people who argue against it. Sadly, though, our previous government seems to have been masters of spinning positive phrases that nobody fully understood. ‘Personalised Learning’ was a classic of the genre; again nobody was prepared to argue against it and it seems everyone was in favour of it but there was no clear consensus as to what it meant. This culminated in the infamous government committee meeting where senior officials in the department had to admit that they did not know what it meant. After that, things became very quiet on the personalised learning front as the concept seemed to gradually fade from our radar; will ‘Learning Transformation’ go the same way?

Ironically, I feel there is a link between personalised learning and learning transformation. For me, the heart of learning transformation is putting the learner in charge of their learning and I see this too as being the ultimate in personalised learning. But more on that another time, for now let’s just try to keep Learning Transformation on our radar despite current difficulties.

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In the Dark – An Introduction to Learning Transformation

Sunday, November 14th, 2010

300px Global Teenager Project Zambia In the Dark An Introduction to Learning Transformation
Image via Wikipedia

What I’d like you to do as you read this is to close your eyes, put your hands out in front of you and imagine yourself in a dark place. This dark place may be a wood or an underground room or perhaps a tunnel. I want you to imagine you are trying to feel your way around, trying to find a door, an exit or a light switch. The point is that you are on your own in a strange place with no light and no guide.

It often seems that thinking about learning transformation is like trying to find your way in the dark. We hear the term bandied about a lot but no-one seems to be able to give a clear description of what it means. We get the impression that it is somehow tied up with ICT and maybe also with BSF but is there more to it than that?

When you think of a transformation, what is it that comes to mind? Do you picture a butterfly changing from a caterpillar? Do you picture a lorry or a plane turning into a robot? Or maybe you think of converting AC current into DC current? Whatever you think of, the word ‘transformation’ conjures up a change from one thing to another. It is often a dramatic change but the point is that the result of that change is always known.

This does not seem to be the case, though, with learning transformation. Despite using the term, nobody really seems to know what the change or outcome will look like.

Transformation almost always involves some form of change. Yet change makes people uneasy. People are often wary of change; they worry about it and try to avoid it if they can. The thought or prospect of change often generates resistance in people, who would pefer things to remain as they are.

So here we have another obstacle in the way of learning transformation; not only are people unclear as to what it entails but they fear any change it may involve and develop understandable resistance to it.

So is there a way forward? I think there is.

If the word ‘transformation’ is unclear in this instance and generates resistance, perhaps we should focus upon the other word, ‘learning’ to find a way forward? Surely as learning professionals we know what learning is and what it could be? This is what I’ll focus on in subsequent posts.

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The Sledgehammer as ICT Innovation Tool

Sunday, October 31st, 2010

2832397441 d24edab6a1 m The Sledgehammer as ICT Innovation Tool

I’d like to introduce you to an unusual innovation tool for ICT; the sledgehammer. Before you all turn away, you might like to consider what you could do with a sledgehammer to improve ICT.

The sledgehammer is not usually considered an implement of innovation, indeed it is more often thought of in terms of destruction. Sometimes, however, you need to destroy something in order to make way for new things, holes need to be knocked out of walls in to make spaces for windows and doors, sometimes whole buildings need to be knocked down to make way for new more modern edifices..

This talk about knocking things down and building new things, may lead you to think I am talking about Building Schools for the Future (BSF). I’m not, … or perhaps I am..

What I have in mind here is a more particular use of the sledgehammer; a use related to the development of ICT within our schools. What I want to suggest is that we can use the sledgehammer to break up all the ICT suites that we find in schools. Those rows and rows of desks filling a room with large desktop computers can hardly be regarded as the cutting edge of ICT. Indeed, if we were to have a classroom with rows of desks, we would hardly be regarded as an innovative educationalist, so why do we tolerate such an arrangement for ICT?

ICT suites, rather than being the ‘cutting edge’ represent a past and dying approach to ICT in education. No longer is ICT a specialism that needs to be timetabled in such a way that it can only be used when it is your turn in the ICT room. Instead, ICT is a valuable tool that should be available to all to aid their learning throughout the school day and beyond.

So why should we spend money and effort maintaining or sustaining ICT suites if they have outlived their usefulness and no longer meet our needs for a modern ICT infrastructure? There may be some people, and hopefully they’ll take up this challenge, who believe that ICT suites have not outlived their usefulness. From me though, I give you the sledgehammer, take it and smash up those ICT suites and equip the pupils with modern portable devices so that they can use ICT to support their learning wherever and whenever they need.

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Comfortable Technology -Learning Transformation pt4

Sunday, September 5th, 2010

Comfortable Technology Learning Transformation pt4One early evening I found myself recently giving a presentation about ICT and improving learning to a group of school teachers as part of their INSET training.

The presentation was going well; at least nobody had fallen asleep. I had just finished the introduction and a demonstration of the first program I wanted the staff to try out and all this time I had seen one teacher making notes.

The trouble was, she was making notes with a pencil. Ye Gods! there I was talking about and demonstrating high technology and electronic wizardry and there she was using a pencil; possibly the most lowdown piece of technology around!

It made me think, though, why would a person make notes with a pencil?

It occurred to me that this was a piece of technology she was familiar with. She knew how to use it, she knew what it could do and what it could not do, she did not have to learn anything new and she had acquired  the necessary skills to use it. I then thought that I too could do the same; I could use a pencil. The pencil was a piece of technology that she and I were both comfortable with. This led me to the notion of ‘comfortable technology’.

At first you might think that being comfortable with technology might be a good thing. In some ways it is but it all depends what type of technology you are comfortable with and how much you are prepared to change or ‘come out of your comfort zone’.

For myself, I am comfortable using a pencil and also comfortable using a laptop. I am quite comfortable using a digital camera though if you give me a new one then I feel a slight discomfort while I get used to its controls. I am comfortable using a video camera but less comfortable performing in front of one!

It seems that being comfortable with a piece of technology can be a good thing but you can become too comfortable and become resistant to change or innovation.

So here is a question for all of us, including those of us who regard ourselves as being quite tech savvy, what technologies are you comfortable with? What new technologies or new uses of technology do you feel less comfortable with?

I think this could be an important question to ask ourselves because if we who are tech savvy feel uncomfortable with any new tech, how can we expect or encourage others to adopt such technologies?

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Change Management in Schools

Saturday, July 31st, 2010

320161805 4ac230895c m Change Management in Schools

Why is Change Management necessary in education?

We find ourselves in a time when the organisations and institutions in which we work are changing dramatically in terms of their structure, their strategies, their systems and, not least, their expectations of their staff. The rate of change and discovery often outpaces our individual ability to keep up with it. These statements I have paraphrased from the book ‘Making Sense of Change Management: Change Management in Schools’ by Cameron and Green, as they seem to ring true in our schools, especially those involved in capital build projects such as BSF or PCP.

What is Change Management?

Change Management seems to cover a wide brief; you may come across it in business or commerce where a new system or way of working is being proposed or implemented, you may come across it in project management where a change or amendment is being considered within the project, and you may come across it in coaching or counselling where individuals or teams are being better prepared to cope a change and its effects.

For me, effective change management in schools should have elements from all three of these examples, with an emphasis upon the third example. I like to see the emphasis upon the third example, where individuals or teams are being better prepared for the change and its effects, because in schools we are principally concerned with the outcomes of our teaching and learning, for which we rely upon our staff and our learners.

CPD and Change Management

Sometimes we see Change Management combined with CPD or training and there is little doubt that elements of training are important in successful change management. Change Management, though, requires more than just one day’s INSET or time in staff meetings to be effective. Change Management needs to be planned, it needs to be ongoing and it needs to be geared to the levels of the individual or teams affected. It requires time and finance, two things we are often short of in schools especially with all the other ongoing demands on resources. Additionally, effective change management needs to be able to respond in ‘emergencies’ where an individual is having difficulty coping with new ideas, aproaches, systems or just the thought or prospect of their introduction or, indeed, where a particular new system is misfunctioning or having unforseen adverse effects.

Change Management and Financial Control

Effective change management may also have an effect upon finacial controls or budgetting. I daresay we can all think of a project, an initiative or piece of equipment which has been introduced at great expense but which has subsequently failed to live up to expectations or lain idle or rarely been used to its full potential. Such situations will often give rise to thoughts, or even accusations, of money and time having been wasted. My thinking here is that where a new project or initiative is combined with a process of change management, then the potential benefits of the project are more likely to be realised and there would be a lower likelihood of accusations of misspent money.

Let’s not go overboard here. I am not saying that we need a full blown Change management implementation every time a school acquires an additional piece of equipment, especially where that piece of equipment is just an augmentation of what already exists. However, where a complete new system or a new way of working is being considered, then I believe that change management should be implemented to ensure its effective introduction and subsequent use.

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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

300px Global Teenager Project Zambia2 Transforming Learning
Image via Wikipedia

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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