Steve Wheeler is posting a bite-size series of blog posts over the next week around the theme of  ’Digital Tribes, Virtual Clans.‘

They are based on a chapter he contributed to a wider work entitled ‘Connected Minds, Emerging Cultures.‘ The first two posts on ‘Digital tribal identity‘ and ‘The digital tribe and the network nation‘ are highly accessible and have made fascinating reading thus far. His writing got me thinking and I respond to it, tangentially and with a lack of clarity but grateful nevertheless for its inspiration.

Wheeler asserts that the world wide web and it ‘mediating technologies’ have become a key means by which the ‘cultural capital’ of group identity is formed and maintained. Cultural capital is ‘the set of invisible bonds that tie a community together without which societal cohesiveness begins to unravel.’

New digital communities located in cyberspace, not bound by any traditional geographical, social or political boundaries, are eroding the cultures or identities of traditional tribes and clans – particularly through the superior capability of mediating technologies to effectively spread contagious, identity-shaping patterns of information or ‘memes.’

Digital communities are indeed thriving, each with their own group identity shaped by the interactions of individuals within them. However, does new ‘cultural capital’ always have an eroding, detrimental effect on the culture of traditional tribes? Can digital communities complement the cultural capital of long-standing tribes or is ongoing competitive tension inevitable? Is it possible, in the long term, for traditional tribes and clans to meld into a new shared identity that shares the best of both worlds.

In education for example, these questions and the processes that take place in the finding of the answers, seem to me to be of crucial importance. A tribe of educators has arisen online with many different clans, - its culture shaped by memes such as the importance of technologies to collaborate, to publish to real audience with authentic  purpose for effective learning.  Traditional geographically based communities of educators in local authorities and districts identify with more traditional educational memes. Will the online educational community erode the traditional one into extinction or will a new edu-tribe arise from the ashes with a culture that harnesses the potential to broaden horizons while celebrating the unique learning opportunities offered by every educational setting?

The very basics of what it means to have self-identity through time , a core character that defines everything that an individual does and is, has been changed by the world wide web. One can operate with different identities across different tribes online, in a way that just isn’t possible offline. It means that educators can identify with both the online educational clans and the traditional clans in which they find themselves too. Those educators who find themselves with a foot in both camps will be the individuals who will ‘act in concert to perpetuate the social cohesion’ of any new edu-tribe.

At the micro-level, the ‘clan’ of the classroom is the perfect example of where this melting pot of cultures can be created. About nine years ago my Year Six class were bored with using blogs and their discussion boards to communicate with peers they saw every day in meatspace. It was then that we began using the same mediating technologies to meaningfully collaborate with teachers and students from UC Berkeley’s Academic Talent programme – across the globe in the USA. The mixing of cultures – the geographically bound classroom with the  global digital connections – broadened the horizons of the pupils and myself, brought about a new culture of learning with a new identity, fuelled by memes of real purpose, real audience and real responsibility. We were still geographically bound but our classroom no longer had any walls. It was just the start to our clan adventures!

These are the type of clans that I hope will make up the edu-tribes of  the future in Northamptonshire and beyond. Swallow the meme and it just might happen!

Mack Collier’s ‘Social media needs fewer rockstars, and more rockstar ideas‘ makes some really interesting points about how, in his world of social media, ideas are often valued on the basis of how prominent (in terms of followers/subscribers etc) the author is the online community – the so-called ‘rock-star’ effect. This makes the threshold too high for getting new ideas from new folks out into the effective thought- and collaboration space online.

This is not only a concern in the world of social media but also in the world of online education.The online education echo-chamber has preoccupied and frustrated me from time to time over the years. Edublogging celebrity even drove me to poetry a while back.

When I first seriously started using Twitter almost 1000 tweets ago, I thought it would be the antidote to the ‘rock star’ effect. For me, it wasn’t primarily about following people. It was about following conversations. You were afforded a glimpse into conversations that people were having with folks that you weren’t following, building a learning network organically as the conversations turned to areas of interest. Then Twitter changed the default behaviour of the technology so that you could not see the conversations that your followers were having with others outside your network. Twitter became a ‘fishbowl’ for me at that moment.

The only real way to further build the network is to throw numbers of people into your bowl in the hope of building conversations. I must say at this point that I am incredibly happy with the drip-feed of ideas, humour  and experience that my small fishbowl of 200 followers provides. However, I wonder how easy it would be for say, a bevy of Northamptonshire teachers, new to Twitter, to get their ideas heard or to get an effective following that would allow them to make use of the rock-star audience techniques of calling for responses for stuff they are doing in the classroom.

I have always waxed lyrical about the beauty of potentially-global, online collaboration and communication, enjoying its benefits in my classrooms and schools. It is brilliant to connect with like-minded individuals from around the world, at a Teach-Meet, or on a Sunday evening video conference. How though do you take those principles and apply and implement them across a county or region? My bluff has been called after all these years in my new job! How do you bottle the scatter-gun of enthusiasm and collaboration from around the country/world and make it happen in your immediate locality? How do you ensure that regions are producing people and ideas that are feeding in the online educational ecosystem, widening and embedding the principles of TeachMeet or ETRU throughout the local level?

Recognising that this is the $ 64000 question, I of course do not have the answer but I’m sure Mack Collier’s advice is part of the solution:

Listen closely to new ideas from new voices, and magnify both when you hear them. So many of us complain about the ‘fishbowl’ mentality in the social media space. A great way to counter that is to bring new voices with fresh takes into this space. Introduce your network to someone they might not have heard of previously. Yes we all know who the ‘rockstars’ in this space are, so show us who’s next. - Mack Collier

Taking Mack’s advice on board I’ve wiped my blog subscriptions clean (yet again) and am on the look out for ideas from people I haven’t read before and also from disciplines outside education. My twitter fishbowl will keep me ‘ticking over’ educationally while I make a foray into new areas to see what ideas and conversations they offer up. Perhaps I will find the answer to my $64000 question. I’ll be sure to let you know who I meet along the way. If there are any edu-rock stars out there with a rock-star solution, I’ll download your next album

Leaving Silverstone Study Centre for pastures new was a difficult decision. In so many ways, managing and teaching there has been the best post of my career, rewarding and challenging in equal measure.

However, the opportunity arose to develop and manage Northamptonshire County Council’s Harnessing Technologies (HT) strategy as it relates to schools and school improvement. The prospect fired up my imagination and whet my creative appetite to see the Northamptonshire schools landscape, with all its formal and informal facets, transformed into networks where all children and young people make effective and appropriate use of technologies to learn better – for themselves, their families and their communities.

The Dream HT Team

On 1st September I was appointed Harnessing Technologies Manager (Schools) to work alongside three other managers, each with a slightly different focus and function in the development and implementation of the HT strategy in Northamptonshire.

Tony Sheppard, of Grumbledook fame, is the HT Technical Manager (Technical) and has written his own take on his ‘technical’ role in the team on his blog. I first came across Tony back in 2006 and have always been impressed by his ability and enthusiasm at translating technical ‘geek-speak’ into something that can be understood and – most importantly –  put into action by other educators. His wide network of on- and offline contacts across a wide range of fields make him an effective channel for new ideas and approaches. Some people have said that Twitter is their personal Google. For me, Tony Sheppard is my personal search engine of choice.

Brenda Scoble, the HT Manager (CYP), is pulling together the strategy for the Children’s and Young People’s Directorate and its related agencies within the local authority. She has a wealth of experience within Northamptonshire, knows and is liked by everyone, and has a keen handle of how the political (with a small ‘p’) mechanisms work within the county. Her ability to assimilate complex data and strategic information into documents and reports that inspire ‘vision’ is quite beyond me. She has, however, promised to teach me how it is done!

Stan Davies completes the team as HT Manager (Contracts). Our team manages the provision for schools of broadband connectivity and of our county-wide learning platform solution. Stan never looks pressured as he deals with the management of these and other enormously complicated and time-consuming contracts and projects. His ability to tie the crucial business processes to the overall vision of the team ensures that there is an overall coherence to the strategy.

The BLT Challenge

Despite the clear talents and abilities of the folks mentioned above, the Harnessing Technologies Team will never be able to produce on its own the desired transformational outcomes for young people. A specific technology or software will not automagically make learning better either. Our broadband connectivity in Northants is very effective on the whole, as is our county-wide enable learning platform that provides the potential for schools to engage parents, make more effective use of staff time, support management and leadership, and motivate, enthuse and excite children and young people to continue their learning wherever they are.

However, the potential of these and of the many other technologies that could improve the Northants learnscape will only be fulfilled for all learners through the development of networks and communities of learning, made up of people – lifelong learners – willing to share their knowledge, experiences and ideas of Better Learning using Technologies. BLT networks – without the bacon, lettuce or tomato – will be the key drivers for change and need to feature prominently in our HT strategy. Areas that work in ‘silos’ or as ‘islands’ may produce better learning using technologies for some in the short term but as the rapid pace of technological change continues unabated, only a wider network possesses the capacity to harness – and the agility to embrace – technological opportunities to make learning better for all.

Learnscapes

Jay Cross and others have coined  ’learnscaping’ to describe the nurture of  a complex environment conducive to informal learning in the world of business. I think that it has implications and application in educational settings for all types of learning with technologies, formal or otherwise.  Learnscaping is summed up in the following diagram.

With apologies to Cross, these are my priorities for improving the learnscape using technologies in Northamptonshire schools and beyond:

• removing obstacles to using technologies for better learning;
• seeding communities of learning using technologies;
• increasing effective use of bandwidth;
• engaging conversations;
• growing BLT (Better Learning using Technologies) networks.

Each of the above will be the subject of separate blog posts but one thing is certain – learnscapes are indeed complex. Northamptonshire is no different in that respect but as a ‘node’ in emerging networks, the Harnessing Technologies team is already beginning to connect and build relationships across a variety of spheres of influence. Tony Sheppard’s Technical Champions‘ network is an effective example of this progress. A major step for me as HT Manager (Schools) is to begin to build a grass-roots BLT network of educators and other stakeholders interested in making learning better using technologies. Let the learnscaping begin!

I traditionally taught my 90-minute introduction to Scratch session in a linear, step-by-step fashion but that proved slightly boring, even with mini-challenges interspersed throughout the session. The approach seemed to divorce its implementation from anything the students considered useful and certainly did not reflect the exploratory way they make sense of new technologies outside school.