London Monopoly Challenge 2011

Craig Charteris, head at Trinity Lower School in Aldwicle, came up with an idea for a Monopoly-style, techno-challenge around London after watching an episode of the Gadget Show one weekend. I was minding my own business but was run over by Craig’s ideas bandwagon. This collision of creativity and chaos has resulted in the Northants BLT Monopoly Challenge 2011.

The Northants BLT Monopoly Challenge is designed for teachers and pupils to explore the opportunities offered by mobile and internet technologies to enhance learning before, during and after an educational visit. It should hopefully demonstrate both the scope and limitations of using a range of technologies in such contexts.

Every out-of-school visit is traditionally founded upon a pre-visit to a destination to assess the potential risks and gather the worksheets to keep the pupils occupied during the visit proper. Re-imagineering the concept of the ‘pre-visit’ is also a goal of the BLT Monopoly Challenge. A pre-visit could perhaps be more a practical CPD or action research opportunity combined with a chance to put ourselves in the pupils’ shoes and experience a trip from their viewpoint. Then perhaps we would be more inclined to remove the worksheets from the itinerary and explore what technologies might  be used instead to capture, collaborate broadcast and celebrate learning on and from a school trip.

The pre-visit is taking place next Friday. Let’s see how many worksheets we can avoid making…

Keeping it real in 2011

…I feel that right now we’re going through some of the most exciting and innovative changes in the use of technology in schools. I know where I want our school to be – it’s the journey that is the challenge.
Chris Dicken

You may or may not have heard of Chris Dicken (@chrisdicken) outside Northamptonshire. Within the county borders – or in our office at least – he is a living legend. He’s a great teacher and has been an ICT Coordinator in the county for 21 years. He has seen the mandated initiatives come and go and has probably seen the ‘wheel’ reinvented many times in many a county ICT project over the years. Yet he has been a keen supporter, facilitator and tweeter of the Northants BLT network from the outset.

His post, ‘Happy New Year. Same old… same old?’ articulates both the age old way of keeping things fresh as a teacher.

…what challenges will you put in place for yourself? What are you hoping to have achieved by this time next year that will leave you feeling that you have changed something in your teaching?

He is taking the challenge of exploring the use of the BLT Classroom Technology Toolkit in his classroom this term after successfully ‘pitching’ along with his pupils to use the iPads and iPod Touch. He will be sharing his experiences on his blog for others to see and build upon.

As an ICT coordinator, he also describes the challenge of encouraging those colleagues who don’t necessarily share the desire to be on the same learning journey using ICT. That challenge is of course, nothing new but it somehow seems all the more acute, in the present climate that we find ourselves with the almost unparalleled  opportunities to engage children in their learning using technology.

There are no simple solutions to avoiding the ‘same old…same old’ in 2011 but a healthy frustration with the status quo, a willingness to explore new technology and to share and learn with others is not a bad place to start…

Great as it to see Chris Dicken blogging, he won’t thank me for this because he is a classic example of the Northants teacher. He gets on and produces great stuff at the chalkface and then assumes it is nothing special and that everyone is doing the same. Therefore, just to make him feel better then I’ll share his weaknesses too. He never stops taking photos except when he’s eating… as this short video shows during a scrumptious school dinner – South Korean style. I could have shown a video of him driving his Caterham but I made the editorial choice not to make him look that cool

Llamas in my back pasture…

I’ve got llamas in my back pasture

This snippet of conversation between a couple of American conference delegates, overheard at breakfast last week in our hotel in South Korea, has stuck in my mind and will not budge from my memory. What made it stick so? Perhaps it was the drawling accent, the over-the-top bragging volume, or the stage whispers from our team of possible ointment remedies for such an ailment. The joyous kinaesthetic feeling of spitting out coffee, followed by crying with laughter with team-mates, undoubtedly helped to cement the memory. To seek such an experience was not an objective of the trip to Asia. It was just a piece of incidental and spontaneous humour that is now impossible for me to forget – and that has driven me to action in writing this post.

For me, the incidental, informal learning that took place over the course of seven days in South Korea between 14 teachers is equally as powerful- and sticky a memory as the planned experiences for fulfilling the trip’s objectives. In some ways, it was not a big deal. People chatted quite naturally, sharing ideas and exchanging experiences. Some learned how to edit a Flip video, others used Prezi, Wallwisher or VoiceThread for the first time and everyone had a go at broadcasting live over the internet using Ustream Producer. Conversations ranged from evidence gathering techniques in Foundation Stage and their application across the whole school, to the use of puppets to engage and inform pupils. The learning was informal but dynamic nevertheless – BLT sharing in action.

It felt a bit like a face-to-face version of Twitter – a drip-feed of ideas and inspiration that teachers can use as they see fit. Twitter is low-key and informal but potentially powerful at the same time. I hope some of the teachers from the Korea trip will start to make use of Twitter. The learning was ubiquitous and it seems a shame not to find some way of continuing to enjoy the dynamic and to develop it with other teachers in Northants and beyond. Twitter could be an answer.  It’s got to be better than a llama in your back pasture

Passing the technology baton… to grassroots networks.

Brian Coates, our Becta Regional Advisor, visited the HT team in Northampton today to encourage us to extract the maximum benefit from the remaining time of Becta’s remit to ’inspire and lead the effective and innovative use of technology throughout learning’. It was uplifting to see how Becta really are focused on making the most of their notice period.

We will be running a development event for Northamptonshire schools in September to help them to make the most of ICT within the new Ofsted framework. The Self Review Framework – wherever it ends up – will continue to provide a useful means of benchmarking the effective use of ICT while planning a path towards further progress. Combining these two elements, with Brian’s input, will equip schools to plan and implement better learning using technologies – with the resulting positive side-effect of better Ofsted inspection outcomes.

In what is probably a first in the history of Northamptonshire County Council Continuing Professional Development (CPD), the event will also be streamed live to interested staff in schools, and recorded for later reference, review and discussion. Our Better Learning using Technologies (BLT) Network will also interact with Brian via video-conference early in September. Making the cultural shift to exploit these types of communication and collaboration technologies is no longer an optional luxury. It seems to me that this sort of flexibility and expectation of sustainable value and impact should become the norm in this climate of providing ‘more for less’. In fact, higher expectations of CPD should always have been the norm!

Meetings and discussions around ICT policy and learning technologies have an air of a wake about them at the moment. The conversation ebbs and flows between memories of the achievements, missed opportunities, present realities and future challenges. The climate around ICT in education has undoubted changed but has anyone or anything really ‘died’? The unwavering faith in government circles of the importance of ICT for learning, borne out in past budgetary spending, has petered out for now. Becta and the LA support mechanisms are being dismantled with responsibility for life, the universe and practically everything being devolved in the direction of schools.

However, the remit to ‘inspire and lead the effective and innovative use of technology throughout learning’ will not be a blanket novation to schools. The baton will instead be picked up more informally by many grassroots networks of educators, forward-thinking schools that share, and other interested groups and organisations that are able to facilitate, embrace and reflect the decentralised nature of what is to come.

Yesterday’s brilliant Teachmeet in Milton Keynes, the building of the BLT- and IT Managers‘ Networks in Northamptonshire, the forthcoming Naace Think Tanks on the future of ICT in education, and the launch of eduLAIT are all recent examples on my radar that  point to ongoing future vitality in the effective and innovative use of  technology for better learning. Despite recent government announcements to the contrary, the future of technologies for learning is bright – and finally in our own hands!

Image Credit – Shenghung Lin

Harnessing the Northants BLT

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!