I have recently arrived back from Morocco where my partner and I climbed Mt. Toubkal – the highest mountain (4,167mts / 13,672 ft) in the Atlas Mountains in North Africa. In the summer months it is a trek. However, we were in the thick of winter and the snow line began well beneath the Neltner Refuge, which lies at 3,207 mts.

When I say ‘climbed’, I hide the real truth. Both my partner and I were overcome with a fairly disasterous attack of local belly trouble, which hindered our progress considerably. We did make the top, but in a fashion akin to someone begging on their knees for mercy. In simple terms there was nothing left in the tanks. For the full details of the climb, you will be able to see my journal entries on the ‘expedition pages’ shortly. But the reason for this specific blog entry, is to show these photos:

We spent some time in Marrakech before and after and I have to say that I am left thinking the place a conundrum. A mix of African and Arabic cultures, with KFC on street corners, the stench of scooter fumes mixing with spices in tin barrels that the scooters speed passed in narrow pink walled alleys, barely wide enough for two people to walk down. But what these photos really show, is that no matter where people find themselves, from what cultures they belong or what beliefs they hold, they increasingly are becoming part of a connected global society. See the satellite dishes in both pictures?

I had a brief window yesterday morning and headed for Olympia to see what was new at the British Education and Training Technology -  (BETT) Show.

BETT 2010

By the way, if you just took that link to the BETT page above this photo, you’ll see that the second half of it was written by the late Richard Fothergill, Director, Microelectronics Education Programme.

A year after he passed away, we received a call from one of his daughters and I went to Richard’s home in Northumberland to pick up his collection of artifacts, which we now house in the National Archive of Educational Computing. 

Anyway, BETT this year, was as busy as ever and my main reason for going, apart from catching up with old friends and colleagues, was to view the VITAL stand. Vital is a joint OU / eSkills project that offers an

innovative professional development programme, which aims to support schools in England to make the most of ICT in their teaching

Core Education, in the form of Malcolm Moss and myself, have been working on the virtual side of this Vital Project and in preparation for its’ launch last Wednesday at BETT, have provided a variety of Case Studies, Showcases and bite size CPD springboards. Already there has been huge interest in this professional development portal. We have also set up the hotseat schedule and next week this kicks off with Ollie Bray, the National Adviser for Learning and Technology Futures at Learning and Teaching Scotland. He will be talking about the changing landscape of learning and it begins on the 18^th January.

I read a recent report written by the Women in Science & Engineering Leadership Institute University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA. It was entitled, “Reviewing Applicants: Research on Bias and Assumptions”. A somewhat interesting finding in their research was this:

“In a national study, 238 academic psychologists (118 male, 120 female) evaluated a curriculum vitae randomly assigned a male or a female name. Both male and female participants gave the male applicant better evaluations for teaching, research, and service experience and were more likely to hire the male than the female applicant.”

What interests me is not that the male applicant got a better evaluation, but that the people who were evaluating the applications were psychologists, who one might think have a better awareness of gender bias. It leads me to reflect upon two separate discussions I was having recently at ULearn09 with Paul Rodley of Christ’s College, Christchurch New Zealand and Westley Field of Skoolaborate about the use of the term Digital Natives and the assumptions we make when using it.

Is there such a thing as a Digital Native? I’m thinking here of Marc Prensky, and his work on Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants published in 2001. Perhaps it has nothing to do with age, that it’s more about our ability to keep up to date with the developing use of technologies. Just because someone is born inside the beginning of the digital revolution, does not mean that they are a Digital Native. There are degrees of comprehension regarding the use and application of technologies and some ideas regarding technology, which may remain a mystery for many born into the digital age.

The converse it seems to me would also true … however I am then caught by something that my colleague Derek Wenmoth mentioned, which might contradict this notion of age relevance, regarding the way in which his children seemed to view the world. He was suggesting that in spite of his ability to engage with the technical age, it just seemed as if his children viewed the world differently, in a more three dimensional way.

I’ve spent a little bit of time pondering on this and then I heard Prof. Chris Dede speaking recently about immersive technologies and in looking out over the horizon he showed us a video clip from HP called Roku’s Reward, where reality and the virtual world almost seamlessly mixed. It was here that I began to understand what it was that Derek might be trying to articulate. Although new for me … I wonder whether youngsters are already living in this world, and if they are, where are their new horizons leading them right now? Perhaps the ‘two dimensional’ elements of Digital Native / Digital Immigrant should be rephrased to a spectrum of Digital Enlightenment upon which we are all staged at various points, irrespective of age or of prior knowledge.

I must share this … at the 21^st Century Learning Conference I attended yesterday, I found myself with half an hour to spare at the beginning of the day before other delegates began to arrive. After registering, I wondered back downstairs and came across an interactive science exhibition, which instantly caught my eye. I’m not much of a scientist and so, although pitched at probably the 8 – 13 year olds, began to look around and engage with the exhibits … move a few mathematical shapes around as per the instructions. To my surprise, I became engaged to such an extent, that I failed to see a member of staff approach me with a concerned look upon her face. It appeared that the doors were officially not open for another 10 minutes, (I was let in early because of the conference two floors up) so please could I stop learning (I don’t think she realized that this was the outcome of her polite statement regarding the time).

Somewhat speechless at this conundrum of time guarded learning and the upstairs downstairs variations in approach to innovation and creativity, I decided to venture out of the ‘not open door’ and see what lay in the bit of world I would be free to learn in. Instantly across the square, my eyes fell upon this:

Rhino Horn Dung Beetle?

Intrigued from a distance I headed closer and my inquiring mind first moved to the fact it might be a bronze, which I love. It could be a bronze of a beetle, but not any old beetle, as I got closer, I felt it could be a Rhino Horn Dung Beetle. I searched around the block upon which it was mounted for some clue, perhaps a plaque either holding the identity of the artist, the title of the piece or confirmation that it is a Rhino Horn Dung Beetle. Alas! Only a small sign, which you will see on the bottom left of the picture above, reading ‘Please do not touch”. No learning here then … and certainly no interaction. However, as a good teacher, I always try to end on a positive and constructive note and I found the moment arrived later that same evening in the most unlikely of places.

On my way home, 6 hours and 2 trains via the cross country rail network, I presented my ticket to the inspector on the last part of my journey. He duly took it, punched it and returned it to me. I looked at it for a moment, but didn’t understand. On his way back down the train I held it up to him, pointing at where the hole should have been,

“Excuse me, can I ask you about this? Do you get to choose what kind of stamp you use? Normally it’s a misc. shape or a printed nonsense but this is really great.”

He looked at me a bit hesitantly and then smiled, saying in a rather quite and perhaps slightly shy way,

“No, we can use what we want. I always try to do something a bit more interesting. It’s coming up to Christmas soon and I thought of a Christmas Tree or Father Christmas perhaps. At the end of October, for Halloween, I had a witch on a broomstick.”

Train Ticket

Conference Photo

There was some really interesting stuff about immersive technologies (EcoMUVE)  from Prof. Chris Dede of the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University and although in an early phase of creation, one could easily begin to see the pedagogical thinking behind the development of such software.

And it is this, which is key. The use of technology in education needs to (and all too often doesn’t) enhance learners experiences and positively impact on learner development. Don’t use blogs in class for the sake of using the tool, do it to create critical thinking skills or to develop reflective practice. The message of purposeful technology seems to be so fundamental that I wonder why I need to bang on about it, yet at that same conference, I heard people, talking about using tools without really giving thought on how they would use these to engage learners in learning.

It is then timely that John Anderson, from the Department of Education in Northern Ireland should go on to ask in the penultimate session of the day, “What are the “right” questions which research should be asking about technology enhanced learning?” For me the answer is in finding, locating even redefining more agile and flexible pedagogies, which enable emerging technologies, irrespective of what they are, to be utilized in meaningful ways for learners. That these new pedagogies should then be articulated in accessible ways to practitioners who, dare I say it, find themselves at the chalkface with an unquantifiable number of choices before them.

Do you agree with the emphasis?

Are there words missing?

Should some words be taken out?

What I’m interested in is ‘Online Pedagogy” I wonder if that would yield different responses … please add any words you can think of here about Online Pedagogy and I’ll create one and post it back up in a  few weeks.

I’m having an absolutely wonderful time here at ULearn09. I’ve just come from a session led by Simon Shaw of St. Albans Meadows Primary School in Australia, who has been talking about how to develop deep thinkers through podcasting. He used two really interesting examples of students work and demonstrated how the use of technologies are embedded into the teachers practice to support metacognitive learning in a way which would be far harder without the use of such technologies.

There are some synergies here with my presentations this year, which are to do with collaborative spaces and the nature of dialogue and being purposeful in the use of technological interventions. Please take THIS LINK to view a summary of what I covered and come back here to share any observations or examples of how you have embedded technologies into your teaching and learning contexts.

At ULearn09, I have just experienced my second Powhiri and below is a quick clip caught on my iPhone of the occasion:

ULearn09 Powhiri

The elder welcomed us to the area of Christchurch, overlooked by the white caps of the waves (the Southern Alps). He talked of the need to remove and leave behind any thoughts that will get in the way of us working together and fully participating in ULearn09 and towards the end we moved forward and the visitors and the welcoming party pressed their heads together to signify the meeting of minds.

As before, I found it a very moving experience and am led to think of other cultural greetings I have experienced in a variety of communities on the African Continent. I’m left feeling that in the UK we seem to be missing something, which is sometimes now sadly reflected in our all too often grab and get lives.

” … that the computer, designed by MIT and built by Raytheon, had less memory (74 kilobytes of ROM, and 4 kb of RAM) than today’s low-end cell phones, and that its software was literally hard-wired, so that any changes required starting over with the manufacture of a whole new “rope memory.” Built at a time when most computers filled large air-conditioned rooms, the one-cubic-foot Apollo Guidance Computer was a unique device that foreshadowed the advent of personal computers.” (MIT)

The Apollo guidance computer with the display keyboard. Photo courtesy / Richard H. Battin

To put this into the educational context of the UK you might want to take a look at the National Archive of Educational Computing, which documents the development of learning technology through its invention, application, organisations and people over the last half century. The archive and its web site is maintained by Richard Millwood of Core Education UK

His first one is around Markets and Morals and in his second lecture, he discusses Morality in Politics and raises a number of key issues, some of which had synergies for me, yet at the same time held a contradiction. Most of what Sandal had to argue, came down to the basic premise of ‘purpose’. At times where conflict of opinions arise, if the issue can be stripped down to the basic principles of purpose, then a logical way forward can be found. The basis of this argument can be found in Aristotle’s work.

The idea of purpose as being a central component of what we do is no truer than in online learning communities. The very first part of forming such a community, is to define the purpose – what is it the participants wish to do. It is from here that all else follows – and sometimes that means not adopting an online community of learning at all.

However the contradiction came from a question he was asked regarding the use of the internet in helping to move political debate. He suggested that although it provided a route for communication, it could not replace direct personal engagement. This is where he and I would part company – and it seems as I am not alone as Timonthy Garton Ash describes how the, ‘Digital David fights theocratic Goliath” in response to the current non violent reactions which are taking place in Iran, in today’s Guardian.

My experience of working in cutting edge projects over the last 10 years has demonstrated to me that it’s not only possibly to directly engage on a personal level, but that sometimes this engagement can go very deep. Comments such as, “The xxxx needs to fashion a real dialogue with heads and leadership teams. The questions are excellent – probing and full of energy and ideas” and “I really felt that my views were important and that the subsequent changes in policy had arisen after much consultation with a wide range of people…” have not come from people who work alongside each other, but from people who have never met and are engaging in a virtual world to move, in their context, the education debate forward.