In 2007, after Concorde was taken out of service, the BBC described it as a ‘technological pioneer’ and heralded it’s passing with the following statement: “Concorde’s designers put together an aircraft that was a triumph of innovation”. Of course there will be many who argue that it was right to decommission it, but I am not one of them.

Likewise I was saddened at the news of the closure of talk2learn at the end of July this year - a project I has heavily involved with for over three years during my time at ULTRALAB. With a team of 12 back in early 2000, the DfE (or the DfEE as it was then) invited us to form the early environment of this online community for school leaders. We called it Talking Heads:

Click on the image to learn more and see video clips

The think.com software, in which the communities were housed, was designed by us at ULTRALAB and developed by Oracle over a number of years. It was specifically aimed at engendering participative learning. The first group to come on board were a small number of head teachers, who we called the early adopters and they were shortly followed a few months later by around 1,200 newly qualified head teachers.

Talking Heads was both an online social environment that reduced the isolation of school leaders and an online community where learning took place through the interchange of individuals. The emphasis was on informal peer based learning, discussion and dialogue. It was not long before the success of these communities lead to other cohorts joining:

• the NPQH was delivered through Virtual Heads (Ultralab facilitated over 500 aspiring school leaders in the first year)
• the Strategic Leadership in ICT course (Ultralab worked with the National College and Becta to develop the programme)
• the FastTrack communities - for high flying graduates new to the teaching profession
• Bursers Count - for the school finance staff which supported the Certificate of School Business Management
• Middle Ground - for the Leading from the Middle staff
• New Visions - to provide activities for inter-sessional activities

By the time we handed the communities over to the National College, there were in excess of 25,000 school leaders and other education staff engaged in both informal and formal learning across the various communities creating a vibrant platform for professional development.

On reflecting upon the communities we had built up over the course of the 3 years, Dame Pat Collarbone described what she saw:

“Imagine a collection of individuals, working in close proximity, sharing a common purpose and passion – a desire to learn ….

Imagine this same collection of individuals, working closely together, sharing knowledge, aspiring to the same vision ….

Imagine that same collection of individuals, sharing each others’ hopes and fears, empathising emotionally, unleashing the power of their collective intelligences ….

This is a learning community.”

After the hand over to the National College, the communities slowly started to change, as would be expected and to some extent I have already had to leave it behind once. Perhaps for some of you reading this, it will not be in the same ball park as the end of Concorde, but for me, one of those early innovators, I feel sad to see it finally go.

I end with a comment and question from a head teacher who sent us this in the weeks running up to the hand over from ULTRALAB to the National College. He writes,

“… Four years have flown for us all. The legacy of your [ULTRALABs]  involvement is a better informed and less isolated group of Headteachers who have done a better job for their students as a direct result of your work. We all suffer identity crisis as we try to fulfil our role as Head, police officer, bank manager, politician, social worker …… and parent. Leaving something that you have invested so much energy in will be a new challenge. The question is not about leaving but how can we, repeat we, influence the centre to ensure that this form of CPD can move forward and develop further?”

Not only can I not seem to identify what kind of spider it is, nor can I determine what the reddish orange blobs are on it’s legs and head … I am assuming a sort of spider mite. If anyone has any idea, please let me know what it was.

Not least, I have an issue with the term ‘communal’. For me it suggests that those who are co-constructing knowledge are doing so to share some commonality in what it is they learn. However this perceived implication, instantly cuts out one group of learners who might work tangentally with others to co-construct new knowledge which is pertinent to specific and individual contexts rather than as a whole to move one body of knowledge forward.

I would much prefer to see the coinage as “Collaborative Constructivism” and I’ll be looking at this as part of my PhD work.

Getting started on a PhD is harder that I thought. Not least the distractions of my work commitments with Core Education, but just in trying to hone in on the exact nature of my topic. I have now fairly well settled on the following working title, although it might need some further tidying as I progress with the lit review:

Learners and Emerging Technologies: An investigation into whether the nature of learning process are changing

In particular I am looking at two central questions:

• Are young people today, learning in a different way due to the emergence of new tools?
• Are teachers becoming more facilitators of learning as a result?

Source of Data? Well, I recently had a meeting with the team at EuroLink – Virtual International School, or known for short as ‘ELvis’ who have agreed to have me on board as a researcher. In the picture below you can see me explaining my research to them, remotely from Yorkshire. The picture itself demonstrates the new learning environment we are increasingly finding ourselves in.

Explaining my research to the ELvis mob

ELvis uses new and emerging technologies, which challenge the traditional approaches to education. The group intends to research new approaches to teaching, learning and assessment and this dovetails very well with my own research interests.

The second project is still being confirmed but is equally exciting, yet slightly different to ELvis – using immersive technologies rather than a community learning platform.

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.