Essendon Football Club (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Many factors apply when trying to quantify what makes a successful sporting team. Good coaching, a stable financial base, player attitude, good leadership and access to resources are all imperative if a team is to have onfield success.

But perhaps over riding all of that is depth of talent. If a team can’t adequately cover unforeseen injuries or suspensions, then it can not sustain a successful run to the finals.

The Essendon Football Club, an AFL team based in Melbourne, seem to have all bases covered this year. They sit proudly atop the premiership ladder and remain undefeated despite being without key players through injury.

My latest article on The Roar outlines the reasons for their unbeaten run.

“Their greatest strength lies in their depth, a depth that extends across all field positions. Essendon seems to have quality back up across the board and no matter who succumbs to injury or suspension, a ready replacement is on hand to step up.”

Read more here -

http://www.theroar.com.au/2013/04/25/depth-of-talent-not-emotion-is-the-key-to-essendons-success/

I enjoyed a short session this week UK educator, Stephen Heppell, under the heading, ‘learning:now’. It was a kind of meandering tour of projects he’s been involved in, with a particular emphasis on learning spaces and some key messages that resonated with me.

I liked the way he used his desktop as the presentation tool, (see his website image above for a sense of that) pulling up images and doucments and movies as he thought of them (or that’s how it seemed) and now a powerpoint slide in sight. It did mean that at times the talk lacked the dotpoint focus that comes with those tools, but it was a lot more interesting and engaging for it.

He showed lots of learning spaces he’d been involved in co-constructing with students, or he just thought showed the kind of surprise and delight that thoughtful spaces give us. I liked his image of the UK system of everyone stopping for lunch at school at the same time (‘the only place in London where you can seat 1000 people for lunch is the Dorchester and every high school’) and what that meant for how the day involved. He was all for immersive learning, teach the first week of February for a month, and time at task.

The classroom spaces he showed were ‘shoeless’ places, often where every surface is a writing surface and where the student work was celebrated and maintained. He wanted places where students could sit, perch, slump, lie (did anyone ever choose to sit up straight to read a book he asked?) And what was the point of staff rooms, he asked. If we’re all learners, why have a special space for old learners?

He talked a lot about a classroom space at Lampton, UK, that the students had designed: mood lighting, writable surfaces, skype enabled but, signficantly, the students didn’t want the room filled with technology. We’ll bring our own, they argued, and plug in. That way it will be up to date! He drew a lot on the idea of family, showing us a school that had a bread oven near the entrance so that students could smell that fresh bread cooking as they arrived and talked in this way of ‘a learning family, not a learning factory’ and schools that moved beyond placement of students in age-related groups to peer support and peer learning. He argued for ‘in-betweeny’ time, keeping the day fresh and inviiting and playful ways to do the hard stuff.

He was in favour of social technologies like Skype and Twitter (he tweets here) and flipping the classroom, so that the routine work was done at home and the interesting and challenging stuff done collaboaratively at school. He showed us some slides of stupid things that schools ban, mostly mobile phones which were often the most powerful computers in the room, turned off or banned completely.

And he DID have some key messages that resonated with me:

• Listen to the students
• The most risky thing you can do as a school or a system is to do nothing.
• Teachers needs to lead this discussion – the future competitors to our schools will be Pearson
• If you can astonish kids with the place you create and the expectations you bring, they will astonish you

I have observed many things while working with different schools, students and teachers in projects this year. The one thing that stood out for me is the ‘transferring’ process.

‘Transferring’ presents itself in various degrees and forms, ranging from slight to significant:

• transfer in learning
• transfer in belief
• transfer in ideas and concepts
• transfer in behaviour
• transfer in thinking
• transfer in teaching practice
• transfer in classroom management
• transfer in engagement and motivation

Why does this happen? 3D Virtual Worlds in teaching and learning allows for the idea of ‘Concept Actualisation’. In other words, the ability

• to create something very quickly;
• to realise an idea that has been scribbled down on paper;
• to look at something from all different angles and perspectives;
• to have opportunities to collaborate and problem-solve together and
• to ‘experience’ the learning rather than just looking at or talking about things in abstract terms – all within an immersive environment.

While I have been working with teachers and students, I have been reflecting on my own teaching practice. It has assisted me to understand more on how students learn and interact in this learning space. Can ‘transfer’ in learning be ‘transformed’? Absolutely – Technologies such as 3D Virtual Worlds can support student learning. It is a very powerful tool and when all these elements are combined, the possibilities for teaching and learning are endless.

Especially when teachers tell you that their students are excited about learning, they go home to tell their parents what they are learning and they are ‘running to class’ you know that this is what teaching and learning is about.

Students from this project iteration will be presenting their work on Learning Spaces in 3D MUVE at the Listen2Learners “Be Very Afraid” (BVA7) conference in Melbourne on 10-11 October, 2010. http://www.heppell.net/bva/

The genie is out of the bottle and there is no going back. The gatekeepers have gone. It is now all down to educating the children, the teachers and the parents. But isn’t that what schools are all about? And this time, we are all going to have to learn together. It could be the worst of times and the best of times.

Alice Through the Looking Glass

“… the grand narrative has lost its credibility, regardless of what mode of unification it uses, regardless of whether it is a speculative narrative or a narrative of emancipation.”

Jean-François Lyotard

After 14 years of service to education, the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (Becta) is being retired.  Becta was the government agency leading the national drive to ensure the effective and innovative use of technology throughout learning. According to their website, Becta’s remit included:

• raising educational achievement
• narrowing the gap between rich and poor
• improving the health and wellbeing of children and young people
• increasing the number of young people on the path to success
• improving the skills of the whole population throughout their working lives
• building social and community cohesion
• strengthening the Further and Higher education systems.

Many thousands of educationalists across UK, and indeed the world, have valued the support and advice that Becta provided over the years, and the decision to close it down means that educational institutions and communities will need to find new and creative ways to embed deep thinking into their decisions about learning technologies, ICT and e-learning. These decisions about the use of new technologies in education will inevitably focus on the raising of educational standards, whether through improving attainment, progression, engagement, enjoyment or by making educational institutions more efficient. But something else will also emerge.

I will always be grateful for the resources and support that Becta provided and for their contributions to the educational discourse that now allows so many individuals and organisations to embrace current and emergent technologies with confidence and ambition. But we must now pick up new challenges, one being to question the way in which the models of ICT support have been traditionally presented. We have the opportunity to challenge the old, modernisitic models of large, centralised support. As Stephen Heppell has said

…we need to see the opportunity presented: we are in a world where, as I have often said before, instead of the old 20th century model of “building big things that did things for people” we now have a world of “helping people to help each other…we’ve said all along that ICT empowers autonomous and collaborative learners. Now is the time to prove that these learners include ourselves too.

Now is an excellent time to encourage and work with the many online collaborators who provide inspiration and support for others. Many communities of practice exist that are well placed to take this debate forward. The online community will ensure that Becta publications and services will survive if there is a demand for them but we may also be entering an era of new opportunities. This has been signalled for some time by writers such as Clay Shirky and Charles Leadbeater. Some of the clubby, old, paternalism that has guided our thinking about ICT for so many years may be swept aside as impatient, younger influences become more dominant in education.

Many writers have opposed universal solutions, meta-narratives, and generalisations. More so than ever, some ‘universalist’ claims have been challenged in areas relating to knowledge and technology. Lyotard in his 1979 report on knowledge argues that our postmodern era is characterised by an ‘incredulity towards meta-narratives’. These meta-narratives are grand theories and philosophies such as those that characterise the inevitable progress of history and the infallibility of science. Lyotard argues that the world has changed and that these sorts of narratives may no longer stand up to scrutiny. We have to embrace individuality, diversity, conflict, local knowledge and context, and encourage smaller strategies that have meaning and relevance to those who own them. Lyotard signposts the diversity of smaller communities and the multiple collaborative and conflicting systems which create their own meanings and their own rules.

Becta served and helped shape our views of ICT and e-Learning admirably and was instrumental in moving both technological and pedagogical discourses away from the technocrats and into spaces inhabited by teachers, parents, pupils and the wider community. The challenge for us all now is how to create new discourses about ICT, not just through membership organisations and formal bodies but through informal spaces which are increasingly attracting collaborators, inventors and innovators. The technologies are there to support these spaces and the old argument that puts pedagogy ahead of the technology is sounding tired. The boundaries between the two are blurring and young people know this. We need to do six impossible things before breakfast.

Becta had a Business Plan which set out its work for 2010-2011 which identified six priorities:

Priority 1: e-enabling institutions

“Increasing the numbers of schools, colleges and other providers using technology to improve outcomes for learners and deliver value for money.”  Building on the work that Becta undertakes in the next twelve months, we need to take Stephen Heppell’s vision forward and each in our own way make a point of connecting up with each other through informal and formal networks to encourage, collaborate, celebrate and help each other to raise and meet expectations on the use of ICT in education.

Priority 2: Delivering Home Access and improving services for learners and families

“Increasing the numbers of learners able to access learning materials, the school and wider services through technology” Many schools are already technological hubs of their communities. By opening physical and virtual doors to their ICT resources, schools are well placed to take this forward. By opening up provision of cloud-based resources through learning platforms, e-learning and other resources schools are increasingly positioning themselves to lead in supporting their communities through the use of ICT.

Priority 3:Supporting the frontline to achieve savings through technology

“Achieving savings through better procurement, management and interoperability of ICT and improved operational efficiency”. This is possibly the hardest of the “impossible six” to achieve. Again, the key is collaboration. Procurement frameworks and the creation of ICT contracts that meet local needs will need to be well coordinated. Where the motivation is financial, there is greater motivation to collaborate. We can look forward to commercial strategic partnerships, regional procurement frameworks and other entrepreneurial and innovative methods of procuring and achieving interoperability. If the foreseeable future is to be based on personal, portable, wireless, networked, interactive devices then we can expect interesting times indeed.

Priority 4: Propositions to achieve future productivity through new operating models

“Developing propositions to policy makers, local authorities and system leaders on new models” Whether schools become academies, free schools or remain within Local Authorities, new models of operating will emerge. There is much to be excited about, as both educational structures and technologies will change rapidly over the next year. The challenge will be whether or not leadership models respond strongly enough in both reactive and proactive ways.

Priority 5: Supporting leaders and developing system leadership

“Ensuring commitment by education leaders to a strategic vision for technology and its implementation” This priority is inextricably linked to the previous one. To refer back to Stephen Heppell, we need to revisit our grand, strategic visions and focus on autonomy and collaboration.

Priority 6: Organisational delivery and reducing administration costs

“Managing the organisation efficiently, effectively and reducing administrative costs.” The coalition government has stated that it is committed to giving schools more freedom from unnecessary prescription and bureaucracy. ICT will continue to play an important role in the management and administration of schools in increasingly efficient ways.

Becta had established each priority with both one and three year targets. It will be the challenge of schools and other educational providers to take these priorities and reinterpret them after March 2011. By collaborating and contributing to the national and international discourses on ICT in education we can embark on a new era of creativity and innovation in education.

Following the Alice in the Looking Glass quotation on Six Impossible Things, we would do well to remember what the Sheep said later in the same chapter: “I never put things into people’s hands — that would never do — you must get it for yourself.” Now is the time to start getting things for ourselves. How many impossible things can we dream before breakfast and then make real?

… non-directive therapy/counselling is a good thing because the power relationship between therapist/counsellor and client is such that the latter is often too suggestible for anything else …”

but that this is not the case where the coachee is a Senior Executive. And we’d agree – and not just because of the inherently different power relationship.

Executive Coaching is not ‘therapy/counselling’, and it has key attributes that distinguish it from coaching at lower organisational levels. Not least of these is the level of experience, skill and expertise that it demands of the coach. To provide a valuable service (even a non-directive one) at this level requires more than just an established coaching track record, affiliation to internationally accredited coaching body, and a commitment to on-going coaching supervision.

All those things are valuable, and serve to allow the coaching buyer to discriminate between potential suppliers in an unregulated marketplace over-crowded with those seeking to trade on their own business experience when straitened circumstances intervene. (We mean no offence here: there are places where their input may be appreciated and valued, but without more to offer, Executive Coaching appointments are not among them.)

One element that is crucial to the success of any coaching engagement is the relationship between coach and coachee. There are two aspects worth noting here: firstly, that one-to-one coaching can be an intense and personally exposing experience for the coachee, and the ability of coach and coachee to establish rapport and trust underpins many of the benefits that the process can deliver. Our Executive Coaching engagements always start with a ‘client matching’ process, to ensure that we proceed to a coaching relationship that will not be beset by inter-personal incompatability.

The second aspect is broader. If the process is to be produce meaningful outcomes, the coachee must respect and value the coach and the skills and experience that they bring to the experience. To coach effectively at this level, the coach must also bring extensive experience of operating at senior executive/board levels in major organisations: no coachee should be expected to value or respect the inputs of someone whose own credibility they have reason to doubt. Providing Executive Coaches without this level of professional (as well as coaching) experience undermines the coaching engagement, and – at a broader level – the value of coaching per se: it does a fundamental disservice to a potentially highly valuable approach to learning and development.

But there is a second element of the EMCC invitation that should give greater call for alarm:

Steve believes that many organisations are currently doing their leaders a disservice in sticking to non-directive coaching too narrowly.”

As we argued in our earlier posting, Talent, recessions and commitment, there is real potential value in investing in the deployment of learning and development interventions – including external Executive Coaches, providing that several important caveats are recognised. To apply those arguments to Steve Nicklen’s assertion, we should first of all point out that coaching should be offered – and taken up – to address a real development need.

While that need may be skills based, it is likely to also have some behavioural aspects – probably relating to one or more aspects of leadership behaviour. Insisting too adamantly on a non-directive approach is not only to tacitly accept that some development needs will probably go unaddressed – as the Executive in question (to quote Mr Nicklen again) may well be used to having “the power to reject anything that they don’t agree with” – but also to commission services that it is clear may well only be partially deployed.

As buying decisions go, this is unusual to say the least. Few other areas of an organisation would contemplate making a purchasing decision on the basis that, even the fees will be charged, employees (no matter how senior) may simply decide they don’t want the service and will be dismissive of it. And the provider is to quietly accept this state of affairs.

Coaching buyers should, like buyers of any other form of learning and development, ensure from the outset that the interventions’ outcomes are aligned with the business’s objectives: to insist on non-directive Executive Coaching is therefore a way of letting everyone off the hook – except the cheque-writer.

As we have also long argued, learning and development purchasing should reward providers for outputs. Where not just needs themselves, but clients’ awareness of them, acceptance that action is needed,  and willingness to act on them (while supported and encouraged in doing so) are potentially “off limits”, these outputs are unlikely to be achieved. While we have in the past criticised organisations for rewarding providers only for their inputs, the implication is that some organisations are happy to reward as long as they commit to only providing those that the client is happiest to receive.

“Directive” may be just what the doctor would order – barring him or her from writing the prescription must surely be counter-intuitive, if not counter productive. A straightforward ‘directive’ that changing our thinking and behaviour can be positive and liberating can be a powerful start. There’s a long tradition of best-selling books on exactly this theme – from Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People (which Warren Buffett cites as one of his biggest influences) to the most recent chart-topper, Michael Heppell’s Flip It.

While one of our team felt the latter was not designed for the task of challenging a deep-seated, complex issue, that is not the remit for this type of book: where the coach’s first hurdle is persuade the Executive to acknowledge change need not be threat, a tool that carries just this message can be a valuable lever. Horses for courses, as they say, and no-one can clear the second hurdle if they fall – or refuse – at the first. In one of our Crackers posts (pointing to nuggets we’ve found elsewhere on the web), we cited Meg Bear’s belief in the power of ‘micro-coaching’: a few wise, guiding words at the right moment that can make an important difference. There’s no reason ‘micro-coaching’ can’t take place within the context of a longer coaching assignment, especially where it will generate enthusiasm and willingness in the coachee. (And where more complex issue do need to be addressed, the experienced and skilled coach will, of course, have many levers at their disposal.)

At the heart of learning and development lies change – something that we all find both difficult and uncomfortable. The role of the provider is not simply therefore to soothe and sympathise – little benefit will be achieved by given an Executive client a ‘damned good listening too’ – but also to challenge. The challenge will, of course, take place in a supporting coaching environment (and in the context of the coach-coachee matching process) where both parties appreciate that feedback is two-way dialogue, but if the desired outcomes are to be achieved, a willingness to challenge is central to the task.

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And I also found this, Stephen Heppell talking an awful lot of sense.

So, my first ever book review.  Michael Heppell’s smooth-covered, cerulean blue paperback was handed to me, with the accompanying task of conveying something meaningful about it. Which, I’ll admit, presented me with a concern:  could I give it a meaningful review?  It wasn’t as though I had identified a pressing need that this book promised to fulfil.  So could I make its intent applicable to me and my life, now?

I read the sub-title, “How to get the best out of everything.”  Concerns abated.  It’s about everything!  I couldn’t possibly go wrong.  Still, could 158 pages, however beautifully designed, really do that? 

The inside front cover had me hooked.  Michael skilfully described four groups of people that might read Flip It.  Instantly, I identified with one.  I defy you not to do the same.  Good start. 

I moved through the warming dedication to the contents page where I learned that Flip It could help me with health, money, confidence, happiness, work, the future and “everything else.”  Great!  I threw away my copper bracelet, extinguished my aromatherapy candle and set cheerful sail for enlightenment.

The introduction asserts that understanding is easy; doing things differently and better, changing behaviour, changing attitudes, putting knowledge into practice – these are the harder things to master and where the reward lies.  (We couldn’t agree more.)  

I then began Chapter One:  “Finding Flip It”.  Unfortunately for me, “Flip It” could not be found! Indeed, I was more than half way through the book before I found an interpretation of the words “flip It” that worked for me (more on which later).  Meantime, in Chapter One, I was being instructed to “Flip It” without any understanding of what this flipping thing was all about.  Heppell’s jargon was getting in my way.  I hadn’t even got to an understanding of “Flip It” before I was being asked to “Think transferable.”  Anyone? 

All of this is a bit of a shame because Chapters 2 to 10 are filled with tools and techniques and ways of thinking intended to help us improve some aspect of our lives.  A number of these pearls of wisdom are potentially of real, genuine help to many people.  The trouble was that the book wasn’t working for me.  As I moved through each chapter, I became aware that I was flicking in and out of rapport with it.  Why would this be?  Its values and intent are well aligned with my own. 

When I found the answer to this question, I also found the interpretation of “Flip It” that had been missing for me in Chapter One.  It was simple.  If I replaced the instruction “Flip It” with “think like Michael Heppell”, I was getting closer to understanding the concept of this book.  And this explained why I was drifting in and out of rapport.  When our thinking was alike, I got on with the book.  When it wasn’t, I didn’t. 

My experience with Flip It is that it is not a method.  It is not a psychological model.  It is not an insight based on research studies.  It is not a particular technique.  It is a collection of tools and advice that has been put together under a “Flip It” banner that makes sense to Michael Heppell.  I don’t think the concept itself is very well conceived, although I do happen to think that there are some useful and practical suggestions in the book that deserve to be acknowledged and praised.  On this basis, I’d like to recommend it …

… but I can’t.  The problem is not Michael Heppell’s insights – he has some wisdom to offer.  It’s who his wisdom and insights are aimed at.  Flip It suggests that it can help everyone with everything (although there certainly wasn’t a chapter on writing book reviews).  With my commercial head on, I suspect that Michael has not been helped here with marketing foresight or editorial rigor by his publisher, although four of the five current reviews on Amazon.co.uk give it 5 stars. (Again, more on this in a second.)

Perhaps I’m an atypically diligent shopper, but my own experience of consumer behaviour is that people buy something specific to meet a specific need they have.  If someone’s problem is their job, for example, they are likely to look for a dedicated, in-depth book to help them get out of unemployment, keep a job or find fulfilment in a new career.  The one dissenting review at Amazon seemed to bear this out:

The idea behind the book is simple enough […]. Focus on the positive and choose the way you look at situations. Unfortunately, however, I felt a little disappointed, like a fast food meal that I wolfed down and then felt insufficiently nourished by. Positive thinking alone isn’t enough to help me and I wanted something a little more substantial.”

Surely, problem-solving is ultimately demand-led, not supply-led. Having vast resources of advice doesn’t make it necessarily applicable: advice becomes good advice when it finds its matching issue.

Like the Amazon reviewer above, I think that Flip It is simply too broad and too shallow to recommend over a specialised resource that can help people with a specific problem in their life (such as facing an assessment centre, or a batch of psychometric tests, or hiring a coach). If you are afflicted by a mild sense of malaise or under-achievement, and like your positive thinking to come in bumper buckets of wise nuggets, you’ll probably like this book: it may truly ‘flip’ your lid.

If your dilemmas are deeper-rooted or require more detailed treatment, you are more likely to find direction, support and encouragement in a more specialised solution and may well respond to Flip It by simply tossing it aside.

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Its amazing how my interests change. From what can I do now to what should I be thinking of next. What happens after we get critical mass to allow students to participate in connected digital conversations. If the goal is simply to share an electronic exercise book – is that indeed a worthy goal at all or short of the mark.

I’ve come to accept that social constructivism theory, when played out in online discourse communities, does unify, encourage and improve student engagement, perhaps not at the top end of the class, or the bottom – but certainly, those in the middle appear to engage in deeper learning. I have little doubt, that when students are given projects that intrigue them, that are in someway worthy of exploration, then they are much more engaged than learning in passive environments.

This needs enthusiastic teachers, armed with online access to engage students in personalized, reflective learning – and Web2.0 tools are very good at achieving that.

I’ve been following the connectivism and connective knowledge ‘open online course’. George Siemens and Stephen Downes co-facilitate the course and the daily email they send out is so packed with ideas and suggestions, that its hard not to engage in it.

Aside from the content that they are putting online, the very idea of running such a powerful course online and for free makes me rethink about how and when learning can take place.

Chris, sent me a link to the UNSW’s YouTube space – a respose to an article I read about students at UWS being unhappy with ‘podcast’ only lectures.  Two more ‘spaces’, neither physical or time critical.

When I think about ICT integrators, integrating learning technologies into classroom – I wonder if this is what High School should be doing? and if so -  for how long? When will we be pre-packing, opt in and on-demand learning as normal activities (and what age is that appropriate). We might think never, but I imagine we could have said the same about Universities not too long ago. Ewan McIntosh is another example with his 4iP project – where the boundaries and definitions of learning, play and content become fluid, collaborative and networked. What kind of people will work at 4iP? what do our kids need to learn to work at a place like that.

If University and academic study is moving to ‘open classrooms’ and ‘breakout areas’, then are we in fact saying that small groups can work more effectively when connected to everyone else by technology than physical space.

How much of our lesson structures accommodate the notion that learning only occurs between set times, lead by set individuals within set boundaries (something I’ve been challenging in in the design of the 9th grade Animal Farm project).

Will our desire to rethink and build new physical classrooms – be pointless, as much of our learning will be in virtual communities via mobile phones or point of view cameras by the time they are built. I learn so much from so many from the comfort of my lounge … physical interaction is now socially driven, not ‘content’ driven.

I love this video from Stephen Heppell in the 90s and find it quite amazing. Even his latest presentation from K12 Online, gently asks questions about if we are even thinking about what is next, let alone what that will look like. Are the futurists right? If so, what happens to all those guiding education right now – how many of them are ‘futurists’.  I wonder if we are focusing too much on what we want to see in the classroom today and not thinking enough about what all this connected ‘usness’ means in the future.

I worry far less about teachers learning about tools, or kids using them – as I do about where we go after they become as Chris Lehmann recently said – like Oxygen, and Chris is citing a student who asks

“we need to have the ability to choose our own education and not have our hands held all the way to adulthood for we will be a child trapped in a human’s body mentally and won’t flourish like we were supposed to. In short the concept of school is horrible but the concept of learning things you like is what matter most.”

Spaces, realities, conversations and language become increasingly fluid which has to be problematic for educators who like: classrooms; doors; timetables; bells and defined terms of reference. If anything the industrial age model that was never really quashed (in education) by the information age in ways we saw in the workplace or our personal lives. Now we are faced with the ‘conceptual’ or ‘media age’ … we are reflecting and perhaps predicting the future, based on the last decades massive shift in ‘connectedness’ and ideas of time and space.

The question asked today was ‘what to you think 21C learning is’ … perhaps the answer is … another tidemark on the ebb of learning to a much more distributed and networked model.

Where will learning go? …. mmm, more questions than answers. Damn you RSS reader, I’m still at the beginning.

This post by Anthony Evan, Seven Kings, Ilford, United Kingdom and the video message hes used includes students talking about PS3, Nintendo, Mobiles and Laptops is well balanced with Stephen Heppell’s comments on how teachers can leverage ‘game’ or rather ‘play’ based activities with learning. Anthony used the title ‘next generation learning’ which I really thought is very appropriate. We are seeing the rise of the NETBook, the small format laptop, for low cost at the same time we are seeing Smart Phones making massive inroads into media delivery, not just ‘connecting voices’.

Third party applications such as Fring are negating the whole Telco cash-cow of SMS Texting, as data, and simple data is cheaper and easier. Fring allows you to freely connect your phone to Skype, Messenger and Gtalk, adding contacts to your contacts list. So web based communication is integrated completely.

The lines of differentiation are well and truly blending in terms of technology and connectedness, between learning and play. Gaming is even bringing the SAT to the DS! And its really interesting to see how gaming websites now blog about learning, as a classification.

But it’s not new, Ewan McIntosh posted a great article in 2006 about PSPs in the classroom, or in 2007 when he talked about Xbox. A year later and mobile technology has gained a lot of ground toward the ‘laptop’ and the gaming console is getting more and more ‘connected’.  The majority of education thinks mobile learning means laptops, when quite clearly there is a growing body of evidence to suggest that as educators, we need to understand how this fits within the expanding idea of ‘technology in the classroom’.

I arrived bang on time, just as Graeme started to introduce the main players i.e. the exhibitors. Each spoke for a few moments on industry updated and development from a commercial stand point. A £139 netbook (Toshiba?) was announced and last nights award winner Study Wiz announced it’s new 14 – 19 version.

After the industry updates their was an opening address by the Chairman of Becta, Andrew Pinder. Which had to be done I suppose… it was a tad dry and forced.

Then came Steven Berlin Johnson, who’s book “Everything Bad is Good for You” is definitely on my Xmas wish list. He spoke about crucial juxtapositions of science, technology and personal experience.

“Steven has also co-created three influential web sites: the pioneering online magazine FEED, the Webby-Award-winning community site, Plastic.com, and most recently the hyperlocal media site outside.in.

Both social critic and technologist, Steven has a genius for mapping the future—for predicting and explaining the real-world impact of cutting-edge developments in science, technology and media.

Steven is a contributing editor to Wired magazine and a Distinguished Writer In Residence at the New York University Department of Journalism.

Named by Newsweek as one of the “Fifty People Who Matter Most on the Internet,” Steven has also written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Nation, and many other periodicals.”

His analysis of the bewildering ‘Lost’ TV show was particularly thought provoking and how it was structured more like a game than a regular production. My question would have been “How the hell do you pitch an idea like that?”. He also went into a Shirky-esque debate, counter-arguing the authorities rekindled fears that our kids aint reading enough. The fact remains that they are probably reading a lot more, its just not from books anymore.

Most intriguing was his outline of gaming and how (he used the example of World of Warcrafts complex UI) interfaces are central to participation. The complexity of navigating and using an interface such as this cannot be any less involved than learning basic algebra, to a 14 year old. Indeed, the series ‘Lost’ is just a complex in it’s structure.

Is this UI any less complex than learning algebra.

I thoroughly enjoyed Steven’s presentation, he has the same calmly approachable manner that is also present with Clay Shirky and Charles Leadbeater.

The iPhones (which I am Twittering and blogging on) is proving to be problematic due to it’s crappy battery life and equally as useless camera. It’s starting to irk.

To see Steven's presentation follow thislink

After the break, another treat, Danah Boyd gave an intriguing insight into Social Media and the sociological implications that this form of medium dredges up. Facebook was the main topic of interest and how youngsters use it and more importantly, see themselves on it. She asked some important questions and outlined the dangers of invading this type of space, from an educational point of view. The student always has the option to shut down and migrate elsewhere, taking their peers with them. Her visuals were stunning, the best I came across at the conference. I don’t know about you, but more than two words on a slide brings on the yawns….

It made it clear to me that knowing how to use social networking sites and how a younger generation uses them are two completely different things. It is their only true private space an extension of their bedrooms, without the parental authority that influences their use.

To see Danah's presentation follow thislink

Laurie O’Donnell (Director of Technology, LTS) had a much bigger agenda to get across, it was also good to hear a Scot for a change. His C.V. is impressive; LTS including Glow, LTS Online Service, Scottish Learning Festival and Corporate ICT support to LTS staff. He was also recently honoured as one of Edutopia’s ‘Global Six’ and personal honour by George Lucas. This was for his work with the Glow project.

His presentation turned out to be more of a discussion than a speech. This seemed to suit him much better. His wordy powerpoint (in contrast to Danah’s) laid out 2 basic philosophies towards learning, inspiringly named philosophy A and philosophy B. A was how it is now in education and B was Laurie’s vision. The area’s covered were immense. See below:

Philosophy A

Education                          Broken but can be fixed (Quickly)

Technology                       Drives change

Teachers                           Another problem that needs to be fixed

Learners                            The future workforce

Curriculum                        Don’t trust the teachers

Innovation                         Let a thousand projects flourish

Success                              Input targets and attainment

Philosophy B

Education                           Long term investment

Technology                        Enables, supports & accelerates change

Teachers                            Supported professionals

Learners                             More than just a future workforce

Curriculum                        Guidance & Support for Teachers

Innovation                         Scalable & Sustainable

Success                              Wider long term benefits

Laurie gave an interesting (and obvious) example of what success in education means: Finland: how safe do you feel on the streets, how healthy are your people, longevity, how many people do you send to jail? It goes way beyond improving test scores or training productive workers. You want citizens, community activists, good parents….

“Technology is a catalyst for change, it does NOT drive change. People make changes to make the world better.”

How do you pay for scalability and sustainability?

Question on assessment: QCA representative who answered -> we need to provide learners the environment to learn, we can’t just teach them to learn. Assessment bodies are fairly powerless when it comes to developing assessments as they mainly apply the policy that comes from higher up.

• Implementation with a little help from
• Politicians (committed to long-term development)
• Civil servants (who see the big picture and can manage risk)
• Secure funding (not based on small projects)
• Great people who are doing the right things for the right reasons
• Resilience
• Hard work and a whole lotta luck

To see Laurie's presentation follow this link

There’s not much to say, the K-12 Online Conference is on, and is fast becoming the cover girl for online learning and professional development. This is a video that every one with kids going to school, or interacting with kids needs to watch.

From the site ….

Presentation Title

“It Simply Isn’t the 20th Century Any More Is It?: So Why Would We Teach as Though It Was?”

We are in the throes of a financial crisis unparalleled on our lifetimes, and at the same time in front running 21st century schools around the world learning is seeing a transformation that seemed unthinkable in the dark days of 20th century factory schools.

As we move to a new tomorrow built on mutuality, collegiality, communication, community and ingenuity can we learn anything from the colossally expensive financial collapse of Wall Street, the City of London and many of the world’s financial centres.

In three sections, and in a conversational, intimate style, Stephen examines the certainties that stare us in the face from past learning projects that clearly mapped a new world of 21st century learning; he reflects on the impact on technology on the world around us, including the financial world, and ponders on what this means for education, for learning, and for the necessary pace of change as we experience the death of education and the dawn of learning.

Certainly it’s perceived to be a serious and growing one. One recent survey, by Northumbria Learning, found that half UK HE students believed their tutors would fail to spot work that had been plagiarised from the internet; while another, by the Times Higher Educational Supplement, found that 1 in 10 students had attempted to find model essays online. JISC, the UK HE technology advice and research body, has set up an Internet Plagiarism Advice Service and will be holding its third International Plagiarism Conference later this year. A JISC report suggested that student plagiarism was “common and probably becoming more so”; Oxford University has suggested that internet plagiarism was becoming so rife that the reputation of its degrees was in danger of being undermined; and Google has responded to these fears by banning adverts from the so-called ‘online essay mills’.

On the back of these concerns, plagiarism prevention has become highly profitable, with 90% of UK universities – more in north America – paying to use plagiarism-detection software, mostly using a package called Turnitin from US company Plagiarism.org, which uses a smart search of possible online sources combined with textual analysis of assignments using a rapidly growing database of past students’ work.

However there is little solid data supporting this perceived explosion of copying-and-pasting from the internet. Closer reading of the THES survey for example suggests that the overwhelming majority of student copying is done not online but offline from friends, and that only a tiny percentage of students – 3% – are copying wholesale chunks of text.

It’s not easy for academics to stand out against the plagiarism panic, but a few do. Barry Dahl, VP of Technology and Distance Learning at Lake Superior College, Minnesota, maintains there’s no evidence supporting the assertion that online plagiarism is more prevalent (it’s merely that online students get caught more than traditional students) and that plagiarism detection software is both a gross infringement of student intellectual property rights, and less effective than intelligent use of Google (see Turnitin Sucks).

And Steven Heppell, Professor of New Media Practice at Bournemouth University and UK government advisor on education and technology, thinks at least some of academia’s plagiarism concerns are the result of industrial-age thinking about learning as information transfer, students “learning stuff’ and then being tested to see how much of it has been absorbed. He points out in his weblog that

One huge impact of ubiquitous [internet] technology is to move information towards being a free good. So much information, so many providers. All the heated debates about IPR and plagiarism fall away with the realisation that, like Technology, Information is everywhere… (Play to Learn, Learn to Play, 20/10/2007)

In a learning environment where Google, Wikipedia and the social web have made virtually all information public, free, and collective in nature, the idea of information ownership begins to lose its meaning. Perhaps plagiarism too.