Author Archives: Sirchriss

About Sirchriss

Old, retired, happy Grandpa.

Cutomers don't seem to matter; except for their money.

Posted by Sirchriss

It’s no secret that the Rudd government is about to issue thousands and thousands of netbook like devices to all Year 9 students.  There is much consternation on who will support them and how they are used in the classroom and so on. All the usual whinging that happens with anything that isn’t routine.

But!

There is a prior level of detail that is at issue – getting that many devices delivered. I have dealt with many a company and bought items from all of them at one point or another. Once the signature is on the purchase order, then the commitment of the company to education (or customers in general) becomes clear.  Given the expectation is that you walk into a shop make a purchase and leave the shop with goods is normal – facing anything longer than a few days delivery time isn’t acceptable.  To be told it is weeks and weeks is simply taking the mickey. Any company that take months to make a delivery has to be questioned as to their capacity to be considered worthy of dealing with.

Computers in education is a now issue – having them on mass is a very soon issue.  I’m astonished by the arrogance of a company that can produce a machine that’s simply average then offer a delivery time of months, yet still consider itself worthy of being on the gov tender list.  Go figure!

Is a laptop school fundamentally different from a school where students have laptops?

Posted by Sirchriss

I think so because of where the focus is; it’s on who carries responsibility for using the technology. Teaching staff have done a fairly poor job over the last 20 years in adopting technology (remember that this is a broad stroke statement and not a comment on those individuals who do some truly remarkable things in a classroom). Maybe it’s time to stop banging our heads against the wall for teachers who don’t, won’t, or can’t get with it. Stop putting pressure on the overworked, on those too overwhelmed to actually consider upskilling, on those too old for this new fangled stuff, on those who won’t make any sacrifice in the long holidays they have, on those for whom the same old same old has sufficed for the last umpteen years, and leave them alone…       to teach. Let them just teach.

But, how about putting the effort we waste in shepherding unresponsive teaching staff to PD into making self directed, self responsible, self contained learning machines out of the students. Give them the transferable skills to administratively look after their learning, their notes, their portfolios, to research better, to develop maintain and share a personal learning network, to be critical of data sources, to know what to do when things go wrong, to make technology as much a part of their learning process as a pen.
Have them do this independently of the teacher, without making it an interruption to the teacher’s teaching style by having it as just another thing on their desk, like pencils, paper and text books.  We refocus who we concentrate on – all the school ICT integrators who’ve been banging away at teaching staff and admin workers and school leadership for years and years now – forget them, if they don’t want to join in leave them behind. Let’s try leading the revolution from where all revolutions come – bottom up. Governments can throw money our way, they can sound bite the term ‘digital education revolution’ all they like – they can’t make one – they can’t lead one, they don’t get it. Governments don’t start revolutions, they live through them, or in most case they don’t. Hmm let me eat cake.

Julia Gillard (bless her cotton socks) spouts on about a digital education revolution and throws some money at some hardware and a bit of infrastructure. Pointless. Nice, thanks for the laptops, but pointless. The same excuses will be trotted about again and again. The same old PC Vs Mac war will erupt again the same old poor me from primary teachers will flare against senior teachers, and around and around we will go.
Governments should be working at the extremities – training new start teachers better and assessing school leavers in a totally different way – but that’s for another blog post.

So how about a school where kids have laptops. NO not a laptop school a regular traditional good school, but kids happen to have laptops.
If we claim some of the KLE teaching time to show students how to research efficiently, to be critical of information sources, to maintain file structures and documents with proper tags so study becomes more structured and less daunting, to form PLNs to work in collaborative ways with peers to produce material in multimedia options and not just printed paper based ‘essays’, to establish links to current data sources, to do all the cool brilliant things we know should be done with ICT, then we have started the revolution.

Teachers don’t have to give up anything (yet) administrators don’t have to find money to send teachers to PD that they don’t even want to do, ICT coordinators won’t need to get so many grey hairs so soon and yet ICT might just get a chance to strut it’s stuff.

So – what shall we teach these laptop owners?
How to aggregate via RSS useful, current and appropriate information
How to develop a PLN
How to construct a digital footprint (positively)
How to search the net via the right tools the way that gets the best results
How to present their school work in a creative way

How to express their creativity through the applications available
How to connect with their peers to share work and ideasHow to develop a Twitter following
How to construct a self reflecting e-portfolio
How to choose the right software for the job
How to blog your homework
How to think about how you learn
How to…

Go on – add to the list

So why is filtering a pointless exercise?

Posted by Sirchriss

Filtered, sensibly restricted internet access via cable and wireless should be available in all schools. It should be an attractive option within school grounds based on: ubiquitous access, high access speeds, uncapped capacity, extremely high reliability, large file storage capacity, reliable backup and support from sound educational software.  This isn’t generally the case. Over zealous wowser appeasing and plain old arse covering fear usually dictates what is and isn’t allowed. Make it attractive and there’s no reason to look outside the boundaries. Filter sensibly and not punitively and no one will be unhappy. Make it so restrictive that it’s failing – everyone will instantly look for a way around. If filtering means that educational activities become impossible in school – the minute a kid has to say “I had to do {insert educational activity here} at home because I couldn’t do it at school” filtering has gone too far.

It’s nearly impossible to get perfect – I’ll list why in a minute, but the option of block everything – just in case – doesn’t work.

It’s never possible to get it right to suit everybody but trying to account for everyone means no one wins…
Consider granularity – this refers to the level of detail to which content can be filtered. This cannot be based on age or year grouping. Children reach different stages of maturity at different ages. School work crosses many class or form boundaries and sometimes includes non-school study, and filters cannot differentiate. The better solution – parental and teacher supervision plays a large role in the success of filters that cannot “think” so recognise this and let it be the criteria.
Current filtering technologies rely heavily on the accuracy of text-based descriptors to classify content – text entries are being superseded by multimedia graphics, video, podcasts, audio files, etc. It is not possible to automate the classification of these, and human intervention is not feasible and could be too subjective. Another reason technical filtering is not a good solution.
Filters cannot be changed on an ad hoc basis so can never be pitched perfectly. Another reason to look for an alternative to blanket blocking.  Don’t forget the issues of living in a multicultural society; what is appropriate to Australian culture may not suit others. For example, the internet doesn’t “understand” irony, colloquialisms or slang.
All these reasons point to teaching kids how to have their own filters, a level of sensibility that carries with them no matter where they are; prohibition doesn’t work (ask the American tea cup parties) but developing sensible coping mechanisms and appropriate behaviour does.
Besides, filters are easily bypassed; hundreds of new proxy servers appear every day and the jungle tom toms quickly spread the word. Put a TOR application on your home PC, access your home PC from school (all perfectly legit looking) but have access to the world.
The majority of filters work on meta data or text descriptors. Use the IP rather than the URL and filters are confused. Don’t forget instructions for VPNs are readily available with a few Google searches, they are free, simple and very effective at hiding activities even from ISPs and filters.
Filtering should also be considered in the context that a significant and growing portion of the student (and staff) population has 3G mobile devices (mostly phones) with independent internet access. Tethering is becoming easier and easier. Monthly access fees are coming down in price and bandwidth increasingly cheap.

Don’t forget there are multiple leaked wireless signals from local dwellings around all schools mostly with unfiltered and unprotected access. A quick scan with a NetStumbler reveals enough to cover you. Illegal, certainly, easy, just as certainly. These sources provide limitless access to all internet content. They are controlled by the subscriber and not by the school authorities. Schools cannot stop this – short of a giant Tesla coil around the school of course. Like that’s going to happen.

Students are inventive, curious have heaps of time, determination and a technical support community worthy of an IBM. Hide something and they’re sure to want to find it. Remove internet access and they will go looking for it. And it’s all too easy…

Does filtering encourage independent learning?
It is no longer desirable or feasible for teachers alone to cater to the diverse needs of a class in their journey from knowledge and recollection to achieve the necessary deep understanding and creative application that are required for success in the world of their future. More than ever before schools need to prepare students to become effective and independent, life-long learners who can respond to the ever growing knowledge landscape, the dynamism inherent in 21st century learning, the consequent shortening use-by dates of all qualifications and the expectation of multiple career directions, that will mark their lives.

The advent of the internet has enabled rich, targeted learning experiences to take place unbounded by institutions or geographical boundaries or timetables, and which compliment and go beyond classroom activities. These may be delivered by school directed On-line Learning Environments or by various independent internet communication tools, sourced by either students or teachers. The most effective 21st century learners will be those who are “connected” to diverse resources comprising their Personal Learning Network (PLN) and who have developed the digital literacy and academic and ethical skills to apply their learning with creativity and wisdom.

Schools therefore need to take up the challenge of helping our students to develop these necessary life-long education skills and to model learning as the building of rich personal learning networks.

Modern teachers should be able to model appropriate use of information technologies and their content and to provide guidance to students as part of their normal professional duties.

Schools need to develop independent, self-disciplined, digital citizens – capable of being self-protecting, sensible and responsible users of digital internet-based content.  Rather than blanket ban internet access and not only allow inadequate white lists, they should foster age-appropriate knowledge and skills necessary to develop self-protecting, sensible on-line behaviours.

We have to stop thinking its homework…

Posted by Sirchriss

There is still an unfortunate and overwhelming belief that schools are supposed to subscribe to the Qantas method of education; face the front, sit up straight, turn off all electronic communications devices, we are landing now and will be for the next 20 minutes – after, you can move freely and join the world once again.

For a generation of kids who were born into a connected world, for whom always-on constant connection is second nature (however superficial), it’s self evident that denying them such connection is only making schools increasingly irrelevant in the learning process. Note I’m not decrying the value of schools as social places, places of role models, of networking, yes of education, and friendship development, and of so much more than ‘learning’, but that’s a whole other discussion.

But! Prattling on about how iPods and PDAs and other mobile devices are good for homework – is missing the point (http://tinyurl.com/87oa8f). It makes the assumption that learning is a delimited thing by both venue and time.  Kids can only learn between the 9am bell and the 3:10 buzzer; rubbish. There should no longer be such a thing as homework; there should be less reliance on neatly bounded sharply delineated periods of learning and subject focus. Learning happens from wake up to sleep; it’s a collaborative thing between parents, peers, teachers and life in general.  If something is worth learning, kids will learn it regardless of when where or how. iPods, netpads, PDAs, game consoles, teachers faces, are nothing more than portals to information and the time kids access these should be exactly when the info is relevant and likely to stick.

Making something designated ‘homework’ is the same pointless proposition as only learning maths in this time slot only learning history during these designated minutes of the day. No kid’s mind focuses on a single subject at any timeslot, or for any predetermined time quantity. If this were not true teachers wouldn’t talk to students outside of their class time. They’d get all the maths or science or geography in those allotted moments.

Hattie’s findings (http://tinyurl.com/9jxbbu) that homework was less relevant than feedback is right – the methods are open to criticism, the numbers are easily challenged, teachers will always campaign for smaller classes, but the findings are still right.  Kids will learn when they have cause and interest to learn and they need ‘input’ in order to learn. Rename “feedback” to “providing answers, information & stimulating thought” and there it is – teaching, the thing we all do well. Hattie has supported that, but sidelong, kicked out the idea of delineated timeslots of learning.

Stop calling it homework, assume kids are connected and learning all the time and homework stops being something to endure and suffer.

Twitter is/was good – now, maybe, the too familiar is creeping in

Posted by Sirchriss

Twitter is still one of the more brilliant components of a personal learning network. For example, the links to good stories and articles, websites about new innovative products and methods would be a 24×7 job to find if you’re doing it alone. This, plus the collective knowledge and memory of your followers still makes Twitter an invaluable asset. The closeness and supportiveness of some of the relationships within Twitter are very clear and obvious. Peer knowledge is unsurpassed as the way to stay ‘with-it’ and informed. Without doubt the talent and professionalism of many tweeps shines and inspires.
BUT!
There is a sense of familiarity and take-for-granted creeping in. A bit like after the first half dozen dates – no more taking extra time to appear at your best, no changing outfit six times till one looks right, no more sucking in the gut when being photographed, no more finding flowers and small gifts to bring along. Some tweeps have started feeling comfortable. Too comfortable. When the useful is interspersed with absolute nonsensical rubbish about someone’s kid being toilet trained and woots when they don’t crap themselves and how someone has a headache so they are not the happiest little vegemites in the jar, the system has become an old dressing gown. I don’t get the value of being told that someone is now in a taxi. Unless it’s the first and only taxi ride you’ve ever had and you need to share, we all know about taxis – keep it to yourself.  I don’t see the value of knowing that they ate wheeties for breakfast – and please don’t include that the reason is to keep you ‘regular’. I have no interest that you think your toothbrush needs replacing – you’re grown up, go buy one. I don’t care to share those sorts of details about life’s ablutions with any one. I even spare my beautiful everloving wife the finer details about how I neatly shaved my top lip this morning and remembered to put the toilet seat down.

Surely it is possible to be a close-nit supportive group with all the tremendous benefits that brings without resorting to mundane, inane, dull nonsense. If you haven’t anything constructive to say, don’t keep up your tweet numbers by tweeting the dull. Like my gran said, if you haven’t anything fruitful to say don’t say anything at all. Twitter isn’t a competition, there is no prize for having the most tweets, and trying to have the most tweets by being a twirp doesn’t make you worthy of a gold star on your forehead.

When face to face with your PLN members, you have good conversations, but I’d bet they never resort to “oh dear the hem on my second best dress has a slipped a stitch” – so why should Twitter do the same?

Just a thought…

Antisocial networks??

Posted by Sirchriss

All day we hear things like “the world is flat” “wisdom of crowds” “always on communications” and more and more and they are all right – in their own way. Well, except that wisdom of crowds thing. Can’t say I have a lot of faith in most individuals so a crowd of them doesn’t make it much better – just more of the same. I think we have a good example of it happening now. The current global financial crisis spread like wildfire; because there is so much “connectedness” and the doom and gloom message gets to everyone rapidly.

If there’d been less availability of the bad news, then far fewer people would have gone into panic, far fewer banks would have started foreclosing, far fewer people would have sold shares. But, that all happened, the spirits of doom and gloom won.

Since the capacity of people to react so fast to something bad is so powerful why hasn’t someone researched how to harness that same capacity to spread the good stuff? Why are we still trying to spread the good word about the capabilities of educational technology to improve a teacher’s lot? How is it, the right people still don’t know a student’s study life improves with some classroom 2.0 support? What is it that stymies the good, but filters through the bad? I wish I knew. I wish we’d found the way to stop telling each other in the choir and got the congregations singing too.

Wisdom of crowds? Pffft!