Category Archives: stuff

news, stuff

Newspaper Boy

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In the past (over forty years ago) you needed to be a post graduate student to access old newspapers in the newspaper and library archives. They would need to go through the newspapers one by one until they found the articles they needed.

Twenty years ago, undergraduates could access newspapers on microfilm in their university libraries. They still needed to go through paper by paper, however microfilm allowed access to a wider range of newspapers and was in many ways faster than leafing through an actual newspaper.

Ten years ago, learners in colleges and schools could access newspaper articles on a CD-ROM using a computer in their classroom or library. The text was searchable and could be easily copied into a different medium.

Today, archives of newspapers from the last two hundred years can be accessed via a web browser on a mobile device or from a computer in the home, workplace or at college.

In the past the process of researching past newspapers was time intensive, expensive (travelling to archives) and exclusive; there was no way newspaper archives and university libraries would allow college students or school pupils access to their collections.

In the past learners would be dependent on text book interpretations of newspaper articles or even the author’s interpretations of events based on other sources. Today primary school children can access a range of newspaper archives covering the last two hundred years and that alone can and should have an impact on the delivery of learning.


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Maybe it isn’t the harvest….

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Those of you who have heard me present in recent years may have heard me talk about how we have a culture based on “we do what do, because we have always done it that way” and talk about the start of term in September and the long summer break and how this is because in the past we needed to let the children get the harvest in…

So I did enjoy reading Mick Water’s column in the TES in which he talks about the long summer break and that getting in the harvest is a bit of a myth…

There are many myths about the school year’s provenance. The pattern of the harvest is a favourite but not very solid: the people who drove the beginnings of our public-school system did not really need their children home to help with harvest as they had workers for that. The universities, though, needed time to assess the results of their entrance examinations so that they could organise their new autumn intake. The school holidays mirrored the pattern of Parliament, with the long summer break for the wealthy of the time.

Indeed, the long summer holiday was essential for public schools so that children could do proper things with their parents like go on the grand tour of Europe, join a safari, learn to shoot things, and visit museums and theatres. After that, schools would “top up” the pupils’ education by teaching them things beyond their families’ scope.

Well going to have to now go and edit my presentations and remove all those harvest pictures.

Even so the point I was making still stands, we do things, because we have always done them that way. The origin of the long summer break isn’t the important point, the point is that we continue to have long summer breaks, because we have always had long summer breaks. We don’t even really know why we have long summer breaks, but we continue to have them, because we have always had them.

Culture of organisations and the people within those organisations is often based on doing what they have always done. They continue to do what they do, as they have always done. There is no reason or incentive to change. Generally change only comes about when there is a shock to the system and we are forced to change.

As a learning technologist I see myself as an agent of change. However I see my role as changing the organisation, not just individuals. It is more challenging to change the culture of an organisation, but the impact will be greater.

On a final note (and I am sometimes guilty of this as much as the next person).

The summer break remains a chance to learn about the real world. The broader a child’s outside school experience, the easier it is to learn in the artificial world of the classroom.

Just to point out, though we sometimes think this, school, college or university is the real world and we should stop thinking it is something different, it sends the wrong message to learners, the wrong message to parents and the wrong message to politicians. If we think school isn’t in the real world then where is it? Mordor?

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Life after Death by Powerpoint

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Don McMillan has released an updated version of his Life after Death by Powerpoint sketch which was originally an internet hit back a few years back.

If you haven’t seen it before, he does make some useful observations on how people use Powerpoint for presentations, oh and it’s quite funny too.


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…but I’m a technophobe!

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King Edward I - Torbay Express - 30th August 2009

One of the issues with embedding technology into teaching and learning is the resistance to the embedding by practitioners.

Many factors are discussed for the reasons, from fear of technology, to a lack of time. These discussions fail to recognise that there are many practitioners for whom embedding technology is something they can do in the same time as everyone else. Can time really be the issue, isn’t it much more about priorities than a lack of time?

As for the fear, I am sure there are some real technophobes out there, those for whom technology is a really scary thing that needs to be feared (like dragons) and should never be used. These people probably don’t have a television, a microwave, nor a phone (let alone a mobile phone). These true technophobes do exist I am sure, but as a proportion of practitioners in education, they must be a very small minority, less than 1% for sure and probably a lot less.

So what of the others? Those that say they are fearful of technology?

Well I suspect that these use technology on a day to day basis and probably don’t actually consider it technology. I recall one practitioner been quite proud of the fact that she was a technophobe, however when questioned further she not only used the internet, but used IM and Skype on a regular basis to talk to her daughter in Australia! What is apparent talking to many practitioners who don’t see the need or feel they can use technology for learning, in their day to day life use technology all the time for their own needs and in their non-work life.

One issue that appears to be a barrier is that these practitioners have issues in transferring skills they have built up in their day to day life to using these skills to support teaching and importantly learning.

The same can be said with learners and a recognition that learners who use technology all the time, don’t necessarily know how to use technology to support their learning.

So how do we get teachers who use technology on a daily basis to be able to transfer their skills into the effective use of technology in the classroom?

That is a question that may take a little longer to answer.

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The importance of dull technology

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Who needs a computer when a typewriter will do!

Over the years I have gained a reputation at my college (and out and about) of talking about shiny stuff. I even called a mobile learning project Shiny as a result.

Though one thing that came out of a recent conversation with some extremely clever and bright people at a JISC symposium was the importance of dull technology. Dull as in not shiny rather than, dull as in boring.

For those of us involved in extreme e-learning or technology enhanced learning, we sometimes focus on the innovative, the exciting, the new, the shiny stuff. Well it’s where we want to be isn’t it, cutting edge and all that? We want to be using iPads, Android Tablets, the latest and best Web 2.0 tools and services. We get so excited at times that we even do projects and research on them, before writing it up, putting the stuff on a shelf and moving to the next new shiny thing.

I don’t think that there is too much wrong with that, some people do need to be at the cutting edge, they do need to be the blue skies thinkers, the people who innovate and create new ways of learning, inspired by changes in technologies and thinking.

As a result it can be very easy to forget the dull, the stuff we were using last year, two years ago or five years ago. We can even be dismissive of these dull technologies, pointing out how old they are, how useless they are “now” and that they are dead!

The main reason why dull technologies are important is that the majority of practitioners within an institution will not be at the cutting edge, will not be using all technologies innovatively. This means when planning training and staff development it is vital that dull technologies are included and allowed for. Just because we are bored with something doesn’t mean that someone else in your organisation will find it exciting and just the thing to solve the particular problem they are facing.

Photo source.

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Purpos/ed 3×5

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For the Purpos/ed campaign a couple of weeks back I wrote 500 words on the purpose of education, which you can read here.

The campaign continues with the 3×5 campaign.

For mine I took a photograph of mine (less worried then about rights) that I had taken at Blaise Castle in Bristol.

Purpos/ed

For the words I chose a quote from Kevin McLauglin. To be honest there were lots of quotes I could have chosen and though some were already “taken” by others, in the end I chose Kevin’s words as I liked the inevitability that learners will learn somehow, but with the right guidance that learning can grow, like a tree hence the picture, and enable the learner to survive the storms and challeneges thrown against them. They can thrive whether it be hot or cold, wet or dry.

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Purpos/ed

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So what is the purpose of education?

Well it’s all about control and power of course.

Not what I think it is about, but then again most educators probably think like me, however…

Most educational institutions will control education within their walls (and on the internet). They will set the parameters by which learners can learn within their four walls. Often these parameters will be set by government departments. Othertimes these constraints will be set by the institutions and by academics.

Governments fund education to control the population. To ensure that they behave according to societal norms and don’t “rock the boat”. This doesn’t always work, but does formal education cause governments to change, generally no.

Businesses want education to be about preparing people to work for them without complaint regardless of pay or working conditions. Create a workforce that will do their bidding.

Retailers and marketers want education to be about conformity, so that when we venture out we conform to an accepted norm. Not question what we are shown or see.

Of course the purpose of education should be about freedom and choice. A freedom to learn in order to free oneself from the shackles of your environment. Freedom to better oneself. Freedom to learn about new things and old things. Freedom to think.

Even most academics and practitioners would argue they see education as a way of freeing oneself, however they do this by laying down mechanisms, processes and protocols that control whoever enters education. Placing restrictions on what can be learnt, how it can be learnt and focus on assessment of learning. This is not something that is particular to any sector, but can be found in all sectors.

Of course with freedom comes responsibility and if we give learners to freedom to make choices about education, will they make educated and informed choices, or will they choose what they perceive to be the easy path, or the path of least resistance.

So are learners able to make these informed choices, rational decisions?

Many learners do and many learners will use educational institutions for education, learners will also make decisions about their education to use more informal routes to education, some of these will be semi-formalised, such as Open University modules, Adult Education and short courses at FE Colleges,

Some will be routes completely outside formal educational and will take place in local or online communities. Clubs, societies, online forums and mailing lists are all ways in which learners can access an education. They will not be looking at these as a route to a qualification. We as a society will not define these informal routes as education and often will not value this learning

Some learners won’t make informed choices, so do we say they must take part in a formal education?

So despite our best intentions to ensure education is about freedom and choice, this is what I believe education is about, the reality is that education is about control and power.

Find out more about Purpos/ed.