dougmuses

Have been listening/watching all morning to the live video stream from the Learning Without Frontiers 12 (#lwf12) Conference in London and feel immensely stimulated by what I am hearing.

I do so hope that Mr Gove is watching.

Sorry but I just can’t bring myself to write much about this. I am recording it here for posterity really. Just wanted to record the moment in England’s education history when satisfactory wasn’t … wasn’t satisfactory I mean.

This from the BBC Education News.

I had to go to the dictionary to be sure … and … satisfactory (adj): Fulfilling expectations or needs; acceptable, though not outstanding or perfect..

So I get it now all schools have to be outstanding and perfect … and, of course, above average.

…and now …

“requires improvement” … requires (vb): Need for a particular purpose; depend on for success or survival Improvement (n) The action of improving or being improved

Says it all really !

My Twitter friends … specifically in the is case @nightzookeeper … come up with information that I feel that I would never come across in any other way.

‘Sweden debuts first classroom-less school’

This is a great example of what I mean and is a wonderful example of the potential of creative thought applied outside the conventional ideas. Stephen Heppell also has much to say about ideas on leaning spaces and as we move into a more digitised world then there should be opportunities to take advantage of the flexibility that is allowed when learning takes place through digital media. The nature of the situation changes and so do the interactions demanded. Old style classrooms will not fulfill the potential and will continually prove to be a barrier to acceptance and progress.

Again, it is time to move on and, now at least, Sweden might just be ahead of the game.

Image attribution: capl@washjeff.edu

Sunday evening television and a chance to visit places and ideas about the countryside with the BBC programme Countryfile. The embedding of natural sculptures into the Wolds of East Yorkshire was fascinating and I can’t wait to get out and walk the route to see developments.

But what really attracted my attention was the item about David Hockney and his artistic use of an iPad to capture memorable and exciting images of a simple country lane.

Here is what is reported on BBC Radio 3 about it all:

He has returned to painting in the open air in the manner of a 19th century artists but he has also mastered the iPad as a means of depicting the landscape and, as he shows Rachel, he has developed a new kind of multi-moving image film to record he favourite places in the wolds. These films, made with banks of 9 digital cameras, encourage the ‘intense looking’ which is at heart of Hockney’s philosophy and they break the limitations imposed by the single perspective available with one camera.

His exhibition at the RA should be awesome … listen to him explain it here.

Such an artist moving into a world of digitised technology to get the effects he wants should inspire others to move forward and pause those who cannot see the opportunities created.

‘Time and tide wait for no man’ - originally St. Marher, 1225

At the North of England Education Conference in Leeds today Mr Twigg appears to have discovered Sir Ken Robinson:

He told delegates: “On a conceptual level, many schools are still organised like factories. The workers down tools when they hear the bell ring, and are strictly separated into production lines, focused on building the constituent parts of knowledge, maths, science etc. At the same time, students are rigidly separated. Taught in batches, not by ability or interest, but by their own date of manufacture.”

This is what the BBC reported that he said.

See/hear what Sir Ken said on the RSA site or watch the animation at RSA Animate - listen here to the excellent presentation or start from 06.30 - 07.11 to get the actual words.

I feel sure that Mr Twigg will have attributed the quotation … it is good to know that there is some thinking beyond the constraints of time and place. It will be good to hear how others feel about making changes in the basic organisation of institutional education and what effect this would have on future schooling.

Mr Twigg also called for schools to embrace technology as a vital tool of learning and said they should shift from being like factories to become 21st Century hubs of innovation.

I am just not actually sure that all people can be innovators … we do need some people to do other things … to actually do things that keep the infrastructure systems going … a point for debate.

I am assuming that everyone understands the title of this post and the snail …

I read with my usual disbelief an article in the Telegraph today called: Children must learn their times tables by age of nine . and found myself marveling at the clairvoyance of the journalist … best wait until Monday (so Andrew Pollard says on Twitter) when I can read it from ‘the horse’s mouth’.  Andrew Pollard was one of four in an Expert Panel advising the English government on a Review of the National Curriculum. Love the bit in the article :The Daily Telegraph has learnt.!

In the meantime …

I taught in primary schools for more than 30 years and in all of that time I cannot remember a moment when either myself or my colleagues did not spend a good deal of time working towards such an end. There were games, practices, recitations, chants, homeworks, tests and even a ‘tables’ day when everyone in the school took part in a tables challenge. In this challenge the older ones, Y5s, pitted themselves against the ‘TON’ … this was a sheet with all of the conventional 100 facts mixed up ( Oh !! … just had a thought … they don’t mean up to 12 X 12 do they? No … surely not? ). The aim was to complete it all correct in less than 5 minutes. For the fastest there was a trophy … this was often won in less than 2 minutes … I can see her now shouting out ‘finished’. There was no thinking time here this was raw knowledge. But not necessarily understanding (though in her case I think there was).

During my life as an educationalist/teacher I have been involved with/edited/authored/checked  at least three maths schemes - one, Space Maths, still being produced as I write - and always there has been an emphasis on the fast recall of these ‘tables’ facts. I would love to see the evidence which informs me that this is not done universally in our schools and that, on the whole, children do learn them and are encouraged to recall them instantly.

However, the older generation, who were taught all of these things, may be the ones who struggle. Today on BBC TV a presenter when asked 6 X 7 certainly did not have instant recall - lack of practice, lack of purpose or bad teaching? Funny how she could not remember the universal answer !

The leaked ‘facts’ re the proposed new curriculum make almost amusing reading, here is just one: … the introduction of distinct lessons in grammar and more rigorous reading lists covering Homer, Sophocles and Shakespeare. I just love the idea that there are a group of people who think that reading Homer and Sophocles as a general thing is a useful way into generating a lifelong journey with and love of reading. Shakespeare, of course, is read and enjoyed in many primary schools. Just loving the idea that: Countries with “fast improving” education systems such as Poland have higher expectations in reading lists, including Homer, Sophocles and Shakespeare - I assume that each country goes back to the original so that translation does not become an issue - I have always wondered about Sophocles but have not returned to the original Greek to check.

And now comes the really fun bit:The conclusions of the review had been expected in the new year, but wholesale reform of the curriculum will now be delayed by 12 months . A final report by an expert panel is unlikely to be published until the end of 2012, with specifications in the core subjects to be introduced in 2014 rather than 2013.

So another three years, added to the current year, go by before the Government make up their mind what should happen to our institutional education system.

This strikes me as wonderful opportunity!

In April 2010 the iPad was released into our lives … that is 20 months ago … of course it has had little or no impact on the way we use technology nor on the way education sees the use of such powerful devices (irony). So the new curriculum will be developed now for three years hence - I wonder how future proof that will be or will it be ‘back to the future’. Of course, by then, most schools will be Academies, and will not have to follow it! Except that this might not be the case as I understand that the Minister can via annual funding letters, can tell free schools and academies what should be taught. So the only schools who will be forced to follow the newly developed curriculum are the few who have not trodden the Governments pathway towards independence.

And, I confess, do not understand this: … In another key development, pupils could be required to master key subject content before classes move on to the next stage — ensuring no child is left behind.

Does this mean that it is subject content that the new curriculum will be about? Does it mean that everyone in a class must master something or other before the class moves on? Or does it mean that a child/student will stay where they are until they ‘get it’? Isn’t this what used to happen in the US - perhaps it still does happen. Or perhaps this was just bad guessing and writing on the part of the Telegraph journalist.

My big hope is that in the ensuing time period between now and ‘then’ schools will work hard (as they always do) to develop a meaningful, progressive and creative curriculum to fit local, national and international needs. And then they will continue with it …

I read with interest yesterday the report from Ofqual and the DfE about changes to the GCSE exams from September 2012. This appears to me to be a knee jerk reaction to the reports earlier in the week about teachers being told which questions will crop up on certain exam papers. Also interesting that these changes are short-term reforms. Elastoplasts and bandages for a failing idea? We need some new adventurous thinking and a look at what the World is doing not keeping tight to the strictures of ‘Fortress UK’.

It is interesting to look towards Finland where a nation of about 5.5 million people that does not start formal education until age 7 and scorns homework and testing until well into the teenage years … and who put high-quality teachers at the heart of Finland’s education success story.

What is interesting is how Nick Gibb et al has chosen to use the opportunity to tie up lots of political educational end. Gone are modular GCSEs and gone are the multiple re-sits - this is interesting as exams for the prestige things such as music and dance have the opposite view to this.

Nick Gibbs says: We want to break the constant treadmill of exams and retakes throughout students’ GCSE courses - school shouldn’t be a dreary trudge from one test to the next. Sitting and passing modules has become the be-all and end-all, instead of achieving a real, lasting understanding and love of a subject. Students shouldn’t be continually cramming to pass the next exam or re-sitting the same test again and again simply to boost their mark – then forgetting it all by moving onto the next module immediately.

Now this is good … I feel that everyone will sign up for this … but when we have an education system where points mean prizes how do you break away?

Which brings me to the question of why are we going back to what we had before and not moving on? Surely the technological advances mean that certain things could and should be tested/assessed in a more 21C way? The move from ‘paper and pencil’ to ‘electronic exams’ has long been a spurned holy grail and was discussed as far back (and probably further) in 2006. Where did all of this go?

And as if to confirm the ‘back to the future’ (or basics) stance : Students will be marked on the accuracy of spelling, punctuation and grammar and their use of specialist terms.

I agree totally on the necessity of using specialist terms ( was this not once called ‘key-word marking?) and am totally unsure how you can write about things in science, geography, law etc without using them - but spelling and grammar !!! …  English Literature, geography, history and religious studies. Five per cent of total marks in these subjects will be for spelling, punctuation and grammar.

So a bit like ‘Strictly Come Dancing’, diving or gymnastics there will be a gratuitous mark for ‘overall impression’ … 5% … I can really see students worrying over this.

Exciting times …

Attribution image: ‘Cuckoo; Cuculus canorus (juvenile)‘
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8289389@N04/4245954196

This morning I stated reading the BBC news as I lay in bed … iP*ds are wonderful things … and picked up on an article about a report concerning ICT and Ofsted. It seemed to suggest that ‘we’ had got it all wrong … that is the teachers/schools/education system had. We had been teaching the wrong things and just had not noticed that the tech revolution had caught us up and passed us by. In effect we were inadequate. At least the Secondary sector appeared to be. The primary sector seemed to be doing a good job: The majority of primary school leaders had a clear understanding of the contribution of ICT to their schools’ wider improvement. There were regular audits of staff training requirements and good support for meeting the needs of teachers and teaching assistants. Now if the results of a survey of my PGCE students are anything to go be then I am interested in this statement.

As the day marched on the Twitterverse sprang into action with analysis and comments and Naace produced a response.

The day moved on as it will and now the BBC popped back up again with the redoubtable Rory Cellan-Jones reporting on the report’s report.

So where does this all get us, towards the end of the day? Well I think that all publicity is good publicity and the spectre of technology (or ICT) is well out in the open. In actual fact Ofsted’s Chief Inspector Miriam Rosen (who is actually an acquaintance of mine as we both often are to be seen orienteering in various parts of the World) seems to agree:“In a world that is becoming increasingly reliant on technology,” she says, “young people need to be given the opportunity to learn ICT skills in an interesting, challenging and relevant way.”

So now what we need is a change of teacher mindset. We have to have hearts and minds as well as rhetoric.

Interesting times …

I understand that Mr Gove will be speaking at BETT this year and is making preemptive strikes to be sure of getting the right message  across. The TES announced that he is finally turned on to technology. He admits to being ‘behind the curve’ on its role in schools ( the ‘its’ being technology). Let’s hope that Nick Gibb does not get to him before the rest of us do.

Hopefully he will have listened to or read what Neelie Kroes Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for the Digital Agenda Transforming learning through technology said about new tools for teachers and new opportunities for students at the 17th International Conference on Technology Supported Learning and Training in Berlin on 1 December 2011. The comment that caught my eye was: My main message is that we must not be constrained by how things have been done in the past. Rather, let’s be creative, putting learners and learning at the centre of our efforts. We just need to keep pushing…

Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never Is, but always To be blest:
The soul, uneasy and confin’d from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

-Alexander Pope,
An Essay on Man, Epistle I, 1733

Attribution: Image: ‘Light at the end of the tunnel‘
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10855397@N02/1266178086

It seems a long time ago now since Marc Prensky coined the phrases ‘digital immigrants’ and ‘digital native’  … in fact more than a decade has past and I think it is true to say that we have all moved on from the idea that people are either one or the other. We are all blended , dependent upon need, position, inclination, interest, and perhaps, will.

Education really has reached the top of the hill or the bottom of the dip, rather dependent on which way you look at things, and almost cataclysmic changes now need to happen. We have to move on or risk having an institutional system that is so out of place and not fit for purpose that the young people we wish to support declare that it and we are redundant.

The change cannot be made by steady drip. We have to acknowledge that the pace of innovative development in communications and access to information has made much of the pedagogy which has stood the test of time since the Victorian age now out of place. The ownership of the learning must be passed to the learner and key skills needed are those which support how to access, reflect upon and get best use from the information unearthed.

We are in the process of alienating our young people. The Guardian eduction article ‘No place in class for digital illiterates’ comments ‘The notion of literacy has radically changed in the face of technologies that allow for different forms of expressions and levels of interaction, which is why teachers must adapt.’

We must equip and then allow our young people to become real learners. There is no room here for labels as there might have been a decade ago … we have to move on …

Attribution: Image: ‘Golden future‘
http://www.flickr.com/photos/51773358@N00/69731338

Below are ideas and items that over the last few weeks have caught my eye, my imagination or my mind in one way or another.

1. ‘Shake the Dust’ …  a poem by Anis Mogjani called brought to my attention by good friend and extreme athlete John Munro. There are lines in here to trip the soul and to make you weep at days spent on days. Here is the text.

2. QR time … the extrapolation from static to dynamic of a QR.

3. Scoop.it … a new way to gather and curate web sites pertaining to a specific topic or project … and make them look worth reading.

4. #pencilchat … on Twitter - an idea that went viral as people used it as a metaphor or allegory for their own and other people’s engagement with technology.

I am meeting my PGCE Digital Technologies Specialists at The University of Leicester next week and I hope they can extend this list.

I must congratulate Mr Gove and his writing team for his speech at the SSAT’s first conference under its new name - The Schools Network. It read like an essay written for an ‘A’ level paper where marks were to be awarded for the key words linked together by granularity.

Here is the bit of the speech that I was really interested in and my annotation of the key words.

Digital networks

I want to turn now from networks between schools to an altogether different sort of network: networks of the digital kind.

It’s an understatement to say our world has been transformed by technology. There was a particularly poignant and wonderful illustration of this in a recent New Scientist editorial, written to mark Steve Jobs‘ death. “Nothing dates the 1987 movie Wall Street”, the piece argues, “like the $4000 cellphone clutched by financier Gordon Gekko. It was the size of a brick and he could only talk for 30 minutes before having to recharge it.” In the 1980s, the capabilities of today’s smartphones would have been unfathomable to consumers and engineers alike. They’d have thought it impossible that so much powerful technology could be packed into such a tiny case. If you were trying to build an iPhone using equivalent components from the 1980s, asks the author, just how big would that phone be? Running through all the parts - from the antennas to the batteries to the GPS to the gyroscope to the accelerometer to the cameras to the mobile computing capability and more - New Scientist concludes you would need a truck to haul around an iPhone built of 1985 parts. We’ve gone from an 18-wheeler to a pocket in just 26 years.

It’s not just the hardware. Entire sectors employing millions of people didn’t even exist a quarter century ago. And many of those that were around in the ’80s operate today in ways that are unrecognisable to those of the past. Given the extent of the transformation -  and the pace at which it’s happening - it is imperative we have a school system capable of adapting to and preparing for the challenges ahead. If we don’t, we will betray a generation.

And yet there is a perception by some that my department isn’t especially concerned about such things. That we care more about Tennyson than technology. That our interest is in Ibsen, not iTunes. That we’re more Kubla Khan than Khan Academy.

This couldn’t be further from the truth. I am absolutely committed to ensuring that our school system not only prepares pupils for this changing world, but also embraces the technological advances which are transforming education. My department is thinking hard about this and we’ll be saying more in the new year. But I’d like to talk briefly today about some of the critical developments that have been shaping our thinking.

One of the greatest changes can be seen in the lives of children and young people, who are at ease with the world of technology and who communicate, socialise and participate online effortlessly. Two-thirds of five- to seven-year-olds use the internet at home, rising to 82 per cent for 8- to 11-year-olds and 90 per cent for 12- to 15-year-olds. Over a third of 12- to 15-year-olds own a smartphone, and typically use the internet for 15.6 hours every week. Children are increasingly embracing technology at a younger age: for example, 23 per cent of five- to seven-year-olds now use social networking sites.

Yet the classrooms of today don’t reflect these changes. Indeed, many of our classrooms would be very recognisable to someone from a century ago. While there has been significant investment in technology in education, it has certainly not transformed the way that education is delivered.

Part of the problem has been that investment has focused on hardware. My fear is that, in the past, too much emphasis has been placed on machines that quickly become obsolete, rather than on training individuals to be technologically as literate and adept as they need to be. What’s more, fixating on expensive, soon-to-be out-of-date kit represents a failure to understand the fundamental changes taking place.

One major change concerns content. Technology is having a huge impact on the way educational material can be delivered. iTunesU now gives everybody access to the world’s best lectures. The Khan Academy provides 2700 high-quality micro tutorials on the web, so that anyone, anywhere can access them for free. Brilliant scientific publications like Science are building their own ecosystems of educational content. And by definition, as we move to a world where we expect every child will have a tablet, the nature and range and type of content that can be delivered will be all the greater.

Educational gaming, for example, is a booming area - and ripe for even further development. Games developed by Marcus Du Sautoy, Professor of Mathematics at Oxford, are helping children engage with complex maths problems that would hitherto have been thought too advanced. And the Department for Education is currently working with the Li Ka Shing Foundation and the highly respected Stanford Research Institute on a pilot programme to use computer programmes to teach maths. We have not developed the programme - we are just helping them run a pilot. Stanford say it is one of the most successful educational projects they have seen.

These exciting advances are the sort of thing that a central government department could never hope to produce and maintain. And nor should it seek to: Whitehall must enable these innovations but not attempt to micromanage them. Such content is being created daily, and the vast majority is free to anyone with an internet connection. Our role is to help bring schools and these developments together.

To be absolutely clear: this isn’t about replacing teachers with YouTube videos - of course it isn’t. But it would be negligent of us not to look at how we can harness these developments for the benefit of all pupils. In Singapore, for example, I was lucky enough to witness how a superb lesson can be delivered through a mixture of online and teacher-led instruction. We can do it here too - and in the coming months we’ll be setting out how.

Another way in which technology is changing education is through its potential to create sharper assessment systems. Computer lab management software is now so sophisticated that an individual teacher can monitor how each student is doing simultaneously and then - without singling out that child in front of others - provide them with the direct amount of support that they need, accelerating the rate at which some children can learn and providing additional help for others. Problems can be picked up earlier. Students can be stretched when they’re ready. It’s the next step towards truly personalised learning - and it will also enable parents to have a better understanding of the level at which their children are operating.

Thirdly, technological advances can have a huge impact on teacher training. Teachers can more easily observe other teachers and learn more about the craft. Professional development content can be delivered in more accessible, engaging, and cost effective ways. Individual teachers can use the latest developments to refine their lessons to precision. As Michael Nielsen points out in his excellent new book, ‘Reinventing Discovery’, new developments allow teachers to get better feedback about how their lessons are being received. So not only does the spread of innovations like the Khan Academy mean there is more great teaching material on the web, but new tools like Google Analytics allow anyone to analyse video for attention, second-by-second, in a way that used to be very expensive and complex. All these are welcome developments.

Of course, in stressing the importance of digital content, I’m not saying we should neglect hardware altogether - far from it. But hardware means more than just the latest desktop -  especially when many pupils are increasingly likely to have access to superior technology at home - or even in their pockets - than in their school’s computer lab. That’s why we need to think about how to give more children the chance to engage with truly cutting edge hardware, like 3D printers, or learn the fundamentals of programming with their own single-board computers, like the Raspberry Pi.

The challenge for us is this: how we can harness the many exciting technological leaps that are constantly being made? We will be saying much more early in the new year. Make no mistake: this is a priority for me. I believe we need to take a serious, intelligent approach to educational technology if our children are not to be left behind. As John Chubb and Terry Moe put it in their excellent book on the subject, a genuine engagement with the wondrous world of technological innovation will see children’s learning ‘liberated from the dead hand of the past.’ We owe it to pupils across the country to take this issue seriously.

Did I get them all? How many marks do I get?

It will be most interesting to see how all of the rhetoric pans out.

A level playing field

I read today that Everton Football Club has become the first Premier League club in the country to be granted government permission to open a Free School.

Now I have always thought the idea of removing education from politics was good I wonder where this will lead … The Everton Free School will provide education and sports tuition for 120 14 to 19-year-olds.

So Football = Sports school

Which supermarket chain will be the first to open the first ‘retail’ school? and which bank will come in with the first ‘ accountancy’ school?

Or does this push the idea of those that have the money will call the tune too far?

The school will have noble ideals: It will, unquestionably, provide a real chance for some less-privileged, less-fortunate children to embrace and benefit from a high-quality education.

I am left wondering about all those children who are not less-privileged nor less-fortunate but who are just children. Who will be there fighting their corner?

Sunday’s Guardian  online posted a wonderful article about smartphones and handheld computers: the new battleground in UK schools.

Institutions need to recognise that the time is now here and passed to move on and to embrace the power of the technology that people have access to and harness it for educational use. The longer procrastination takes place the more young people will be disadvantaged in a world economy.

The government said it would be publishing a strategy on the use of technology in schools before Christmas … I do hope that they listen to the educationalists and the users and manage to remove the ‘education’ agenda from the ‘political’ one.

Let’s move on …

Attribution: Image: ‘Friend or Foe ‘
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27273974@N00/3012391951

In the research based world of education I wonder if the Government will listen to the views of the experts over the introduction of the ‘Pseudowords’ reading test, check, investigation, assessment etc for six year olds.

The BBC report:  ‘The government’s new reading test for six-year-olds is a waste of money that will not identify youngsters’ needs, experts have warned.’

The report highlights: … 72% of pilot schools said “pseudowords” caused confusion for some, or most, of their pupils.

But they are not listening:

A DfE spokesman said: “Academic research from all around the world - from Australia to the US - shows that systematic synthetic phonics is the best way to teach early reading. Pupils who need more help to master phonics need to be identified as early as possible, which is why we will introduce a phonics check for six-year-olds from next year.”

She added: “The evidence from the pilot is clear - thousands of six-year-olds, who would otherwise slip through the net - will get the extra reading help they need to become good readers, to flourish at secondary school and to enjoy a lifetime’s love of reading.”

There is no evidence to suggest that these children will slip through any net … teachers are professionals and will support those who need help!

Just picked up a report on a debate in the House of Lords (thanks to my Twitter PLN for this) re the use of technology in education. The debate - 61D: After Clause 29, insert the following new Clause—“Technology in schools
(1) The Secretary of State shall publish a plan detailing the delivery of the use of technology to aid teaching across all subjects in the curriculum, for pupils of all ages, in all maintained schools and Academies.
(2) The plan must be published and laid before Parliament by July 2012.”

Here are just some of the choice ‘word bites’ from the debate … the text from Hansard here.

From Lord Willis of Knaresborough: It is enormously disappointing that we still have from the Government a view that technology, particularly information communications technology, is a distraction from the central aim of raising standards. It is absolutely essential to the raising of standards to have proper technology and technology policies in our schools. We are not promoting the case for ICT as an alternative to conventional subject matter or pedagogy but as an integral part of delivering a world class, 21st century curriculum.

Baroness Garden of Frognal: It would be almost impossible to deliver the curriculum successfully in a 21st-century school without the effective use of technology.

Lord Willis of Knaresborough: I am much more interested in ICT being the electricity—the energy—that delivers, motivates and turns youngsters on to a high-performing education system.

Unfortunately it appears that Amendment 61D was withdrawn.

I do not know or understand what this might mean but the fact that the House of Lords spent time on debating the use of technology in education must be a plus.

Well done Mi Lords and Ladies !

Today is surely an excellent day to listen to Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech made in 2005.

Here is some of what he said:

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Steve Jobs 1955 -2011

Image from @daveterron

Michael Gove has, as a precursor to the Tory Conference, decided that he will champion the learning of a foreign language. This ‘new’ initiative will apply to children from the age of five so says the Guardian.

In a pre-Conservative conference interview, he says: “There is a slam-dunk case for extending foreign language teaching to children aged five.

“Just as some people have taken a perverse pride in not understanding mathematics, so we have taken a perverse pride in the fact that we do not speak foreign languages, and we just need to speak louder in English. It is literally the case that learning languages makes you smarter. The neural networks in the brain strengthen as a result of language learning.”

And how will this fit in to a school timetable … simply extend the time children are at school …

… Urges more schools to follow the example of academies by extending the school day, for example by adding five hours’ extra learning a week – or six weeks a year.

So how long is a school day? It just can’t be right that if the current arrangements for the time children/students spend in school is right for when they are 11, 15, 18 that it is also right for 5, 7 and 9 years old. It can’t be right that the length of ‘learning’ time is the same for all. There must be another way.

Adding extra hour does not mean extra learning … for some it would mean the opposite.

I also wonder, at a time when our youngest children are being fed on a diet of systematic synthetic phonics whether any confusions would come to them as they try to learn and pronounce things in a different language. I am unsure how well the SSP works in other languages.

Well worth reading this to get a language teacher’s perspective. I wonder if Mr Gove has read it?

Attribution: Image: ‘universal thank you note‘

‘Which way the wind blows …’                          D Dickinson September 2011

Can you put these words into the ‘correct’ order going from nice and non intimidating to downright scary please:

Check, test,  exam, assessment, task,check-up, audit, survey, study … and add some of your own if you wish.

Today the BBC announced that the ‘Reading check for six-year-olds rolled out’ next summer. The article goes on to describe how the pilot study had been carried out … one head teacher said : ‘It’s a quick check of children’s phonic knowledge, not a reading test.’

So not about reading then just about being able to talk ‘Clanger’ or ‘Wooky’ and it is clear that it is not a ‘test’ it is a ‘check’.

What happened to ‘reading readiness‘? and do we really wish to buy into a check that is conceptually based on failure not success? … tree little milk egg book school sit frog playing bun flower road clock train light
picture think summer people something …

And what is reading anyway in a 3rd Millenium learning context … where does decoding the blend of text, sound, image, animation and video come into it? Or is it just about being able to ’say’ the text?

Attribution: ‘The Stepping Stones’ Doug Dickinson August 2011

” The time has come,” the Walrus said,”To talk of many things… ”
Lewis Carroll
(from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872)

Institutional education with its buildings and rooms and timetables and exams has played lip service to the power of technology for long enough.  We are moving on. The ownership of learning should be with the learners and powerful and inspirational teachers, through technological innovation, should be taking the stage to ful;fil a destiny in a flat world. No longer should anyone be tethered by their geography, age, race or religion … the door is open … but will the establishment allow and encourage the learners to walk through.

To help you make your mind up go here and form an opinion and see where this fits into what you know and believe or what you can believe.

It could be a start but it could be an end also. Certainly food for thought …

Recently I wrote about some schools in a variety of the States of USA that are not devoting as much time to the ’skill’ of handwriting as they had previously. I note that in China there is a worry about the loss of the art of calligraphy and the the State there is moving in the opposite direction.

So communication or art-form is it a case of one or the other? It seems that technology/computers is again getting the blame.

I love the art-forms of calligraphy and admire the skill and dedication of the writers and firmly believe that there is a place for wonderfully beautiful ‘writing’ … the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles are a marvelous example of communications inside a work of art.

A matter of sense of audience and ‘horses-for-courses’.

‘Let’s hear it for practical blue sky thinking’ - D Dickinson - August 2011

On 4th June I reported the developments in the Raspberry Pi computer innovation … here is more !!

Might not change the World (although it actually might) but could/will be great fun

It is wonderful when two totally different themes come together on one day … Just like waiting for a bus or shopping in a supermarket.

Today I read in the Times that in 41 States in USA a new curriculum which does not call for children to be taught handwriting has been adopted (though schools may chose to teach it if they wish). The focus will be on the ‘3 Ts’ - texting, tapping and typing! The article goes on to quote W H Auden who had the theory that ‘Most people like the sight of their own handwriting as they enjoy the smell of their own farts.’ Not quite sure which side of the fence he was sitting on when he saidvthis.

Secondly, and also from the Times, I read that there is a political party in Switzerland set up with the sole aim of outlawing ‘Power-Point’ presentations! The Anti Power-Point Party (APPP) claims that if this happened then 350 billion Euros could be saved yearly world-wide.

Now, whilst I agree that my reporting of these issues may be a trifle biased I do take heart in the eccentricities of people (particularly as I think that they have a good point). I await with interest to read what Mr Gove’s experts make of the handwriting issue.

‘Who is feeding who?’ -  July 2011 - Doug Dickinson

As the amount of technology in all of our lives for personal, social, business and travel increases almost daily it seems to me that the element being now left behind is institutional education. I say institutional because many people have already taken to the power of technology to educate .. both themselves and people around them with their mobile devices.

Mike Baker asks the pertinent question: Is the government’s attitude to computer technology in schools taking us back to a “dark age” of chalk-and-talk?

My previous post concerning the teacher training skills tests indicates that there is a thought that ‘we have been there done that … and the box is ticked’ as for as ICT is concerned.

The way forward might just be ‘crowd sourced’ … the shouts making the difference … time to start shouting not whispering in corners.

‘Only the stumps are left showing’  - Spurn Point 2011 - Doug Dickinson

You can have your say about what will happen next to teacher education … here

I have always thought, since the introduction of the ’skills tests’, that they should be an entry qualification not an exit one and now I read in ‘Training our next generation of outstanding teachers’ that potentially this will be so.

Of interest to those of us involved with ICT will be the statement that : We will drop the IT test, which is no longer needed. The rational for this is said to be: The IT test, by contrast, was introduced at a time of great concern about teachers’ basic IT skills: today new teachers tend to have strong IT skills and the vast majority pass the IT test easily.

Do I read into this that if people pass a test easily that it should be abandoned? Did anyone take a look to see or even notice that the items being tested were in fact unfit for purpose in a world that changes so fast? While I agree that most people do not need to be tested on emailing attachments or searching the internet there is surely new skills that have come to the fore since the tests were designed (It is interesting that this does not apply to the numeracy and literacy tests!).

What ICT Capability Skills would you test … if at all?