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 …

]]> http://www.dougdickinson.co.uk/blog/?feed=rss2&p=1713 http://www.dougdickinson.co.uk/blog/?p=1706 http://www.dougdickinson.co.uk/blog/?p=1706#comments Mon, 12 Dec 2011 19:15:39 +0000 doug http://www.dougdickinson.co.uk/blog/?p=1706

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