"We need to teach using the tools our students use"
GLOW
GLOW – update
Apr 24th
Now have 2 x S2 classes, 1 x S1 and 1 x S3 class onto GLOW. Thoughts so far from the kids are mainly positive but they want to find more things to do with it. This is the next challenge – GLOW groups and MyGlow pages. We’re also laying on drop in sessions to revise GLOW and show the new things to staff during our INSET Days in May.
Now if only SEEMIS would work all the time within GLOW….and why doesn’t ASM work outside school?
TESS Article on Local Authority website blocking/filtering
Mar 5th
The abridged for online version of the TESS article here Print version is ‘twice as long and not attacking GLOW as some thought’ (Douglas Blane the journalist).
Additional points I’m adding here are in green.
Main points:
“Given the importance of this issue, isn’t it time we had national guidelines?” asks Neil Winton, head of English at Perth Academy.
“I put the question to Fiona Hyslop (then education minister) at last year’s Scottish Learning Festival. She fobbed it off as an operational matter – the responsibility of local authorities. But it’s not. There should be a national policy … We have a mish-mash around the country. You can even get primary schools with access to YouTube, when the secondary school doesn’t.”
My points:
“Education authorities vary from highly restrictive to fairly flexible. “Our authority has one of the strictest web-filtering policies in Scotland,” says David Terron, who teaches English at Elgin Academy.
“They’ve even blocked their own Curriculum for Excellence resources site. Many teachers try to use ICT, as recommended by HMIE, but are continually frustrated and have to go through a long process to get sites unblocked. Even then they are often refused.”” (and they often give weak or downright ridiculous excuses that have no basis – ‘Twitter is banned because 1,000s of companies banned it and it spreads viruses’) Perhaps they should look at the bottom of the Scottish Government and Learning Teaching Scotland sites and see the wee blue bird in use by government agencies! The GTC(S) uses twitter as do many schools and educational authorities throughout the world.
and…
“The IT tail wagging the educational dog makes the student-centred Curriculum for Excellence harder, say the teachers. How can pupils become confident individuals and successful learners if their hands have to be held whenever they go near a computer? Where is the scope for spontaneity and creativity if the teacher has to say: “Go wherever your investigations take you – but only on these three websites that we’ve checked.”?
It’s not just pupil education that is being damaged, says David Terron. Continuing professional development is also adversely affected: “We can’t access sites such as the one written by Don Ledingham, director of education in East Lothian, who often posts provocative, interesting articles. In other authorities these have formed the basis of entire in service days.” We have no budget so ALL of our CPD is now online or via Personal Learning Networks and Teacher Learning Communities. No access equals no CPD – I refer you to my earlier post about 5 yearly inspections for teachers. They cannot be justified if you won’t let teachers have access to CPD. I expect legal challenges to be based on this simple fact.
Finally
“There is no sign of the culture clash between council IT departments and education being resolved in the latter’s favour any time soon, says Neil Winton. “It comes down to a lack of trust in the professional judgment of teachers.
“IT departments are not making decisions for pedagogical reasons; they are making them on the basis of what can’t get them into trouble. But teaching only what can’t get anyone into trouble is no basis for a 21st-century education system.”
I believe the aim of this article is to continue and push forward the debate. Let’s see if it does ! Our ‘leaders’ (government and local authorities etc) cannot keep banging on about ICT and kids getting taught how to use the web etc safely if (a) they don’t get any lnternet safety lessons in the first place and (b) they then access unsuitable sites at home because they want to know why it has been banned at school.
How are we meant to catch up with India and other Asian countries ? In China they allegedly tell their students to learn two things – English and Computing. They know the future lies with the countries that have these skills. So why do our local and national government claim that they’re pushing the IT skills agenda and then promptly either not provide enough funding for even minimal training or block access to sites the kids and their teachers can use to learn?
GLOW – how to make it shine
Feb 28th
Ewan McIntosh does it again. A perceptive and interesting article on the dangers, future and possibilities of GLOW. He also makes excellent points about how we should strive to ensure that GLOW, far from keeping everything behind closed doors as it were should be capable of allowing students to take their work with them outside and after school. This is where the ePortfolios come in. Read the whole thing here
Main points:
Andrew Brown has indeed engendered “a new mood of collaboration” since he took over the Directorship of Glow, the national schools intranet in Scotland, in November – collaboration was something he, I and what felt like a small band of colleagues at the time felt was missing in so many parts of education. I can’t wait to see what he pulls off in the longer term; he’s already managing to move on from the hype of usage stats of sign-ins and sign ups and is talking about how he can make things better until a new version of Glow is commissioned later this year.
“the biggest challenge is the approach Local Authorities take in implementing the internet that lives around and within Glow. Most Local Authorities in Scotland continue to operate locked down or highly managed internet access, meaning many of the most educationally useful content and collaboration websites, services and tools are unavailable. This is not a-typical:
Hours of video archive on YouTube – blocked.
Weblogs where students can publish their work and accept feedback – blocked.
Wikis, where students can collaborate on writing documents together – blocked.
Social networks, where students can not only prune and make acceptable their ‘social’ face online, but also develop their future professional shop window – blocked.
Skype and other video conferencing facilities – blocked or made unworkable.”
“We need local management of Glow to open up.
Local Authorities, the ultimate “deliverers” of the national intranet, either have to be encouraged to open their networks or, quite simply, overruled by central Government to do so. The latter should never have to be invoked.”
and finally:
“This is where Glow has been making some of its biggest gains, in taking new ways of working, learning and teaching to more teachers through its regular Glow Meets. I say “new” – many of us were working on low or no budgets to train colleagues in these tools up to six years ago, but with blocked tools and lack of support from those that believed “Glow will do that” we’ve seen great delays in schools being able to take advantage of what the rest of the world have been using more proficiently for some years.”
Go forth and read and spread the word (and the warmth), especially to your Local Authorities!
GLOW Meet
Feb 18th
Did a GLOW Meet tonight on the subject of wikis, blogs and a quick look at ePortfolios. Started at 4pm after a day spent testing, testing on the mike…. people logged on from as far afield as the Islands, Glasgow and Edinburgh or even from the room next door (the Boss) 8-)I was also grateful for the support of two colleagues (Jane and Fiona) who lurked in the room watching me on the big screen.
The whole thing lasted around 30 mins with a couple of questions afterwards – all the various links and documents I referred to are in the library on the English teachers’ GLOW site. (Link to follow) I’ll add them here as well once I finish eating my birthday cake!The recording will be stuck up in the GLOW Group by Tina Stephens in due course.
Reflection: I thought I spoke too much and was a bit too fast paced on occasion. I had a script but was also trying to ensure people were kept interested so panicked a bit halfway through and started waffling. *Note to self: chill….*
The last time I did something similar was during a video conference in 1991 when it cost 1/2 million squid, took 23 Royal Signals guys to keep the satellite and video link going and all for a ten minute brief to/from troops in the UK/Middle East. How times change and how easy was this GLOW Meet to actually do. I was expecting a hive of chatter but obviously the bandwidth would have caused dropped audio etc. Other than that, I really enjoyed it and would encourage anyone to do one – not only do you do some effective CPD you gain insights into how to do similar things with your students. I have this idea for a GLOW Meet with Barry O in Washington discussing Hughes’s ‘I Too sing America’ ! I am also going to encourage the maddest Chemist in the world (who looks nothing like the mad chemist in The Muppet Show) to do a GLOW Meet showing how he mixes hard rock/heavy metal with the Periodic Table.
A good learning experience then which gave me much confidence for the future. Thanks to Tina Stephens for asking me on, Ross Watson and Allan Reid f(our GLOW Support Teachers) for helping me set up and test and to my S2 girls who drew a HUGE sign for the door saying ‘Quiet Please GLOWMeet in progress’. Thank you ladies.
