OllieBray.com

1:1 Learning: Myth Two – ‘Children aren’t used to 1:1’ [this is just an excuse]

 

This is part of a series of posts that document some of my personal thoughts on some of the myths surrounding 1:1 learning (one device per learner) and 1:1 deployments in schools and school systems.

-------------------------------------- 

Myth Two – ‘Children aren’t used to 1:1’ 

This is an excuse that is sometimes given to delay / prevent technology deployments in schools. The truth is that most young people already live in a 1:1 environment as they are constantly connected via their mobile / cell phones or other Internet enabled devices.

Research published in the Ofcom report ‘Children and parents: media use and attitudes report 2012’ illustrates this well.

Here is what it says about children and smartphones:

Children’s access to the internet is not restricted to PCs or laptops. Those aged 12-15 are more likely than last year to go online using their mobile phones and are more likely to say that this is the device they would miss the most.

Since 2011, there has been a 50% rise in 12-15 year olds owning smartphone devices. Almost two thirds (62%) of this age group now has one – up from 41% the previous year. This is significantly higher than the UK average for adults of 45%.

Mobile phones are more important to this age group than any other device, even TV. Two fifths (39%) of 12-15 year olds now say they would miss their mobile phone more than any other device, up from just over a quarter (28%) in 2011. Only one in five (20%) said that they would miss TV the most.

Around one in seven (14%) of all children aged 5-15 now use a tablet device at home, a threefold increase since 2011 (5%). Children aged 12-15 are most likely to use a tablet, with 17% saying they do, up from 6% in 2011. 

 

However, just because young people are used to 1:1 environments doesn’t mean that they are used to them in schools. It also doesn’t mean that school staff are comfortable teaching when young people have ubiquitous access to the Internet.

Indeed, I would also argue that young people are not great at learning on-line in a structured and formal way and we have a lot of work to do in schools to prepare young people for this type of learning.

It is also interesting to note that organizations like the Open University (who specialize in distance learning) only use on-line as part of their overall model. Experience has shown that on-line alone does not have a great success rate – the key to success is ‘blended’ learning where on-line is supported by good community management, peer support and local tutorials.

Before schools go down the route of 1:1 access it is important that they ask themselves what the potetial impact on teaching and learning might be.

 

Internet Safety and Responsible Use Training Video for Staff and Parents (@LTScotland)

Over the past few months I have been doing more work around Internet Safety and Responsible Use for Parents and Teachers. Quite a bit of this work involved speaking at conference, running professional development for teachers and engaging with parent focus groups.

The work is very important but it can also be quite repetitive so to try and help this and to reach as many people as possible we recently made three films that covers some of the content that I normally address in various talks.

The videos are available to view on the Learning and Teaching Scotland website and I have embedded the one for teachers and parents below.

I feel it contains the minimum amount of content and information needed for all parents and education professionals.

As well as covering some of the issues regarding Internet Safety and Responsible Use it is designed to try and get people thinking about how do we tackle some of these big issues at home and in school.

As always I would be very keen to find out what you think of the resource as I hope to up-date it on a 6 - 12 monthy basis.

Magic Moments #2 – 3.5” Floppy Disk Machine

Each week I post a photograph of something that I have seen, like or has just made me laugh.

Like many Scottish teachers I hope that the Donaldson Review of Teacher Education in Scotland improves the quality of amount of ICT input in Scotland’s Teacher Training Institutes.

I spotted this machine in the corridors of Moray House this week… I was going to see if it still worked but it only took an ‘old style’ 50 pence!



Beautiful space shuttle silhouette and creative commons licensing [images]

Aren’t images wonderful!

I still can’t understand why more teachers don’t use them in their classroom?

This is a picture of the NASA space shuttle Atlantis in silhouette during a solar transit it was taken from Florida on the Tuesday, May 12, 2009.

I found it on Flickr via a link from BrainPop UK.  The image is owed by NASA which means that it is in the public domain. It is licensed under creative commons and this means that you can use the image in education for free as long as you attribute the source and don’t sell the image.

It’s the simple use of ICT in a classroom such as knowing how to find and use an image that can be the most empowering to young people. But, it is also important that teachers no how to source images correctly to make sure that they are not infringing copyright or breaking intellectual property law.

Lets hope that both of these things will find there way into initial teacher education (ITE) following the Donaldson review of teacher education in Scotland.

New Tools for Teachers - University of Strathclyde PGDE Secondary Students (January 2010)

Ronnie Rankin (National Glow Team) and I were out speaking to the PGDE secondary students at the University of Strathclyde today in Glasgow. Ronnie was talking about Glow and showed some good examples of how it is being used in classrooms across Scotland and I was asked to talk about ICT tools for teachers.

David Muir has already done a nice little write up on the presentations.

 I promised I would post the notes and slides from the talk here. But as they are very similar to a number of other talks that I have recently given.

Just have a look at these posts instead as they deal with all of the points that I mentioned today:

• New Tools for Teachers - BEd Students (Edinburgh University)

• Literacy, ICT and A Curriculum for Excellence

• Curriculum for Excellence, Science, Change and New Technologies

• Internet Safety and Responsible Use

• Free web tools for teachers

If you were at the talk I would welcome any feedback either by email (my contact details are top right) or please just leave a comment below. As I said today, feel free to challenge anything that I said.

Personal and Professional Review for 2009

It’s the time of year when I look back over my learning log to see what I’ve achieved during the last 12 months. As with most years I’ve probably achieved a bit more than most people, but a bit less than I should have. Overall though, despite a few ups downs down I think it’s been a pretty good year, not quite a vintage but a pretty good year all the same!

Here are a few aspects from the last year that really stuck out:

Work

I continued to work as Depute Head Teacher at Musselbugh Grammar School until 1st April 2009. Since then I’ve been seconded to Learning and Teaching Scotland as National Advisor for Emerging Technologies for Learning.  I started this role as part of the Glow Team but have since been transferred to the Consolarium project whilst maintaining a cross-organization portfolio for social media and advice on new technologies for teaching and learning.

I miss the buzz of the grammar school in particular working with the young people and the staff. I also miss being more distant from the East Lothian learning community. I don’t miss the Thursday morning senior leadership team meetings.

I am really enjoying my current remit in particular working with such a talented bunch of people. We work hard, spend a lot of time away from home, travel miles but have great fun. I am also enjoying being given the opportunity to contribute to policy advice and being consulted on a number of aspects of the Scottish Curriculum reform.

I’ve cut back on a lot of the external work over 2009 to concentrate on my new day job. But I did managed to deliver a couple of consultancy projects near the beginning of the year which have included:

• BBC New Lives New landscapes – was really pleased how these TV programmes turned out. I was the principal consultant and I think we managed to finally make ‘Industry Interesting’ again! I was particularly pleased with the Dundee programme that looks at the computer games industry.

• DoBe Teach IT – I was the main author on this resource contributing to the Google Earth, Best of the Web and Images section of the pack. I heard its now in over 500 schools across the UK which is something to be proud of.

• Microsoft InnoVids – After the Microsoft Summer School. I produced a few videos looking at the creative use of Microsoft Office in the classroom. A full range of the videos will be available at BETT 2010.

• CfE Social Subjects Textbooks – When I have had the chance I’ve been writing and editing resources for Hoddar Gibson (more on this in the new year) - the deadline is the 5th January!

Academic

I finished my Scottish Qualification for Headship in June and continue to do bits of work for the University of Edinburgh on the PGDE Geography Course including student observations.

It’s also been great to also be able to contribute to the BEd Primary Programme at Edinburgh University and work with PGDE Secondary Students at the University of Strathclyde.

Education Innovation

I’ve established some good relations with Microsoft over 2009 in particular the Innovative Teachers Network. I’ve visited Reading, Vienna and Brazil promoting the value of games based learning and other new technology in schools.

Since starting my secondment I have had an opportunity to engage with hundreds of teachers from around the UK and further afield. Specific highlights include:

• Computer Games in Schools: NAACE Strategic Conference.

• Personal Learning Networks: at the Scottish International Summer School on School Leadership.

• Accelerated Leadership - How do we develop motivated school leaders?: at the Scottish Learning Festival.

• Social Media in Schools: at the Handheld Learning Festival, London.

• Geography: Past, Present and Future Keynote Presentation: at the Scottish Association of Geography Teachers Annual Conference.

• Literacy, ICT and CfE: at Drummond Community High School.

• The use of Mobile Devices on Expeditions: at the Royal Geographical Society London.

• Curriculum for Excellence, Science, Change and New Technologies: at SSERC Conference.

• Using computer games as a context for learning and social interaction: at the K-12 Online Conference.

Professional Development

My main professional development comes from my personal learning network in particular twitter and my RSS Reader.

I have also been lucky enough to attend a number of conferences and Teachmeet events including Teachmeet BETT 2009, Teachmeet NE London and the Islay 2020 unconference in June.

I headed up the organization and chaired Teachmeet at the Scottish Learning Festival and I think that everybody that attended will agree that it was a lovely evening. I even achieved an ambition to my name on a BrainPop letter! which the BrainPop team later included as one of the highlights of their year.

 

Outdoor Education

Much of the first half of the year was spent trying (unsuccessfully) to get fit for my summer adventure to cycle the Great Divide from Banff, Canada to the Mexico Border. In the end I gave up training (it was taking far to long) and just flew out to Canada to start the ride.

After two weeks with Marco and Simon followed by posting most of my equipment back to the UK, deleting songs from my iPod and two further weeks riding alone I found myself (nearly 3000 miles from the start) at the Mexico border. I was looking a shadow of my former self, with no feeling in my right hand, slight concussion and huge smile on my face.

Cycling the Great Divide was without a doubt one of the hardest things I have physically ever done and a real highlight of the year.

Home

I continue to live in East Lothian and work across Scotland. Most weeks you can find me in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee on at least on day of the week. Work also increasingly takes me to London and other location all over the UK. I still enjoy regular trips to Weymouth and miss my friends and family back at home (even Yazz and Bertie).

You can find my pre-booked 2010 event list here – with lots of other events and conferences in the pipeline. Please get in touch if you want to meet up.


Volunteering

I continue as the chair of Volunteer Development East Lothian and we recently moved our offices out in Haddington to new premises in Musselburgh. I’ve been on sabbatical from the role for the last few months but I will be re-engaging with the organization from the new year (tomorrow actually!).

We have some exciting community and social enterprise projects up our sleeves for 2010 and I’m looking forward to being able to tell you more about them (particularly if you like cycling).

This was also my first year as a member of the SCSSA Advisory Group on School Leadership and member of the Media Literacy Scotland National Steering Group.

Looking forward

I already know that 2010 is going to be a very interesting and possibly a difficult year for me and is likely to involve change on a number of levels. Here are some of the things I am looking forward to:

• Re-engaging with the Volunteer Centre and taking on some new projects and initiatives.

• My new texbook will be published in June 2010. I’ll probably also start work on the CfE Level 4 edition - although I have another idea for a different side project that might end up occupying this time.

• I’m going to cycle between Lands End to John o' Groats. Not for charity – but in the words of late George Mallory, ‘because its there’.

• In June 2010 I will announce the team and dates for a return trip to Denali’s West Buttress that will depart in 2011 or 2012 depending on National Park permits and a few other details.

• In July I’m leading a group of young explorers to the Alaska Wilderness where we will trek and canoe the Noatak River from its Headwaters to the Bearing Sea.

• I’m going to start to make preparations for the end of my secondment from Learning and Teaching Scotland and for my return to school. I aim to apply for my first (well second actually...) headship during 2010.

• I’ve felt really fired up since the Microsoft Worldwide Innovative Teachers Event in Brazil and as a result I’m going to work harder than ever before. 2010 will be the year I up my game and really fight for what I believe in to make sure that any children in my care get a modern education and not a re-invented one from the past 200 years.

• I’m going to attempt to find that work-life balance (OK you right… that’s not going to happen!)

•  I’m going to continue to expand my whiskey collection and share it with friends at regular intervals (yes, even Alan Parkinson).

• I’ll continue my quest for the perfect cup of coffee and hope to finally get round to helping my pal Michael roast some real beans early in the new year.

• Despite times of massive local, national and global change, I’ll remain optimistic about the future.

Anyway, if you’re a regular visitor to my little part of the Internet - Happy New Year and huge thank you to everyone how has helped, supported, worked and laughed with me through a good 2009.

Happy New Year

OB

Wikipedia, schools and the BBC - a response to tonight’s BBC Scotland Radio Broadcast

My thoughts on Wikipedia and its use in schools has been getting some in interesting press just recently. My original thoughts were posted here after the Handheld Learning Conference in London.
This article together with my presentation at the Scottish Association of Geography Teachers Annual Conference in October resulted in a nice piece in the Times Educational Supplement Scotland. I made some comments about the TESS piece just so I could clarify a couple of points. Overall I was very happy with it and I did say the things that were highlighted.

The TESS article was then used by Cara Sulieman to write a piece for Deadline Scotland. Unfortunately, I felt this piece missed the point. I’ve contacted Deadline and explained to them that I would be willing to do an extended interview – but they haven’t got back to me yet!

Anyway, I had just got back home tonight when I picked up a ‘tweet’ that said they were talking about me on BBC Radio Scotland. I tuned in but missed all but the last minute or so. I’ve now had a chance to re-listen to the piece on iPlayer.

The BBC didn’t mention me by name – but I’m well known enough for people to join up the dots. I think it’s a real shame and unprofesional of the BBC that they didn’t contact me for my opinion because actually they have completely missed the point in what I consider to be a poor piece of journalism. You can listen to it here and tell me what you think

I have written a rough transcript from the programme below. It may be slightly inaccurate as I just typed it as I was listening. I have also then inserted my own comments.

Anyway, it went something like this:


BBC: "Depute Head teacher from Musselburgh says that pupils should be encouraged to use the on-line encyclopedia Wikipedia despite its inaccuracies".

OB Comment: That is actually not quite what I said. You can read the extended piece here.

The BBC Introduce Oliver Kamm (Times columnist) who recently defined Wikipedia as 'vain, glorious amateurism'. They ask him what he thinks is wrong with Wikipedia.

NOTE: for the record - I enjoy Oliver Kamm's articles on the Times on-line (although he would probably argue that the on-line version is not as good as the printed version :-)) . But I think he was misinformed and badly briefed by the BBC.

Carrying on:

Kamm: "What’s so wrong with it is not so much the balance between accurate articles and articles that are self- promoting rubbish. Wikipedia makes no distinction between someone who has knowledge and are competent to comment or if you are just someone off the street".

OB Comment: This gets us back to age old debate of knowledge, what is knowledge and who has the expertise to write articles? The person ‘off the street’ might actually write a really good Wikipedia article – particularly if it was about their street. You see Wikipedia caters for niche markets as well as the big issues and articles. That is one of the reasons why it is so big.

Kamm: "The problem is that knowledge is democratic in the sense that no one has the last word. But its not democratic in the sense that anyone can join in".

OB Comment: Depends of your definition of knowledge. Why can’t anyone join in? The more people that join in, the larger the debate we have and the more conversation we share with each other, the more we contribute to the growth and understanding of knowledge.

Kamm: "Wikipedia doesn’t encourage people with real competence to express their expertise".

OB Comment: Yes it does Wikipedia encourages anyone to comment – even people with errrmmm….’knowledge?’

Kamm: "It’s [Wikipedia] certainly fresh in the sense that it doesn’t distinguish between total rubbish and genuine expertise. But that doesn’t contribute to the sum of knowledge".

OB Comment: Do the disclaimers that are littered all over Wikipedia not contribute to this?

Surely it flags up when something might be ‘rubbish’ with text boxes saying things like "The factual accuracy is disputed' - 'This article contradicts another article' - 'This article contradicts itself' - 'This article reads like an advertisement' -'This article needs additional citation for verification"

Anyway, if you find something that is not actuate in your opinion, why don’t you have a look at the discussion tab, collaborate with the on-line community and then edit the article?

Kamm: "If the teacher, the Deputy Head Master (that’s me by the way!) who is encouraging his pupils to look at Wikipedia is unconcerned about that distinction then I’m slightly worried about it".

OB Comment: Really sorry you were poorly briefed by the BBC about my original article. My point is that because children use Wikipedia and because we can’t make it go away, WE SHOULD be teaching them to use it responsibly, rather than giving no guidance at all on its use. If we give no guidance at all they are likely to believe anything that they read. I actually think we probably agree on this point?

Kamm: "There is no equivalent on-line resource to my knowledge that is as reliable as your standard printed encyclopedia. There used to be a great printed encyclopedia by Columbia. Proper scholarly works written for a non specialist audience such as school pupils are the right way to imbibe and encourage knowledge".

OB Comment: Yes there is? If you really want  ‘scholarly works’ what about an on-line version of a traditional encyclopedia? For example Britannica on-line? Surely on-line is better than printed because it is kept more current and up to date?

Kamm: "What I would like educators to do is to encourage school pupils and students at university to approach critically the resources that they use and to be aware that only things that can be properly checked and researched are reliable knowledge. Wikipedia doesn’t discriminate between different types of user and that’s what worries me".

OB Comments: I completely disagree. Wikipedia can be properly checked and researched but it doesn’t mean that it is reliable, refuting the point about reliability being guaranteed through the checking of sources.  I do of course agree  that we need to teach school children to critically approach sources – that’s why I wrote the article on Wikipedia in the first place. We need to teach learners to use Wikipedia properly and to do their best to verify all the sources that they use.

I actually like the fact that anyone can edit Wikipedia and I’ve already acknowledged that this brings associated difficulties. I like the fact that knowledge doesn’t have to be elitist.

The interview went on a bit longer. But I think I’ll leave it at that.

I wonder if the BBC will get in touch now and ask me for my opinion? They presented a rather one-sided, biased argument that if it was a Wikipedia article would be unlikely to come up to standard and would be flagged as a concern…

By the way Oliver and I have already made our peace over on his blog.

New Tools for Teachers: BEd Primary Focus @ Edinburgh University

I’ve had the opportunity to speak to the Secondary PGDE Students at Edinburgh University for a few years now. But this week I was given the chance to speak to the BEd Primary Students on ICT in Education.

I’ve been trying to up-date my handout and slideshow for my ‘new tools’ talk for some time now - I’m still not quite happy with it but its getting there and I used it on Tuesday.

If you were at the presentation I hope you enjoyed it and as promised here are the slides and links that I referred to. Please feel free to get in touch and leave a comment if you have any questions.

New Tools For Teachers - Primary Focus November 2009

View more presentations from Ollie Bray.

Main content and links:

1. The use of ICT

Generators

Use generators to liven up your lessons and to set learning / home learning objectives in a more creative way. Some good examples include:

• Fodey – Includes the famous wizard text and the newspaper generator

• Wordle – Turn paragraphs of text into beautiful work clouds (try it with your exam syllabus departmental development plan or anything else you can think of!)

• Smoke Signal Generator - Make smoke signals come out of your location. Imagine if you were learning about Japan and your lesson objective floated out of Japan on a Google Map.
  

2. 21st Century Students

21st century students expect a new level of engagement and they have very high expectations. Many young people now exist in a high tech, multimedia rich and highly glamorized world. We need to be prepared to deal with and capitalize on this in our classrooms.

Tips:

• Think about your own on-line presence (social networking, ex-directory in the phone book, be careful what you post etc…)

• Make sure you know what resources your students have at home. For example how many of them have a computer with Internet access? How many have the capacity to play an mp3 file? How many have a games console? If you don’t know this information how will you set appropriate and imaginative home learning tasks and get a real understanding of prior learning?

• Also make sure you know what skills your students have. Many of their ICT skills will be more advanced than yours. Lots of children have made an animation, edited a video and created a website. Make sure you know what skills your students have . Use these skills to build progression and to extend learning.

• Regularly talk with your students about what websites they use. Not only will this keep you up to date but it will also provide you with opportunities to coach and nurture children and young people in Internet safety and Responsible Use. It is particularly important that primary teachers gain an understanding of appropriate behavior in virtual worlds - this will be the on-line environment that they grow up in. Teachers have a responsibility to keep children safe where ever they are - that includes on-line.

• If you have gathered the above information it will make setting appropriate assessment tasks so much easier.

• There is some interesting research on young people and on-line behavior here.

3. The Basic Tools

Search

Tips and good search engines:

• Use the Advanced Google Search – remember you can use this to get specific file type returns such as just PowerPoint or shockwave flash (animation) files.

• Quintura - provides a really good visual search – excellent to use with children on project work.

• Google News - searches the most up to date news web sites.

  
  

Images

• Don't forget Advanced Google Image Search

• Flickr can provide really good and powerful images that can be used in education. Many of these images are are licensed under creative commons. Which means if properly attributed they can be used in education for non-commercial purposes.

• Flickr Slideshow - this will be the quickest and most powerful lesson starter you ever make. More details here.
  

• Big Huge Labs - make your own motivational posters that are truly cross curricular. More details of how I did it here.
  

• The BBC Day in Pictures – great starter or discussion activity.

• The BBC 3 minute news bulletin – children like to watch the news if you give them the chance!

• Microsoft Deep Zoom - great for creating immerse works and for story telling. More details here.

3. The audience tools

Tools such as blogs, podcasts and wikis allow you to quickly publish information to the Internet. Most importantly they can be used as an alternative to traditional assessment and give the children a real sense of audience. Use these tools to make your own World Wide Wall Display.

• Some Good Blogging Tools include

  wordpress, blogger and typepad.

• Audacity is a free audio editing piece of software that will also w you to edit voice and audio recordings. It is also available as a Portable App – which means you can run it off a memory stick.

• Think about getting your students to write Wikipedia articles. Also make sure your students know how to use Wikipedia. I've written in length about his here.

• CANVAS (Children’s Art in the Virtual Arena of Scotland) – Is a new LTS project that will allow children to display artwork in an on-line world. More information here.

4. The Creative Tools

• Comic Brush – On-line comic book creator (a bit like Comic Life – but free!)

• Pixton – Sophisticated on-line comic book creator

• Go Animate – Robust on-line combined on-line / animation software

• Google Earth – Watch my 15 minute mini-note from Teachmeet NorthEast on how to use Google Earth in the Classroom here.

5. Computer Games Based Learning

Good case studies of games based learning available on the LTS Consolarium website.

Here are some examples of web based games that can be used for home learning:

• Classic Sim City – Useful for teaching about towns, cities and settlement.
• Ordnance Survey Map Games – Good for homework.
• Fantasy Farmer – Manage a farm for a year
• Stop Disasters Simulator – Can you protect the world against floods, volcanoes, earthquakes and other nasty stuff?
• Sim Sweat Shop – What is it really like working in a sweat shop in a less economically developed country?
• An idea for setting web based games for homework activities

Remember the use of off the shelf games and games consoles can make a massive contribution to education. For more information in the use of computer games to improve literacy have a look at this recent workshop that we ran in the Highlands.

6. Don't stop learning

The future of CPD is on-line:

• Find CPD opportunities using CPD Find

• Record your CPD using CPD reflect

• Download CPD from LTS iTunes U

• Take part in a CPD event in GLOW (eg: Glowing Thursday’s?)

Develop your personal learning network by finding out more about:

• Teachers TV – good classroom and professional development resources

• Slideshare – A place to up-load and view PowerPoint and other presentations

• Microsoft Innovative Teachers Network – join and collaborate with teachers globally

• Twitter - A micro blogging service. You can follow me here.

Follow some other teachers blogs and find out about their classroom practice. For starters try:

Tom Barrett - Primary School Teacher, technology advocate and all round good guy form England

Jen Deyenberg - Primary School Teacher, Technology advocate and GPS Jedi from Canada

7. Finally

If you were at the presentation. Please leave any comments and feedback from the presentation below or get in touch via email (see top right for details).

On-line CPD: Internet Safety and Responsible Use (Glowing Thursday)

Most Thursday’s Jennifer McDougall (one of our Glow Development Officers) at Learning and Teaching Scotland hosts an on-line CPD session that we call Glowing Thursday (the name comes from here).

The programme is available well in advance and the CPD sessions are about an hour long and led by someone who has interest or expertise in the chosen field. The sessions are delivered via GlowMeet (Glow’s video conference client) and anyone with a Glow log in is welcome to join. You just turn up in the virtual room.

The sessions are nearly always videoed if you miss a session or if you can’t get along to watch the presentation live. GlowMeet is currently based on the Marratech client which allows instant messages between participants, a shared whiteboard space for presentation slides and video / audio capacity.

When I’m out and about speaking to teachers I always try to make the point that was well as Glow having fantastic potential to enhance and open learning in schools and classrooms. It also has amazing potential for CPD – Glowing Thursday and our Building Windmill Events have been really good examples of this.

Anyway, below are the slides that used during this evenings presentation on Internet Safety and Responsible Use and thank you so much for everyone who attended. Its great to see web cams pointing out into classrooms with groups of staff watching these presentations after school on-line. This really helps demonstrate the wide impact that this type of technology can have on professional development.

Glow Internet Safety Talk

View more presentations from Ollie Bray.

If your looking for some notes on some of the things that I said have a read of this blog post and for specific information on http://olliebray.typepad.com/olliebraycom/2008/05/mobile-phones-i.html

Also, we are currently working on a National Internet safety and Responsible Use Glow Group – that I hope will become a great resource for all Scottish teachers.

Feel free to leave feedback about tonights talk below.

Meeting Greg Whitby

After work today I got to spend a few hours with Greg Whitby I was really impressed with Greg’s style, philosophy and passion for education. I left the session feeling very inspired (and that’s not a word I use very often).

Like many others I first came across Greg in this short YouTube video – if you have not seen it is well worth a look:


Since then I have followed his blog and more recently followed Greg on Twitter.

A bit more background on Greg:

Greg Whitby is the pioneering Executive Director of Schools in the Diocese of Parrammatta, in Western Sydney, and leads a system of approximately 80 Catholic schools. He has 30 years combined experience in K-12 schooling and senior system leadership.
 
In recognising the critical link between good teaching practice and student learning outcomes, Greg is working to build the capacity of school leaders and teachers through a whole-of-system approach to professional learning.
 
 As a regular speaker at national and international conferences, Greg talks about the key areas underpinning a new model of schooling for today’s world:  de-privatising teacher practice, personalising student learning and ICTs as enablers to facilitate deep learning.   
 
In 2007, he was named the most innovative educator in Australia by the Bulletin Magazine in its annual SMART 100 awards.  Greg has also been awarded an ACEL Presidential Citation for his contribution to Australian education.   

 

So what was Greg’s message?

Greg spent two hours with a group of us at the LTS offices in Glasgow and we were joined by other practitioners from all over Scotland in a flashmeeting.

I took a number of things from his presentation including:

• Lots of young people are disengaged from their learning

• To overcome disengagement we need to search for relevance

• We have spent the last 20th Century perfecting 19th centaury learning (quoted Stephen Heppell here)

• We need to start asking big questions about learning and the structure of learning. For example why do all children start school at the same age? Does the class you end up in dictate where you end up? How much do school timetables kill creativity?

• The whole next version of the web will be a mash up

• We have good schools but we are victims of the past when it comes to school improvement.

• What’s the point of a classroom of the future or  school of the future? We want a classroom of today!

• If you want success you have to un-lock the timetable.

• I [Greg] expect all of my schools to be extremely diverse.

• We need to develop systems that allow us to take action as things happen.

• Students learning is what makes the biggest difference

• The focus of technology should be on teachers learning as well as students learning

• Good leadership involves the making or courageous decisions

• Use the wisdom of the crowds (teachers, parents and most importantly students) to drive forward school improvement

• All of our children and staff are allowed to use facebook, youtube, my space etc… But it is important to have robust network security and tracking.

• Teachers feel under valued because they are always being told how to improve.

• Our leaders have to be leaders in pedagogy

If you are interested in what Greg had to say – why don’t you listen to his presentation on the flashmeet re-play.