Web 3 & Web 4 August 19, 2011

 

More than 7.2 million students, teachers and parents across the UK log in to their learning platform every week, forming one of the largest active online communities globally. While many schools are already seeing an impact, others are just starting to think about how to make them work in an efficient way for their school.

Recent advances in the wider-world of Web 3.0 technology now helps shift the emphasis away from the teacher doing all the work, creating a classroom where the administration, logistics and classroom management are all taken care of, so that the teacher and learner can focus on meaningful dialogue and interaction; thereby extending learning and raising standards.

Web 3.0, when brought into education, is about supporting teachers’ professional skills by removing the administrative burden so teachers can get back to teaching. As highlighted at Inside Government’s recent Future of Education conference, supported by both government and key public sector bodies, it is vital that technology is designed to empower the teacher to be the professional they deserve to be and the learner to access the learning that they deserve.

Web technology in education

Technology has evolved dramatically since the implementation of learning platforms more than 10 years ago, incorporating more and more useful features. This began with Web 1.0 which sees one person publish to everyone else, and the recipient reads and digests.

It equates to a classroom where students copy from the blackboard. Honiton Community College in Devon is an exceptional example of how Web 1.0 technology is being used to empower students to take ownership of their learning.

Josh Wright, head of ICT, works with staff to ensure that every element required for students to work independently is meticulously uploaded to the learning platform, helping to ensure that students of all abilities can access information on their assignments, resources and achievements anytime, anywhere. This approach helps to free up teacher time to focus on personalised intervention and support and there has been a surge in usage of the platform by the whole school community. This is helping to create confident, motivated learners ready for life beyond school.

The next step, Web 2.0 (social web and social networks), also centres around one person publishing to others – for example on a forum or blog where there is still a hierarchy – but allows people to interact.

It equates to a classroom where the teacher assigns differentiated maths problems to students, and the students then work semi-independently or in peer-groups to submit their versions of how they solved the problems. More educationalists than ever are now empowered to own and publish content and as a result, thousands of students are now interacting with it.

Many of our schools are embracing wikis as a tool to support revision and best practice of this can be seen at Bradon Forest School in Wiltshire where teachers are creating wikis and discussion forums to help prepare key stage 4 students for their GCSEs.

During class, teachers upload mock exam questions to the forum for students to post their responses. These are then peer reviewed and discussed to help students reflect upon their learning.

In business studies, teachers at the school are also working with key stage 4 students to create revision wikis. Each student is assigned a different element of a topic and tasked with populating their wiki with research and resources to help their peers revise. Both the forums and wikis are available online 24/7 through the learning platform, enabling students to access them during study leave in the run up to exams.

Critically, both routes allow for students to take a leadership role in their own learning, while also supporting their peers through peer review and mentoring. This frees up teachers to add professional expertise to boost student understanding and ultimately raise standards.

Many of our schools are successfully embracing Web 2.0 to help students and teachers collaborate. However, technology is now moving on and it is no longer just about blogs, assessment, wikis, quizzes or forums anymore. It is about joining the dots, adding intelligence, making the virtual world, the global community and resources that work for the user. The most important thing is to understand where the web is going – making the tools work for you.

Self-discovery

New advances in Web 3.0 technology now provide students with the tools and opportunities to self-discover (think Amazon’s “you might like” suggestions), reach out (think Facebook’s “add friend” function), gather knowledge (think Wikipedia’s “co-construction of information”), and apply that knowledge (think vocational skills and LinkedIn’s self-evidencing of achievements), while providing the teaching community with a range of tools to really support their objectives; simplifying the administrative burden and improving the quality of teaching and learning.

Some online learning solutions now act like a personal assistant, recommending the most relevant tools, resources, content and people to help further their study. This helps to dramatically reduce teacher resource preparation time, freeing up time to focus on differentiated support and learning outcomes.

For example, if a student is working on a project about rivers and lakes, online technology will automatically recommend a range of age-appropriate materials they might like to view, helping to boost their enthusiasm for a topic and allow them to progress at their own pace. It is a bit like the Apple iStore Genius.

Connectedness

Web 3.0 technologies help to connect all of a student’s learning experiences. It can analyse connectivity between experiences. Intelligent semantics enable it to identify strengths and challenges for the learner. For example, if they learned about the Romans at school and then subsequently go on a family trip to a historic site at the weekend, Web 3.0 technology deduces that this individual is interested in history and pushes further information (projects, materials, experts and resources) to them to broaden the learning experience.

Assessment for learning

Assessment is generally viewed as the domain of the teacher and something that adds significantly to their workload. Although it has historically been a task for the teacher, it does not have to be. As use of the internet and Web 2.0 continues to blur the line between formal and informal learning, confining assessment to one room at one time is no longer reflective of a student’s progress.

Technology helps present the bigger picture, enabling teachers, parents and students to record all of their achievements, whether they take place in school, during after-school clubs or at home. Web 3.0 will take this one step further by intelligently analysing and measuring not simply the student’s individual progress, but also how they interact and contribute to the discussion and work of their peers (for example, the value they are adding to a conversation or their original thoughts during online debates). Rather than looking to see if students can simply complete an assignment, Web 3.0 will help teachers evaluate.

The future

The future will see Web 4.0, or the ubiquitous web as it is known, build upon Web 3.0 and make connections between communities – offering joined up knowledge to the teaching fraternity. At the moment, Web 3.0 technology pushes content to the learner.

The ubiquitous web technology watches what users are doing and pushes information to the user, carefully tailoring the material to suit their learning needs. The information is more individual, it is based on user profile and will enable schools to determine individual learning plans based on usage. It will ultimately provide students with different routes to obtain knowledge – connecting global intelligences together and new content.

As educators, we are helping to develop the global workforce of tomorrow so we must embrace technological change to equip learners with the skills, to complement their qualifications, so that they can compete in the world outside of school. Students access information using an array of technologies every day, from mobile phones and personal digital assistants, to social media and the internet. Web 3.0 and forthcoming Web 4.0 technologies can deliver the interactive learning experience that students of today and tomorrow have come to expect.

Article Published by SecEd: http://content.yudu.com/A1sysk/SecEd7July11/resources/index.htm?referrerUrl=

Who Matters Most? What the Learners Want June 18, 2010

Today I had the fortune to work with a group of KS4 students who we asked to come up with a quick-fire list of ways that they felt technology could ‘today’ make a difference to their learning if used. Here are their words (all ideas included, no editing). I’ve left in the typos/spellings, and put in bold the ones that I think are most ‘telling’; either about current classroom practice, or about where are so opportunities that we really should be looking more closely at…

• Text us for homework
• Calendar for trips etc
• Individual Facebook wall for each subject
• Printers for posters
• Send videos/work via email
• App to remind us about important dates & times
• Facebook chat for when being told to work in silence – can ask friends for some work ideas
• YouTube to show videos in class
• Photo editing computers in art
• Computers built into the tables
• Phone alerts for any last minute events, ie; assemblies
• Type instead of writing, or download the notes from the board and annotate on ipad so that your adding value not just copying
• Audio books for subjects like languages
• Mark work on computers in English so you don’t have to write it out twice
• Have a selection point for the canteen so you don’t have to queue
• Laptops to be able to research in the classroom
• Being sent emails for exam dates instead of being given a piece of paper
• Converter Apps
• Listen to lessons on phone for revision
• Iphones to text homework
• Break time – live feeds to your PDA giving people their own space and learning conditions. I prefer to learn on my own, so I should be allowed to.
• Media – ipads proper video cameras and laptops
• Only use electronical stuff when needed, not just for the sake of it
• Interactive games for each individual subject
• People will find their way around not learning with or without technology
• Order service for canteen
• It takes ages getting the scientific calculators out of a box, so why not have an app on our phones instead?
• USB cords to upload work
• Advance editing sofrware/equipment
• Update projectors
• Ipads & iphones in class
• More use of IT
• Record audio of teacher
• PE theory or for people who forget kit to play wii fit or sport
• Teachers need to learn how to apply learning through technology and how to access in depth
• Photoshop app for everyone
• Things to draw on (like Paint)
• Taking notes and apps for ipod touches
• YouTube to watch revision
• Chargers for stuff
• Coffee machines at hte canteen
• Get emailed unfinished work
• Make quizzes online for revision
• Iphones / pda
• A weather forecast thing
• Uploading revision to ipads instead of books
• Art – Wacom tablets digital drawing
• Heaters or air conditioning in classroom
• Reception / office app for messages to classes
• Instant messages
• Canteen app to order food
• Higher quality editing software
• Stardate: blog / digital
• Have freedom – more links
• English – computers for typing things up
• Photo editing programmes for art/ photoshop
• Drama – computers to use for writing and storing work
• Robot Butlers
• Move using ICT such as student using et jiant whiteboard (more movement)
• Headphones that aren’t broken! For listening to things
• Iphones to Bluetooth homework
• Apps for subjects
• Ipads to be able to sent work and annotate work then send back to be checked and marked
• Blogs to write essays and write ideas, intead of writing them up as an essay
• Advanced computers
• Personal Handheld devices
• Laptops to type notes up / essays
• Teacher podcasts for revision notes
• Water fountains in every room
• Charging – energy wasting
• Back up for files
• Progress chart thing – to see online what you need to do
• Personalised lessons online
• Blog for lesson discussion
• Video blogs to keep up to date on work
• Games

More sessions like this to follow…

What is the value of “a book”? June 15, 2010

Teacher/Parent: “Why can’t they just look it up in a book like we do?”

Student: “But I can look it up on the internet in just a few seconds from my phone, I can check that several different sites all say the same thing. Why should I look it up in a book?”

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Books are great. Internet is great. Learning is great. The question for me is how can we combine all three effectively?

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I’d love for someone to do a parallel study of

“What is the learning impact of having books in a school?” and

“What is the learning impact of having a learning platform in a school?”

The reason being, that if you stand and observe any classroom (any context, any age), it’s interesting to watch what children actually ‘do’ with books [excuse the slight generalisations that follow] – ranging from

• the 4-year-old using it to make a tent for a teddy,
• the 5-year old holding it upside-down and making up their own imaginative story based on the pictures,
• the 6-year old who sounds-out the words but struggles with finding meaning,
• the 7-year old who cuddles up on a beanbag for the story,
• the 8-year old who uses the book as a missile to launch across the carpet,
• the 9-year old who uses the dictionary to improve their writing work,
• the 10-year old who uses the encyclopaedia to find out facts,
• the 11-year old who loses themselves for hours in the mysteries of Harry Potter,
• the 13-year old who feels depressed at the sight of the Shakespeare book,
• the 14-year old who uses the text-book to doodle love-hearts in,
• the 15-year old who uses the book to hide their whispered conversations behind in class,
• the 16-year old who reads fiction on the train or at night for entertainment and escapism,
• the 17-year old who has a fear of social interaction, who reads non-fiction endlessly to build their self-esteem through knowledge acquisition
• the 19-year old who acquires and collects the ‘latest’ coffee table book

There are thousands of other uses for ‘a book’, but we never question the intrinsic value of books.

We all assume and agree that books inherently have a value, but we don’t mean the cardboard covers, the spine-glue or the paper pages and ink in-between.

When talking about the value of a book, we’re all making huge assumptions about the author, the reader, and the contents.

The value in “the book” as a concept is that

*The author has put something purposeful inside for the reader to engage with

*The author understands how to ‘write’ (that is, how to use this medium of communication effectively)

*The content inside it being of interest/relevance to the reader

*The book is on a shelf, in the class/home, in a backpack or shop when the reader wants/needs it

*Different books can provide different content for different times/needs (eg; story, non-fiction, dictionary)

*The reader can ‘hold’ it, feeling a sense of engagement and ownership

*The binding, illustrations and tidy formatting by the author imply it has value

*Once picked up, it belongs to the reader, not the author.

*Although the design and organisation within the book will make it more attractive (thus more likely to be picked up), or more usable (eg; contents/index, headings, page numbering), it’s still only going to be read if the author has added something informative, or something engaging.

* It’s the author’s care and attention to the book, rather than a scrapbooking approach, which is what implies value to the reader.

There’s a huge range of implied skills that are woven into the above – the most important ones being the authors writing and design skills, to the readers reading skills.

All this is just supported by The Publisher/Bookshop/Librarian who facilitate the handover of what the author has made, to the reader by providing physical access.

Perhaps re-read the above, changing the reference from ‘a book’ to ‘a learning platform’ or indeed any kind of technology.

The technology itself, just like a book, will never on its own be of any value or impact.

It’s what the author (teacher/user) puts inside, and what the reader (learner) wants/needs it for, that makes the impact.

Impact of learning platform use May 20, 2010

I’ve just posted the response below to a Vital CPD Hotseat where there are some great conversations taking place about the impact of learning platform use. You’ll need to register to view/contribute, but it’s free to do so and well worth exploring:

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What a timely thread! I’ve just spent the day with the NW local authority advisory teams discussing in quite some detail the impact that is being seen in schools now that the majority of schools are beyond the ‘adoption’ of learning platform and associated technologies.

With the majority of schools across the country now using a learning platform – whether through a local authority led project, or independently, there has been a significant shift from the ‘learn how to use it’ towards ‘how are we going to use it to achieve learning outcomes’. This is underpinned by a belief that there are significant benefits to leaning to be embraced – and quite right too!!

Ironically, like Jane (who I happen to know is using the learning platform to engage and motivate her children in a range of very exciting ways), most teachers are very self-effacing, and often don’t realise how much other people can benefit from learning about their work. A superb teacher I met this afternoon gave a presentation which must have had at least 20 examples of innovative or creative practice, but genuinely thought every school was doing most of it already. (Links to examples below).

This poses a strange situation where there are significant quantities of creativity and innovation through excellent learning opportunities, but very few people know about them. Sometimes, this is interpreted as ‘nothing is happening’ yet. I’ve seen this time and time again at a multitude of levels. At one end of the scale there are local authority areas where there are brilliant schools creating transformational learning experiences every day which no-one beyond the school community is aware of. At the other end of the scale there are classrooms where a child’s learning experience is being utterly transformed and no-one beyond the classroom is aware.

The reason I mention this is because we can learn a valuable lesson about what ‘progression/development/impact’ looks like. We often seek to”see it” or “touch it” or “measure it” and we often want a number to prove that something is making a difference.

I, like so many others, can very easily get carried away with trying out the novelty-factor ideas of embedding the latest Web2.0 object into a learning platform area, or adding multimedia content because it looks great. However, it’s very easy to get caught up in the momentum, and forget to ask that critical question “Just because it’s online and looks whizzy, does it actually help the learner understand/do anything differently?”

Yes, the online-ness, and the whizzy-ness is very engaging and motivating, and that in itself is a huge benefit to so many of our learners, but, given some of the questions above about impact-on-learning being achieved within a manageable teacher-workload, we need to be very careful. An approach of creating beautiful Web2.0 multimedia activities online which takes teachers hours to create is not sustainable. Neither will it have much impact on learning once the novelty wears off.

However, learner driven activities which add new opportunities to existing classroom provision are both sustainable, achievable, and will have an impact (eg; recent election debates forums, shared class pet diary forums, topic wikis, branching story with peer review wikis, eportfolio centric exam portfolios, maths strategies image/sound capture – all of these can be found under the link below).

There are a number of teachers quietly carrying out their own school based research projects as we speak which seek to determine impact of learning platform use on learning. The nature of how impact is quantified tends to fall into 3 categories in relation to learning platforms:

1. A teacher will add files (or other ‘stuff’ – content) to their learning platform and measure the number of ‘hits’ that these resources receive.

2. A teacher will explore a range of learning activities with their class as they learn how to use each of the learning platform features, and will then compare the predicted v. actual end of year assessments (eg; CATs, SATs, Exams).

3. A teacher will identify a target group of learners, and a target area for development (eg; Borderline Level 3/4 Non Chronological Writing), and will then dig into the hard-to-teach/hard-to-learn aspects of this target group/area to identify exactly what the ‘need’ is. Knowing this need, the teacher then considers ways in which learning platform opportunities can add value to existing provision. The measurable is then the impact on the “up-levelled” outcomes for the target learners.

Needless to say, the first method makes approximately 0% impact on learning but may provide some administrative benefits, the second methods sometimes makes a coincidental impact, but the third area turns up trumps for learning pretty much every time. It’s because the measurable impact was also the initial focus and goal for the action that took place.

The biggest challenge facing anyone looking for impact (progression, ‘difference’ or whichever term we use) is the relationship of what we’re hoping to find, with the action we took in the first place.

So, the easiest way to measure the impact of any learning platform use (or indeed any other area of learning!) is to look at what you want the impact to be, and work backwards – what is the thing you want to change / what are the current challenges facing your learners / what are the areas of engagement, motivation, attainment, progression or school improvement that you want to develop? Once you have identified this, then think about how to tackle a specific element with a specific group of people, and consider exactly what ‘needs’ to be achieved.

The challenging part of this process is having the knowledge to be able to understand what your learning platform can offer to support these goals and intentions, and that’s where the teacher-sharing that I mentioned above comes into play. No-one has tried everything, but everyone has tried something! Looking / Talking / Searching / Sharing is a great way to identify ‘how’ the learning platform can help you to achieve your goals. To this end I’ve been encouraging teachers to share via an Innovative Teacher Network (link below) which is proving highly successful (18,500 at last count). More on that in a moment.

Once you have a clear goal, clear focus on what you want to achieve and who will be involved, and once you have some ideas about how your learning platform can support you, then…. once you’ve carried out these things, you will be in a position to be able to ‘judge’ whether it has made a difference.

So, I think perhaps the next question in this sequence should be ‘what are you trying to achieve’?

I wrote up my own school research on the impact of using a learning platform to support learning – I carried the research out over about 18 months, and used once a term levelling, and SATs as a measurable of the children’s progression, and the Becta SRF as a measure of staff perception/reflection. The short version, is that targeted use of the leaning platform did make a measurable impact on children’s attainment and progression in hard-numeric assessment data. But…. this happened because all the teachers were focusing on specific areas of the curriculum, and used the learning platform as a mechanism for differentiation, extension, special provision, home learning, nurturing independence & independent learning. (Equally, if we’d done a project on the impact of sandpits, we’d have had to focus on the way that the sandpits were being used and how they added or enhanced learning opportunities!)

This research in summary form can be found on the NAACE site: www.naace.co.uk/178

In terms of some of the questions further back in this thread, I’d suggest a 5 stage approach for CPD that encourages every member of staff to undertake a small, informal, reflective project (could work as accredited action research, or just an informal exploration)

My suggested 5 step plan would be:

1. If you had to choose 1 area of your children’s learning (note: learning, not ‘teaching’ or ‘management/administration’) that you’d like to improve/enhance, what would it be and why? This becomes your Goal. (Keep it small scale so that it’s achievable).

2. What opportunities do you need to be able to achieve this?

3. Who needs to be involved, and in what way?

4. How can the opportunities that the learning platform provides help you to achieve this? (See link below for ideas)

5. What is the timeframe for this, and How will you know how successful this has been when you reach the end of that timeframe? How will you measure/reflect the link between the Goal, the Action and the Outcome?

Schools where I’ve seen whole-school transformation have all followed this kind of model in one way or another – teacher’s have a sense of motivation and personal ownership because the area that they are exploring is relevant to them (perhaps through their Professional Targets or current class challenges). Where all staff are working on something, it’s good to have regular opportunities to share back with colleagues – for example through staff meeting slots – to share ideas, challenges, solutions, observations on improvements, and encouragement). This is of course a common model for providing whole-school improvement (eg; everyone tasked to choose something relating to Parental Engagement or AfL), but which is personal to each individual class/teacher (eg; my class are focusing on engaging parents of the “6 children in Strawberries group”).

For anyone looking for Ideas, Examples, Case Studies, or Articles about learning platform use I’d strongly suggest having a look at  www.school-portal.co.uk/Grouphomepage.asp?GroupId=859283

Election Politics & Personalisation May 1, 2010

The recent ballot to boycott this summer term’s SATs assessments has sparked all kinds of controversy and conversation across the country. As we approach the general election there has been a range of views shared publicly by Headteachers, Parents, Children and Politicians. The general consensus seems to be that there is a friction between the need for accountability of schools so that we can ensure all children are receiving the very best start in life, and the political point-scoring nature which has led to so many changes of these accountability goal-posts.

Ask a Headteacher or Teacher what their view is on this political dynamic to school-life and you will most likely hear them say that the government (whichever political party that may be formed from), is dictating and creating levels of beurocracy which are getting in the way of progress of learning; our raison d’être. Ask the same Headteacher or Teacher where the solution lies and usually the answer includes some reference to the need for government to stop dictating, and for schools to be empowered to manage themselves.

Rightly so. Having had the priviledge of working with thousands of schools across the country I believe that our school workforce is packed full of inspirational people, experts, enthusiasts, creative minds and quite frankly, some phenomenal teachers.

We have the most fabulous range of skills in our teaching workforce today.

So I’m puzzled.

Why is it that we are all (me included) very quick to ask for government to decentralise their control, and to empower schools (us), but we are somewhat more hesitant to replicate this decentralisation/empowerment in our own classrooms?

The whole point of de-centralising surely is that it achieves empowerment of the individual?

De-centralising, means the whole way doesn’t it? Otherwise, are we not just creating a different kind of dictated leadership?

Consider this.

If we all woke up tomorrow and were told that in terms of Teaching & Learning, all schools were responsible for themselves and all teachers entirely responsible (in all senses) for their own classes and were not required to conform to any kind of dictat, then what would we change, and how would we change it? Do we actually know what we want to do? Do we have the confidence to do it?

Consider the most common arguments for devolving power away from central and local government down to schools:

• Government is out-of-touch with what children need
• Schools have expertise that should be forming the decisions
• Accountability expectations from government are getting in the way of Learning
• Inspections are carried out by people who are out-of-touch
• There is an endless stream of instructions and beurocracy (from government)

Consider replacing the above list with arguments for devolving power away from the school management and down to learners themselves:

• Managers are out-of-touch with what children need (eg; mobile phones in classroom learning)
• Learners have expertise that should be forming the decisions about learning (eg; I know … but I don’t yet know…)
• Accountability expectations from teachers (eg; the weekly spelling test) is getting in the way of Learning
• School observations are carried out by people who are out-of-touch (eg; if you understand how children learn, you don’t need to carry a clipboard when coming to watch…)
• There is an endless stream of instructions and beurocracy (eg; how many folders do we have in our classroom cupboards?!)

Now, I’m well aware that as soon as someone reads this list who is in support of the SATs boycott, the response will be “When government stop making us focus on tests, then we will have the freedom to be able to do all of these things”.

Well, (and this is controversial) I don’t believe anyone who says that!

The best Headteachers and teachers I’ve had the priviledge of working with have been those who empower their learners to organise, manage, review and respond to their own learning. Students who are given the learning objective and the context for their learning and are taught the skills, knowledge and understanding around how to approach the experience, and the rationale of why the particular learning objective is necessary; both immediately and in the longer term through their life. Among this group, the best Headteachers I’ve had the honour of working with do exactly the same for their teachers – empowering them not managing them.

This, is nothing to do with curriculum, and has everything to do with attitude. Attitude of the teacher. Attitude of the school leadership team. Where a Headteacher, or school leaders give their staff confidence and time to be able to think and discuss what needs to be in place to facilitate this kind of freedom-to-learn approach, it happens. Good leaders ensure that every teacher is empowered to be experimental in the classroom, to try out new strategies; accepting that some things will work and some will not.

The living proof that all of the above is possible and achievable is in schools all over the country, and is in schools from all kinds of catchments, backgrounds, strengths and challenges. Given that I work with so many schools in so many local authorities I’m wary of naming individuals here for fear of inadvertently offending anyone who I don’t mention! However, a look through my Twitter stream (www.twitter.com/FionaAS) will provide links to some of the schools I’m talking about.

Anyway, a week before the General Election made me wonder about a little parallel here.

I wonder, to what extent a school’s “style” reflects a subconscious political “style”.

For example, one school I have in mind – let’s call it Yellow School (deBono Six Hat reference!). Yellow School has a Headteacher who empowers everyone that she meets – children, teachers, parents, colleagues – I’ve watched this effervescence on many occasions and it’s quite ‘awesome’ (I mean that in the wow sense of the word!). The belief of this Headteacher is very much a ‘can do’ attitude – that everyone ‘can’ if they are encouraged , empowered and inspired. As you’d expect this has translated through into the most tangible learning environment at the school, high progression & attainment standards, engaged parents, and a happy community. All within a relatively challenging catchment area.  They key to this success has been the way that the Headteacher has empowered, and allowed every individual to do what they know and do best, and her role has been to encourage, support and facilitate that to happen. She’s effectively “de-centralised” the school. Everyone is still accountable, still has to ‘produce the goods’ (as is apparent by the progression & attainment outcomes), but is doing so by taking responsibility, and thus ownership of both the “problems, and the solutions”. Every individual at the school has personalised their role in “the school”; whether that be their role of teacher, child, parent, governor, community member. Everyone has ownership and feels responsibility for the part that their life plays in the big picture (the school).

Now I don’t know what the political viewpoints are of this Headteacher, but doesn’t the above rather mirror the phrases that we’re hearing from the Conservative Party of today? In the 3 recent prime ministerial debates David Cameron has used phrases such as

Have a look at the many comparisons of party views on education, and look for which ones are eproviding mechanisms to empower, and which are decentralising, and which are providing a “chalk & talk” approach to politics (do I as I say…). LINK – click to view

So what am I getting at?

This article began by looking at one of the symptoms of the centralised way in which our schools are currently organised – SATs. The majority of teachers & leaders feel that SATs are not serving the purpose they are there for. In fact I really like the Cambridge Report summary – “Stop making Year 6 tests bear the triple burden of assessing pupils, evaluating schools and monitoring national performance. Stop treating testing and assessment as synonymous. Abandon the naive belief that testing of itself drives up standards. It doesn’t: good teaching does.”

(Well personally I’d go a bit further and say that good Learning drives up standards, but that gets into a whole new discussion about why Teaching & Learning are so fundamentally different as approaches to Educating…)

Anyway, most of us are keen for whichever government we end up with next week to decentralise the way in which they lead our education system.

Many schools, like “Yellow School” above, are already doing their bit to decentralise within their own school – empowering teachers, encouraging families, embracing learner voice.

But, I’m not sure that everyone who says they want decentralisation from the government, really means that they want decentralisation. I think there are many instances where it’s just a way of asking government to devolve power to an individual or group of individuals (themselves). This, I feel is a flawed ideology. It means that instead of decentralising freeing up people to achieve their best, it actually just creates a new ‘centre’ for the centralisation – at school/Headteacher level.

No wonder some political parties such as Labour are therefore reluctant to make this happen – because the outcome would be that some schools empower every individual with outcomes such as Yellow School above, whereas some schools would tighten their own reins and create little ‘satellite versions’ within classrooms or schools, of what has been happening nationally – decentralised dictatorship.

Consider this right down to classroom level. Imagine government decentralise and give schools more control over their own organisation. Some Headteachers would then want to maintain the ‘control’ themselves alluded to above, but let’s imagine for a minute that the Headteacher is like the one at Yellow School and empowers individuals.

The buck now stops with us, the classroom teacher.

Are we ready / Do we know how, to empower individuals within our classrooms? (Empowering individuals is a bit of a soap-box of mine, as you’ll see from my Doctorate subject matter, because ultimately it’s all about empowering the individual to personalise their own experience – it’s decentralising from the teacher, to the learner).

Will the classroom teacher continue to decentralise, or will the classroom teacher want to retain ‘control’?

So there is a problem here. Even if government decentralised to schools, and Headteachers decentralised to teachers, I’m not sure that the majority of teachers feel comfortable or confident with being able to decentralise to learners – or in other words, facilitate personalisation.

I recently Twittered (Tweeted?) a question “What do you think Personalisation means?”, and although my response group was rather skewed by the nature of educators-who-happen-to-use-Twitter (and all the connotations of self-motivated professionals that this implies), there were 2 key groups of responses:

1)       Educators who think personalisation equated to differentiation

2)       Educators who understand personalisation, and are working towards its ideal, one step at a time

To me, the principles of the 2 responses above could equally describe our 2 main political parties at present:

1)       Political party who think empowerment equates to different sets of instructions for different people

2)       Political party who understand empowerment, and are working towards its ideal one step at a time
A closing thought then.

How much do your political views & aspirations equate to your existing professional practice?

If you talk about political empowerment, do you empower those that you work with?

If you talk about political differentiation, do you differentiate for those that you work with?

But above all, do your political views/ideals, match your personal & professional practice?

It’s certainly made me re-think mine…