Week 3 and opening out the discussion
While visits to SchoolsTech have continued at broadly the same levels, discussion in this week’s topic has been much less active than in previous weeks. This isn’t the end of the world, but if you have any insights as to why that might be (longer, more complex questions? longer introduction? less contentious issues?), please comment here. Of course, Week 2 isn’t over yet, and we’re going to extend the window for part 1 of Teacher Skills and Role until the end of Monday, so you still have time to contribute if you’d like to.
On Sunday we’ll also be opening the Week 3 discussions, which include part 2 of Teacher Skills and Role and New Models of Teaching and Education Supported by Technology.
We’ve also been thinking about how we might broaden and open out the discussion to include issues that are in keeping with the Stimulus Questions, as posed by the Department for Education, but prompted, for ALT and Naace, by the conversation so far. Our initial step is to suggest a further set of questions that we’ve called Opening Out (the first question is about “blind spots” in the discussion, so hopefully that serves as a catch-all). Unlike the other themes, we’ll leave this one open for comments for the rest of the life of this site. If you have comments on this approach, or suggestions for other ways we might enrich the conversation — while staying true to its original purpose — please let us know here.
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Michael Gove said (as quoted at the link above), “We need a serious, intelligent conversation about *how technology will transform education*”.
But most of the discussion on this site has been about *how education will teach technology*, which is something completely different.
So the problem is not how to *stay* on topic – it is how to *get* on topic in the first place. The confusion between the two objectives (*teaching* technology and *using* technology) has run deep in the policies of Becta and the DfE over the last 10 years. I have written in more detail about this confusion in “Scrapping ‘ICT’” at http://edtechnow.net/2012/01/18/scrapping-ict/.
In my view, there are two problems with the structure of the discussion on this site:
1. the stimulus questions provided by the DfE are poor;
2. we should not be constrained by pre-defined stimulus questions at all, particularly if it is true that we need “a serious, intelligent conversation” in which the old shibboleths can be challenged. That requires a conversation in which there are no constraints at all – or at least as few constraints as possible.
It follows from (2) that what we need is not *more* stimulus questions, laying down more pre-defined railways tracks to define where we are allowed to go and where we can’t go for the next five weeks, but *fewer* stimulus questions. Let us go on an intellectual adventure in which everyone is prepared to end up no-one is quite sure where.
In my post at 20/01/2012 at 11:23 am, I suggested two broad questions:
1. What do young people need to learn about technology?
2. How are we going to use technology to teach them?
As far as I can see, that is all we need to get started. As we start to discuss these two questions, new questions will start to emerge. The role of teachers (which we are meant to be discussing this week and next) follows as one of the consequences of teaching and using technology in schools – but we cannot possibly say anything intelligent about this until we have some sort of idea of what sorts of technology we are going to be using and teaching – different sorts of technologies will have completely different consequences. That is why the intelligent conversation does not require a new set of questions – but rather a process which creates a logical journey.
Sometimes our moderators might say “we can see a sub-topic emerging here, which we are going to move to a new thread”. Sometimes participants in the conversation might suggest new questions as we go along, and if anyone shows interest in the suggested new question, this should also be moved to a new thread. Some branches will quickly peter out as the conversations reach stalemate or consensus; others will further sub-divide. The moderators (perhaps delegating this task to a willing, uncommitted third-parties) should try and produce summaries of the conversation as we move along – as I suspect that these summaries will stimulate further discussion and clarifications, as well as being useful as a kind of publicity tool for getting more people involved in the debate. Some high-level reports could be pushed out towards the media. I think it is really important that summarising the conversation is not left until the end of the conversation, but carries on in tandem with the debate.
Nor do I think we should be bound by week-long windows. Sometimes a conversation will wrap itself up much sooner than that – sometimes it will have legs and will last for several weeks.
Two further points [added by the moderator from a second and subsequent post by Crispin Weston, submitted 9 minutes later]:
1. One of the important indications of progress will be the emergence of a commonly accepted terminology. There may be three or four different sorts of technology curriculum, and three or four broad ways in which technology can be used. We may continue to disagree about their relative importance, but let us at least agree on what they are and give them names.
2. I believe that WordPress allows a setting which requires new contributors to be moderated, but existing contributors to be allowed to make their comments without moderation. Selecting this option will significantly increase the productivity and liveliness of the conversation.
I’m responding on behalf of Naace and ALT.
We respectfully point out that Crispin’s first question “What do young people need to learn about technology?” is outside the scope that ALT and Naace have agreed for schoolstech with DFE, though obviously there is some overlap with the second question.
Naace ALT are running this conversation site and process this on pro-bono basis, by which we mean that to do it we are incurring some small cash costs and some more substantial time costs.
Even if what Crispin proposes is desirable (and as we’ve indicated in some offline dialogue with him, we do not think it would be) we are not in position to implement it.
In these circumstances we think the sensible thing is to agree to differ on the approach to take. We’ve broadened things out somewhat with http://schoolstech.org.uk/stimulus-questions/opening-out/ and we encourage participants to respond to the questions posed there. They are not time-limited.
Seb Schmoller
Chief Executive
Association for Learning Technology (ALT)
Seb,
Thank you for the response.
I do not think that the reasons you give above are good ones, either with respect of resourcing, or in respect of other reasons which you are supposed to have given me off-list (which is not the case). So I think you have made the wrong call on this one, though it is your call to make of course.
It is not (as Bob Harrison suggests below) that people don’t know that this conversation is happening – you had the best launch publicity that anyone could have dreamed of. It is that they came here, did not like the way the debate was being managed, and left.
I shall be making a detailed response in due course on my blog at http://www.EdTechNow.net.
Crispin.
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OK Crispin. Thanks for your views on this.
Seb Schmoller
seb.schmoller@alt.ac.uk
You ask in the ‘opening out’ discussion board whether there are ” “blind-spots” in current discussion about technology-enhanced learning and, if so, what are they and how should they be avoided?” I think that Crispin’s first question “what do young people need to learn about technology?” is that very blind spot and it is the unidentified common cause of all the discussions on this site so far. If we don’t discuss this then our work here will be based upon arguments where we have confused cause and effect: technology and education are present together in the class room therefore technology must cause education. This is an over simplification I’ll grant you, but I can’t help thinking that there is too much investment in this misunderstanding of education and technology. I appreciate that ALT and NAACE are in the difficult position of being immutably interested with ‘education technologies’ and that you have also agreed with the DfE on what you are going to cover; but please consider that many of the ‘opening out’ questions reflect only this interest and not the wider interests of “parents, teachers, technology developers and practitioners, policy people, researchers, students, people from industry and any others” who are here to discuss “the implications of new technology developments in English schools” (About Schoolstech).
Suggest we try and open up with teacher unions, subject associations and also membership newsletters again?
I have asked colleagues at National College to upload whole conversation to Talk2Learn.
What about JISC to try and engage the HEIs involved in Teacher Education?
The Vital site perhaps as well? Sec Ed digital? TES?