21st Century Skills? What about teachers?

There's a lot of talk about the skills that students need to thrive in a digital world. In fact, I wrote about it in a recent post. But it's easy to say, especially if you're a super keen 'techie' like me, who isn't working in classrooms any more. It's probably harder for teachers.

So if children need certain skills, what skills do teachers need to make this actually possible? 

This question is one that I would really like to be able to answer. I've done a fair bit of reading on it already, but still don't know what the answer is. Plenty of people have tried: UNESCO developed an ICT Competency Framework, which talks about things like Technology Literacy and Knowledge Creation. And on a more local level, the National Professional Standards for Teachers deal with skills around the use of ICT resources, as well as safe and ethical online practices. But what does all that mean? And who's got time to fit all that in?

Given the value of ICT tools, and the impact that they have in schools when applied correctly, it's (arguably) pretty important to get everyone on board. I don't know if there's a right way, or even an easy way, but I think if all teachers had these capabilities and understandings, it might be a good start:

Wave your devices in the air like you just don't care by Garrett Coakley. Under CC BY NC 2.0

The Why 

I've seen it time and time again. Teachers and principals see a presentation about the value of ICT, or a really cool example of best practice. And suddenly they're super keen. They might not have all the skills yet, but they're keen to try. Not a bad start. The trouble is, most of the people I see at conferences etc are already on the bandwagon. We've just got to find a way to get these messages across to teachers. 

The How

This is not about technical skills. One thing I told my students all the time was that technology changes way too fast for us to be able to know everything. It makes even less sense for us to spend a heap of time learning one particular program or platform. Instead, we need to concentrate on developing our knowledge of how to use technology generally: how and where to find help (e.g. how-to videos; Lynda.com; Google!); how to ask for and accept help (even/especially from our students); how to transfer knowledge (basic ICT functions are the same across most platforms); and how to figure out what is the best ICT tool for the job we're doing.

The What

Yep, work out what tool will do the best job, but also know what's out there. I reckon that comes from keeping track of things. Through Professional Learning Networks (like the ones you'll find on Twitter); through following technology blogs and commentary (like the Horizon Report); through a little bit of regular trial and error; through checking in with what your kids/students are doing. 

I think concentrating on these three areas of development will do wonders. Now I've just got to work out how to help teachers understand that!

How do you and the teachers you know feel about technology? Do you think these capabilities would help?

Twitter

My first Tweet:

Ironic, as this post is about how Twitter is more than a procrastination tool!

Having been on Twitter for quite a few years, I'm still amazed at 1: how many people don't use it; and 2: how many people don't understand it.

While I freely admit to being all over social media, and a voracious consumer of content on Facebook and Instagram particularly, Twitter is probably my most active platform in relation to education.

When I ask people 'are you on Twitter', I either get the "ain't nobody got time for that" response, or "I have no interest in seeing what Kim Kardashian had for lunch."
Of course, both are valid arguments, as Twitter can be a very powerful time-wasting tool (as with any type of social media), and there are a plethora of boring people posting idiotic and inane content.

But Twitter can be a very powerful educational tool as well. Here are a couple of examples:

Twitter as a search engine 

There are so many people on Twitter now that it can now produce a dramatic spread of ideas and perspectives. When teaching Digital Literacy, what better way than to show students how many different points of view there are?

Consider this. Put 'World War Two' into Google and you get some pretty standard results: Wikipedia, facts and statistics, related news stories. 

Put it into Twitter, and you get an amazing array of stories (from all sides), images, blog posts and a whole lot of interesting stuff that would help you explore the more human side. For example, from that search, here's a list of the '10 definitive songs from World War Two'. 

Twitter as a teacher resource/idea bank

Educators are one of the biggest groups of users on Twitter. So it makes sense that there would be some good sharing on there. Everything from lesson plans to multimedia to advice from experienced teachers (and inspiring thought leaders!). 

There are two simple ways to do it: You can follow the right people and check in with them regularly to see what they're doing (here's a Tweet about the SAMR model); Or you can use a hashtag to find specific material (here's what's in the #mathchat stream).

Of course, there are other great uses for Twitter: as a PLN, as a backchannel, as a discussion space, or even as a writing challenge.

If you don't know how to use Twitter, or you don't have an account, I suggest you give it a go. There are plenty of helpful resources out there to help you get started. Here are a couple to try (funnily enough, all found through Twitter!):

Getting started with Twitter by Twitter.

I'm an educator, what should I tweet about? by Craig Kemp

Twitter 101 for Teachers by Mrs T

Twitter 101 by Stretch Education

Are you using Twitter? How are you using it? 

"Highly Educated Useless People"

The Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) have released a report that predicts big changes for the Australian workforce. Much of it deals with the impact of automation, emerging technologies and increased computing power (and affordability).

For those of us that work in the field of educational technology, this is not a new idea. Many of the smartest people I know have talked about this for years. I posted last year about Ian Jukes' keynote at the EduTech conference, where he talked about this very thing. Yong Zhao also has some great insights to offer about entrepreneurship and the need for change.

In their 2011 book, "Literacy is Not Enough: 21st Century Fluencies for the Digital Age", Andrew Churches, Lee Crockett and Ian Jukes talk about 'Highly Educated, Useless People', attributed to the minister for education in a 'high-profile' (but unnamed) country. These are the people that pass all their tests and do well at school and then graduate with no useful, real-world skills at all.

To me, this idea highlights one of main problems in education currently. When we focus on facts, testing and a one-size-fits-all approach, we are certainly producing the kind of people that would be good in factories or typing pools...

One of the Typing Pools by Scottish Government Under CC BY-NC 

...but not the kind of people that are going to be able to keep learning, be flexible,  create their own solutions, create employment opportunities, and create new ideas and industries (notice the key word here?). As highlighted in the CEDA report, these are the kinds of skills that people are going to need to be able to overcome the challenges presented by an automated, computerised workforce.

If the world is starting to realise the importance of innovation and creativity for a changed workforce, when will the education sector do the same? And what's the change that is necessary? What do we teach? What can we let go? I believe that we don't really need to teach facts and figures any more, Google's got that covered. But surely all people need at least some basic literacy and numeracy knowledge. And they need to know something about technology, given that it will be their direct competition in the workforce. But how much is essential content? Is there essential content? The CEDA report emphasises the need for schools to ensure they are "...instilling competencies rather than the retention of specific knowledge." (page 15).  Is this the right approach?

Or is it more about how we teach? Can we look at a more personalised approach that (alongside those 'essential skills') allows students to pursue areas of study that they are interested in? This will involve huge changes in teaching, school structure and policy; but if the information in the report is correct, these changes are absolutely necessary.

Robots by Justin Morgan Under CC BY SA 2.0

I'm aware that I'm a little broken-recordy in this, but I truly feel that we are doing students a disservice pushing them through a school system that is designed for another age. So this is my call to arms. If you're a teacher, you can change from within (I talked about that already). If you're not, make some noise. Because surely you don't want your children (or I guess we're looking at grandchildren now) to be useless people?

It's not actually about ICT...

For the past 18 months, I've been teaching a course called 'Learning with Technology' to pre-service teachers. There are many ideas that I have included in the course (quite possible too many for one semester!), but the big message that I hope they all get is that I'd really like to see a day when this course didn't have to exist at all.

You see, as soon as you start talking about ICT (technology) on its own, people immediately focus on the gadgets and the apps and the games and all those things. But what ICT should be is invisible.

Invisible MacBook Pro by Mark Norman Francis via Flickr (CC BY NC)

The first thing that you notice when you walk into a classroom shouldn't be the fancy iPads or Chromebooks or whatever, it should be the kids. Engaged. Motivated. Learning.
Sure, that seems to happen more often when ICT is used (and I will explore this in further posts), but the ICT is not the reason. It's just the tool. Good teaching, good planning and relevant content is more likely to be the reason.

I tell my students that they should always start with the learning. I like the questions that we used to use to frame our planning around the Quality Teaching Model (whatever happened to that?!):

• What do you want the students to learn?
• Why does that learning matter? 
• What are you going to get the students to do (or produce)?
• How well do you expect them to do it?

And shouldn't that be the question we're always asking? Not 'how will they use these iPads?'; or 'how could they use this game'? 

Something for us all to think about...

I can just copy, right?

Hands up if you've ever found an image on Google and used it in your assignment/resource/blog/etc?

Image by gaelx: https://www.flickr.com/photos/gaelx/6915188757
Used under a CC BY-SA 2.0 license.

Yep, that's probably every single one of us. Why not? It's a pretty easy thing to do, and no one will get hurt, right?
Well, it's highly likely that no one will actually get hurt, but what about the principle of the thing? If you created something that you were really proud of, then put it out there for other people to enjoy, would you be happy with anyone using it? Any time? For any purpose?

Increasingly, our lives are being digitised. We have this amazing access to a wonderful collection of digital products that we can download in an instant and share just as quickly. But the question is, should you? And more importantly, should your students?

For many of us, the digital world came upon us while we were already operating in an analogue space. We were used to making mixed tapes that would only be shared with us or our significant others, the posters that we made for class had clumsily photocopied pictures, pictures cut out of magazines (or old encyclopedias!) or even hand-drawn ones.They would be viewed by our teacher and maybe our class (and perhaps if we were really special, the principal or the assembly).

Then Google images came along (and all those other 'sharing tools'), and suddenly you could have access to all these cool pictures and stuff.

All this happened before anyone could come up with any rules for use, or ways to protect intellectual property. And hey, they still haven't.

But that doesn't make it right. In fact there are some pretty clear copyright guidelines that we should all be living by. Not only so that people can create in the knowledge that they will receive recognition (and sometimes money), but also so that we are modelling best practice for our students.

So how does it work?
In Australia, Copyright Law is pretty straightforward:

• As soon as you create something, copyright protection is automatic.
• If you use something that has been created by someone else, you must seek their permission.

Ok, so it's a little more complicated that that, but these are the basics (you can read more here).

So basically, any picture you take off Google Images has been created by someone else and is subject to copyright. And you need to seek their permission to use it.

But...

A question that I hear often is "what if I can't find out who created it?", which is a perfectly legitimate question and is at the heart of this problem. The Copyright Council says 'too bad, you can't use it', and that not asking for permission because you can't find the owner is not a defensible position in a copyright infringement matter. 

Another question I hear a lot is "does it really matter if I'm just using it for school?". Technically, it doesn't really matter as much, as if you're only using a small proportion of a work (e.g. 10%), it falls under the 'Fair Dealing' exceptions. However, this can be tricky when it comes to images, as most of us don't tend to use only 10% of an image. And unfortunately, despite some general advice, there are still many grey areas here. 

But even if you do think it's OK to use that photo, the other part of this is what I mentioned earlier, the behaviours that we model for our students. We want them to value to creative work of others (and hopefully create their own works), and we want them to use the internet in ethical and appropriate ways (heck, it's even spelled out in the curriculum). So it's important that we model appropriate and ethical behaviours for them.

Image by opensource.com: https://www.flickr.com/photos/opensourceway/4371001458
Used under a CC BY-SA 2.0 license.

So what can we do?

Where possible, seek permission for any work that you take off the internet. If you can't figure out who owned it, don't use it, or at least acknowledge it (though again, this is rarely considered a defensible approach under Copyright Law - except in some educational cases). 

- OR - 

Create the work yourself. Get out your camera and take a photo of something that illustrates your point. Better yet, get your students to do it!

- OR - 

Use Creative Commons licensed material. If you don't know, Creative Commons is a worldwide system of licensing that allows content creators to specify how their work will be used. It's growing bigger every day, with millions of people around the world licensing their content in ways that allow other people to use it and build on it while still retaining some ownership over their creation. 

Using Creative Commons licensed work gives students (and teachers) the opportunity to access quality images, sounds, music and video in ethical ways that don't breach copyright. I think it's our job to teach our students to used content in this way, by sharing their own work, and by accessing only appropriately licensed content. This is what we should be modelling for them too. 

I teach Creative Commons to my students (pre-service teachers) in the hope that they will use it in their practice. Hopefully, they will also teach it to their students. 

To find Creative Commons licensed material, you can search the Creative Commons portal, or Google offers a Creative Commons search, as does Flickr (just use the 'Advanced Search' function).

Watch this video for more information about Creative Commons.

EduTECH Theme #1 - Changing Education Paradigms: Sir Ken Robinson

I must admit, I've got a bit of an educational crush on Sir Ken Robinson. He's an enormously engaging speaker, and I've quite enjoyed his TED talks (How Schools Kill Creativity, Bring on the Education Revolution and How to Escape Education's Death Valley), books and articles.
Apparently I'm not the only one. This year was the first time that Sir Ken (as he's affectionately known) has appeared at EduTECH in person (the last two years he appeared via video link, which was still cool, but didn't have quite the impact that a live appearance had). The poor guy was mobbed wherever he went (though I guess that's why he earns the big bucks!), and while I got in a quick hello, I'm too much of a 'I don't want to bother anyone' person to actually pipe up and ask him for a picture or anything. However, I did have a front row seat:

Robinson gave a rather entertaining keynote on the first day, as well as more of his insights during the gala dinner that evening. While much of what he says is stuff that he's said before, I think the value lies in the delivery. He has the ability to make an audience of nearly 5000 people laugh, Tweet like crazy and walk away inspired; and with the message that he's delivering, I think that's a good result in itself.

So, what was his message? Well the first one that I picked up (and Tweeted) was his discussion about educational leaders and the GERM (Global Education Reform Movement). While most of us involved in education understand the need for educational change (as outlined in my last two posts), Robinson said that the leaders and policy makers (who "pass through education without touching the sides") that are so carefully studying our schools and our outcomes (mainly via testing regimes), don't really know much about education, but feel quite confident about passing judgement on it. This has meant that the changes that are really needed just won't happen.

Robinson also talked about change. The rapid pace of change in many areas.

He talked about technology; how tools "expanded our mind and extended our reach, and brought a whole universe into our grasp". But he also talked about how tools are 'neutral'. It's the creative capacity of the people that use the tools that give them life. Robinson gave the example of the cupboard full of instruments that is nothing until people pick them up and play them. So tools are great, technology tools are great, but without people to use them in purposeful ways, they are rarely going to be useful.

He talked about how we're adapting rapidly to technological change, and how it's changed the way we socialise, how we've adapted to the incredible speeds that we now enjoy in our internet access and processing power ("Come on, I haven't got all minute!"). He noted his discomfort at technological advances such as Google Glass. He's not sure about the 'inconvenience' of having to take your phone out of your pocket to access the internet, and how silly this might look to our grandkids ("oh, what was it like, having to carry that thing about?"). And he pointed out that in a decade or so, we might be working alongside non-organic 'beings' that have the same rights that we do (was he joking? You tell me!)

He also talked about population growth. Our current generation is the biggest since the dawn of human history. The biggest rate of growth is in the third world, and it's in cities. This will have an enormous impact on quality of life, work, resources and education.

The effect of population growth in the past led to industrial farming methods and all those things that we're now finding are causing problems: technology that made farming quick and easy (combine harvesters etc); chemical fertilisers; and pesticides, because the monocultural farms produced by these advancements produced ecosystems that lacked diversity and were prone to disease and pest invasion. This was good for a while, but we now find that the topsoil is eroded and nothing grows without a lot of artificial intervention. It's taken essential nutrients out of our diet and led to the rise of processed and fast foods (and all the associated problems). Robinson argued that this industrialised farming was a result of the technology and the mindset at the time. It's all about yield and output.

Robinson then argued that this is what education is at the moment: yield, output, big data, PISA, etc. And that it, like industrial farming, is not sustainable. Nice analogy, huh?

The good thing is that the problems we've had with food and health have led to the growth of organic farming; with the emphasis on the soil, rather than the plant. Robinson argued that we need to move to organic education. Education that is not focused on yield and output, but on culture (well-being), ecology (diversity), equality (fairness, justice, equity) and care (focused on all aspects of the system). For many students, public education is the only opportunity that they have, and we need to make big changes to ensure that everyone has that shot. The thing is, he emphasised that we need to change education from the ground up, rather than relying on the policy makers to make the changes for us.

The school is the soil, the students are the flowers, the school leaders are the clouds and the government is the sun.

So, continuing the farming analogy, Robinson's suggestion was that in schools, we need to concentrate on the 'organic' principles of culture, ecology, equality and care. Every school is a microclimate, and it can create its own culture. Governments come and go, but the people that actually do the work keep going. The principal's job is to shelter the microclimate from the harsh 'sun' that is government policy, and just get on with doing what they know is the right thing for their school and their students.

And finally, Robinson argued that as schools, parents and students, sometimes it depends on the questions that we ask. If we ask 'how can we improve maths outcomes', then the energy goes into addressing that. If we ask 'how can we improve the life of that child, right now?', then that's a different question all together.

Thanks Sir Ken.

Many people will recognise Sir Ken Robinson's ideas from this RSA animation from 2010. Check it out if you haven't seen it!

Also, check out this visual interpretation of Sir Ken's keynote by Cathy Hunt at the iPad Art Room. Cool stuff huh?

Created by Cathy Hunt

EduTECH Theme #1 - Changing Education Paradigms: Sugata Mitra

In this post I'd like to go back to the beginning. Sugata Mitra was the opening keynote speaker for EduTECH, and he definitely set the theme for the conference.

I've always been fascinated by Mitra's 'Hole in the Wall' project (if you're not familiar, it started in 1999 and involved installing computers into walls in remote Indian villages and observing the behaviour of the local children), so it was great to be able to hear him speak about it, and about his ideas around the 'School in the Cloud'. And he spoke so engagingly and eloquently. I loved his stories about the original project; how within 5 months of their very first use of the unfamiliar computers, the kids were using it to Google their homework and quote websites such as the 'Harvard Business Review'. I was also quite taken with his story of a further experiment (that by his admission was designed to produce a fail result) that was to investigate whether Tamil-speaking children could learn (in English) about DNA replication through these street-side computers. They didn't. In fact, they understood it quite well!

So, as a result of this research, Mitra proposed that perhaps there are some things that students can actually learn for themselves, and that 'Knowing' is obsolete. Not knowledge, but knowing. That perhaps the things that are traditionally taught (and tested) in schools are not really what we should be concentrating on. Can you see a pattern here? Like Jukes, Mitra emphasised that traditional schooling models, where students are taught skills for jobs that no longer exist, and behaviours that are no longer required, are also obsolete. That they are producing students that know a lot of useless facts, but can't think for themselves. He asked us what boss would want an employee that is constantly asking 'what should I do next'? Not many; they are after creative thinkers and problem solvers (again, can you see the pattern?).

At first glance, it would be easy to think that perhaps Mitra was saying that teachers are obsolete too. He isn't. He's saying that children can learn anyway. But seeing as how schools aren't going anywhere, he suggested that perhaps students could benefit from a different approach to learning, even if it was only for one session a week. They would do this with the assistance of an 'admiring figure' (the teacher?) that encourages students to go further, question themselves, come up with creative solutions. He used grandmothers in his first experiment. He put out a call for people that were willing to donate an hour of their time each week to talk online with students. These people (mainly retired people) would log in for an hour a week and talk to students, read to them, ask them questions, and provide encouragement and admiration for what the students were doing. Mitra called this the Granny Cloud. This approach has been very successful with Indian children, and also with children in Columbia.

The success of this approach has developed into the idea of what Mitra calls a 'SOLE': Self-Organised Learning Environment'. He suggested that learning should take place on the 'edge of chaos', and that students are pretty good at figuring things out with a bit of encouragement. He included a beautiful analogy of the surfer: who does not have someone on their shoulder saying 'tilt to the right now', they figure it out for themselves and sometimes fall off, but they have someone on the beach (or beside them on another board) shouting 'go for it!'; 'you can do it!'.

To create a SOLE, he said that the first things that are needed are a broadband connection, collaboration and encouragement/admiration. Schools can definitely provide this.

Three requirements to set up a SOLE: Broadband, collaboration, encouragement/admiration.

Interestingly, Mitra also suggested that 1:1 is maybe not the best approach for schools, as it does not allow for collaboration. While it's good for students to have their own device to use at home, Mitra suggests it's much better to use shared computers in class, so students can talk and collaborate (because this is where the big learning happens). What do you think about this?

The other things that are required are a curriculum of questions, peer assessment and certification without examination.

Certification without examination. Do we always have to test?

How do we do this? Well Mitra suggested that we (us, the students) can find the big, interesting questions in the curriculum, leave the children alone to find the answers by talking to each other, searching the web, critically analysing the sources of the information that they find. We can provide encouragement and admiration, but must try and refrain from giving them direction. We can then see if they've found the answer, or at least have gotten some way towards that. Not by testing. Just by judging for ourselves whether they've "done a good job"; whether it's "good enough".

Some interesting things to think about. And I tend to think that it's approaches like this that might get us somewhere towards the educational change that we're looking for. That Ian Jukes so passionately argued for. Changing one little thing at a time. Providing some flexibility and self-organised learning even just once a week, to give our students the opportunity to learn on their own, pursue topics of interest, and collaborate in meaningful ways. What do you think?

If you would like more information about SOLEs, you can download a free toolkit here.