Friday Reflection!

UK Education changes!

+Philip Spalding

A major week for educational announcements!  The Ebacc that was is not to be (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21363396).   The much needed re-establishment of confidence UK education qualifications took another twist as stakeholder groups had their input taken on board.  As usual there were claims of U-turns on policy.  This negative phrase goes back to the Mrs. Thatcher declaration the "Lady is not for turning".  Since this time reversals of thinking have become even more associated with failure rather than compromise.  We try to teach children in school is tolerance, considering the other persons point of view, weighing up evidence and making decisions based on a balanced view.

Parliament and politicians reinforce the idea that one individuals opinions are either wholly right or wholly wrong.  In a complex issue such as educational qualifications we have a lot of vested interests from subject experts to exam boards who publish their own textbooks to go with courses that wish to preserve the present system.  Understandable as they have been allowed to create the status quo.  The idea of market forces and demand moulding educational choices has faltered in the educational sphere under the influence  of league tables.  Innovative curricular are often shunned in schools as they take the safe route of following the materials that have all the information produced by a limited number of publishers and exam boards.  Selection of exam boards qualifications are often based on the perceived difficulty of the exam board.

A new curriculum was launched for State Schools.  Again the reporting on this issue shows the combative point scoring nature of British politics.  Academies can choose to write their own curriculum but with Ofsted judging against a fixed set criteria it would take a very brave new academy to risk being out of step. The system appears broken and needs fixing.  All parties should be working to a solution that will not be used just for one parliament. It needs to be allowed to run long enough to be effective in bringing about confidence in young people's skills.  The educational establishment needs to step back and be objective rather than protecting it's own position.  Pupils have an 11 year training period (two and a bit parliaments life times).  The effect of changes at year 5 will therefore not be seen for another 11 years by employers interested in recruiting a skilled workforce.  At the moment the pace of revision means that 16 year old pupils over a five year period can be sitting very different exams.  The GCSE is therefore not a very easy way to compare candidates for jobs and college places who span a range of interests. We have a conveyor belt of school, college jobs that rely on the same age group

The question has to be asked who are the GCSEs actually for, the schools or the pupils who have to enter the stage of their life.  Are they fit passports for a modern society?  Should basic qualifications in English, Maths and Sciences be sat at 16?  Why not 14? We used to test at this age.  The system was scrapped not so much because it did not give a good judgement of skills but because the system collapsed due to a marking fiasco.  With the growth of University Technical Colleges and apprenticeships the need for large Secondary schools delivering academic qualifications to the age of 16 is disappearing.  With the raising of the formal school leaving age to 17 this summer and 18 the following year makes the qualification sat at 16 as a test at school leaving age irrelevant.

The impact of e-learning has not been considered in the new curriculum other than introducing computing as a subject instead of ICT (Information Communication Technology).  As a former head of ICT (and Science first) I have always considered ICT to be a tool and not a subject.  To be simplistic presentation and communication tools such as PowerPoint and  Word should be taught and USED in English.  Spreadsheets taught and USED in Maths and Science.  Use of YouTube and social media taught and USED in Languages which to my thinking does include English (or Communication as it is now titled in some schools), for that matter we should use languages in other subjects as science as well.  Design and CAD packages used in Resistant Materials (this used to be woodwork and metal work) and design subjects.  Where computing will fit has not been stated.  In the EBacc it was to be the fourth science.   Should it be part of Maths?  Do we have the science teachers (who generally biologists in the UK) who can deliver coding in two languages, one of which is text based?  Are we going to have a Scratch and Python literate (Python is available for the Raspberry Pi) school population?   Are we going to have e-texts and BYOD (bring your own devices) for the classroom?  Can school networks cope with 950 or more Wi-Fi connected devices?  Does education have to involve all pupils being in a building at once if e-learning is embraced?

A fundamental question of education's future has been the overriding theme in the news.  My own little project of the Haverhill Online Learning Community (HOLC) has been gathering viewers locally this week with the Local History Week.  I have had a lot views of the timeline and some expression of interest, converting this into active members is again the challenge.  I have had a good meeting with the local MP, who is also Minister of Skills and can be seen pictured sitting next to Michael Gove in this article,  for advice and publicity.  Watch this space for further developments.  Next week  HOLC  is engaged in a little Urban Gardening  which will feature in the Blog   and on the Website.

I will also have to find some time to re-engage with all the Google+ Communities.  Full time teaching in Harlow for the past four weeks has been instructive on some levels for gathering pupil's opinions on use of Tablets and how they see the education they are receiving preparing them for later life.  However, there are not enough hours in the day looking forward to finishing this assignment next Thursday and working a bit closer to home! Have also to buy new devices this week, HP netbook and Kindle have all died!  Looking to go as much Linnux, Chrome and Android as possible, but will still need one windows based Laptop unfortunately.  Expensive times!

Friday reflection!

That Wow factor!

+Philip Spalding 

February has arrived!  The end of the month and how has 2013 been so far? Busy!  

The online learning experiences are coming thick and fast at the moment!  Almost too much as also trying to the day job!  Finding the right routine and the enthusiasm  to do the travelling is the essence and the key to succeeding in trying to leap those even minor buildings!

The Science Wow factor for the week from the net has been this from a maker site, the $5 projector .  Really simple idea great for teaching optics far more impact than traditional practicals for majority of children.  How great for awe and wonder in the phone culture!

A week of great changes for education announced in the UK with  the Ebacc causing most controversy.   In my opinion the sticking point with all this is the pre-occupation of using the word academic and non-academic to describe the educational outcomes of the different qualifications path.  The general view point is academic good, vocational bad (borrowing from George Orwell).  This may be due to the make up of the UK parliament being predominantly "middle class", although you probably cannot get more middle class in England than ex-army officers.  We do need to break the cultural link between the traditional stereotypes of "academic" and "non-academic" students being related to socio-economic groupings.  This has been more than a bit of millstone around the neck of the English education system ever since the first education act (and before) in 1870.  Universal education as opposed to mass education is still the debating point.  More recently who is paying for the education is also an issue.

Haverhill Online Learning Community (HOLC), OLC, Coursera Course and  other projects have been a little slow this week owing to the daily commitments of a drive to Harlow.  HOLC  has drawn the interest of the local MP (Member of Parliament) who is also a minister in the Department of Work.  Will have a chat with him next week one to one and see how it goes!

Have started the Cousera MOOC from Edinburgh University e-learning and digital cultures.  Have some videos to watch this morning and a hangout later today.  Will compare this to the edX  course which ton be honest was extremely time consuming as it is a full undergraduate module as if you were attending lectures etc!  Some good links to learning platforms which I will at some point share some if not all.

Full day of working own projects today including being trained online on the Blackboard LMS.  School I am working at the moment having a conference day.  All staff attending have been asked to have a twitter account up and running for collaborative interaction (how social this becomes when account "open" all the time and you can be expected to respond "out of hours" will be interesting to watch in the first few weeks) .  

Next week move onto local history with HOLC.  Have not proceeded as far as wanted to with the Telework Week but will revisit. 

So Cat at least will be happy to have me around all day at least!

 

The Google Classroom: Planning a Course

The Planning Process

Very few teachers would want to walk into a room and be presented with a title and expect to teach for an hour.  We adopted a process orientated approach that is measurable against specific outcomes.  With this in mind the approach I am going to adopt is one of measurable outcomes both for the student and the planner.  I have had a lot experience of this approach to working.

In 1998 when I first joined a Middle School Suffolk a as newly qualified teacher with QTS (a level attained after a year of being a PGCE qualified teacher on most UK career tracks) having already gained a BSc in Botany, MSc in Crop Protection and worked as a Postgraduate Researcher in Fertiliser Technologies and sometime agricultural lecturer.   I took over the running of the science department and later added ICT to the responsibilities.  Two major departments in the scheme of producing effective learners.   

Within a few weeks of taking over we were Inspected by Ofsted and were put into special measures having already been given a notice to improve.  In the next few years (2 and a half seemed like longer) we had quarterly visits from HMIs (Her Majesty's Inspectors) who take over from where Ofsted leave off having  put a school into special measures.  Twelve years later I left this post as they shut Middle Schools in my part of Suffolk to move to a two tier system.

In that time I have seen many changes in what is looked on  as effective teaching and trained a few PGCE students. One of whom I met in another school in Cambridgeshire, where I spent some time teaching secondary as a supply or substitute teacher as per my original science expertise.  Thus my experience spans age groups 9 to 18, to adult.  

Primarily I am going to cover course building using Google Course builder from an educator of 9 to 18 year olds point of view.  Adult courses I will also cover but a little later.  So, the topic.  A universal topic for all science labs, Design technology and  IT use is safety.   I recently  renewed Safeguarding Training and was struck by amount of new legislation related to IT that was brought in in 2010.  However, the 1974 Safety at Work Act still applies (even in Schools) so  some of the legislations key points in child friendly terms are pertinent  especially as we are training them for the work force.   Good habits start early! 

So having rambled on about my professional provenance, does you good sometimes to identify achievements, to the planning process.  I mentioned in one of the last blogs the suggested standard of a Google Certified Course as opposed to a Google certified teacher, not so much an endorsement but a recognition that certain steps have been gone through to produce the course.  A bit like the Investors in People accreditation in the UK,  a record of the good processes being in place but not necessarily a record of  successful outcome of the good practice.

Wiki pages produced by  Google suggest some good practice so I am going to use this as the frame work for the common process with adding layers on top.   One of the  major assessments attached to online courses is the record of time spent on the course.      As mentioned in a previous blog there is a National Framework for Qualifications in the UK as well as in Europe.  More relevant to time spent on a course is the   European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS).   A new innovation in Suffolk is the Suffolk Baccalaureate which a little controversially has been compared to new Ebacc proposed by Michael Gove.  Therefore as a change in the ground rules for qualifications is taking place any course produced has to be working to certain common international  standards to  have longevity.  This is possibly something the Google Teaching Community could look at.  While that discussion is initiated I will take on board to start with as I mentioned the Google planning framework.

So will be putting some "style pages" up for sharing based on the process outline on the Wiki Pages.