10Q: David Mitchell

I ended 2011 with a post called Four game changers which featured four key innovators who are radically transforming education. Throughout 2012 I plan to feature more educators who are doing significant work in schools, colleges and universities, and who in their own ways are changing teaching and learning. Each will answer ten questions about their life, their opinions and their professional practice in education. In this first of my 10Q posts, I interview David Mitchell, Deputy Head Teacher of Heathfield Community Primary School in Bolton, who talks about his hopes and aspirations for schools in the future, and how social media tools such as blogs, and his concept of QuadBlogging are having a positive impact on primary education at an international level.

Who are you?
My name is David Mitchell (aka @DeputyMitchell) I am the Deputy Headteacher at Heathfield Community Primary School in Bolton. I have been the Acting Headteacher since the summer of 2011 but now look forward to handing over the reigns to our new Headteacher from January 1st 2012. In addition to my official role, I am also a Google Certified Teacher from the first Google Teacher Academy outside of the USA. I am also a Toshiba Education Ambassador and have been fortunate enough to have been on the receiving end of some awards in 2010 and 2011.

What first attracted you to teaching?
My father (@gog40) was a teacher so I have always had teaching in my blood. However, that isn't the reason I wanted to become a teacher. I didn't do very well at school due to many factors, the biggest being that I wasn't challenged or engaged. I left school with only 2 GCSEs after my first attempt with an additional 3 after my second attempt. Although I tried many other paths to employment, my learning journey only began the moment I started my teaching degree in 1993. I truly thought that I could make learning more engaging than my teachers did for me. I wanted to prove to Mr. Clegg (Maths teacher from my school) that I wasn't the class clown.

What excites you now about teaching?
The tools at my disposal excite me! I have seen the most powerful learning moments come when my pupils learn with me and learning isn't done 'to them' but 'with them'. As I have said above, my learning journey began the moment I started my teaching degree, I'm still on that journey and so long as I keep excited about learning then my learners will too. I'm so excited about the unknown future that we are preparing our learners for. There isn't a checklist of things we need to tick off. So long as my learners LOVE learning they will be able to tackle the unknown the future will undoubtedly throw at them.

What would you change in education if you had the opportunity?
If I had the chance to change things in education, I would take education out of the hands of politicians. Education needs protecting from the games of politics. I think the profession isn't used enough in the governance of education, how come one man or one woman's vision for education can become policy? There are teachers, school leaders and Governors out there who have decades of experience who should be able to guide progress in education with much more impact than the current system. I don't have the answers but if the politicians asked the profession how education could improve I have 100% faith that we'd get it absolutely right!

Why is blogging so important in education?
Blogging suffers from a very narrow definition! I know this as I'm that blogging bloke who was on the telly. What many people don't know is the pedagogy behind the good practice that goes into the learning behind a great blog.

Firstly, a blog is an outcome, this outcome has seen many stages before it is made public. And in the public nature of the outcome lies the magic of the engagement that so many teachers that use blogging preach about.

"The child's tray is a hospice for their writing, where their writing goes to die." (Bill Lord, 2011) This concept is so easy for me to understand as this is what my own education lacked. We ask our learners to consider their audience daily or weekly. What's the point when they are writing for their teacher alone? From my experience the learner also knows what we will be writing in their books for developmental points too. Give a learner a global platform to publish their learning and you'll see these learners apply 100% effort because if they don't, their audience will tell them!

At another level blogging is so important in education because of the community that surrounds it - a generous group of sharing learners all at different levels of their learning journeys. Comments from other learners are more powerful than any other comments. Over the last 12 months, my learners have received over 8,000 comments. These 8,000 comments are sometimes 300-400 words long with links to examples and suggestions too. How powerful is that? More powerful than my 3 stars and a wish? My learners think so!

What do teachers need to know about social media in schools?
Teachers need to know that social media doesn't need to hurt. From Facebook to Twitter, from YouTube to Blogging, put these tools in the hands of an educator who has a sensible outlook about how these tools can be used and you'll see the benefit from the learning that is taking place at the hands of that educator. Collaboration, teamwork and peer support are all offspring of effective use of social media in my classroom. Once you embrace a tool like Twitter you'll have access to many people that have already used social media within schools and they will be more than happy to share the experiences.

What is QuadBlogging?
QuadBlogging was born out of a tiny idea to help out a school that was doing some fantastic blogging but not getting the audience that they deserved. There was a danger that the pupils and teachers might lose interest. This would have been a travesty as the learning being showcased on their class blogs was wonderful. Heathfield is blessed with a very healthy audience and I also knew a couple of other people who also had a healthy audience. I saw an opportunity where 3 schools could help one school. This is where the number 4 and the term Quad came from. Each week one of the 4 classes or schools would be the focus where the other 3 classes or schools would visit during that week and leave comments for the learners. Each week would see a new school out of the 4 being the focus school/class and this would be repeated for the 4 weeks. While setting up this Quad, I publicised it on Twitter and within a few days about 10 other teachers asked if they could be a part of this QuadBlogging.

The concept has remained the same, however, the organisation be behind the scenes hasn't. Going from 4 classes to approximately 1000 from 25 countries has been a tricky project to manage. Each quad now has a volunteer from within that quad to be the Quad Coordinator, responsible for communication between the adults in the quad resulting in a smooth cycle where each class knows which is the focus class. The tools behind the scenes have also evolved. A Google Form linked to a spreadsheet embedded within the Quadblogging blog makes organising each quad quite easy. Up to now, QuadBlogging has directly impacted around 40,000 pupils from all over the globe.

What positive outcomes of quadblogging have you personally seen in schools?
Gathering evidence of impact from Quadblogging classes has proved fairly hard. It has been obvious from tweets from Quadblogging teachers that the impact is there in engaging the pupils and springing life into class blogs that might have been slipping down slope. It has also been evident that Quadblogging has added a global dimension that had previously been missing. There are more and more comments each month on the Quadblogging site: QuadBlogging Highlights. There is also a very nice tool called Scoop.It that collects Quadblogging posts on this site:

I am still working on gathering more evidence of the impact that Quadblogging has had on pupils, classes and teachers. If anyone has any suggestions, please add them to your comments!

What is your vision for the future of education?
My vision for education is one of 'For learners by learners'. I want to see developments and progress in education directly influenced by the profession. It's OK that we don't know what our learners will doing in 20 years time. Have teachers ever had crystal balls? The future of education will need to produce learners who have simply 3 things:

1. Experience of successful collaboration
2. How to quickly find out things they don't know
3. A love of learning

What links do you wish to share?
My Blog
QuadBlogging
Heathfield School Website

David Mitchell is one of the invited Spotlight speakers at Pelecon 2012.

Image courtesy of David Mitchell


10Q: David Mitchell by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Four game changers

It was great to meet and talk with some very creative and inspirational people during my travels in 2011. Here are four people I spent some time with and whose powerful ideas are changing education:

Miguel Brechner. I spoke to Miguel Brechner after his well received keynote speech at ALT-C in Leeds this year. He requested a meeting with me after reading my blog reportage of his speech. He wanted to clarify a few points, including a response to the critique of the One Laptop Per Child projects. OLPC is premised on the basis of one child interacting with one free laptop, in many ways a counter to social forms of learning witnessed in communal contexts such as Mitra's Hole in the Wall project. Brechner is one of the few who have actually made OLPC a success, exactly where it should be achieved, in a very needy, poverty ridden region of Uruguay. He is an unassuming and self-effacing man, but Brechner is also passionate about what he has achieved in Uruguay. He has shown that providing disadvantaged young people with the appropriate tools for learning will transform them into eager and receptive learners. The laptop itself is not the inspiration, but it is certainly the gateway into inspirational experiences that lead to deep learning, and a growing awareness in the individual that they can achieve so much more as their knowledge of the world around them grows.  Brechner is not ignorant of the fact that broadband provision is a necessity for such projects to succeed, indeed he even declared that 'broadband is a human right'. He is also aware that wireless provision and the availability of mobile technologies are increasingly important for learning in remote and underprivileged areas of the world. We can expect to see more projects of a similar nature taking hold in 2012.

Wayne Mackintosh. Many will be aware of Wayne Mackintosh through his work as the founder of WikiEducator - an online community and repository of free user generated content for educators worldwide. As a prime mover in the Open Educational Resources movement, Wayne Mackintosh must feel a heavy responsibility on his shoulders. Mackintosh is a firm believer in social innovation and sees it as the only answer for sustainable education in this century. He has a vision for free and open forms of education and sees them as the only way forward for us all. He is one of a growing band of educators who spend the majority of their time campaigning to bring this radical educational change about. To help achieve this vision, Mackintosh is setting up the OER University and is evangelistic in his elucidation of this concept. This passion and the reasoning behind OERU has already convinced over a dozen institutions worldwide to commit to the delivery of cost-free accredited degree level programmes online. I spent time with Wayne in Portugal during the EFQUEL Innovation Forum, and listened to him as he expanded on his ideas for a new, democratic form of global education for all. Mackintosh believes that 'no learner should be denied access to an education because learning material is locked away behind copyright or because people may not have the resources to pay for licensed software'. There is growing presence and force behind this vision, and as the OER movement gains traction and impetus, we should expect to see some changes in the way universities offer their programmes of study.

Conrad Wolfram. The Wolfram Alpha answer engine is a distinct departure from search engines such as Google or Bing. As explained by Conrad Wolfram, the service operates on an intelligent algorithm, interrogation of the question string, and production of multiple responses via a structured database of constantly updated content. Speaking with Wolfram after the LearnTEC event near Frankfurt, Germany earlier in the year, I asked him about his vision for the future of knowledge and learning. Like many true visionaries, Wolfram comes across as humble and decent, but also extremely self-assured in his belief and mission. He makes some stark, incisive remarks about education: 'Stop teaching calculating, and start teaching maths'. He argues that the value chain of knowledge is changing, meaning that knowledge brokering is no longer the domain of the experts. This echoes sentiments of the wisdom of crowds and the power of tribes, and his argument that repositories of knowledge can become even more powerful if they are searched intelligently and using visualisation computation resonates. And as each new node and connection is created by individuals, a new democratisation of knowledge emerges says Wolfram. 'If you drive yourself, you learn more about the route than you would if you are a passenger.' This suggests that most search engines make the enquirer a mere passenger in the journey to knowledge, whilst Alpha puts the enquirer firmly in the driving seat.The tools are already available for students to do calculation, what they now need, he states, is the ability to test things and verify results. The knowledge balance in schools, said Wolfram, is all wrong at present. There is too much knowledge giving and not enough opportunity for students to test things, experiment and discover for themselves.

Douglas Thomas. I met Doug when we were both invited to keynote a conference in Barcelona this year. Together with John Seely-Brown, Doug Thomas has authored a ground breaking book entitled A New Learning Culture. In it they map out many of the profound changes that are taking place in learning places through the introduction of new technology. Doug has some marked ideas about learning in the 21st Century. He sees the transition from more or less stable and predictable contexts to a more fluid and unpredictable world as an opportunity rather than as a threat. The emergence of massively networked communication and the subsequent collaborative possibilities excite him, as do the capabilities of new social media to enable sharing and rapid amplification of ideas across the globe. His emphasis is more on learning than on teaching, a thought that is amplified in the phrase 'blogs are a medium for learning, but they do not teach'. Although this could be challenged, it is never the less a sign of things to come, where formal education is supplemented and enriched by technology mediated informal learning. Thomas also sees the importance of play in future learning scenarios, viewing it as possibly 'the single most important skill to develop for the twebty-first century.' Gamification is inevitable, and massively online social games such as World of Warcraft 'allow us to highlight the connections between knowing, making and playing'. Thomas and Seely-Brown see a new culture emerging around these ideas, and we are already seeing evidence of this culture in our schools, colleges and universities.


Image source


Four game changers by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

More great places, awesome people

In my last post I recalled some of the great places I went to this year and some of the awesome people I met. Continuing my review of the year, here are my top five places and some more great people of 2011.

5. Mombasa, Kenya. As a part of the International Federation for Information Processing event calendar (IFIP Education Committee) I was invited to keynote a conference in Mombasa in August. I have heard so much about Kenya, but had never been to East Africa before this excursion. I arrived tired after two flights totaling almost 10 hours, and stepped out into the sauna. Mombasa is south of the equator, and in August is supposed to be in winter, but at 28 degrees with 90 percent humidity, you could have fooled me. Mombasa is an island city of almost 1 million souls, and is surrounded by water, so I went equipped with malaria tablets and insect repellent, and believe me, they were needed. And yet, in spite of the personal discomfort, I found the city to be charming, colourful, fascinating. We were warned that there was always a chance of trouble with a huge number of refugees entering the country just to the north of us, and because Somali pirates were operating along the coast, kidnapping and hijacking were real threats. We noticed that there were armed guards outside our hotel, and also guards on every floor inside the hotel. The Kalashnikov rifles were a dead give-away. I still managed to take a tuk-tuk into the old part of Mombasa though, and with my old friend Torsten Brinda, where we wandered around virtually unmolested, taking in the sights, sounds and aromas of authentic Mombasa. The experience of Kenya was made deeply poignant for me when I talked to these young people (pictured) outside some school gates during one of our visits. Some of them are too young to go to school, so they hang around outside gazing in each day, waiting for the time when they will be able to go to school to hopefully better their own lives and those of their families. Full story in Out of Africa.

4. Dublin, Ireland. I had the privilege of visiting the fair city of Dublin twice in 2011, the first time to keynote the 14th Irish National IT Training Conference in April, and the second time in June to speak at the Annual EDEN Conference. On both occasions, I met President Mary McAleese, and got to shake her hand. Ireland is a great country (I have Irish ancestory which helps) and Dublin is a fun city to spend some time in, especially when it's with my old friends Graham Attwell, Deborah Arnold, Philip Wilkinson-Blake, Mark Brown, Eileen Brennan-Freeman and Sally Reynolds, and new friends including Eamon McAteer and John Heffernan. Both trips to Dublin were memorable, not just because of the great experiences of attending two major conferences, but also because of the welcome the city gives, and here's a tip: Temple Bar and the Guinness Factory are a must for any visitors to the city. Full story in Feel the burn and EDEN comes of age.

3. Barcelona, Spain. I always enjoy my visits to Barcelona. It is quite simply one of the most attractive cities you can imagine and in terms of its eclectic and outrageous architecture, it is second to none. The influence of Gaudi, Picasso, Miro and a host of other avant garde artists is evident wherever you turn, and the opportunities to sample the culture and atmosphere of this iconic city are endless. On this occasion, in October, with the weather mild and bearable (I was last in Barcelona in July 2010 when the temperature was extreme) I was invited to keynote the Open University of Barcelona's 8th international conference on teacher training. I had the pleasure of meeting and spending time with Doug Thomas, who with John Seely-Brown, co-authored the book 'A new culture of learning', and also had dinner with legendary author Manuel Castells. It was wonderful talking to these great thinkers, and hoping that at least some of their wisdom and intelligence might rub off on to me! Full story in Slightly dangerous and In the same boat.

2. Wellington, New Zealand. This was my first visit to New Zealand's capital city, 'the coolest little capital in the world,' courtesy of Massey University's Mark Brown. I was invited by Mark to keynote two conferences for the university, and then to stay over in Wellington for the weekend before providing the international keynote for the Tertiary Education Summit. During the weekend I met up with old friends Jo Fothergill and Jedd Bartlett and met Karen Melhuish for the first time down at the offices of Core Ed. Wellington is packed full of things to do and places to see, including the spectacular harbour, Mount Victoria, and of course the Wellywood movie industry scene (Miramar district is where the famous Weta Workshop is located). Going on the Movie tour and visiting some of the location sites for the filming of the Lord of the Rings trilogy was one of the most memorable experiences of my time in New Zealand. In doing so I reflected on the art of film making to the extent that I eventually wrote this piece on attention to detail. I was also delighted to meet Dermot Donnelly on the tour, and I hope to keep in touch with him, given that we are both deeply involved in research into social media in teacher education. The national museum at Te Papa was just across the road from my hotel, so I spent a fun afternoon in there soaking up the kiwi culture and learning more about the history of the islands. Full story of my New Zealand lecture tour in Aotearoa.

1. Melbourne, Australia. This year, the city that has left the best impression has to be Melbourne. I really don't have enough room here to do justice to the seven days I spent in this cosmopolitan, wonderfully laid-back Australian city. Hooking up again with old friends John Sandler, Colin Warren and Joyce Seitzinger really helped to cement my welcome, and meeting new friends such as Mark Smithers and Dave Cummings added to the sheer enjoyment of the city. I was in town to keynote the inaugural technology for teaching and learning summit at the famous Rendezvous hotel, and was glad to share the spotlight with AUT's Thomas Cochrane with whom I spent some down time chatting about mobile learning and life in general. Thanks to all who looked after me so well in #Melb - it was a great pleasure, and very comforting to be in the company of such good friends, so far away from home. My time in Melbourne reached its zenith in a great tweetup gathering down on the riverside underneath St Kilda Bridge where Stephen Heppell and Claire Brooks joined us for drinks, and I was delighted to spend some time talking to Shelley Gibb, Jenny Ashby and Pam Kamande. The Melbourne skyline at night is spectacular, as under floodlights is the iconic Flinders Street Railway station. There is much to see and do in Melbourne; Victoria Market is bustling and colourful, the sporting scene is well represented with multiple world class stadia (including the MCG and Rod Laver Arena) on the edge of the city, and I spent an excellent day out with Joyce and Mark at the Victorian State Museum, learning much about the history of science fiction film making. Full story in The Melbourne set.


More great places, awesome people by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Great places, awesome people

I was fortunate this year to be invited to speak at major events in some of the most beautiful cities in the world. Although I hate the travel, I have to admit that when I am in such places, and while I am meeting such brilliant and inspirational people, I am in my element. Here is the first part of my end of year retrospective on the top ten (actually eleven) places I visited in 2011, and the great people I met. Today's post goes from 10 down to 6. (Continues tomorrow).

10 =. Newcastle, England. I had an absolute blast in the North East in June. Newcastle is a city I'm quite familiar with from many day excursions with my wife and family over the years (Her parents live in Washington, Tyne and Wear). On this occasion, I was delighted to be invited to keynote the Northern Grid for Learning Annual Conference, and what an event it was! For a start, I flew up in the company of Mr Chickenman himself, Dan Roberts, and when the two of us invaded the executive lounge in the hotel, they quickly ran out of pretzels (Dan's doing, not mine I hasten to add). The speaker list read like a who's who of innovative educators from across the UK. It was wonderful to meet face to face some of the people whom I have followed on Twitter for some time, including Bill Lord, Ian Usher, Steve Bunce, Martin Waller, Ian Addison, Lisa Stevens, Joe Dale, Bev Evans and Jan Webb. Conference organiser Simon Finch and his team did an excellent job putting together what turned out to be a memorable, inspirational day, and the evening social post event at a Spanish tapas bar on the banks of the Tyne was the icing on the cake. Full story here: It's grins up north.

10 =. Liverpool, England. In March I attended the JISC annual conference in Liverpool, for once purely as a delegate rather than as a speaker. It was a nice change for me, not having to worry about preparing a talk or trying desperately to find my speaking venue. I stayed in a hotel just across the road from the Liverpool Echo Arena where the conference took place, within the beautifully rebuilt and repurposed Albert Dock quayside. In the distance I could see the iconic (new) Liverpool Cathedral on the skyline. I was delighted to discover that I was staying no more than 100 yards from the famous Beatles museum, so I spent a very enjoyable afternoon wandering around looking at all the exhibits, and reliving some of my younger days listening to the Fab Four. Full story here: The next ten years.

9. Auckland, New Zealand. I was in New Zealand in November/December on my lecture tour. While in Auckland I keynoted the International Conference on e-Learning Futures at Unitec. This was my second visit to the City of Sails, but I will never tire of Skycity and the waterfronts of this great city, and in such a stunningly beautiful country. Probably my peak experience of my entire four week tour of the Antipodes was my welcome by the New Zealanders and my invitation to speak in the carved wood meeting hall of the Maori people - the Marae. It was also great to meet up again at the conference with several old friends such as Thomas Cochrane, Noeline Wright, Nigel Robertson, Derek Wenmoth and Richard Elliot, and also to make some new friends including Mandy Williams, Agnes Kukulska-Hulme, Vasi Doncheva and of course ICELF organiser Linda Keesing Styles. Full story here: Barefoot keynote.

8. Karlsruhe, Germany. I arrived on a snowy February evening in Frankfurt and took the train across the Karlsruhe - a town I had first heard of when the invitation to keynote at LearnTEC came through. I admit I had to go to Google Maps to find it. LearnTEC is one of those German Mega-conferences and expos, regularly attracting in excess of 8000 delegates each year. Karlsruhe is a sleepy little town, and in the grey overcast light of a German winter wasn't that impressive. At night however, with all the blue, yellow and red shop and hotel lights glowing and reflecting off the snow, it was magical. I had the pleasure of meeting and spending some time with Conrad Wolfram (also keynoting the event) in the huge Karlsruhe Messe Expo Hall, and also got to spent an enjoyable hour in conversation with him on the journey back from Karlsruhe to Frankfurt International airport. We talked a lot about the future of the Internet and his own research into the development of Answer Engines. He gave me some great insights into the Silicon Valley set and his friendships with the likes of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Theodore Gray. Full story here: Interview with a Wolfram.

7. Lisbon, Portugal. It was a pleasant surprise to be invited to keynote not one, but two conferences in Portugal this year. What was even better, was that they were back to back and in the same area of beautiful Oeiras, near Lisbon (this is a picture I took of the Palace of the Marquis de Pombal, the venue we met in). I first visited Lisbon in 2008 when I attended the EDEN Annual Conference and picked up a Fellowship award. It is a beautiful city - the kind that glistens in the sun, captivating your senses wherever you go within in. I spoke at the Concede Conference and then keynoted the final day of the EFQUEL Innovation forum. Many of the great and the good from the world of European e-Learning were present, including Grainne Conole, Chahira Nouira, Deborah Arnold, Alastair Creelman, EDEN President Morten Paulsen and Ulf Daniel Ehlers. I also had the distinct pleasure of meeting up with prolific Twitter activist Paulo Simoes for the first time, and also spent some time with charismatic OER guru Wayne Mackintosh. Full story here: Grand Residence and Wayne's World.

6. Cologne, Germany. I first visited Cologne on a school trip when I was 15 years old, and don't remember too much about the city. This time, I was in town in September to keynote the Zukunft Personal HR Expo, another mega-sized German conference. Cologne is a wonderful place to spend a few days, with its soaring gothic Cathedral, many  bridges crossing the river Rhine, picturesque cosmopolitan streets and marvellous bierkellers and wateringholes. Several of the medieval city gates still stand, despite the pounding Cologne took during the Second World War, and I stayed very close to one of the most spectacular - Rudolfplatz. It is a city that oozes art and culture, and it is not difficult to see why it has become one of the premier German convention centres. The convention hall itself is massive, and it took me some time to navigate around it, before I eventually found the conference hall I was looking for (they host many events simultaneously). It was a pleasant surprise to bump into fellow speaker Laura Overton in the street outside the hotel, and later to meet up again with old friends such as Armin Hopp and Wilfred Rubens at the conference. The tram rides and practicing my German in conversation with the locals were also great fun. Full story here: Business games and Sharp practice.

More great places and awesome people next time.


Great places, awesome people by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Going viral

Many bloggers would give their right arm to be able to write posts that are widely read. In a painfully truthful Winston Churchill parody, Katie Hafner recently declared that 'never has so much been written by so many, to be read by so few.' For many, blogging is a little like whistling into the wind. It's quite a lonely existence when you write, and write and post your ideas .... but no-one ever reads it. It has to be acknowledged that many bloggers write more for their own benefit than they do as public performance. For them, it is an online diary of their thoughts, exploits and musings which can be eavesdropped on by anyone who happens to be passing by. If someone takes the time to comment, it is a bonus. 


For many other bloggers, this isn't enough, and they write for an intended audience, hoping their posts will be read by a lot of people. It can be soul destroying when it appears that no-one is reading your finely crafted blog post. The metrics of success for most bloggers are the number of views, likes and favourites a post attracts. Then there is the pure gold dust of comments.  Added bonuses can be realised when fellow bloggers think your content is good enough to syndicate on their own sites, or when they translate it into another language or otherwise repurpose it before representing it on their own sites. This results in an amplification of your ideas, but usually, it won't happen unless you license your content for free sharing and repurposing (see my Creative Commons licence at the bottom of this post). 


The ultimate for many aspiring bloggers though is if one of their posts to 'goes viral'. Now, this is a much vaunted and often spoken term on the Web, but do we actually know what it means, or what the causes are of content that goes viral? Viral content is content that becomes quickly popular when it is shared by many across social media platforms. Viral videos on YouTube have included LOLcats, the Numa Numa song (with more than 17 million hits, this video made Gary Brolsma into an Internet star virtually overnight), the Star Wars Kid (> 24 million hits), Charlie Bit Me (close to 400 million views), and on the more serious side, Mike Wesch's videos on internet culture such as 'The Machine is Us/ing Us' (Over 11 million views) Such content takes on a life of its own, and in Web parlance becomes a 'meme'. If a video has a strong message, or is amusing or in some way breaks the mould, it is easy to see how it can attract so many views in such a relatively short period of time. All of the above videos had one or both of those characteristics. More importantly, viral content has the capability to spread the influence of its contained message widely across the community. Many corporations and large organisations have spent a considerable amount of resources and effort trying to replicate the success of such viral content to promote their products. Viral marketing is the holy grail of advertising.

So exactly what does it take for content to go viral? The advice from one website is that content has to exhibit 3 characteristics to go viral. The content has to solve a problem, create interest and er... have 'interesting stuff' contained within it. Even if we merge the last two together (they are that similar), it's a bit of a no-brainer to see that any content that solves and problem and piques interest is going to be attractive to visitors. Other commentators swear that plug-ins and other software is the secret to viral content. Some more sensibly suggest that it is persistence and a cultivating of fine writing abilities, that over a period of time, will enable the blogger to be in a position to write content that has the potential to go viral.

I think the secret of viral content can be a lot more prosaic than this though. One of my recent posts entitled 'Fire and Brimstone' has since it was written in September attracted over 33,000 views. I don't think it is a particularly significant post, and although it deals with a mildly controversial subject (attitudes about the value of blogging) it is nothing special. It is certainly not in my estimation, worthy of consistently attracting over 10,000 views each calendar month. The secret to its success I believe, lies in the image I used (I always include an evocative image at the top of each of my blog posts) - which I have included on this page. The image is a free stock image of fire. Tracking back through all the blog traffic I receive on the Fire and Brimstone post, I can see that most arrive after searching for 'fire' on Google. Clicking one of the images on the search results will take you directly to my blog post. I'm not sure how it has happened, but this I believe, is the reason I receive so much traffic on that single blog post. It's all about the image. Below, you may also see the link to my blogpost in the top ten Google search results, depending on where you are searching from in the world.

As a result of this image, the blog post has, in a small way, gone viral. It's none of my doing, other than the fact that I chose an evocative image which has since become associated with my blog and then been linked to it. The key message is, that although you cannot ensure that any content you create and share will be widely read, there are occasions when, through persistence, and through being in the right place at the right time, you can give your content a great chance of success.

Image source


Going viral by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Building the future

Like any other part of the training and skills sector, the construction industry depends upon the reliable and effective training of well qualified and competent individuals. Training is rigorous and comprehensive, because if a builder gets it wrong, the consequences can be catastrophic. At Unitec, in Auckland, New Zealand, they train construction workers in all the trades, but there seems to be a particular demand for skilled carpenters in the Land of the Long White Cloud. You see, almost every house in New Zealand is constructed predominantly of wood.

The construction training team Unitec (pictured) are particularly savvy and ahead of the field when it comes to the application of learning technology. During a break in the proceedings at the ICELF event I had the privilege of being shown around their training compound where Unitec delivers its Certificate in Applied Technology (Carpentry). What I saw impressed me.

The Smart Shed is one of the centre pieces of Unitec's technological advance. Situated at the edge of the construction zone, the smart shed looks like any other wooden shed, but inside it is bristling with digital technology. It has full wifi connectivity and web enabled desktop personal computers within. A roller blind on the outside of the shed is pulled up to reveal a multi-gesture interactive whiteboard and short-throw projector. Using these tools, on site demonstrations and interactive learning sessions can be conducted, a few footsteps away from the construction training site.

But it is the QR tag system that is perhaps the most radical departure from traditional on-site construction training. On many of the working surfaces of the houses under construction on site (every one is sold before it is started and later transported on completion to its final destination), QR tags are stapled to the walls. At the appropriate point in their training, holding up their smart phones, students capture the appropriate QR image, which takes them directly to relevant websites that explain building techniques, safety procedures or specialist tool use.

In conversation with the lecturers who instigated this scheme, I asked how long it would take for the construction industry to adopt such leading edge practices for on the job training. 'We don't think it will be long', they replied. 'As soon as these students are qualified, they will be working in the construction industry', they explained. 'It is only a matter of time before they become lead builders, and eventually business owners within the industry. Then they will introduce similar technology supported training for their employees on site'.

Application of new technology that supports learning within authentic contexts. This is situated learning at its best, but is it the future of construction training?


Building the future by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Play the ball, not the man

I read Wikipedia founder Larry Sanger's blog with interest this week. In response to my post Content as Curriculum? he had written a protracted and elaborate response. Although I was gratified that someone with such a standing in the academic community had taken the time to read my post and respond so comprehensively, I admit I was also a little disconcerted to find that not only had he misapprehended my original message, but had also apparently resorted to name-calling. Now, anyone who knows me reasonably well will understand what drives me to blog. It is to provoke discussion, to agitate, and to disrupt, with the long term goal to hopefully improve aspects of education and training. Sometimes I deliberately take a strong position to achieve this. Readers will disagree or agree with me - see for example this response from another blogger - and we all learn. I am open to criticism and my ideas, theories and contributions are there to be shot at, or built upon. But for Sanger to label me as an 'anti-intellectual' on the basis of the reading of one of my blog posts seemed somewhat reactionary. I'm not convinced there should be a place for this kind of tactic in reasonable discourse. Unfortunately, his stance serves to detract from the otherwise serious debate that I tried to instigate around the current state of curricula in schools. Before anyone else treats my ideas with similar disdain, let me clarify a few points about that blog post.

Firstly, let me deal with the misapprehension: Larry Sanger seems an intelligent, eloquent man, and if you can steer around his personal references, his response analyses my post almost line for line and he has produced some interesting commentary to counter my views. It is a useful contribution to the debate, and is exactly the kind of dialogue I wish to promote. It is the reason I continue to blog provocatively. I won't attempt to respond to him verse by verse as he has done, but I will make some key points. In my post I held that schools need reform, and at the heart of that reform should be an overhaul of the curriculum. For some time now, many highly respected commentators (see for example Stephen Heppell and Sir Ken Robinson) have argued that the majority of school experiences are still organised around old industrialised models. Many have called for a radical change in the way schooling is conducted to improve the chances of young people when they leave school. In my post I suggested that a possible way forward would require a reappraisal of the current curricula, with more emphasis on competencies and literacies. I wish to make something clear: My remark that some knowledge was susceptible to obsolescence was not a call for all knowledge to be removed from curricula - that would indeed be ridiculous. I am not attacking knowledge, as Sanger asserts. Rather, I am calling for schools to re-examine the content of curricula and to find ways to situate this knowledge within more open, relevant and dynamic learning contexts. I am also calling for more of an emphasis on the development of skills that will prepare children to cope better in uncertain futures. It was probably an error to use poor illustrations and analogies to underpin this call. Regardless of any argument thrown against it however, the call still stands, and I am not the first to make it. John Seely-Brown and Doug Thomas (2011) have argued that the majority of school experiences are mechanistic and need to be better contextualised. Regarding current school practices they state: 'The goal is to learn as much as you can, as fast as you can. In this teaching based approach, standardization is a reasonable way to do this, and testing is a reasonable way to measure the result. The processes that necessarily occur to reach the goal therefore, are considered of little consequence in and of themselves. They are valued only for the results they provide'. (p 35). Clearly, this situation is far from ideal. Teachers are pressurised to deliver an over-stuffed, content-laden curriculum in the limited time available, which leaves little time for experimentation and play, conversation or self discovery.

I also called for an end to the compartmentalisation of subjects within the curriculum. Studying a subject in isolation from other subjects suggests to children that there are no connections, as surely as using computers only in an ICT suite suggests that there are only some conditions within which the use of computers can be conducted. Again, context is required, and as Gerver argues: 'learning should be an expansive, personal and unpredictive journey' (p 62). Yet how can we achieve this, he asks, when school becomes an increasingly defined, predictable series of divorced lessons. How can we maintain the interests of children when they know exactly what is coming next - dull routine? Here lies the argument that context is now king, and content has become a tyrant.

But let's go back to the personal comments. At the heart of Sanger's argument is a concerted attempt to establish that I am an anti-intellectual. He does this on the basis of a belief that I am calling for an end to knowledge. But his belief is misfounded, and I have attempted to offer clarification in my recent blog post Conversation as Curriculum. He admits in a previous comment that he was confrontational and pointed. It seems a contradiction that he can view me as a 'serious theorist' and then spend the majority of his post trying to convince his readers that I am 'anti-intellectual'. Surely the two cannot be compatible? His descent into hectoring tones of name-calling detract significantly from his otherwise reasonable arguments. Larry Sanger and I have never met, so we don't know each other. How then is he able make such sweeping judgements about me on the basis of the reading of one of my posts? The answer is, he can't, and I would not presume to reciprocate. To label me as 'anti-intellectual' suggests that he has already made his mind up, and no amount of argument will change that.

I am sure that my academic achievements come nowhere near to Larry Sanger's. My list of peer reviewed publications and the frequency of my invited speeches around the world will not compare with his. Considering my track record, however, I feel that I deserve a little better than to be ridiculed as 'anti-intellectual', and it is ironic that Larry Sanger's act of ridiculing could itself be construed as anti-intellectualism. If by anti-intellectual he meant that I oppose the ivory tower mentality endemic within academia, then I would gladly accept the title, and he might also consider inserting 'dangerous' as a prefix. Sadly, this is not what Sanger intends. Instead, the title is meant to suggest that I am against knowledge, and that therefore my arguments must be dismissed because they are merely 'popularist'. Well, he is entitled to his opinions. Just don't be fooled by the rhetoric - examine the evidence yourself and then make your own mind up: Do current school curricula make sense, or should they be changed? Whatever the outcome of this debate, you can name me, but you'll never tame me. I will continue to provoke, cajole and disrupt via this blog, and I welcome all conversations from all comers. Just make sure you play the ball, not the man.

References 

Gerver, R. (2010) Creating tomorrow's schools today: Education - our children - their futures. London: Continuum.
Seely-Brown, J. and Thomas, D. (2011) A new culture of learning: Cultivating the imagination for a world of constant change. Create Space.

Image by John Garghan


Play the ball, not the man by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Conversation as curriculum

In my last blog post Content as curriculum? I lamented the current state of formal education and pointed to linear, content laden and outmoded curricula as a contributing factor. The post provoked a number of comments, some supportive, some antagonistic to my position, and one who perhaps played the man rather than the ball. Both sides fought their corners well, each arguing from a stance on the fundamental nature of teaching and learning, and the specific role that school plays in education. Some comments pointed out that resources, teacher styles, assessment methods and time were important factors in determining the relevance and efficacy of curricula in schools. But (and here I will continue to be provocative) I feel that some are missing the point completely. The point I am making is that content based delivery of the curriculum, and its traditional compartmentalisation of subjects constrain the understanding of students, and fail to prepare them for a dynamic world of work and life that is constantly changing. Today we have a vast array of technology at our fingertips, and - although I admit this is seldom enough to make informed decisions and knowledgeable actions on its own - combined with the appropriate skills and literacies, individuals will have the ability to apply creative solutions to problems they may encounter on a daily basis. My approach to any reformation of school curriculum would be to bias it toward procedural (knowing how) knowledge that can be applied in pragmatic ways to constantly changing conditions.

In his 1996 book Curriculum as Conversation, Arthur Applebee argued that much of the school curriculum of the time was based upon 'false premises and reflect a fundamental misconception of the nature of knowing. They strip knowledge of the contexts that give it meaning and vitality, and lead to an education that stresses knowledge-out-of-context rather than knowledge-in-action. In such a system students are taught about the traditions of the past, and not how to enter into and participate in those of the present and the future.' (p. 3) It is clear that in the 15 years since the book was published, little has changed. I have asked this question before, but I will ask it again. Are we preparing students for the past, or for the future?

In order to prepare students for the future, we need to understand that contexts are changing rapidly but much curriculum content does not, and can thus quickly become obsolete. We can therefore no longer afford to rely solely on content, and need to present more situated learning opportunities. Situated approaches to learning involve an emphasis on context, not just on content, and the best way to experience appropriate contexts is to do it for real. Carl Young (2004) relates the story of a language teacher who used pure conversation as the basis for all her teaching. Although this sounds like a no-brainer - an obvious method for language, which has conversation at its heart - it is actually quite profound. I believe similar dialogic approaches can and should be applied to the teaching of all subjects across the curriculum. My former colleague Alan Bleakley (2009) takes this a step further, arguing that much of education is sadly still based on power differentials between teacher and student, and calls for a more horizontal, democratised form of education where students have equal say in the process. Bleakley echoes the earlier work of Paulo Freire (1970) who pointed out that: "Education must begin with the solution of the teacher-student contradiction, by reconciling the poles of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously teachers and students." Bleakley goes on to elaborate that 'democracy in education requires interplay between the individual and the collective through authentic dialogue - as the reconstructionists suggest, constructing curriculum as an extended and complicated conversation.' (p. 300). To achieve this requires teachers to assume a role as learners, while students are allowed to become teachers, to facilitate the free and open dialogue that will constitute conversation as curriculum. Freire again: "Authentic thinking, thinking that is concerned about reality, does not take place in ivory tower isolation, but only in communication. If it is true that thought has meaning only when generated by action upon the world, the subordination of students to teachers becomes impossible."

It seems clear to me that to encourage open and frank dialogue in a formal learning environment, the power differential between teacher and student must be removed. When teachers wish to promote democratic learning, students are given license to challenge and encouraged to discuss, debate, argue. Passive consumption of delivered knowledge is replaced by full engagement with the subject matter through conversation. The conversation around the topic becomes the new curriculum, enabling each student to act as an open minded, independent thinker who can defend his or her position without resorting to dogmatic assertions based on partial understanding or incomplete knowledge. The best teachers encourage all students to participate and value all contributions, incorporating as many as possible into an extended conversation around the topic.

In the digital age, conversation as curriculum can be extended beyond the classroom through the use of social media and other communication technologies. Conversation for learning across a number of platforms suggests that two or more discussions can occur simultaneously. It may be impossible to change the curriculum we are tasked to deliver. However, teachers who appreciate the merits of conversation in a truly Socratic mode will redesign lessons to incorporate learning activities to reflect it.

References

Applebee, A. N. (1996) Curriculum as conversation: Transforming traditions of teaching and learning. London: University of Chicago Press.
Bleakley, A. (2009) Editorial: Curriculum as conversation. Advances in Health Science Education, 14 (3), 297-301.
Freire, P. (1970) Pedagogy of the oppressed London: Writers and Readers Publishing Cooperative
Young, C. A. (2004) Conversation as curriculum: Learning to teach English in rural America. The English Journal, 93 (6), 82.

Image by Simon Phipps


Content as curriculum? by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Content as curriculum?

I think it's about time we reconsidered the way curricula in schools are presented. The tired, just in case model of curriculum just doesn't make sense anymore. Content is still very much king in schools, because 'content as curriculum' is easy and cost effective to deliver, and that is what most governments require and impose. But most teachers will tell you it's not the best approach. When I went to school I was required to attend classes in mathematics, English language and literature, science (physics, biology, chemistry), history, geography, music, art, Religious Education, craft and design, home economics, German and French - all just in case I might need them later in life. With the exception of a few subjects, my schooling didn't make that much sense to me.

Occasionally I hear someone saying "I'm glad I took Latin at school", and then arguing that it helped them to discover the name of a fish they caught whilst out angling on holiday. Well, knowing that thalassoma bifasciatum is a blue-headed wrasse may be wonderful for one's self esteem. It may impress your friends during a pub quiz, but it won't get you a job.... and was it really worth all those hours learning how to conjugate amo, amas, amat simply to be able to one day identify a strange fish, when all you need to do in the digital mobile age is Google it?

The question is, how much do children now need to learn in school that is knowledge based? Do children really need to know what a phrasal verb is, or that William Shakespeare died in 1616 when what they really need to be able to do is write a coherent and convincing job application or construct a relevant CV? We call this type of learning declarative knowledge, because it is 'knowing that' - in other words, the learning of facts. Yet, in a post-modernist world where all knowledge has become increasingly mutable and open to challenge, facts go quickly out of date. I was taught in school that there are nine planets orbiting the sun. Today it appears that Pluto is no longer a planet (but for me he will always be a cartoon dog). Is it Myanmar or Burma? I was told by my geography teacher it was Burma. Then she was right, now she is wrong. Just when did Mao Tse-tung change his name to Mao Zedong? And is the atom still the smallest object known to humankind? No. Now we have something called quantum foam. Apparently it's great for holding the universe together but pretty useless in a wet shave. You see, facts are changing all the time, and very little appears to remain concrete. So why are teachers wasting their own time, and that of the kids, teaching them facts which in a few years time may be utterly out of date? Should we not instead be maximising school contact time by teaching skills, competencies, literacies? After all, it is the ability to work in a team, problem solve on the fly, and apply creative solutions that will be the common currency in the world of future work. Being able to think critically and create a professional network will be the core competencies of the 21st Century knowledge worker. Knowing how - or procedural knowledge - will be a greater asset for most young people. You see, the world of work is in constant change, and that change is accelerating.

My 16 year old son has just embarked on training to become a games designer. If, when I was his age I had told my careers teacher that I wanted to be a games designer, he would have asked me whether I wanted to make cricket bats or footballs. Jobs are appearing that didn't exist even a year or two ago. Other jobs that people expected to be in for life are disappearing or gone forever. Ask the gas mantel fitters or VHS repair technicians. Ask the tin miners, the lamplighters or the typewriter repair people. Er, sorry you can't ask them. They don't exist anymore.

Why do some teachers still provide children with answers when all the answers are out there on the Web? Contemporary pedagogy is only effective if there is a clear understanding of the power and efficacy of the tools that are available. Shakespeare may well have died in 1616, but surely anyone can look this up on Wikipedia if and when they need to find out for themselves? Inquiry based learning is gradually taking hold in schools, but not quickly enough. Give the kids questions from which more questions will arise. Send them out confused and wanting more. Get them using the digital tools they are familiar with to go find the knowledge they are unfamiliar with. After all, these are the tools they carry around with them all the time, and these are the tools they will be using when they enter the world of work. And these are the tools that will mould them into independent learners in preparation for challenging times ahead.

We need to move with the times, and many schools are still lagging woefully behind the current needs of society. Why do we compartmentalise our subjects in silos? When will we begin to realise that all subjects have overlaps and commonalities, and children need to understand these overlaps to obtain a clear and full picture of their world. Without holistic forms of education, no-one is going to make the link between science and maths, or understand how art or music have influenced history. Some schools such as Albany Senior High School in Auckland are already breaking down the silos and supporting learning spaces where students can switch quickly between 'subjects' across the curriculum. Other schools are beginning to realise that ICT is not a subject and shouldn't be taught, but is best placed as embedded across the entire curriculum.

It's about time we all woke up and realised that the world around us is changing, and schools need to change too. After all, the school still remains the first and most important place to train and prepare young people for work. If we don't get it right in school, we are storing up huge problems for the future. Education is not life and death. It's much more important than that.

Next time: Conversation as curriculum


Content as curriculum? by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Aotearoa ... kei te aroha au ki a koe

New Zealand is simply amazing. What can I say about the many sights I have seen, people I have met and things I have experienced? Time and space are not enough, but I will try: Perhaps the crowning highlight of my three week tour was the traditional Maori Powhiri and honour that was bestowed upon me during the ICELF Conference in Auckland. I was invited to present my keynote speech in the Maori sacred meeting house - the marae. This was a barefoot keynote, because no-one should enter the marae with their shoes on. Afterwards I was presented with a greenstone gem with inlaid paua shell as a symbol of everlasting friendship with the people of New Zealand. I will treasure it always. Many photographs of the conference can be found here on the ICELF website.

The sights of New Zealand are absolutely stunning. The lakes and hillsides and the majestic mountains and volcanic outcrops are awe inspiring, as are the natural phenomena of this great island. The geothermal activity down in Rotorua can be spectacular, provided you don't mind the constant smell of sulphur in the air. Hamilton, Palmerston North and Wellington all have great places to visit. In Hamilton, the statue of Richard O'Brien as Riff-Raff is bizarre, and is streamed live on the internet through a web cam, 24/7. Palmerston North's Massey University campus is one of the most serene, arboreal places I have had the pleasure to visit. Wellington's Te Papa museum on the beautiful waterfront is a place to lose yourself for many hours, as you explore and discover the history and culture of this great country. The Lord of the Rings tours (there are several) are a must for all Tolkien fans. The guides are knowledgeable with inside gossip from the film industry (Wellywood) and the visits to iconic location shoots are exciting for film fans. A visit to the Weta Cave in Miramar is also good value. Meeting an ex Plymouth University graduate in a shop across the road from where I'm staying was strange. Bumping into Dermot Donnelly on the Lord of the Rings Movie tour bus in Wellington and finding out that we had similar research interests in online learning and wikis for education was even stranger.

I discovered that innovation is alive and well in some very rich seams of education in New Zealand. My visit to Albany Senior High School impressed me for its bold break away from the tired old silo mentality of traditional schooling. In their fabulous learning spaces they exclusively use open source software and encourage BYOD as well as integrated curriculum practices. AUT's soon to be constructed learning precinct also breaks the mould of traditional university campuses, and by the look of it as I drove past today, it is on target for completion next year. The smart shed project I visited at Unitec will provide richer situated learning experiences for construction students and will no doubt be copied by other training colleges in the future.

But it is the people of New Zealand who have left the most indellible impression on me. Kiwis are some of the most friendly, helpful and accommodating people in the world. Perhaps it is their relative isolation from the rest of the world that makes them so affable. Perhaps their location in the South Pacific and its long tradition of hospitality makes them so welcoming. It was great to catch up with Jedd Bartlett and Derek Wenmoth (Core Education) again, and to meet up once more with old friends including Nigel Robertson (Waikato University), Niki Davis (Canterbury University), Thom Cochrane (AUT) and Michael Fawcett and to meet in real life some new (but strangely familiar) Twitter friends such as Vasi Doncheva, Jonathon Hagger and Karen Melhuish. My grateful thanks go to all those who have organised my travel and accommodation here this year, and especially to Mark Brown (Massey University), Linda Keesing-Styles (Unitec), Mandy Williams (Waiariki Institute), Noeline Wright (Waikato), Mark Osborne (Albany Senior High School) and their colleagues for making my stay here so delightful.  And finally, my special thanks to my cousins Linda and Alistair Robinson (AUT), for welcoming me into their home in Auckland during my stay here. To all of you I say - Kei te aroha au ki a koe!


Image source and ICELF


Aotearoa ... kei te aroha au ki a koe by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Across the Twitterverse

It's that time of the year when the edublog community honours its members with awards. The 2011 Edublog Awards have come around again with frightening speed, and once again this year I am both honoured and humbled to have been nominated in two categories - best individual blog and best individual tweeter (for my @timbuckteeth account). I'm very much aware that there are many, many active and creative edubloggers out there who could and should have been nominated and included in the list, but even without them, the list is still quite impressive. As I have previously said during past Edublog Awards, it really doesn't matter that much who wins in each of the categories, the real spirit of the Edublog Awards is about honouring those who have served another year by writing, blogging, tweeting and otherwise freely sharing their ideas and wisdom with their community through social media. I learn so much each year from these people, and my own professional and personal worlds would be poorer without my daily dose of news, views and commentaries throughout the Edublogsphere and across the Twitterverse. 


So congratulations to all those who made it to the final cut, and please - everyone, show your appreciation for your colleagues by voting for your favourites. And one final thing - you are allowed to vote in as many categories as you like, each and every day, right up to the deadline on December 13th.

Image courtesy of Edublog Awards


Across the Twitterverse by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

A head teacher writes...

We have had pencils in our school now for some time, and we were one of the first to adopt them, but it has been an uphill struggle. There aren't enough to go around, and often several of the children have to crowd around to use the pencils at the same time. But we are better off than many schools. We have a well equipped pencil suite where the chained desktop pencils are used in special sessions, and often, as a reward for good behaviour children are allowed to come into the suite (under teacher supervision of course) to use the pencils to draw fun things.

Pencils were resisted by some of the teachers at first, because they complained they would have to change their practice if they adopted them. And they were right, pencils are in fact a game changer. Others were worried that they would not have enough time to learn to use them properly. 


I have a wider vision than a pencil suite for our school. I'm considered a bit of a maverick and many of my staff look at me and shake their heads sadly. You see, I have a vision for pencils that I think will transform our school and enhance learning for all our students. Wait for it - I am advocating one pencil for every child in the school! And even more radical than that, I want to introduce pencils that can be used by students while they are on the move. Yes, I know it sounds absurd, but I think it will work. Needless to say, I have had many objections and lots of opposition from all quarters.

Some teachers, led by our school pencil co-ordinator, have complained that we made a considerable investment on the pencil suite, and it's being used regularly for very important teaching. OK, so there is only one pencil between every four children, but at least the pencils are being used consistently, she argues. Some occasionally break and have to be sent away to be fixed, but we also have a parent who is familiar with pencils, and has one at home. He comes in occasionally to fix them, which saves us some money. 


My idea is for the school to invest more money so that each child can walk around while using their pencils, and that they can even take them home with them! Yes, I know it's an extremely radical idea, and that's the very reason I am receiving so much opposition. Some of my teaching staff are arguing that we could better spend the money on more chalk for the blackboards. Others are warning that children will either damage the pencils or worse, lose them if they take them out of the school. Pencils are meant to be used for education, they say, not for fun.

Even the parents are complaining. Some have written a very strong letter to the governors, suggesting that if we give a pencil to each of the children to bring home, they will need to revise their home contents insurance, in case any disaster occurs, and the child damages the pencil in some way. Some of the richer families don't seem to mind, as they have better pencils at home than we could possibly buy for the school. It's a kind of pencil envy I suppose. There does seem to be a pencil divide across the local community. I am confident though that giving one pencil to each student will address this problem.

Then there are the objections from the Tax Payers Alliance, and other pressure groups who have even gone on to the local TV station to complain that we are being irresponsible, and are wasting valuable tax payers money on purchasing a pencil for every child. 'In my day', said the TPA spokeperson, 'we used slates and styluses, and shared them around, and we were happy. One pencil per child is simply a gimmick'. To be blunt, I think they are missing the point. I strongly believe that pencils are the future of learning, and the more untethered they are, the greater will be the flexibility of learning for all subjects across the curriculum.

One of the strongest arguments from some of my teaching staff though is that they claim to be pencil immigrants, while the children are pencil natives. The kids seem to have such an affinity with the pencils, whilst the staff struggle to use them and get embarrassed when they accidentally use the wrong end, or the point is blunt, and they don't know how to sharpen it. Some teacher have warned that increased use of the pencil can be addictive, and will cause all sorts of problems such as writer's cramp, eye strain, raised incidences of graffiti in the school toilets and rude cartoons of teachers passed around the room. Such dangers though, are far outweighed by the benefits of mobile, personalised pencils.

So we will forge on with my new one child, one pencil scheme, and as a school, we will make it work. We will actually purchase the new second generation (2G) pencils, which have erasers attached, and in so doing, these multi-functional tools will offer a revolutionary approach to learning. They are also much faster and last longer than the old pencils. I will close with this inspirational quote: 'Any teacher who can be replaced by a pencil... should be! - Arthur C. Chalk.

(Inspired by the Twitter #pencilchat hashtag)

Image source


A head teacher writes... by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.