Touch and go

Since the introduction of the iPad and the subsequent parade of similar touch screen tablets, there has been much speculation about exactly what impact the devices might have on learning and teaching. A lot has been written about the potential of the devices, and much has been purely anecdotal. Clearly tablets are easy to use and have potential to revolutionise the way people access information. But what about formal education? I have contributed to the dialogue on this blog and there is much to discuss in relation to pedagogy, teacher roles, assessment and curriculum issues. There are also huge potential benefits in untethering learning - allowing students to roam while using the devices as mobile learning platforms. Recently a book was published with the title iPads in Schools, and several conference papers and articles are emerging which debate the place of touch tablets in formal education. Will they be a welcome addition to formal learning, or will they be a distraction? The intuitive design of touch screen tablets and their usability serve to fuel the hyperbole. But what impact are iPads really having on learning in formal education?

Until very recently, little empirical evidence had emerged to demonstrate clear learning benefits from tablets. The publication by NAACE (authored by Jan Webb) will add to our knowledge. Entitled 'The iPad as a Tool for Education' the report is one of the most comprehensive yet on the impact of tablets in schools. It is a case study conducted at Longfield Academy in Kent, one of the first schools in the UK to adopt a school wide roll out of iPads to all of its students. Results of the study were mainly positive, showing that iPads were instrumental in encouraging better collaboration and increasing the motivation for learning. The tablets were used to develop beyond school activities and for supporting homework, and the quality of student work and learning outcomes has improved. This will be the first of a range of studies that will emerge in the next year or two, as more school adopt one iPad per child strategies, and time is taken to realise tangible and measurable outcomes from embedding the tools into daily learning and teaching.

Image by Fotopedia


Touch and go by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Community really is the curriculum

I'm in Tallinn, one of the most beautiful of the old Hanseatic cities dotted along the Baltic coast. It is the capital of Estonia, a small country with a population of around 1.3 million, 400,000 of whom live in Tallinn. In Estonia, runs the publicity, free wifi access is a human right, and it certainly seems to be true. No matter where I have been today throughout the city, I have been able to get free access to the internet on my iPod Touch. It's such a refreshing change from the pinch penny airports and city centres I usually frequent. Estonia is also famous as the home of Skype, which although now a Microsoft acquisition, was funded by Tallinn boy Niklas Zennström. Skype still operates out of Tartu, Estonia's second largest city in the south of the country. What a fitting place then, to hold an e-Learning Conference.

And that's why I'm here. I'm in Tallinn to give the opening keynote for the Estonian e-Learning Conference which takes place over 3 days in the city. I spent a great afternoon meeting with Sebastian Fiedler who just happened to be paying a fleeting visit to Tallinn, and emailed me for a meet up. This all happened because of Facebook and Twitter - tools the e-learning community uses with exceptional effect across the globe to keep in touch and share ideas. We had a great time over a few drinks discussing many of the burning issues surrounding digital media and learning, and we both left having learnt something new from each other. Later this evening I enjoyed the company of Stephen Downes and Allison Littlejohn, who have also been invited to keynote the Tallinn Conference. Again we all learnt a lot from each other in conversation around the dinner table.

On the walk back to the hotel I got into a conversation with Stephen and inevitably the talk turned to open access publishing, a subject that is close to both our hearts. I don't publish much in conventional journals anymore, and neither admitted Stephen, does he. He actually made a profound comment about this. The e-Learning community is very small, and those of us in it tend to cross paths frequently he pointed out. Perhaps that's why, he said that many of us don't need to publish that much anymore. Most of our ideas come out in conversation, whether face to face or online. And that I guess, pretty much sums it up. Community really is the curriculum these days.

I'm looking forward to the next two days here in Estonia. There are some interesting papers in the programme. Some of these will be live streamed, so if you want to watch those presentations over the next two days, go to the Estonian eLearning Conference website for further details.

Image by Steve Wheeler


Community really is the curriculum by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

A dangerous game

There's a dangerous game they play in Cyprus. It's called Meze, and it's far more brutal than the Spanish Tapas equivalent. The game goes like this: There are two teams: the eating team and the waiter team. The waiter team tries to beat the eating team into submission by delivering a constant supply of small dishes, containing far more food than they are ever likely to need in a full calendar month. It begins innocuously, with a few plates of pitta bread, humus and tzatziki. The eating team is lulled into a false sense of security. This is nice, they think, we can do this. Then more dishes begin to arrive at an alarming rate.

As the eating team finishes one dish, it is removed and three more replace it. The goal of the waiter team is to fill the table up so completely with food that there is no room left, and the eating team has no choice but to eat their way out to safety. But the game is a fix. No matter how much the eating team consume, there are always more dishes arriving. Kebabs, eggplants, grilled cheese, prawns, skewered meat, fried octopus - you name it, it all arrives far too quickly. There is a sadistic streak in the waiter team. Even when the eating team has had enough, the waiting team continue to deliver knockout blows, placing even more food directly on to their plates. Eventually, and inevitably, the eating team are writhing in extreme agony on the floor clutching their stomachs and yelling 'Enough! We surrender!' The end of the game is signalled by the waving of a white napkin, and then you can observe the smug grins on the faces of the waiter team, who look at each other and nod knowingly. Yes, we have defeated yet another group of tourists with our clever food manoeuvres. Our job is done.

This got me thinking that many of the world's education systems are a little like the eating game of Meze. We pile the students plates high with content. Content of every kind is presented to be consumed, and the poor students don't stand a chance. Many are overwhelmed by the amount of content they need to learn, and the pace at which they have to learn it. Even while they are struggling their way through an overburdened 'just in case' curriculum, still more content continues to arrive at an alarming pace. Some learners cry out for mercy, but they are still compelled to consume the content, because later, they are required to regurgitate it in an examination to obtain their grades. The examinations bear no resemblance to that which will be required of them in the real world. No wonder so many wish to leave the table early. What can teachers do to obviate this problem? Some are making a difference, reinterpreting the curriculum they are given by enabling activities and creating resources that facilitate student centred learning. Learning at one's own pace, and in a manner that suits the individual will overcome some of the problems of overload, but more needs to be done. Things are changing, but they are changing slowly, too slowly for many people's tastes. It's a dangerous game we are playing in education. Isn't it about time we stopped?

Image source


A dangerous game 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.

2020 Curriculum

When I talk to teachers about the school curriculum, whether primary or secondary, guess what they want to discuss the most? Correct - assessment. When I crowdsourced for material for this series of blog posts on #learning2020, a lot of the comments I received back were about assessment. It's no surprise that Teachers hate it (marking is time consuming and not particularly useful, given the effort involved) just as much as children hate it (threatening, stressful, not very helpful for their learning). Just about the only people who love assessment are the government and the organisations who ... er, organise assessment. I have ranted several times recently on this blog about the difficulties of standardised assessment, and we have had interesting and thought provoking discussions here on alternative assessment methods. What kinds of assessment will there be in 2020? Will they be different from today, or will we (perish the thought) be lumbered with useless, discriminatory and impractical testing for years to come? Here's what you said:

Madeleine Brookes, technology integrator and ITGS teacher in Beijing, China, predicted that we will move from handwritten exams to online submission, which I think is a reasonable position to take. Regardless of the issues of verifiability of students and technical issues, online submission seems to be an advance on current exam systems. Others, including Ollie Bray, Scotland's National Advisor for emerging technologies, and Adrian Bradshaw, and ICT subject leader in Plymouth, England, made suggestions that assessment as we know it will be completely obsolete by 2020. Whilst I can't second guess their reasoning behind this, I assume it's because assessment in its current form does not prepare learners for the future, and it certainly doesn't add much to their experience of learning in school. Adrian went as far as to suggest that the National Curriculum as we currently know it will face the axe - because again, it is inadequate for the needs of learners. David Truss (an educator based in Dalian, China) agreed, arguing that curricula are overload and should be changed, but admitted that it will probably take a long time.

I agree, school curricula are overloaded with too many subjects and too much content which places too much pressure on the teacher to cover everything in the available time. This tends to militate against time and space available for learners to play, experiment, and ask the 'what if...' questions. Creativity can be stifled, particularly if the teacher slips into an instruction mode as a strategy to simply 'get through' all the content. Julian Wood, a primary educator in Sheffield, England, has a solution to this problem - He suggests we should adopt 'child led learning where the curriculum is dominated by skills needed for future employment.' Too much over-reliance on grades is another problem. Why do we force children to jump through so many hoops? We're not all Physical Education teachers are we? (That was a joke, btw - some of my best friends are PE teachers). Children should not be misled into thinking that getting high grades assures them a good job. It doesn't. So who are the grades for? They certainly help the government to obtain a clear picture of 'how a school is performing'... Go figure.

I will leave the last word to Adrian Bradshaw: 'I hope in future [the] curriculum will focus on creativity and thinking and not destroy divergent thinking'. Amen to that.

Image source Exam tables in sports hall, Epsom College by David Hawgood


2020 Curriculum by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.