Everyone's a critic (again)

I recently blogged about the hidden audience effect, and cited Westfields Junior School's S'cool Internet Radio and David Mitchell's Quadblogging projects as examples of how students can become better engaged with learning when they perform their work for an audience. Social media and the internet have largely been responsible for this change. Before social media, the school play or the end of term concert was a good way to allow children to perform to an audience, as was the art display and the school sports day. But not every child excels at art, or is good at music or sport. What about those who are good mathematicians, or the scientists or linguists? Prior to social media, how did they perform their skills for an audience? Social media now provides a way. A recent blogpost by Katherine McKnight listed 12 ways technology has changed learning, and includes 'expanding audiences' near the top of the list:

Students' sense of audience is completely different. When I was in high school in the 1980's, the audience was the teacher. When I started teaching high school in 1988, the audience was the teacher and peers.  In the 21st century, it's the WORLD. Blogging, Twitter, Facebook, and other online platforms changed our notion of audience.

I think the statement requires some unpacking. Yes, social media is changing our concept of audience, because the tools we use are naturally participatory. Students blog their ideas and in doing so, they perform to a potential worldwide audience. They receive feedback from their peers in the form of comments, and gain a sense of pride in their work. When they record themselves on camera, they can release it as a YouTube video and gain feedback from their peers. It can be very motivational: watching a growing number of views, comments, shares and favourites can be a huge incentive for students. But there are also risks. The danger of playing to this gallery is the exposure to a potentially harsh and unforgiving environment. YouTube is particularly notorious for trolling (individuals who patrol social media sites to make mischief) and can be a breeding ground for unneccesarily harsh, or deliberately hurtful comments. Receiving such responses, no matter how ill informed or illiterate they often may be, can seriously damage the delicate self esteem of vulnerable young learners.

Teachers should therefore promote the use of YouTube as a performance channel with due consideration to such a risks. The same safeguards should apply to blogging, where teachers are advised to act as moderators of the comments that are received, filtering each one before allowing it to be posted on the blog for students to read. There is also the danger of cyberbullying from within the peer group, and such malicious activities also need to be obviated by the appropriate management of social media tools in formal learning settings. A fine line needs to be drawn between deliberately destructive behaviour, and critial review of a learner's work. Whilst the former knocks down, the latter can build up, challenging the student to refine their skills and learn more about their subject.

Arguably, the benefits outweigh the risks, and performing your learning online using social media is a game changer. Never before have students enjoyed the opportunity to shine on such a global stage. The audience has indeed expanded, and where once a student was writing their assignment to be read by an audience of one (the teacher or examiner), now there is potential to demonstrate new learning through a huge range of globally accessible media.

Assessment should no longer be confined to the written tests or essays that were so prevalent in the last century, but might be extended to podcasts, blogs, wikis, videos, image collections and combinations of these in other media. What teachers now need to avoid is replicating old practices within new media. The opportunities to create new ways of assessment are there to be exploited. The only real limitation is imagination.

Image source


Everyone's a critic by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

The hidden audience effect

A splendid time was had by all at yesterday's bMoble12 event. Held in Bradford's prestigious National Media Museum (more on this in a future post), the day was packed full of quick fire workshops, seminars and plenary presentations. The conference was enhanced by the presence of several very tech savvy young students from primary schools, who took a full part in the proceedings, tweeting and live blogging from the event on their mobile devices. Speakers included Derek Robertson, Steve Dale, James Langley, Chris Mayoh and Julian Wood, who presented variously on games based learning, e-safeguarding, embedding the iPad across the curriculum, the use of QR codes and mobile devices in education, and how to engage readers with digital texts.

Headteacher Karine George's post lunch keynote was one of the highlights of #bMoble12, and included a great first section from two of the children from her large school, Westfields Junior School in Hampshire. They had been up since 6 am that morning to travel for 5 hours on a train to arrive in time for their presentation, and had to travel back that evening. It must have been a very long day for the kids, but they performed very well, and were very entertaining and raised a few laughs too.

Karine George's presentation was one of those keynotes that raises the eyebrows and gets you thinking. It must be the first time a keynote speaker has appeared on stage accompanied by a toilet seat, but I think we were all relieved when she made a point about emerging technologies, featuring the Japanese Washlet 'intelligent loo' as an example of how technology can improve lives. You can see video of Karine's keynote and many of the other bMoble12 sessions on this website.

As I looked around the room during Karine's keynote, the audience was transfixed by the volume of new ideas that were being applied at Westfields School. She reported great learning results through activities supported through the use of games, mobile technology, video, music technology and other specialised software. One great innovative idea Karine talked about was particularly useful at engaging kids across the entire curriculum. Their learning activities are scaffolded through their own internet radio channel S'cool Radio. The children take turns in operating and hosting the radio channel, working in pairs. They take on the responsibility to write and produce their own shows, and in doing so they are able to reach out not only to their own peers (the radio shows are broadcast over public address systems during break times) and their parents, but also the wider community, and ultimately, to a worldwide audience.

In effect, S'cool Radio is taking a similar approach to Dave Mitchell's Quadblogging concept but developing it in another direction. What both projects have in common is their capitalisation on the 'hidden audience' effect. Dave Mitchell stresses the importance of providing an audience for young bloggers, who then 'perform' their ideas and writing skills, receiving feedback from their peers. It is highly motivational to know you have an audience. Performance levels are raised as extra effort is made. The meteoric success of Quadblogging lies in its organisation of 4 school clusters, which provide a guaranteed audience to read and comment on every post the children make. Evidence from earlier studies I conducted with my own researchers in Plymouth in 2007 revealed that the 'hidden audience' who read  my own students' wiki content, encouraged them to raise their game in terms of improved academic writing, greater accuracy, deeper critical analysis and thinking, and a more polished presentational style. The entire account of that research can be found in the 2008 British Journal of Educational Technology article The Good, the Bad and the Wiki.

Clearly, the hidden audience effect is only one of the components that make projects such as Quadblogging and S'cool Radio a success. For Westfields Junior children, the ability to communicate clearly, self-organise, self-broadcast, express ideas, work in a team, problem solve, plan ahead and think on one's feet, are all brought into play when they plan, present and perform their shows on their internet radio shows. The Westfields internet radio project is therefore destined to be a great success, because not only does it provide learners with a ready made audience, it also gives them space to practice and acquire these key transferable skills - skills they will certainly need to use when they enter a world of work that is uncertain and in a constant state of change.

Image courtesy of Westfields Junior School


The hidden audience effect by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

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.