Wild west show

I learn a lot from taking part in international projects, and I am currently involved in several which are occupying my mind. By far the largest project I was involved in though, was a $90 million Star Schools Project in South Dakota - the Digital Dakota Network - in 2001-2003. It all started when I was invited in July 2000, all expenses paid, to make a trip across the pond as a guest of the then Governor of South Dakota, the Hon. Bill Janklow. I arrived in the small sleepy, state capital of Pierre (pronounced peer) and booked into the local Ramada Hotel. Pierre sits straddling the Missouri river, and is therefore in two time zones. When the bars shut east of the river, you walk over the bridge and into a bar on the west of the river, and get an extra hours drinking in (if you like that sort of thing, that is).

I was driven by my hosts to the Capitol building and ushered into the Governor's conclave where I gave a speech to a gathering of around 100 guests, many of whom were either working in the government or were school superintendents. My talk, about the current state of distance education, was well received because the entire Star Schools Project the state was about to embark upon was premised on distance learning. Every school in the state (and their libraries, colleges and universities too) were being cabled up with broadband, and equipped with full motion video conferencing, digital satellite reception - the whole nine yards. I later met up again with Bill Janklow over breakfast in Washington D.C. in April 2001. He was just about to go off to the White House to meet up with President George 'Dubya' Bush, but said he needed a few minutes with me to talk over a proposition. He offered me a job as his 'Digital Network' Ambassador, along with a house, schooling for my 3 kids and a job for my wife, if I would up sticks for two years and join him. It was a tempting offer, but I had to refuse due to a number of intractible issues. We compromised, and I later joined his team as the part-time lead evaluator for the project. Over the next two years I jetted back and forth across the Atlantic, gathering data, meeting and working with my team of researchers (pictured above), conducting interviews, collating data and generally trying to make sense of all that we were learning about this vast, sweeping, state-wide project. At the time the Digital Dakota Network was the largest distance education project of its kind, and we had a great opportunuty to discover how learning would be affected by the new technology. However, it was often the anecdotes rather than the hard data that were the most illuminating...

I heard one story that I would like to share here. It says a lot about the human condition, and a lot more about the impact of teachers on the young mind. In fact it follows on from yesterday's blog post. Janklow was a clever guy, and to cut costs, he enlisted the help of a number of residents of the state penitentiary, who he sent out in supervised road gangs to wire up the schools across the state. In one school, one of the convicts, dressed in the obligatory orange overalls, was up a step ladder, running cables through the ceiling of a classroom. A young lad walked in, saw the prisoner, and asked him. 'Mister, what did you do to be sent to prison?' The convict looked down as the little boy and with a straight face said: 'I didn't listen to my teacher...'

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Wild west show by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 3.0 International License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

That'll teach him

My school career was patchy to say the least. My father was a Warrant Officer in the Royal Air Force, and I spent most of my formative years switching schools on a regular basis, which played havoc with my education. I went to 10 schools in total, starting in Gibraltar at St George's Primary School and finishing in Holland at the AFCENT International School. My school years were difficult for one important reason. There was no National Curriculum, which meant that every school taught essentially what they considered to be most important. Because I switched schools every year or so, I learnt some content 2 or 3 times, and I missed some content completely. Turns out that I learnt more about process than product during those turbulent years.

On reflection, I can now see exactly how teachers can either make or break a child's education. The old maxim 'Doctors save lives, teachers make lives' is true. I recall one teacher in particular who took me on and inspired me to learn new things. Mr Handel was one of the two primary teachers at Cherhill Primary School in Wiltshire, who stand out in my memory. He spent time with me helping me in the areas I was struggling with, and he really went the extra mile, to make sure I achieved to my full potential. The other teacher in the same school was a polar opposite. I once asked her a question about English grammar. She looked at me with contempt, told me I had asked a 'stupid question' and then made a big joke out of it. The whole class laughed at me, and I went bright red with embarrassment. I was only 8 years old, but I can still recall how it felt. It taught me a lesson. I never asked another question in class throughout the whole of my school life. I will refrain from naming that teacher.

Many teachers are excellent at what they do, and really care about the children in their care. I try to do the same, aspiring to be like Mr Handel, taking time to give my students individual attention if they are struggling in some difficult area. I try to instill some of these values in my student teachers too. But there are a very few teachers who can stifle creativity and discourage individualism - exactly the traits we need to draw out from our learners so that they can develop the skills to transfer into lifelong learning. Teachers can make all the difference, but sometimes it is time and pressure that militate against this. I look at my own children now as they negotiate their way through school and into work, and I sometimes cringe at some of the things they come home and tell me about their school experiences. It's as tough for them as it was for me. But school isn't the be all and end all and nothing is graven in stone.

My travelling took it's toll on my formative years, and I left school with few qualifications. I made a lot of friends, and had to keep making new ones, so I became very adept at interpersonal skills, but weak on content. All of my academic achievements have been made off my own bat, and all of them after the age of 30. The week I left school for the last time, my form tutor met with my parents. 'Steve is a great lad, and is very sociable' he told them, 'but I'm afraid he will never be an academic'.

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That'll teach him by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 3.0 International License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Keeping your head above water

June is going to be an exceptionally busy month for me, and what a contrast it will be to last year, when I was forced to put my feet up after abominable (sorry, abdominal) surgery. This June, instead of putting my feet up, I'm going to be trying to keep my head above water.... My first speaking engagement is at the Learning and Skills Group Conference at Olympia, in London. The invited workshop I'm presenting is titled: "Collaborative and Cooperative Learning - the how and the why" in which I will look at choosing online tools, creativity, the role of Web 2.0 and problem based learning approaches, and much more during the 70 minutes I have been allocated. As soon as this workshop is over, I dash off to Gatwick Airport, to catch my flight to Valencia, Spain.

I will be in Valencia to speak at this year's European Distance and E-Learning Network (EDEN) Conference, on the subject of "Learning Space Mashups". I'm going to be talking about my recent research into combining Web 2.0 tools such as wikis and blogs to promote reflective and collaborative learning, and will be outlining some of the difficulties and successes of these projects. EDEN is a great conference for networking and hearing about all the latest European transnational projects on e-learning, and I thoroughly recommend it to anyone in that field.

In the third week of June I have no less than 3 keynotes to present. My first takes place in relatively nearby Taunton, when I address the Association of Colleges Higher Education Managers event at Oake Manor on 22nd. Two days later on 24th I'm farther up the coast giving the opening keynote for the Learning and Teaching Conference at the University of Portsmouth. The title of my speech is: "Lifelong Learning in a Digital Age: Inspiration and Innovation through Social Media."

My final speaking engagement of the week is on 29th June, at the University of Middlesex, where I will be one of the keynotes at the Engaging the Digital Generation in Academic Literacy Conference. I blogged previously about this event where I'm speaking on the subject of "Digital Tribes and the Social Web: How Web 2.0 will Transform Learning in Higher Education." It's a quick dash back that evening to Plymouth, where the following morning, during the VC's Learning and Teaching Conference at the University of Plymouth, I will pick up my Teaching Fellowship Award. But... I can only stay until lunch, because then I'm dashing back off to Heathrow Airport to fly to Helsinki, where...... (but more about that later).

How did June get to be so busy? Well, don't look now, but July is even worse. I suppose I now have to earn my new title of Professor....

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Keeping your heads above water by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 3.0 International License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

The sun sets on Becta

So the British Educational Communication and Technology Agency (Becta) is no more, euthanised by the new UK coalition Government's first round of cuts. About 240 jobs will be lost for a saving of around £65 million a year. We suspected it would happen, and our fears were confirmed this morning. Since its inception, Becta has been responsible for advising schools and colleges throughout the UK on how best to maximise the potential of ICT - information and communication technologies - in teaching and learning. But Becta has been a political pawn from the start. On it's website today, there is a statement reading: "A new UK Government took office on 11 May. As a result the content on this site may not reflect current Government policy". It leaves us asking just how much was Becta allowed to do? And how effective were they given the constraints imposed upon them by their political masters?

The Twitterverse and Blogosphere have been polarised. There are those who say good riddance, Becta did little more than impose a technocratic set of solutions onto schools and colleges who relied blindly on its advice. There was disquiet from some teachers that "schools often ending up with out-of-date and expensive technology" and that and did not have "the freedom to choose what they wanted, rather than what some bureaucrat felt they needed." That commentary is sourced from Rory Cellan-Jones's BBC Technology blog. Others mourn the loss, as if it were a member of their family - and when one considers all those who are losing their livelihood, I can see why the sentiment is strong. Among others, Ian Usher's blogpost for example, is fiercely protective of Becta's record, and points out several bits of disinformation circulating that shed a poorer light on the agency than they perhaps deserved. Then there are those who take the middle road. A brief blog perspective from John McLear makes a point I want to elaborate upon. He suggests that the demise of Becta will have teachers searching around for expertise, and this may ultimately lead to creative solutions, and that ultimately schools "may benefit from a slightly more fragmented decision making process inside authorities and nationwide."

A few years back, in his seminal YouTube video "The Machine is Us/ing Us", Mike Wesch made the point that the Web was us, and that we would be the ones who organised the content of the web, through tagging, linking and otherwise making some sense out of chaos - Teaching the Machine. I think the same will apply to the future support of ICT in schools and colleges. I may be wrong, but I think there are enough learning technology experts out there who are connected enough to join forces and provide advice for schools when they need it. Here's my opinion on this, for what it's worth: I know there is a danger, as Neil Adam has counselled, "we are in danger of islands of brilliance in sea of mediocrity", but isn't that the way Advanced Skills Teachers work from their home school - and out across their networks of schools, cascading their skills? Isn't this also the way Specialist Status Colleges disseminate their funding down through their network of feeder primary schools? I see the opportunity here for a modern day version of Illich's 'Learning Webs' where we help each other more, and through the use of social media, it is emminently achievable. Peter Ford sees a danger in our voices becoming 'lost in the echo chamber' of social media, but poses the question - does the loss of Becta provide for a new age in which OFSTED pays "more than lipservice to the use of new technologies in schools". These are by no means the only voices out there - there is plenty more commentary to come over the next few days I am sure. I will say this - although the loss of Becta is very bad news and I'm very sorry for those who have lost their jobs, we can either look out from our cages and see the mud or see the stars. I for one would be very happy to provide advice and support to schools who need it, and indeed I am already doing so.

Thanks for what you have achieved Becta. Now here's to a future where teachers help each other more.

Some other related posts

Graham Attwell How Becta's closure fits into the ConDem Plans

Dan Roberts Bye Bye Becta

Miles Berry On Becta's Closure

Electric Chalk Becta Closure: Blog Round Up

Glyn Moody Goodby Becta and Good Riddance

Stephen Downes Government to close Becta

Tony Sheppard Becta: Opportunities lost and opportunities gained

NAACE Press release

Doug Woods ICT: An uncertain future?

Gareth Davies Dead and Buried: How could Becta survive?

Seb Schmoller The way forward after Becta

Merlin John Becta closure stokes fears

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Bad behaviour

I have seen a lot of bad behaviour this week, and it's not been from our politicians. I was in Germany most of last week, working on a project in Erlangen, near to the Bavarian city of Nuremburg. While I was there I was taken by my hosts to sample the atmosphere (and the amber nectar) of the local Erlangen Beer Festival. It was quite a sight, with hundreds of metres of benches and trestle tables stretching out across a large hillside area, with live stages and all kinds of music from thrash metal to oompah bands, to satisfy the musical tastes of just about everyone. The beer flowed freely and was consumed from large steins. Most people enjoyed the event, but quite a few also overindulged to such an extent that they were eventually dancing on the tables in hordes. I guess that's what beer festivals are about. Before we knew it we were engulfed by the heaving mass and I managed to extricate myself. Now I know why it was called the Munich Putsch - people kept putsching and tschoving me, and schtepping on my feet. People began falling off the tables, and so did the steins, many breaking explosively beneath the stomping feet of the drunken ones. We got out of the way pretty quickly, and smiled at the antics, but I still managed to get stomped on a few times, and my jacket now smells strangely of a variety of Bavarian brews. I'm glad I didn't wear my new white Reeboks to the event - they would have been absolutely ruined. I know it can happen anywhere, not just in Germany, but it was kind of fun, end of story.

Er.... not quite. Yesterday, waiting for my train to Nuremburg, I encountered more drunken hordes at Erlangen Railway Station, all trying to get home after a full night out on the town. And this time it wasn't so funny. Some were so worse for wear they had to be helped along the platform. Others amused themselves by smashing full beer bottles, and the platform soon resembled a scene from the movie Die Hard. I can only guess they didn't think the beer was that good. The worst was to come though, when several drunken young guys turned on others in the throng and there ensued a thumping match and more breaking of glass. Several passengers, myself included, had to move sharply out of the way. The Station Master shouted across the he was raufing die Polizei, and they shouted back, please do, we'll fight them as well. Ach du lieber Gott. In the distance the sirens began to wail, and before long, half a dozen tooled up Polizei had descended to 'sort things out'. It was at that point my train arrived and I gratefully got the hell out of there.

The other bad behaviour of note this week was less violent, but is supposedly bad enough for Google to start shutting down blogs. BBC Click this week featured one notable incident where videoblogger had his account taken down because he had posted footage of the build up to the Jimmy Carr comedy show (audience arriving etc, but none of the actual show). The blog was spotted by the said comic's management team (who ironically seem to have no sense of humour) who then complained to Google. Google removed the entire account. The blogger then had to fight for several months to get his blog restored. Apparently he had fallen foul of Google's "3 strikes and your out" rule, having previously transgressed by inadvertently posting up copyrighted material on his YouTube account. The blogger makes the point that a) It's a draconian measure to take down an entire blog just for a few minor breaches, especially after he said he would delete the offending posts the moment he was informed he had potentially breached copyright, and b) Google doesn't really fully explain what is involved in this rule, so how can people comply if they don't know? I wonder what other bloggers out there think about this? Is the blogger just whinging, or had he got a point? Is the way Google manage this rule fair or are they being too heavy handed? And who is behaving badly here, the videoblogger.... or Google?

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CONCEDE Project

User generated content is everywhere. Students are using social networking sites to post up their content, including text, images and links they would like to keep and share. In more formalised education settings, there is a proliferation in the use of wikis and other collaborative shared spaces. Blogs are kept by teachers and students alike to document and publish their personal and professional reflections. Podcasts and other pushed services are on the increase, particularly for recorded lectures, useful for thise who either couldn't attend a lesson, or who would like revisit what was said during the session.

The Concede Project (CONtent Creation Excellence through Dialogue in Education) is an EFQUEL supported and ERASMUS funded Europe wide project that is investigating the uses of user generated content in higher education, and seeks to discover who creates and uses this content. We are also interested in how we can benchmark the quality of such content. To that end we are currently engaged in gathering data from an online survey. If you are working or studying in HE and use any form of Web 2.0 or social software services, please consider completing this survey. It's currently presented in English, Spanish and Hungarian and usually takes no more than 10 minutes to complete.

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Txt in line

Later today I'm travelling up to the University of Bath to meet up this evening with some of the other speakers at the 6th 'Let's Talk About Text' conference. The event takes place tomorrow, Wednesday 19th May, and I'm presenting the opening keynote speech. I'm actually a little regretful of the fact that once lunchtime comes around, I'm going to have to jump into my car and head over to Bristol Airport to catch a flight to Germany where I will be working on Thursday and Friday (More about that later in the week). But for the short time I'm in Bath, I hope to catch up with a number of old friends such as Andy Black, Nitin Parmar, Matt Lingard and Andy Ramsden.

My presentation, which I have embedded here, will hopefully set the scene for what I am sure will be another great event in the series organised by Txttools Ltd. Stephen McCann, Steve Sidaway and their team have put together an interesting programme which I;m sure the 50 or so delegates will find thoroughly engaging. My keynote will cover a range of issues around the use of SMS in education, including a brief history of human communication, from cave paintings to mobile phone texting, student expectations, cultural shifts, language change including 'squeezetext', the texture of language, and finally ... what the research has already shown us about the use of txt in higher education, good and bad. If you're at the conference on Wednesday, I'll see you there.

Everything you always wanted to know about text

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'Txt in line' by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.