Laurie O'Donnell

Been re-watching some of the RSA Animate videos and came across this great one by Steven Pinker. I don’t always agree with his analysis or for that matter all of the conclusions he makes, but to my mind he continues to make a serious contribution to our understanding at a very deep level of what it is to be human.

In this video he turns his attention to the role of innuendo in human relations. His hypothesis is that even obvious innuendos are useful devices for maintaining fictional relationships as they are based on ‘individual knowledge’. Direct speech provides a different level of understanding, what Pinker calls ‘mutual knowledge’, and on this basis relationships are either maintained or nullified.

Made me think that one big advantage of living in Scotland is that most of the time you know exactly where you stand – for good or for bad.

I wrote a short piece on Glow Futures a couple of weeks ago and it was published today in TESS under the headline  ’Glowing into the future may be easier said than done’.  I tried to be constructively critical and hope it is read in this spirit.

Original text of article submitted to  The Times Educational Supplement Scotland (TESS) and published on 14 October 2011:

Glowing into the Future

I was not completely surprised to read last month that the Cabinet Secretary had decided to cancel the Glow Futures procurement (‘Glow Futures snuffed out as Russell pulls plug’, TESS 9 September 2011).

It is absolutely right that the Cabinet Secretary seeks smarter ways of achieving the same or even more ambitious ends for Glow. It would be good to see some of his thinking on this elaborated. What advice did he get on what could be done better and how the savings might be realised while at the same time improving Glow as a public service? What other voices did he listen to beyond the hyperactive technology super users?

Given that the existing contract with RM ends in September 2012 the Cabinet Secretary should have been sufficiently concerned about the capacity of his officials to complete the procurement process within the timescale that they had left themselves. The initial Glow contract was signed two years before the service went live. Technologies have moved on from 2005 but there was a clear danger that completing the procurement project and getting the new service in place was going to be extremely challenging.

When it comes to listening every politician is subject to the full range of opinions and I’m sure he heard it from all sides on Glow. Everybody that I know has been arguing for many years that Glow needed to change radically, despite the fact that it already incorporates some of the same open source collaborative tools that will feature prominently as part of the new approach.

The Glow Futures procurement called for a more flexible and adaptable solution that better matched current reality and I’m sure that was reflected in the bids that were made. To my mind the Cabinet Secretary should have unstuck the procurement process at least 18 months ago. Allowed the market to be tested properly against a highly ambitious specification for Glow Futures. Then used the negotiation phase to get the flexible, adaptable and usable solution we all want. If there was less money to spend then let’s be up front about that and negotiate what we can best afford. Often less cash stimulates more imaginative and creative solutions.

The mainstream tools that are available free on the internet are fine, but to be usable in an educational context they should work off a single directory. It is also important that your stuff can be found easily irrespective of where and how it was created. Culture, confidence, practice, behaviours and engagement are also important but so is having the right tools, in the right place at the right time. Today’s open tools far too often become tomorrow’s commercial services. In many free services, such as Facebook, the user is less ‘the customer’ and more ‘the product’, with their personal data (preferences, pictures, contacts and habits) up for sale to the highest bidder. Not so bad if you sign-up for this as a private individual but perhaps not something the Scottish Government should be doing on behalf of our children.

Glow is a real partnership between local and central government. So all the more disappointing that the first the local authorities knew about the decision was through YouTube. This video service can be viewed through Glow (contrary to TESS Editorial of 9 September) but continues to be blocked by some local authorities. If ubiquitous broadband for every home, school and business got the same attention as another bridge over the Forth then the local authorities would have no excuses left for blocking such valuable educational content.

If we made mistakes in the past let’s be open in discussing them and also honest in recognising the context and what was available in 2005. Glow as a highly-scalable private cloud was pretty radical back then and required major software development as no such solution was available off the shelf at that time.

The numbers around Glow are significant and growing despite the long overdue need to refresh the technology. We might not have reached the ambition of having every student, every teacher and every parent using Glow every day but the level of engagement dwarfs the number of people who have contributed to the largely disappointing #eduscotict wiki that was set-up following the announcement.

The Cabinet Secretary calls for a solution that is not based on ‘big companies investing in big projects’ but all the options on the eduscotict wiki appear to centre on either a Google or Microsoft based cloud solution. RM, the current Glow provider, may be a FTSE 200 company but is tiny in comparison with either of these giants of the global IT industry. I also wonder if the 3,500 Scottish employees of ATOS, another one of the bidders for Glow Futures, see themselves as working for a big company that has not kept up with the latest developments in technology?

Looking forward positively we need the best possible solution to keep Scotland at the cutting edge of learning and technology. Not for its own sake but as a central means of enhancing the life chances of our young people. Let’s hope that in a few years time Glow continues to be recognised by Audit Scotland as a rare example of a well-managed government funded IT project.  Let’s also hope that it also maintains its hugely positive international profile.

If the Cabinet Secretary is open to hear the voices of those who are committed to building great public services for the future then there is every chance of continuing success for Glow and I for one will be absolutely delighted.

Laurie O’Donnell
Learning and Technology Consultant
LTS Head of Future Learning & Teaching/Director of Learning & Technology (2001-09)

Thanks to those of you who have already signed-up for #EduPic11 on the 20th September. It is already shaping up to be a great day.

You already know the overall structure of the event …

We plan to stimulate the conversations with short provocations and want you to do the same. If you have a vision, an issue, an idea or an ambition that you want to make part of the discussions, start thinking about that now, trim it to two minutes and let us know when you want to share it.

You will also be able to add to the debate on Twitter using the #EduPic11 hashtag and we hope that other friends and colleagues will take that opportunity wherever they are. We have a brilliant mix of voices attending – let’s make sure that they are all heard, on the day and beyond.

We don’t think that we need them, but suggest these ground rules for the day:

• Be respectful of each other  - but don’t hold back if you disagree

• Contribute  – but try to be succinct, give everyone a chance to participate

• Take responsibility for making it a great day

It will be a different kind of day, more fluid, more creative, more responsive to you as participants, less dominated by a set formula, but for those who like a bit of shape and theme, it might look a bit like the following.

#Edupic11 – an outline programme

10.45 – 11.00
Arrive, register, be refreshed and enjoy excellent company

11.00 – 11.30
Welcome and purpose of the day

• To explore a better future for Scottish Education,
• Work out what’s stopping us getting there,
• Identify how we might overcome these barriers
• Agree next steps

11.30 – 12.45  
Re-imagining the future – the way Scottish education should be?

Themes include
The big picture, curriculum, assessment, learning, teaching, CPD, resources, technology, learning environment, structures etc.

The opportunity
Use your imagination to rethink/redesign Scottish education
Without constraints or excuses for mediocrity or lack of ambition.

Outcomes
Generation of ideas, opinions.
Identification of areas of consensus and conflict.

12.45 – 13.30
Buffet lunch

13.30 – 14.45 
Reflecting on the present
What stops Scottish Education meeting our aspirations?

14.45 – 15.00  
Refreshment break

15.00 – 16.00 
Closing the gap
How do we move from current reality to our imagined future?

16.00 – 16.30  
Next steps – from discussion to action
What will be your personal steps, demands and collective efforts?

16.30
End – or should that be “Beginning”?

We are really looking forward to welcoming those who have signed-up for #Edupic11 on Tuesday at Oran Mor and connecting via Twitter with those unable to join us at the event.

I have been involved  in organising the #EduPic11 event which will take place in Glasgow on Tuesday 20th September at Oran Mor.

The idea of the event is bring together around 100 people to share ideas and have a conversation about Scottish Education that goes beyond the details of how to implement Curriculum for Excellence.

The format of the event will be a conversation around three questions:

What could Scottish Education look like at its very best? (Re-imagining the future)

Where are we now? (Reflecting on the present)

What could we do to make it better? (Closing the gap)

The aim of the event is to maximise active participation so there will no  keynote speakers or roundtable discussions of ‘education experts’. Everyone will be on an equal footing and all experience will be both valued and up for discussion.

We are hoping to draw an audience from across Scotland (hence the 10.45 start to allow those who live beyond the central belt to attend). We also hope to attract some people who might be coming to Glasgow anyway for SLF11 [I see that we already have a delegate from London within a couple of hours of the site going live.]

We are planning on inviting short (2 minute) ‘provocations’ from the attendees and will also welcome video clips from people who are not able to come along on the day.

The event will cost around £50 (£45/£55) to cover the cost of the venue, lunch and the services of Graham Ogilvie who will keep a visual record of the day [our edupics and hence the name of the event].

Follow our thinking as we get closer to the event on  Twitter via #EduPic11

Sign up for the event here via the Eventbrite website.

John McClelland

Just finished reading the Scottish Government Review of the ICT Infrastructure in Scotland. As you would expect this is a substantial piece of work covering ICT strategy, procurement and spend across the Scottish public sector. The review, led by John McClelland,  suggests that if the public sector works smarter around ICT we would benefit from improved public services and substantial cash savings (£1bn over 5 years)

Our Glow national schools intranet once again gets a positive mention:

Learning and Teaching Scotland is a NDPB [Scottish Government public body], and one that has shown outstanding leadership in the use of ICT in pursuit of its mission of supporting teachers and schools.

Glow was the reputedly the world’s first national schools intranet providing a range of tools and resources for pupils and practitioners. These include game based learning, video material and communications via social media.

It is easy to forget just how difficult it was to get 32 local authorities, all the university education faculties as well as the public bodies associated with Scottish schools to work together. Read the rest of the report if you want some evidence of how others in the public sector have fared in comparison. [Also worth referring to the Audit Scotland Report from 2008 for those who question Glow as value for money. Once again it is important to get out of the bubble of Scottish Education to understand the wider context and challenges of public sector procurement.]

McClelland talks about a ‘fragmentation of user activity’ and an ‘absence of complete governance models’ that mean the vision for a ‘digital public sector’ has not been realised. To my mind there is significant scope for improving public services by thinking big in terms of procurement but this should not be done on the basis of one-size-fits-all. Glow was ahead of its time when it was first conceived in 2003 and drew on the best available thinking and technologies of the time. In 2011 we need smarter procurement that realises the cost benefits of aggregation and scale but also enables more flexible and adaptable solutions that better meet the needs of the users of the technology (in their multiplicity of roles as citizens, students, teachers,  parents etc). It should not be either scale/sustainability or flexibility/adaptability –  want and need both at the same time. Excellent public services are an investment in our future and always reflect a balance of cost v quality. Getting balance right is one that those looking to Glow Futures will I hope be trying to get just right.

For those who just want to read the Exec Summary of The McClelland Review 2001:

Executive Summary of Review

• The public sector is lagging where it should be and there is an opportunity to capture a multiplicity of benefits in radically changing how ICT is adopted and deployed and in how it enhances access to and improvements in the quality and value of services. Shared ICT platforms, a connection and spread of exemplar projects and enhanced engagement with the industry would reduce the proportion of cost invested in ICT by individual organisations and deliver local savings which might be partially reinvested in advancing the progress of ICT. It would also open the door to significant additional and wider savings in public sector costs by providing a platform for the operation of other shared services and better support sustainability goals.
• The public sector should recognise that in the current economic environment a largely standalone and “self-sufficient” operating mode is no longer affordable and should commit to an era of sharing in ICT that will not only offer better value but also still meet the needs of individual organisations and their customers.
• These views are emphasised by the following key points:
• ICT adoption is progressing but still lagging where it should be.
• There are many outstanding exemplars and much progress can be made through a strategy of extending adoption of the practices and sunk investments executed by these exemplars.
• The use of ICT is not yet pervasive in the delivery of services and online access to services is still limited.
• Deployment is far from optimum and there is insufficient sharing.
• The standalone self-sufficient operating mode for ICT needs to be discontinued.
• Fragmented operating practices and structures are adding significant unnecessary cost.
• Procurement, commissioning and engagement with the industry are inadequately performed.
• Sustainability impacts and opportunities are not fully addressed.
• Lack of “oversight and governance” is a key reason for the current status.
• A complete paradigm change is required.

If the recommendations from this review are implemented savings in ICT investments can start in 2012/13 and grow progressively over five years to between £230m to £300m per annum with a cumulative saving over five years of from £870m up to £1bn. It should be noted that this assessment excludes any further savings from shared services in other business operations which are facilitated through this transformation in ICT.

Just finished reading Jane McGonigal’s ‘Reality is Broken on my Kindle.

Lovely thoughtful and optimistic book that reaffirms the importance of games in human culture. As the title suggests her thesis is that the real world is broken – nothing new here.  However she goes on to argue that the resources we need to solve the world’s great problems already exist in the massively collaborative online gaming communities.

The challenge she sets us is to channel the time and energy invested by 10 of millions of people in these collaborative online games towards solving the impending global crises in food, water, energy, climate and even war.

The book is a treasure and well worth reading, especially for those who don’t understand why computer games (and games more generally) are compelling for so many of us.

The conclusion is worth quoting in full:

‘Games don’t distract us from our real lives. They fill our real lives: with positive emotions, positive activity, positive experiences and positive strengths.

Games aren’t leading us to the downfall of human civilisation. They’re leading us to its reinvention.

The great challenge for us today, and for the remainder of the century, is to integrate games more closely into our everyday lives, and to embrace them as a platform for collaborating on our most important planetary efforts.

If we commit to harnessing the power of games for real happiness and real change, then a better reality is more than possible – it is likely. And in that case, our future together will be quite extraordinary.’

Got this link from Colm Linnane, Scottish Book Trust Online Teacher in Residence – @colmsbt

John Hunter is a brilliant teacher: humble; self-effacing; enabling; dedicated to improving learning; an inspirational role model.

Can you just imagine the delight of being one of his 4th Graders learning through his ’21st Century Wisdom Table’? Do you think he has to spend a lot of time dealing with disruption or managing student underachievement?

Just think what Scotland’s ‘Curriculum for Excellence’ would look like if we used games like John Hunter’s ‘World Peace Game’ to help students deal with complexity and grapple with global citizenship. Imagine how much of our curriculum and assessment we could hang on a game like this.

After spending 25 years plus in education I am amazed that we are still, more often than not, locked into models of teaching and learning that reflect nothing about how people learn or the importance of designing meaningful contexts for learning.

The work of Derek Robertson at LTS’ Consolarium, and others, has already demonstrated that play can be so powerful in promoting deep learning. John Hunter’s ‘World Peace Game’ adds more weight to that growing body of evidence – let’s hope his innovation inspires teachers to bring more creative leadership into our classrooms.

Ken Robinson on Passion from The School of Life on Vimeo.

A lot of this talk covers the same ground as the talk he gave at the RSAMD in Glasgow on the 8th March so a great opportunity to catch-up if you missed him.

I am currently doing a few days work for my old employer Learning and Teaching Scotland. The task is to support a working group of the LTS Advisory Council to publish their thoughts on ‘Creativity Across Learning’. There is some symmetry in this task as first job I got when I joined LTS in 2001 (10 years ago!), as Head of Future Learning and Teaching, was to support a working group that led to an excellent thought piece on ‘Creativity in Education’.

Since then I have maintained a keen interest in the area and am increasingly of the view that high-order thinking, and in particular creativity, is the missing dimension in education. Learners spend too much time at the bottom end of Blooms Taxonomy – remembering, understanding and sometime applying – and almost no time analysing, evaluating and creating. We have also allowed creativity to be seen as the domain of the ‘creative arts’ whilst around us the products of science and technology demonstrate as much if not more creativity in action … More of this later I promise.

For those of you who enjoy Sir Ken’s style of delivery this is another classic. He finishes by quoting Carl Jung:

‘I am not what has happened to me, I am what I choose to become’.

Robinson calls for us all to actively make those choices, not be determined by the past and to relentlessly seek out our passions. For me this message is at the core of what education should be about. Parent and teachers should be supporting learners to find their passion and through deep learning help them to transform their lives.

Another great little video from European Schoolnet Essential viewing if you are a parent or a teacher and want some understanding of what is happening to the adolescent brain as a young person transitions from being a dependent child to an independent and interdependent adult.

Adolescence is not some temporary aberration in teenager behaviour but a deep seated survival mechanism that has has allowed humanity to redefine and renew its cultural norms. From escaping the cold caves of our ancestors to finding new ways of being and living today we are constantly on the move and our adolescents continue to have a crucial role to play. Adults also have an important role to play in celebrating adolescence as:

‘The defining struggle, the moment when the next generation challenges the status quo and pioneers new ways of thinking and being that ensure our survival.’

I completely agree but just wish my 14 year daughter was a wee bit less stroppy sometimes and that her bedroom wasn’t quite as much of a bio-hazard. On balance I suppose this is a small price to pay in return for all the benefits of her successfully making the transition to adulthood and contributing to the survival of our future generations.

I have been dipping in and out of ‘The Nature of Learning: Using Research to Inspire Practice’ from OECD-CERI over the last couple of months. I would recommend it is as the best summary of what research tells us about learning.

Chapter 2 ‘Historical Developments in the Understanding of Learning’ by Erik de Corte, University of Leuven, is outstanding and should be essential reading for every teacher and for all those concerned with improving learning. Erik de Corte takes us on a short journey through behaviourist models of learning (still the dominant one for most educational technologies), thorough information processing to constructivism arriving at our current understanding – what he calls CSSC learning.

In summary, as understand it, de Corte is arguing that there is now sufficient research evidence to suggest that learning has these characteristics:

• Constructed – we each need to make the learning our own in order to achieve understanding.
• Situated – learning is all the better if it is located in a meaningful context.
• Self-regulated – learning is an active process,  it is not something that just happens to us.  We each need to engage and deploy strategies that to make sense of our learning and to help us to apply it.
• Collaborative – we are social beings and we learn better with others. All the better in the context where we can draw on the best resources and technologies and are supported in environments designed to facilitate learning

Added to CSSC we also know that learning is:

• Compound – what we have learned before is an important predictor of what we are ready to learn next
• Variable – we all learn in different ways and the more differentiated/personalised/customised the learning the more effective it will be.

The combination of Erik de Corte’s CSSC Learning and  Blooms Revised Taxonomy give us a very strong foundation for learning at all levels. CSSC gives us an insight into how learning works. Blooms Revised Taxonomy promotes the importance of  moving learners up the cognitive skills hierarchy from remembering, understanding and applying toward the higher order adaptive competences of analysis, synthesis, evaluation and of course at the very top creativity.