I’m writing this blog post on Windows Livewriter, the great blogging tool that makes it so easy to format and add pictures or hyperlinks before publishing easily to the web…. you can find out more about how to use Livewriter from @chickensaltash – the award-winning Dan Roberts here.

But today there are two devices I am using to write on Livewriter. Synchronised using a VNC (virtual network client), I am able to use my new Blackberry Playbook to control the Livewriter that is loaded onto my laptop so most of this post may be “written” on my laptop, but I have inputted the text via the Playbook.  And if I begin to type on my laptop instead, the changes also show up on my playbook! Such fun – don’t you love seeing what you are doing on one device showing up on another!

So why do I think this could be a powerful teaching and learning tool? At the price of it, this small tablet seems to offer lots of opportunities and being able to control the laptop or pc that feeds into a projected display or interactive whiteboard is just the tip of the iceberg…. This particular ability means that a tablet could be used from anywhere in a classroom in order to interact with the display that is being shared by the whole class. And by anyone, whether a learner or their teacher.  The one thing I’m not yet sure about is if multiple devices in the same classroom could all be used to interact  with the display pc.

So how to set up the VNC?  As a non-techie person (despite the impression I may give of being a bit geeky!) I am pleased to say I found it quite simple….  I downloaded an app onto the Playbook called IMT VNC; then I downloaded TightVNC onto my laptop. During the download process on my laptop I was prompted to add passwords, which I duly did.

The next step was to find the IP address of my home wireless network, click on the tools button at the top left hand side of IMT VNC on the playbook, and add this to the box that says “Host” under the Connection settings, put the password into the box underneath and check the Port says 5900, before testing the VNC connection and saving the settings.  Once this was all done, as soon as I pressed the “Connect” button at the top left hand side of the playbook screen, everything was synchronised between both devices. Then all has been running smoothly…..

I know you can do similar things with other tablet devices, but the Playbook’s cost makes it worth looking at and the functionality is something that seems – from my early days of using it – to have much potential for teaching and learning. No, I’m not on commission! Another great point for me is that it fits really neatly into my small handbag – I would need a much bigger bag if I was to be carrying around another type of tablet!  Now heading off to do a bit more playing…..

PS @PrimaryPete_ has used Splashtop to achieve a similar effect….

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The developments that are taking place in the ICT curriculum are, I hope, going to provide our learners with increasingly balanced opportunities. Opportunities to use technology to enable learning opportunities that wouldn’t otherwise take place are – if you have read my blog posts before – the bread and butter of what I have done in school.  The parts that have inspired me in my role as a teacher and that have enthused my learners.  They are often the opportunities to make learning more efficient or fun than it might otherwise have been through using tech.  And there are in-built opportunities to teach learners about “choose to use” – the appropriate choice of a tool to do the job we want it to do, as well as to learn about using safely.  These cross-curricular opportunities for learning through technology are wonderful and they provide a worthy context for developing tech skills and understanding, too.

But even though we had an embedded curriculum for ICT in my school, there were always some areas of tech skills and understanding that we needed to make a special effort to include in our cross-curricular planning. And as teachers start to look at ICT planning in the light of Gove’s BETT announcement and the Royal Society report, we need to make a special effort to ensure that programming is included.  I can imagine that fills many teachers – primary teachers, non-ICT specialists, people who haven’t used programming/coding for many years – with trepidation.  We have a starting point, though.  There are many pre-programming skills that will equip learners – and, believe it or not, we are ALL able to support learners with these, even if we aren’t coding and programming experts.  Logic building and problem solving – developing skills of sequencing; attention to detail;  tenacity;  checking, refining, improving sets of instructions – can be easily incorporated into what we are teaching already.  Storytelling contexts and the creation of simple games/animations using storyboards to support planning and tools such as Kodu and Scratch can build these skills.

One of the greatest challenges we face is incorporating the language used to describe programming into what we are doing with our pre-programming and early programming activities.  After all, there are many primary school activities that provide these opportunities – we need to value and name them for what they are.  The other challenge is building the confidence of those who are using pre-programming activities – and helping them to recognise where those pre-programming and early programming activities fit in the bigger picture.  Challenges facing KS3 will be similar initially as we build confidence and skills in those going through the primary education system, but they will also have the challenge of maintaining a dynamic curriculum so it can be honed, tweaked, refined to take into account the prior learning of students – who will be increasingly confident in these skills. And the challenges facing KS4 and beyond? Exam boards that take time to respond to  rapidly evolving curriculum needs.

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Whilst at the NAACE 2012 conference last week, it was great to have an opportunity to talk to so many others who are passionate about creating the best possible balanced ICT learning experiences for all the students we are responsible for. The Key Stage 3 Curriculum was launched at BETT earlier this year and a version can be found on the NAACE website. At the NAACE conference, proposals for the KS1 and KS2 curriculum were launched and various questions about the curriculum were discussed at a symposium on Friday. To be perfectly honest, there was so much rich discussion in the session that I am still absorbing and assimilating all the ideas – I’m sure I’ll blog further as things sink in.  But for now, my initial feelings after the symposium are that there are some challenges that we face as we develop a new curriculum. And I apologise for the large number of recognisable phrases in the rest of this post!

Many hands make light work, it has to be said – and by collaborating as professionals we reduce the risk of re-inventing wheels.  There are many who are already putting into place a curriculum that will work in their own learning context, for their own students….  whilst we know that it is important that we have that scope for flexibility, creativity and relevance for our own learners, preparing a curriculum in isolation could narrow our perspective. The symposium presented a framework – which seems to be an entirely appropriate way of sharing common ground between different schools as they develop that framework into their own plans.  I just hope that the other adage doesn’t prove true – too many cooks spoil the broth! There are some great contributions from those who took part in the symposium that will need to be considered, bounced around, integrated and which will inform the tweaks and refinements to the curriculum.  I’m looking forward to seeing that tweaked and refined framework….

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One of the best parts of the first day at the 2012 NAACE conference (for me) was the keynote from Dr Andrew Curran, who was talking about the neurobiological changes that happen and support learning.  I, for one, thought it was fascinating to find that the reason my memory is so bad when I am stressed is because the synapses in my brain are being flooded with dopamine!

Much of what he said and backed up with science was what we know as teachers already, but it’s always good to hear that we are doing the right things for the right reasons! If we flood our learners’ synapses with dopamine by stressing them out, they don’t learn well because then noradrenaline kicks in to counter the damaging effect of the dopamine – and as a result, it pushes the learning into the subconscious! And optimal learning requires four things:

• feeling understood
• a sense of self esteem
• a sense of self confidence
• emotional engagement

And guess what? All those things add up to LOVE!

And as 93% of dopamine excretiion is under the control of the limbic (sorry if I spelt that wrong) emotional brain, if we don’t have the emotional attention of our learners, we only get a small percentage of their brain engaging with the learning. What it all boils down to – essentially – is that we need to get learners’ hearts before they’ll learn effectively from us!  I seem to remember a phrase about hearts and minds from the dim and distant past – good to know there are sound neurobiological reasons and that it isn’t all sentimental mush!

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After a few weeks of sorting out arrangements, it was a real joy to spend time on secondment with Microsoft earlier this year.  During my time with the Partners in Learning team, I had the huge privilege of working with some inspirational innovative teachers – and it’s good to see a large company sticking to their principle of supporting, nurturing, encouraging and sharing good practice when it comes to the use of technology to enhance education.  Being able to attend the European and US Partners in Learning Forums in Moscow and Seattle respectively was a fantastic opportunity to see how practice is continuing to evolve due to the creative and imaginative uses of technology by teachers from all over the world – definitely a professional highlight!  Of course, standing in Red Square and travelling on the Moscow underground were personal highlights – who’d ever have thought that I’d be able to visit that historic place!  The Seattle trip had another purpose – another professional highlight – as I had been invited to the first Partners in Learning Institute.  It’s hard to describe just how much fun was had with 49 other enthusiastic educators from all over the world! Laughter and learning filled the week in equal measure – the research-based training had depth and substance; the friendships forged are very special and it is wonderful to be able to follow what those friends are doing all over the world through the power of social media!

And as the secondment came to an end and I was preparing to return to the classroom full time, a change in direction led to my joining TES as the IC T subject lead …. You can find out more about what I am doing there; I particularly love my trim waist on my avatar!  Again, the principle of supporting and encouraging professional generosity – which we know drives standards up across education as a whole – is at the forefront and I’m enjoying working with other teachers as they continue to share a fuller range of quality resources – with so much sharing I guess you could say my role is as curator-cum-cheerleader-in-chief for those teachers! And it’s always a huge privilege to be able to go and work with other people’s classes – thanks to all those who let me come and continue being a practising teacher! After all, the children are the reason for sharing resources – so we share good practice, so we don’t have burnt out teachers who are all re-inventing wheels, so we support each other… Working with my lovely new colleagues and the great team that is being established is a huge privilege. The new role has led to this blog being quieter of late and the comments I have about the use of ICT in schools now tends to be via TES and @TESict.

Personal highlights include seeing Les Miserables and Wicked, visiting the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, getting a Kindle, moving house (twice!)…  Buying my own house was remarkably stress free and there were just a couple of hours of nail-biting in the two months of paperwork, so I was extremely fortunate.  The research into Digital Learning Dialogue continues and I hope to be completing that (or should I say the first part of that) and sharing it more widely during 2012 – I’m afraid I’m on my third tutor in a year but that’s due to personnel changes at the university, not because I have scared them off!

Two years ago at the Microsoft UK Innovative Education Forum, Stuart Ball from the Partners in Learning team said that life would potentially change for those who were going onto the European Forum….. life has changed beyond all recognition in the last two years since I was given that amazing opportunity – I remember each step of the journey with fondness and gratitude –  and I’m looking forward with optimism to all the new adventures that 2012 will bring! Who knows what there will be to reflect on next New Year’s Day….

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Fist by Filipe Ferreira; Creative Commons Share Alike

There was a call for revolution yesterday at the Roundhouse in London.  Not the
sort of revolution that we have seen that involves civil unrest. Something much
more constructive and lasting – a way forward for education.  A way that gets
back to the basics of education – something that can have an impact on our
society, our economy, that values our culture and the cultures of others, that
is personal and personalised. If the bare minimum that is needed for theatre is
an actor and someone to watch (Peter Brooks via Sir Ken Robinson) and only things that enhance the theatre should be added in, then the bare minimum for education is the relationship between a teacher and a learner. I’d go even further than Sir Ken and suggest
that teacher needn’t be “me” in a classroom – it could be another child, a friend, a parent, an aunt, an outside expert.  But I completely agree (and have often been heard to say!) that learning is dependent on relationships.

Reflecting on the wide variety of speakers  and the conversations I had with others during and after the event, though, I think the title of the event was misleading.  I believe the revolution is already happening. And maybe it isn’t happening as a megachange, as Seymour Papert advocated in The Children’s Thinking Machine. If change is to have a real deep impact and affect more than just a few people in isolated classrooms, it needs to happen in a much more subtle and organic way. As Georgia Mills said, she learnt a lot before attending
the event through social media, online maps, websites – and she wasn’t even in school! Harnessing those tools that are becoming part of everyday lives empowers our learners to be lifelong learners, “Martini” style learners (remember the anytime, anyplace, anywhere adverts from years ago?!).  The tools we use are not as important as the way they are being used – there’s so many ways that technology can provide immersive, direct learning experiences of the kind that we couldn’t experience without the tech. This was touched on by many of the speakers… Nick Stanhope’s 4 dimensional history maps, Max Whitby’s hands on space app, Evan Grant’s use  of the kinect and other tools with autistic children, Scott Snibbe with his innovative music app for Bjork’s album, Dan Roberts’ collaborations.  But all tools that are becoming “normal” in peoples’ everyday lives.  Geoff Stead talked about mobile devices being the Swiss army knife tool for learning – they are an affordable agent for the change in learning, in pedagogy, for empowering learners so they can learn when, where, how it suits them.

What makes the difference, what makes it possible to use those tools for learning, is the creativity of those who are teaching – or should I say facilitating learning – and those who are learning. Jude Kelly talked about the need to harness the creativity of both students and teachers and this could be seen in, for example, the creativity of the Saltash.net students making their own app for a timetable – the eTable, as well as the creativity of Emily Cummins with her amazing inventions that have the power to change the lives of other people. And being creative is not just about what we make – it’s about the questions we ask. As Ewan Macintosh pointed out, problem finding is even more important than problem solving! It seems eminently sensible to me that we need to be able to recognise and describe problems before we can go about solving them!! But good ideas, inventions and questions don’t just emerge because they are good, as Professor Ken Spours pointed out. They need the right conditions in order to be realised.

So what are the right conditions? They’re not the same for everyone, as Goldie reminded us when he described that his learning had come from street culture rather than school. He talked about the importance of mentors in his learning, which brings us back to the point about learning being relational. Emily Cummins’ mentor was her grandfather. Jude Kelly from the South Bank Centre
talked about how the encouragement she had received had been key to her own development and success.  Geoff Stead showed how the use of mobile technology can build collaboration between teachers and between students.

Revolution? It’s not something to plan for – it’s happening. And it’s happening through the use of tech tools, creativity and relationships. And out of all of those, it’s the relationships that are key. Those who were at the event were encouraged to make a pledge about how they were going to contribute to the revolution. Me? My pledge has to be to encourage collaboration – between learners, between learners and their teachers (whoever they may be) and between teachers, so EVERYONE feels empowered to lead amazing learning opportunities in their own lessons.

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I always feel the start of a new school year is a time for New Year’s resolutions – those of us in education are fortunate enough to have two times in the year when we are able to make resolutions! But resolutions are probably not as useful as that feeling that there is a blank piece of paper, a fresh start, a new story to be written. The excitement of a new school year is the unknown adventures to come, the thrill of the unexpected, the opportunity to make a difference. It’s that time of year when we need to listen lots, keep an open mind but have a clear vision of what we want to achieve. Sometimes its hard to make resolutions when we don’t know what is going to be round the next corner – and let’s face it, that is so often the case in teaching. But my own resolution will be to keep blogging here more regularly than over the last few months! What’s yours?

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There is a wide gulf that we are in danger of creating in learning at the moment. Young people are using technology to communicate and participate in social practices. Research even suggests that as educators we need to understand those uses of social media to build on what is currently being learnt in classrooms – that we need to partner those in our class in the learning process. But while learners have been found to be going beyond what is being done in class – taking charge of their own learning process by continuing with project based work outside school (yes, this has been shown by the research!)– they often describe school computers as slow, frequently crashing and restrictive because filters that are designed (and necessary) for appropriate protection can hinder appropriate information finding and collaborations (depending very much on where the students are). Teacher skills are still variable and “playing it safe” might mean familiarity with tools but, to quote the learners, “it makes it easier but it gets boring after a while”.

The points I’m making aren’t new – for two consecutive years, I have been seeing questions raised on twitter about filtering and blocking. Check out @tombarrett and @wjputt’s work.  It’s a postcode lottery for learning – not the school, but the tools we have access to! We can’t always change that as classroom teachers – at least immediately –  and we may even be unable to use social media within our classrooms.

But I believe we CAN learn from how social media is being used – for social purposes, for professional learning networks, from those who are able to use some tools.  It isn’t, after all, the tools that “maketh the learning”.  It’s how we use the tools that matters. It’s how we use them that makes opportunities for co-construction, for collaboration. It’s how we use them for creating a learning dialogue, for peer feedback, for “expert” feedback.

So what tools do you have access to in class that COULD support collaboration? That could help learners to share? That could help them to communicate with others? That provide alternative ways of working to achieve similar effects as the tools that are blocked? Because if we don’t think this way, the yawning chasm between those who have access to equipment, sites, skilled facilitators – either in or out of school – and those who don’t, will become even wider and increasingly difficult to overcome.

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But school buildings are only the packaging for the learning that is going on inside. Monkseaton are using a method called Spaced Learning, which builds gaps into a lesson by including something physical, something distracting and unrelated to what is being learnt, so that process of letting the learning sink in can take place.  It’s not something to use in every lesson – after all, we all know that variety is the spice of life and learning – but it certainly seems to be having an impact on the learning that is going on. It makes a lot of sense to me, as often it’s when I’m doing something mundane and physical – usually vacuuming or ironing(!) – that something I have been reading or learning or thinking about really sinks in to my consciousness so I can make sense of it.

To continue the theme of paying attention to HOW we can get our pupils to learn, the Thinking Schools conference at St Robert of Newminster certainly lived up to its title! Dr David Heyerle spoke eloquently about how learning and thinking is non-linear and depends very much on us making connections. But it prompted the question in my own mind about how much we try to put non-linear learning into linear education systems, into linear assessment systems!?! What he was saying got me reflecting on my own ideas…. about how thinking isn’t always a solitary activity (though deep quality learning depends on personal internalisation), how thinking can be extended, enhanced and develop into critical, analytical thinking when we bounce ideas around with others…. As I sat in the lecture theatre next to fellow twitterers @nellmog, @dughall, @Ideas_Factory chatting and reflecting in the discussions, they made me think even more deeply about what was being said.  They facilitated my absorption and assimilation of the ideas we were hearing.  One of the teachers I was sat next to at the end of the day commented on how exhausted he felt, even though he hadn’t been “doing” anything – it’s hard work thinking about thinking!!!!

The other keynote speaker was another international traveller – Andrew Churches from New Zealand. He continued one of Dr Heyerle’s themes about the importance of visual learning.  I also liked the suggestion that LAYERING learning by using other senses, too, can improve the power of learning. And, of course, as an advocate of collaborative learning myself, I was bound to find myself agreeing with a lot of what he said! (and thanks for the book suggestions!)

Other highlights of the day and takeaway things to try out included:

• two lovely teachers sharing how they had been using dramatic enquiry – role play – to great effect with their KS3,4,5 special needs students – I’ll certainly be using the idea of searching for buried treasure in the school grounds at some point in the future!!!
• some great “killer apps” for thinking – great activities shared by the history department including Pecha Kucha – something I heard about first from Dan Roberts (aka @chickensaltash) on his blog and I keep meaning to try it out in school but run out of time – perhaps if I adopt Pecha Kucha more I won’t run out of time!!!! But I’m even more determined to make sure I really do try it out soon…..
• the teachmeet – and the fab use of paper in the final presentation – I love paper!!!! I know that is a strange admission from someone who is passionate about using technology to enhance learning, but I love the feel of it, the smell, the variety of textures etc – perhaps it’s something to do with always having a fascination for books, reading, writing from my early childhood  or perhaps its something to do with my early career in the paper industry. It’s certainly a fascination I have continued to indulge in a low tech card making hobby!!! Seeing how paper chains of people and shapes can be used as alternative ways of recording learning and understanding was  brilliant and another of the ideas I’m looking forward to trying out in class when I’m back in school….

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It’s been a great year for visiting different places and last week was no exception. And, of course, the wonderful thing about visiting different places is that they are full of interesting people to talk to and learn from.  There were a few highlights for the week – meeting up with my tutor is always an enormous pleasure and it was great to catch up with David Mitchell over a coffee, too, when I visited Chorley. But I never imagined being cast in the role of a pickpocket’s wife by Tim Rylands! Having heard so much about Tim’s work and having communicated a little via twitter, it was good to put a face to a name at the ICT For Education Conference in Cardiff. And even better to have an opportunity to hear him speak.  What a story teller! He talks about how we can use the digital world, games and the importance of breaking down barriers to learning using whatever means we can – SOOO true and a principle I fully subscribe to (as readers of my blog will know). He talks about using an analogue response to digital experiences.

But after the work we have done in our school with collaborations that have been made possible by digital means, I wonder if we also need to be helping our teachers and learners to develop digital responses too.  We need to be learning from the essence of the social dialogue that is taking place through various online media, to apply what we know about face to face learning dialogue – and be aware that there is a  new language for digital learning dialogue evolving. No matter what the tools – web 2.0, learning platforms, social media – we need to be able to recognise how to use that digital dialogue effectively for LEARNING. And perhaps it is something that needs to be taught and not caught.

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