The end of the project????

Is this the end of my blogging,? I think not, there were times when it was useful to give vent to my thoughts. putting the thoughts down on (virtual ) paper helped to clarify and sometimes modify my opinions. even if no-one else was reading.
Dear me am I reflecting now, this really has gone too far.

 I must cease and desist for today.

 You have not seen the last of me yet, I'll get you yet Penelope Pitstop MMWWHAHAHAHA

TED Talk worth thinking about

This TED talk really speaks to me and the kind of students I teach on a daily basis. The devaluing of "Non Academic" students who can be incredibly talented in creative areas is prevalent in the majority of education systems. I teach students who are struggling with basic literacy for a variety of reasons but who are able to create the most elaborate Photoshop creations, or who have design ideas that are  tremendous to behold.

The trouble with the system now is that these same students who are struggling academically are being pushed along the conveyor belt of our education system to obtain a degree. Many will struggle and require considerable learning support to obtain a qualification that they possibly never needed. The talk is close to my views on the universality of the Bachelor  degree- why?
Many creative students would do far better in apprenticeships in the creative industries that suit their talents. The Vocational Art course that i teach on has been hit hard by curriculum changes so that a large part of their teaching is no longer 12 hours or more a week in creative vocational subjects but instead a large proportion in Welsh Baccalaureate and Key skills lessons, lessons that they have already struggled in at school. The current navel gazing about the pisa results is leading to a solution that cannot and should not be applied, there is no one size fits all solution to the education of our younger population

Barriers to the effective use of technology in education

In an earlier post I showed a video by Raj Dhingra who was talking about access to ICT and Mobile technology not needing to be an expensive option. the video shows mobile learning hubs (articulated lorries) in Turkey. The next item is about Richmond city in the state of Virginia, USA and he explains the measures taken to allow access to technology.

What is missing from this narrative is the relative poverty of Sub Saharan Africa or other less developed nations, the roads ware so bad in many areas that an articulated lorry would not be mobile for very long and the scarcity of mobile devices is not really the confounding feature as there are no telephone masts to carry mobile signals never mind internet access wired or wireless.

This has been termed a Digital divide and can be demonstrated in the graphs below.

Given that over 960 million is the population of Africa, if the technology were able to be made available that is a huge potential market, but one that is extremely poor as a whole and one with off-putting geographical considerations. That being said there are over 260 million customers with mobile phone contracts. 

There are deprived areas of many western countries where a computer at home will not be an affordable option and neither will the smartphone. Yes some learners will be able to use civic amenities such as libraries to do research but these are not a convenient nor affordable option when required tp pay a not inconsiderable fee per page printed.

There are however barriers to the effective use of technology that have nothing to do with money or geography.

Many educators are from generations where the ICT available today was not even dreamt of and are nervous and unskilled in the new technologies and their reticence is one barrier top the effective use of same. Rightly or wrongly even given adequate training, the first response will not be to go for the new or innovative method but to rely on tried and tested traditional teaching. some of these teachers will even fear the, as they see it, onslaught of technology as a way of destroying the values and ideas they hold dear in a profession they love. This situation can be improved by extensive training, professional development and a supportive management, however with the need to maintain or improve standards and constant curriculum development these solutions are often in short supply.

 Many technologies exist to give the disabled student the same learning opportunities as their peers.
Students with physical disabilities are however often at a disadvantage when using mobile technology that requires fine motor skills and very good eyesight, there are of course adaptations and work arounds but the experience is always a little compromised in comparison to the able bodied experience. The training and support needed for both the user and the teacher in the case of students with disabilities is greater than that of the average user. The Princeton paper referenced below argues that teacher training in respect of the technology is one of the strongest barriers to the disabled learning experience.
However cost, as always is a huge barrier.

"The cost of the technology needed to help students with disabilities participate in regular classroom settings, especially the computer systems needed for students with more severe disabilities, is also a serious consideration for all schools. Such systems often must be tailor-made for each student and can be quite expensive, costing tens of thousands of dollars. Funding for technology can be obtained from a variety of sources, but these sources are not always adequate."Hasselbring and Williams Glaser 2000 

These are some of the barriers that need to be broken down before all learners can effectively benefit from technology in their education.




References

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8568681.stm
http://www.itu.int/newsroom/features/ict_africa.html
Use of Computer Technology to Help Students with Special Needs 
Authors: Ted S. Hasselbring Candyce H. Williams Glaser
  http://tinyurl.com/q5qmxxn

How technology has changed the way we learn

“This discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories,” a concerned commentator once spoke of a new technology. “[People] will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.”

The commentator? Socrates, quoting an Egyptian king. And the technology? Writing.

Technology has always changed the way that we learn and indeed why we learn. Prior to the industrial revolution very few well off children were educated in a formal educative manner. Children tended to stay at home and learn from parents and the wider community, traditional crafts such as dry stone walling, animal husbandry and all the associated country crafts. the more able were able to get apprenticeships as blacksmiths and other skilled trades.  Poor children were fortunate to attend Sunday school and obtain a rudimentary education ( mostly religious tenets).  

The Industrial Revolution and its associated technology  meant that children were employed in factories, the Factory Act of 1833 made two hours a day of formal education compulsory for children working in factories. In 1844 the Ragged Schools Union was founded to give schooling to very poor children. The growth of the British Empire and the associated demand for literate clerks and administrators led to gradual reform of public schooling to maintain a more literate workforce and gradually raised the school leaving age.The 1902 Education Act established a system of secondary schools.

 We can see that technology has been a driver in education for many centuries. The advent of film and then video (through  to DVD (via video disk) were  heralded as the end of the role of the teacher as technology would enable knowledge to be self selecting and self taught. this was not the death knell of the pedagogue.

The advent of the computer age has moved the innovation of educational technology on apace. Ten years ago the idea of mobile computer tablets was only an idea from Science fiction. In 2010 when Apple launched the iPad following on the 3 year success of the iPhone the mobile revolution really became a reality.

To have almost instant access to the internet and ostensibly all of human knowledge, via a tablet you can carry or a mobile phone you can put in a pocket is truly a remarkable tool.
But a tool it is.
Whilst mobile technology can provide a great deal of answers and store a great deal of knowledge, it cannot enable you to learn without making an effort to learn. This is where all of technological innovation is lacking in terms of education. It can be summarised thus:

 You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink.

 You can provide all of the information in the world but you cannot make someone learn.

There are studies that have concluded that the human brain is being changed by the internet. ( 1below) This can be seen in everyday life with the ability to remember many phone numbers now no longer needed as our phones remember the numbers for us. however these changes i argue are not a new way of learning just an example of technology taking part of the role as Socrates agued above.

The desire to learn is innate, you need students willing to learn and teachers willing to try to impart knowledge and inspire whether by words or deeds. You also need to find subjects that connect with the student so that they become effective learners from choice. Whilst technology has changed the means we have to impart knowledge, from oral histories to stone tablets, from papyrus to wax tablets, from  books to Radio, from film to the internet. These are all tools to impart knowledge rather than ways we actually  learn.

References

1. Small, G.W, T.D Moody, P Siddarth, and S.Y Bookheimer. “Your Brain on Google: Patterns of Cerebral Activation During Internet Searching.” The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry : Official Journal of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry. 17.2 (2009): 116-126. Print.
2. http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20141022-are-we-getting-smarter

The Other Day Job

This is an example of my other day job 

I am in here holding the hot heavy thing that we make lovely art objects out of. You don't see the hours of mould preparation and back breaking work involved in getting the cast iron ready to be re-melted. You just see the slight chaos and beautiful molten iron being carried around and poured into the sand moulds.

As part of the process of making sculptural art that is taught to students we use technology, but it is not ICT.  We use welders and Cupolletes (the name for the apparatus from which we get the molten iron at around 1400C) using this industrial age technology and processes to produce art objects in the modern day.
This is one of the limits to ICT, because  after watching the video you would have very little idea about what was done. Even if we made a step by step instructional DVD, you cannot be prepared for the weight of the ladle, the sheer hard work, sweat and heat that is the process of making art from molten iron.

A Blog worth following

 Blog worth following

I was interested that this Teacher decided to Tweet The following :

     Here's my teaching advice: 1) Just teach them. 2) Make them practise. 3) That's it.


Andrew Old @oldandrewuk

In the latest post the author expounds upon the nature of teaching using personal experience, anecdotes and discussions on the philosophy of education. The author is critical of the dominance of progressive education in recent decades.
"I would argue that the dominance of progressive education in recent decades has led to a certain lack of clarity about the nature of teaching. For instance, where educational aims are replaced by vaguer, non-educational aims, such as building self-esteem, ensuring well-being or encouraging self-expression it can be hard to determine what the precise purpose of a “teaching” activity is .Where our objectives have ceased to be about the learning of clearly defined skills or knowledge, but are instead about the development of more generic facilities such as “creativity” or “independence” actual learning can be hard to pin down. Where discovery learning, or open-ended activities are used, the indicative property of teaching can be undermined."
The post continues that whilst critical of the progressive techniques and methodologies espoused as current the author is not wedded solely to 'traditional teaching',' but instead places value in the role of the teacher, letting students know what it is they need to know and ensuring they know it.

The previous post on the blog has a video embedded that you may find interesting. the video entertainingly discusses the technological revolutions in education.


The post continues to discuss the video and the authors views on it. I will not spoil the arguments by rehashing them here. It is sufficient to say that this blog is a very useful addition to the debate on current educational practice whilst being aware that there is a leaning towards the more traditional teaching role.

Microsoft and Me

This should read Microsoft or Me as my email was .mac, then .me now it's .icloud. All of these are Mac addresses. I am a child of the Apple Mac, which brings its own rewards and frustrations. 

I have no option other than to use Microsoft  products because Office ( in the person of Bill Gates) began its world domination in 1988 with the first release of the Office Suite of  Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint. in fairness it has proved successful, over a billion users were record in July 2012.

The reason I have no option is that the Office dominance means that even though I am a staunch supporter and early adopter of Apple products; I have to use Office and in particular Word constantly to allow communication between myself and students and fellow staff. 

This is the biggest headache for me as a Mac user as the later versions of PC based Word are incompatible with the older versions released for Mac leading to desperate searches for conversion software to allow me to open documents and read them. Then the fun really starts as Office does not read operational shortcuts from a Mac document in the PC version, you can spend hours finding, resizing and positioning art objects in a document only for the PC version to contain just spaces and no images!

So in summary I Hate that I have to use Microsoft but put up with it until another option presents itself or the versions on Mac and PC are finally and wholly compatible.