Month: November 2021

Moving online: Some thoughts

The pandemic has forced so much of our lives to move online.   Meetings moved to Zoom, Teams or Google Meet so we could meet online.   Lessons and teaching moved online.   General working moved online.   And so did Continual Professional Development, with educational conferences and summits all moving to a virtual rather than face to face experience.   But what were the implications, benefits and drawbacks?  And what are the implications for training in schools using video content?

Benefits

The first clear benefit in moving conferences online was simply the fact that it allowed conference events to continue even where it was no longer possible to meet face to face due to the pandemic.    The last face to face conference I attended was Digifest 2020, in March, just before the 1st lockdown came into force in the UK, but since then I have attended a number of events all online.     It wasnt until the other week that I returned to a face-to-face event.   If the events hadnt moved online I would have missed out on the learning opportunities I have received through online events.

Access to events may also be a benefit in that virtual events overcome geographical boundaries where attendance would be difficult and/or costly to overcome if events are face to face only.   As such, on reflection, I may have accessed a more diverse range of opportunities because of the move to online events than I would have otherwise accessed had events remaining as they were pre-pandemic.

Drawbacks and Challenges

Motivation is one of the key challenges in my view in relation to online events.    I registered for several events over the last year, with these happily taking up allocated space on my calendar, reminding me of their existence.  Yet, when time came for a few of these events, the immediately pressing work I had to do meant that I didn’t always attend.   All I needed to do was click a link and maybe just listen in, or flick in and out of the event, but I didn’t even do this.   Had these been face to face events, this wouldn’t have happened.   I may have had to book travel or book accommodation; I may have arranged to meet people, or I may have planned activities in and around the event for before or after.   Basically, I would have had intrinsic motivation to ensure I attended to avoid financial or opportunity losses, beyond the loss of the learning opportunities presented by the event.   This intrinsic motivation just doesn’t exist to the same extent with online events.    I suspect event organisers will have plenty of data to show the drop off rate or non-attendance rate for online events is significantly higher than that for face-to-face events.

Video based training in schools

One of the key challenges for conferences is engagement.   We may create awareness or training materials but how do we ensure that teachers or other staff actually engage with the content, and watch it?    Having the content isnt enough if it isnt being watched or if it isnt then resulting in changes in teaching or other behaviours.    Personally, I don’t have an answer to this other than to suggest the below:

  1. We need to make the cost of watching low, by keeping content short and simple.   If the cost is high, it is likely staff will always prioritise other work which is immediately to hand over training materials which may have an unknown future benefit.
  2. We need to vary the content or style of materials such that they do not become boring or predictable.    Where content is always the same or presented in the same way it quickly becomes boring and predictable and therefore disengages users.
  3. We need to seek ways to engage users and make watching content worthwhile and interesting.  This could for example be through extrinsic motivation associated with prizes, electronic badges or department-based competition.
  4. We need to build in opportunities for collaboration and discussion beyond the content materials.   Content has a greater opportunity of sticking if it is internalised and discussing and debating with others is likely to be one of the best ways of helping this happen.

Conclusions

I suspect online events and online based training is very much here to stay.   If we consider it as simply another tool, I think this is a good thing, but I think we need to be careful of considering it as “the” tool.   I have long seen the enterprise world push staff towards online based training content, with staff complaining and then proceeding to find creative ways to complete the training without actually spending the relevant time or actually learning anything.   I have seen the same in some schools with data protection and even safeguarding training becoming an online tick box exercise rather than a valuable learning experience.

I am also a little concerned regarding the potentially high costs of developing lots of good training content only to receive limited engagement from busy staff.

I have a positive view regarding the potential, in an ideal world, of well-developed video and online training materials for use in schools.   I also have a realistic view to temper this, in relation to likely engagement given the busy lives of staff in schools.   Is mandating the number of hours content consumed per year per teacher a possible option?   Have seen this before, and I my view no, but let’s leave that one here for now.

For now online training and events are here to stay and for me, as long as they are part of a balanced programme of opportunities, also including face to face events, then I think this is a good thing.

What is the role of the IT Network Lead to enhance Teaching and Learning?

The below post is based on my recent presentation at the EdTech Summit in Birmingham, my first face to face conference in over 1 ½ years where I was asked to present on my role, which is effectively leading IT Services and how it fits into supporting and encouraging the use of technology in teaching and learning.

I think it is important to tackle this question by breaking it down a little;   The first thing I believe that is worth looking at is who should lead on the use of tech in relation to teaching and learning.    For me the answer to this is simply that it is unlikely that any single person will possess all the relevant skills and experience in relation to school strategy, technology, pedagogy, curriculum content, classroom management and a variety of other factors.    Leading technology in a school requires a team of people working together with the network lead, director of IT or whatever title is in your school, being one of these people.    So that maybe answer the overall question, that the IT network leads role is to work in partnership and collaboration with other tech leaders in a school to support, empower and encourage others in the use of technology within teaching and learning.

And what does effective use of tech in teaching and learning look like?    This is a really important question.   It is sometimes easy to consider tech use to be high impact, flashy, high tech, etc, but the reality of it is that good tech use should largely be transparent to the teacher and learners, being simply the natural way they do things.   So, it is important to acknowledge this and therefore accept that good technology use may be subtle and nuanced much in the same way as good teaching is, rather than something obvious that jumps out and hits you in the face.

And then there is the word “enhance”.    So, technology can bring more to the teaching and learning experience, making it better?    Am not sure how comfortable I feel with this and the possible implication than teaching without tech might be a lesser experience;  I believe great teaching can occur even without the use of tech.   Tech is simply a tool but a tool which brings with it a variety of options and a flexibility which may not have been as possible or easy to achieve without tech.    Borrowing from the SAMR model, tech could augment, an alternative word to enhance, modify or even allow the redefinition of learning.   The potential is beyond simply enhancement.   It is also worth acknowledging that we increasingly live in a technology enabled world, and therefore technology is likely to be the norm in the world beyond schools our current students will eventually be faced with.

In terms of the wider IT teams and their involvement, here I have a worry that IT teams are often the staff behind the curtain, invisible in their day-to-day efforts, until things go wrong.  This isn’t right in my view as IT teams work hard day in day out to make things work, to set things up, to manage and administrate and to ensure that technology simple appears to work.  The reality is that lots of work goes in on a day-to-day basis, even when things are working well and the technology has become almost transparent in its use in the classroom.   There needs to be greater acknowledgement of this and of IT staff’s role as partners in teaching and learning.    And this from someone who has been a teacher, a teacher and IT admin and an IT Director.

Conclusion

IT Network Lead, IT Manager, IT Director, or whatever you want to call them should be actively part of discussions regarding technology strategy.  They should be seen as partners in the process of teaching and learning using technology;   They may not necessarily bring the pedagogical knowledge or curriculum content knowledge, but they bring the technology knowledge.   And above all leading tech in a school is a team effort!

EdTech Summit 2021

It was March 2020 and I was attending the JISC DigiFest conference in Birmingham.  Little did I know that this would be the last face to face conference I would attend for over 1 ½ years, and it would November 2021 before I would once again venture to Birmingham this time for the EdTech Summit and Schools and Academies Show.   Reflecting back, it was to a year and a half of significant challenges but also massive progress in how technology is used in schools.

My trip to Birmingham this time was to present a session on the role of IT leads and IT teams in schools in supporting the use of technology to enable, enhance and even transform teaching and learning.    It was also going to be a chance to catch up with staff from other schools face to face for the first time in quite some time.    Notable in the catch ups were a group of ANME members plus Dave Leonard, Abid Patel, Osi Ejiofor and Tony Sheppard among others.

As to the event itself, a couple of messages or themes came out for me in the various talks I attended:

Investment

This was mentioned in the ministerial opening speech at the start of the schools and academies show.    Additional funding for schools.    For me some of this clearly needs to go into investment in technology to ensure we are ready for a future event like the current pandemic, but also to equip our students for the future and to allow schools to make use of technology to enhance and even reimagine the learning experiences students receive.    And linked to this point is the need for sustainability such that any technology put into schools has the required investment in the longer term to ensure the training, support and eventual replacement of hardware/software is all planned.

Collaboration

The importance and power of collaboration within schools and also between schools and other educational establishments was mentioned by a number of individuals.    I suspect the pandemic has encouraged collaboration as people share their experiences, their successes and challenges, along with their resources online for others to benefit from.   This is something we need to actively encourage and support going forward.    The best training is just in time training, and the best just in time training results from 1000’s of educators and school staff sharing and collaborating through the medium of technology.

Agility

The pandemic proved that schools, which generally are slow to change, can be more agile and change quickly to adapted to changing situations.    The pandemic forced such change.   Going forward though we need to be better at change, we need to be better at accepting “good enough” and we need to be like industry and seek greater agility.

Conclusion

As always I suffered my usual travel mishap as is customary, this time being rushing between trains following a train delay, and then managing to get on the wrong train.   This is the usual pain but on reflection the pain was worth it.   I got the chance to catch up with other IT and EdTech professionals, discussing a variety of matters, I got the opportunity to share my thoughts with an audience and to discuss my thoughts with a number of individuals following the session and I got to have a look at a variety of product offerings from various IT vendors.    I also benefited from the act of presenting which forced me to carefully think through and structure my thoughts in relation to technology and teaching and learning.  

Roll on BETT 2022;   See you there!

Is someone watching me?

The BBC recently posted an article in relation to remote workers being monitored in terms of their use of technology, when at home (You can read the article here).   Obviously, this issue has largely became pertinent given the pandemic and the various lockdowns which have resulted in individuals, including teachers, having to work from home.      The thought of your employer, school leadership or IT staff monitoring what you are doing seems “creepy”, inappropriate and an invasion of personal privacy but is it that simple?

A world of tracking

Before I look at remote working lets first consider the work devices used within a school and the monitoring that may be possible.    Within a school, especially larger schools, it is likely that school devices will have remote support software installed which allows for IT staff to remotely access a device in order to provide assistance without the need to actually visit the computer in question.   All well so far.    However, this functionality means it would be possible for IT staff to watch your screen and every action, every word typed, every social media interaction.  Now that sounds creepy already and we are only on school owned devices!

Your email and internet activity are also recorded.  For school email this likely means your emails are accessible by IT teams in terms of support but also in terms of compliance with GDPR legislation, to resolve Subject Access Requests, etc.   In terms of internet activity, although most data from and to websites are now encrypted, the timing of site visits, the sites visited, the device used, etc are all recorded.    And this happens irrespective of if you use a school or personal device connected to the internet via the schools infrastructure.

The above hints to the huge logs generated where IT systems are used, whether this be accessing the schools management system from a school PC in a classroom, or accessing MS Teams to deliver an online lesson from home.   As soon as we access the system information such as the device name, device type, username, time, IP address, etc are all logged.   And from this data further data can be generated, such as your IP address allowing for geographical information to be identified, albeit this isnt always reliable.    So, some for of tracking and/or monitoring will always be possible.

But what does it mean?

My view on this whole situation is that tracking/monitoring is unavoidable.   Data will be and must be gathered for the purposes of troubleshooting, auditing, legal compliance, etc.   So, the question becomes how do we manage the risk associated with the existence of this data?   And as to ability to access and monitor a specific user’s machine, and view their screen, again this needs to be possible to provide support so again it is about managing risk.

I think one of the key issues is that of transparency and acknowledging that data which could be used for tracking or monitoring purposes exists, and that remote access and screen viewing is also possible.   In doing so it is also important to be clear on the acceptable use of this data or these remote access solutions such as its use in trouble shooting.   In relation to remote access software, I also think it is important to have clear protocols in relation to usage and privacy, such as a requirement to request users approve before accessing a machine a user is currently using.    Access should also be limited on the basis of “least privilege” such that only those that truly need access and have a valid reason for access actually have access.

For me policy plays a key part in all of this.  In your Acceptable Usage policy should be clear indication of the creation of data and potential monitoring along with stated limitations as to where it can and cannot be used.    Additionally, I believe IT staff and those with admin access to large amounts of data, or to sensitive data, should be agreeing to a high-level access agreement which sets out additional requirements regarding their privileged access, plus sets out the higher level of penalties for misuse which comes out of increased responsibility.

Conclusion

As always, the newspaper article is a little bit sensationalist.   The reality isnt as simple.   Tracking and monitoring is possible, but the result of systems designed to support users and ensure systems which are robust and reliable, plus to ensure legal compliance, rather than for the purposes of invading individuals’ privacy.    As such the key thing is transparency and trust, with a little bit of policy thrown in just in case.

Social media: To legislate to control?

A lot has been made of online abuse and the need for social media companies to better monitor and police their platforms.  A lot has also been made of the potential need to legislate in relation to online abuse, but how easy, or not, would this be to achieve?

The internet

One of the big challenges is the internet itself and its distributed design.  It is designed such that no one user, company or even country has control.   It represents a single solution which crosses the national boundaries of most if not all countries in the world giving everyone the potential to use and impact on the internet.    This represents a particular challenge when looking at legislation.    A government might say that all platforms accessible in their country must abide by their legislation but what teeth do they have to enforce this when the company is based in another country.    And how do you stop users simply using tools such as VPNs to bypass local restrictions; Just one look online at forums related to expats living in countries with significant national filtering in place will highlight discussions of VPNs and other tools which can be used to bypass restrictions and the relevant legislation the restrictions are employed to enforce.  Or do a little digging into the ongoing piracy of video content and you will see this is a continuing problem despite efforts over a number of years to stem this issue.

Cyber security

If policing was to be properly established governments would need to be able to identify the users in country, their online identities, plus their online activities.    This has issues in relation to privacy and the safety of whistle-blowers and activists which I will cover shortly, however also represents a cyber security risk.    Such a database would be an enticing target for cyber criminals as a source of information which could be used for identity fraud and common fraud, but also in terms of blackmail or even attempts at coercion or subtle behaviour modification.   And we have already seen national identity databases in other countries fall foul of data breaches.

Anonymity

There is a genuine need for anonymity, where anonymity is often cited as one of the reasons for online abuse being so common online.   Activist and whistle-blowers rely on anonymity for their own personal safety.  Government dissidents in countries with authoritarian governments need anonymity.    There is also the concern that once a database of online user identities, tied to real world identities, plus online activity is created, albeit for good reasons, that it might not be used for less ethical or moral purposes in the future, or that its use might have inappropriate but unintentional consequences.    And this is before we consider the technical possibility of removing anonymity in the first place, something which given the internets design is fraught with difficulties including easy ways for users to bypass restrictions.

In relation to anonymity, although this feels like a key factor in online abuse, in my experience a large amount of the abuse is actually committed from users principal online accounts, those most likely to be identifiable back to a real life person.    The abuse either occurs as a result of joining a crowd, of being or feeling empowered by others to be abusive or of simply going too far spurred on by the ease and apparent lack of immediate consequence when using social media.    As such, maybe the issue of anonymity is a bit of a red herring.

Conclusion

I continue to see a lot of what occurs on social media as an amplification of the real world and society.    It is just that this amplification is that bit starker in its display of the ugliness which can occur in society.   I will however counterbalance this to some extent with how social media sometimes presents the very best we as a race have to offer.   I suspect a key reason for this amplification is that social media removes some of the risk factors and adds ease.   It is easy to be abusive to someone online especially when you know they arent likely to punch you in the face as they might do in real life.   It is also easy to be supportive, helpful and vulnerable away from the potential of embarrassment which may occur face to face.    It is however worth noting how very far we have come as a society compared with 100yrs or even 10 or 20yrs ago.    It is just that social media continues to amplify the small minority who have not progressed to same extent.

So, what are we to do about this?

I don’t have an answer other than to suggest we need to be aware of the amplification, be aware of others feelings, views, etc and be generally nicer to one another.   And I know that sounds a little soft and wishy-washy but I am not sure what more I can suggest.   Sadly, we also need to accept that the abuse emanating from the minority will likely continue, and we need to continue to take the little steps we can in challenging and sanctioning such individuals.   This will likely need to continue as little steps, one abusive user or group at a time; A leap to ban anonymity or heavily legislate social media is unlikely to be successful.