Month: May 2024

FutureShots 2024, Part 2

This is the second of two blog posts reflecting on the FutureShots event which I attended and spoke at earlier this month.   You can read the first post here which focussed on the first part of the morning, including the keynote from Laura Knight and the panel session which I myself was involved in.   This post picks up from there midway through the morning and starts with another panel session where once again some of the early comments resonated with my thinking in relation to AI and education..

Should we consider if AI means we should stop that which we are currently doing?   This early comment in the session, to me goes to the fact that technology, including AI, is but a tool and you need to use the right tool at the right time, and therefore there is a lot which we do in schools and colleges currently that we should continue doing.   I love a good post-it note in a lesson, posting different thoughts and ideas around the room.  Some of what we do may change however equally some things may not change and this is fine.    The potential for technology and particularly AI to act as an enabler and a leveller was also mentioned, highlighting how, if used appropriately, technology has the potential to have a profound impact on Bobby, a student I will introduce shortly, and other individual students.   Equally during the panel the importance of putting humans at the centre of things, including of AI use, was stated alongside human characteristics such as emotional intelligence

Gemma Gwilliam, a fellow member of The Digital Futures group was up next as part of a panel session alongside Jordan King, Global Opportunity Scholar di Franklin University Switzerland and Jean Wu, Director of Green Office Sustainability Programs di Franklin University.   This was the first of Gemma’s two contributions to the event.   This session focussed on sustainability and I very much liked the comment on the multi-faceted nature of sustainability.   As a director of IT when I consider sustainability I am often thinking about financial sustainability in terms of ongoing replacement and refresh of devices and hardware, or about systemic sustainability in whether a process will be repeatable and scalable.   There is also the environment sustainability; does the solution allow us to thrive or merely to survive?   Gender equality was also raised as a sustainability issue which to me makes a lot of sense, but I had never previously heard it discussed in this way, in relation to sustainability.   It was also very refreshing to hear how AI shouldn’t be seen as a replacement for “flawed” humans, as AI is also flawed.  I think this is very interesting as it acknowledges our human flaws and therefore suggests we may need to re-evaluate quite how critical we are of AI when it comes to bias and inaccuracies, etc, where we as humans, on careful analysis, don’t do much better despite the fact we convince ourselves that we do.     On this panel, Jordan a young researcher raised the issue of how some see gen-Z as being lacking in resiliency and maybe even  being “soft” and in need of constant “trigger” warnings however she then proceeded to point to all the social media and the events in the press, to conflict such as those currently engulfing various parts of the world, which have bombarded her generation through technology more than any other generation in history;   Maybe we need to cut gen-Z a bit of slack here.

Now in the afternoon I didn’t take any real notes mainly due to my Surface battery giving up, and me having left by battery pack back at the room which was some distance away.    I do remember Gemma’s second contribution of the day, although this might be due to arriving just as she was due to start, sitting in the front row and beginning to eat from a little tub of ice cream;   Who needs supportive colleagues when you have me?    Now as it was great to hear Gemma hit a particular theme which I believe is so important, in the need to seek collective knowledge.   She mentioned a great set of books, including Darren Whites book, where Darren is also a Digital Futures Group member, plus a variety of others.  She also mentioned blogs, including mine, plus other online groups and individual sharing ideas, thoughts and resources.  For me in a world where technology is moving so fast the old methods of centralised reform and of waiting for CPD are no longer as appropriate as they are too slow.    The key and our best hope is to network and to collectively share ideas, thoughts and resources, and this type of networking is the key tenet of the Digital Futures Group.   “The smartest person in the room, is the room” as David Weinberger would say, so the bigger the room or more rooms you get involved in the better you, and collectively everyone, will be.    Gemma towards the end of the session eloquently brought things back to the students, as that is what education and schools are all about, however her use of “Bobby” and it all being about Bobby, and about us needing to consider Bobby and the effect on Bobby was so very impactful    This act of putting a name and making it about a specific, visualisable student rather than the generic and nebulous “students” makes all the difference and really helps nail the need to consider the individual learners in all we do.  

It was great to finish the day on top of what we dubbed “Teletubby hill”, being the grassed roof of the building in which the conference was held, looking off towards the setting sun.   It was a very busy but also very useful and interesting day.  And there was ice cream so what more can you ask for.  

How little did I know that attempted murder and Gondola related trauma awaited on day 2!

Wellbeing and muppets

I have blogged a couple of times on how we are constantly adding things, processes, tasks, etc, in order to result in better outcomes.  We are also forever looking to be more efficient, so we release some time to allow us to do yet more things.   One look at what teaching looked like back in the late 90’s when I qualified (god, am I that old??) compared with now very easily illustrates this.   Now a lot of the things we have added have came out of increasing amounts of research showing us what seems to generally work, or they have come out of a response to where something has gone wrong, but they have all involved doing more.

Now no-one wants to do worse, where taking something away, a process, a resource or anything else seems to logically result in a reduction in performance or quality of outcome.   We also have loss aversion, a heuristic, to deal with whereby we value what we have, and our current processes, more highly than alternatives, leading to us being reluctant to let go of that which we have.

And all of this means we are forever doing more, and one look at the teacher wellbeing index seems to point to increasing amounts of stress in education, increasing incidences of burnout, etc.   Recently I have also found myself looking at increasing email and message volumes with some research pointing to increased stress resulting from increased email traffic.   We cannot continue on this trajectory of adding and must at some point step back and reassess education and what really matters.   Not an easy ask sadly!

So what can we do?    I don’t have an answer to solve this problem as it is such a big problem impacting on wellbeing that it will take a fundamental rethink of what education is all about, and about what matters in schools and colleges.    I would suggest one thing we need to do is to reconsider the resiliency and efficiency narratives;  Being highly resilient, as Laura Knight recently raised, or highly efficient may be good in the short term but what does it mean in the long term?  How long can we be in resiliency mode for before it wears you down?    Can you flourish as a human being, enjoying life and contributing to society if your whole focus is on hyper efficiency?

Again I don’t have an answer but I do have a suggestion;  It is the need to lighten up and have a little fun.  To be social, to have a laugh and remember it isn’t all about resiliency and efficiency.   So to address that, a team member recently, with permission, used GPT 4o to convert our staff photos into the muppet versions of ourselves, before posting these to the staff list and onto our Office 365 profiles.    It didn’t solve the workload or wellbeing issue, but this random act gave people a laugh and raised a few smiles.    And maybe we need a little bit more of that!    

FutureShots 2024, Part 1

Early this month I had my second opportunity, post returning to the UK from the UAE, to contribute to an international conference event, this time the FutureShots event in Italy, not far outside Venice.   Now I have already posted on my Gondola experience during this particular trip however I would now like to share some thoughts from the conference proper, and in particular the first day of the conference which was focussed on AI in education.

The keynote session was delivered by my friend and colleague from the ISC Digital Advisory Group, Laura Knight who delivered her usual flawless presentation with so many take aways, so let me try to summarise the ones which particularly resonated with me.

Binaries: I have long been concerned by binary arguments which seem to dominate lots of education discussions.    In the case of AI things are no different with people either being doom and gloom, AI will end the world, or being evangelical about its ability to transform the world and education for the better.    The reality, as I have often stated, is that reality lies somewhere in between with positives balanced out against negatives, challenges or drawbacks.   AI isnt positive OR negative, but both positive and negative, and very dependent on the people using it, how they are using it and the task to which they are putting it, be it for good or for evil.

Trough of Disillusionment:  Laura suggested that we may be passing the hype part of AI and moving into the “trough of disillusionment”.   There has certainly been a lot of singing and dancing about AI in education and maybe this is wearing thin as generally the impact has been less than advertised, but I also note that the tech is improving and advancing quickly.   Only in the last few weeks we have seen GPT 4o and similar advancements coming out of Google, so could it be that as we approach the trough of disillusionment with one iteration of generative AI, that a new iteration and new functionality appears throwing us back into awe and wonderment.

Now Laura delivered many more points which I took away from her session. This includes considering ownership of ideas, agency in the use of the tools, the importance of trust, integrity and truth, and much more.   I will however save some of these for future blogs.  

The final, and possibly biggest point I took away from the session related to the term “resilience” which is often stated as a characteristic we wish to foster in students.    Laura raised concerns that although resilience is important it is not a state we can live in for any length of time.   This loosely aligns with my concerns regarding the “do more”, “be more efficient” narrative which we encounter all so often, both in education and beyond.   This “do more” with the same resources, pushes us increasingly into survival mode and “resilience” and this is something which is unsustainable over time.   Laura suggested an alternative in “equanimity” and being comfortable and calmly coping and managing change.   Now I am not 100% sure on this term yet, but I definitely agree with the sentiment that maybe we need to be a little more careful in over selling resilience as the solution to our challenges.

Next up was the panel session which I was involved in, chaired by Alessandro Bilotta, Content Director for EDUtech di Terrapinn along with Carlos Garriga Gamarra, CIO, IE University, Donatella Solda, Presidentessa, EdTech Italia, and Diego Pizzocaro, Head, H-FARM My School.   Now I must admit I didn’t take any notes during this one, having been a bit too busy being involved in it but the session did pose some interesting questions such as what it means to be human in a world of AI and generative AI?    If they key thing for us humans to do is the things AI cant do, what are those things?   Now I think the key thing is the social side of life, the human to human interaction including non-verbal queues, so not a Teams or Zoom call.   I used the term “human flourishing” as I think that sounds about right in principle although I will admit I havent quite bottomed out what human flourishing actually looks like;  I suspect that’s a work in progress.    Another question related to GDPR and AI, and whether GDPR was a road block.  For me it isnt;  We’ve been using satnav and google and social media for years without too many GDPR related questions.   Data protection is important but good practice in terms of data protection is independent of whether you are looking at an AI based solution or a non-AI based solution;  Its simply just good data protection practice.

EdTech startups were the next session of the conference with a number of startups each providing a short pitch of their product;  I must admit to being impressed with some of the pitches not just due to the ideas, but due to the presenters delivering in English where their native language was generally Italian.   Doing a short time bounded pitch is hard enough without having to give it in a second language.   Now the fact that H-Farm has these startups as part of their campus is such a great idea as it encourages the co-creation of solutions rather than tech vendors creating what they think education wants, and then spending lots of money convincing educationalists that their product is the one and best solution.

We were not even through the morning at this point and I already had quite a few thoughts and ideas to take away and consider.   My surface battery was depleting fast, an issue which was to impact me later on in the day but the day was going well.   Now I have plenty more to share from the event, however am going to split things here for now and continue in a subsequent blog.    If I was taking away a key thing from the morning it was the need to put the humans at the centre of AI use.   It is about assisting humans and allowing humans to therefore focus on the things which humans do well, and that support “human flourishing”.

Desktop Cyber Exercises

I recently worked through a desktop exercise in school as part of my ongoing efforts to look to progress cyber security.    As such I thought I would share some brief thoughts I had following the exercise.

Communication, communication and more communication

I think one of the key things that sticks out to me in relation to cyber incidents is the importance of establishing how things will be communicated out to students, staff, parents, etc.    In the event of a significant IT issue it may be that your normal communication methods such as desk phones and email are out of commission, at least for a period of time.   As such you then need to look to how you communicate without these tools, whether this is using mobile phones, radios or even going for a walk to speak directly to people.   If you have school social media accounts can you use these, and where are the credentials kept so you can access them even when your main IT systems are down,  The key is the need to get information out to staff, students and parents in the immediate or near immediate term, and therefore that you have the right information, such as phone numbers, available even if IT systems are inoperable.  

Printing

We are now in a world of digital communication however in the event of an IT incident it may be necessary to revert to a previous time, and to a time of the printed sheet or document.   As such establishing some printing and copying capability in the short term is very beneficial and would support the needs of communication.    This would allow the creation of temporary registers, bulletins for noticeboards and other processes which would support the school, staff and students through the initial periods of an incident. 

Safeguarding

One of the key safeguarding duties of a school is to know which students it has on-site, now on a normal day the schools MIS will serve this purpose, but if this is not accessible then there needs to be an alternative solution to identify attendance or absence.   This might be pre-prepared emergency registers or hand written registers which are then collected and compared against a school master list.

The internet is key

More and more of the services we use rely on the internet for access, and more and more the internet is important to teaching and learning especially where using cloud productivity suites.   As such if internet access is impacted by an incident, there needs to be a way to quickly restore at least some access or to find access somewhere else such as in a neighbouring business, etc.    Restoring local access might involve bypassing filtering and monitoring solutions if identity management isnt functional, with access then limited to staff.   That said, from an impact vs. risk point of view, the impact of a lack of internet impacting on learning, especially where technology use is embedded and heavily uses productivity suites, might exceed the safeguarding risk meaning you may wish to restore access for students even where filtering is unavailable for a short period of time.   This would obviously need careful consideration and appropriate documentation of decision-making processes.

Consider the variables

In doing a desktop exercise it is worth giving some consideration to some of the variables which might have a material impact on an incident.   This might be considering when an incident might happen such as what the impact would be if it happened during exams season or during a significant event, with visitors on-site.   It is also worth considering how things would work if key members of staff, such as the headmaster, were away from school.   We need to know who fulfils the role of the missing staff member while they are away.

Slow down!

One key thing in my view, is the need to take careful decisions during an incident and to be careful of knee-jerk reactions.   This is particularly important for IT staff as a mistaken attempt to resolve the issue could make things worse, however it is also the case for the wider SLT involved in incident management.    Yes, an incident means we want to move quickly to get solutions in place so the school can continue to operate, however equally we need to avoid moving so quick we make mistakes.  It’s a balance.   It is also important to slow down to allow the appropriate bodies and support organisations to be contacted and involved, including the likes of the NCSC, Action Fraud, cyber insurance providers and insurance providers, etc.

Conclusion

The purpose of a desktop exercise is to get people discussing and thinking about what they might do in the event of a critical incident, IT or otherwise.   It is about testing the assumptions and identifying areas for improvement.    The choice is to conduct this in a safe environment or to wait until an incident hits at which point all bets are off.    My preference has always been to opt for the safer option.   As Benjamin Franklin put it, failing to plan is planning to fail.   If you havent therefore done a desktop exercise to explore what you would do in light of a cyber security incident in your school or college I therefore suggest this is something you do in the near future.

The Gondola Incident

I was very lucky to recently be invited to speak at the FutureShots conference in Venice at the amazing H-Farm campus, following on from a session working with IT staff in Cardiff, so it was a busy week to say the least.   It was great to meet up with my Digital Futures Group (DFG) colleagues, Gemma and Emma and a variety of others. It also presented its challenges but in doing so also presented a fair few new memories and learning opportunities.  Now I will be blogging further on the FutureShots conference however before doing so would first like to spend a bit of time sharing some of the more human-focused events and experiences from my trip to Venice.  And it was definitely an experience!

Now my trip out to Venice was unusually straightforward by my standards, arriving late on the Wednesday to the amazing H-Farm campus, although my first impressions were somewhat limited by darkness and the lateness of the hour.    I was quickly whisked off to a dinner which to me highlighted the strength in the H-Farm setup, with educationalists, H-Farm staff and technology startups all working and sharing as we ate.  My thanks to the very friendly people involved in helping me navigate the Italian menu when my Italian only stretched to a handful of words.

The conference itself was very interesting indeed with AI for education on day 1 and AI for business on day 2 however I will blog more on this in future.

So now onto some of the experiences;   Lets start with myself and Gemma Gwilliam deciding to try and find somewhere nice to eat, leading us on an exploratory tour of the site and surrounding area, and attempts to get an Uber or blag a lift with someone.   The efforts failed and the evening was progressing quickly without us having had dinner.   But then a gentleman in a car, heading out of the site suggested we head back and that there was an event on where people could help.   Little did we know that as we turned to head in the direction suggested, following the music, he had actually phoned ahead to tell people to expect us, and so it was as we followed the sound of music we were met by the most friendly and helpful bunch of people I have met in a long time.  I note, I remember Scottish Hogmanay’s where I would simply wander the streets following the music in search of a party, however, it has been a long time since I have done similar.   And so it was that myself and Gemma were welcomed by a lovely bunch of people we had never met before, sharing thoughts, sharing food and drink, and a little bit of karaoke. They were our saviours and such a lovely, warm, welcome and friendly bunch of people.

Queue learning point one;   We are often so busy in life that we rush from one task to another, however, the search for food led me to slow down and to meet people which otherwise I would likely never have met.   We made new connections and friends, and I suspect I am all the better for it, but it wouldn’t have happened aside from our search for food leaving us open to unexpected and unplanned connections.   I note the openness of the people we met, the people running the Maize strategic design company, also played a key part in this.   It turns out the Maize magazine, which they produce, had a lot of things in it with peeked my interest, so I look forward to reading the two editions our new friends provided me with.     

We also made another new friend when a large black beetle seemed to fly or drop from nowhere directly into a pizza box where it proceeded to attempt to make off with a pizza slice;  Not sure what the learning point is there however it might simply be to expect the unexpected.

Now let’s fast forward to day two of the event, and finding some time in the early evening to explore a little of what Venice has to offer.    Emma Darcy had joined myself and Gemma for day two and had suggested a “gentle” Gondola ride.   I was a little anxious as I cannot swim and have a fear of open water however I said I was willing to give it a go.    After some exploring we found ourselves at a dock waiting on a short gondola ride, a good thing, but across the Grand Canal a very busy waterway with some big boats, a less than good thing!    Now as I waited for the gondola to arrive my fear and anxiety grew;  I suspect if you visit the same dock you will see my hand impression on the wooden poles which rise from the canal and are used to anchor boats.   My grip on those poles as I waited was firm to say the least.   I was very close to leaving Gemma and Emma, the two attempting to murder me through either drowning or anxiety-induced heart attack, however I boarded the Gondola gingerly.    God did it rock back and forth, not exactly helping my anxiety.    And so as we crossed the busy waterway ever boat captain with a big boat decided to simultaneously descend on the waterway in an effort to capsize the craft I was in.  The wake of each craft causing the gondola to bank from side to side, and pushing my anxiety ever higher.   I will admit to, upon reaching the other side of the canal, almost crawling along the gondola to the jetty, then collapsing to my knees.   A quick look at my Fitbit showed my heart rate was now a good 20 to 30 bpm higher than it had been on the other side.   I had however managed to cross the canal on a gondola so the aim of a gondola ride had been achieved.   And what an achievement!

So learning point two; don’t cross the Grand Canal on a gondola if you are afraid of water!   No only kidding, it is that sometimes we need to step outside of our comfort zone and do things which are difficult.   I think sometimes we spend too much time looking to make everything easier or more comfortable when in fact difficulty can be desirable and I would suggest is part of a required balance.   We don’t want everything too easy as we then don’t learn, but equally, we don’t want everything too hard as that demotivates;  It needs to be a mix.   I did something which was so very difficult for me, but in doing so I proved I could do it.   On the other bank I had a sense of achievement, alongside a sense of relief.   And if I can cross the Grand Canal what other things which are difficult for me, might I be able to achieve?

Oh, and as we proceeded to explore a little more it turned out that there was a bridge which crossed the canal only a little distance around the bend;  Had I known this at the outset I suspect I would never have made the gondola trip.   This highlights to me how hindsight is 20/20 and therefore how we need to be more accepting where things don’t go quite as planned as although after the event, the reasons may be obvious, at the time that bridge might just be out of sight or obscured and therefore not available to those planning or executing tasks.     Another learning point may be to not trust even your friends however I am going to assume that Gemma and Emma werent aware of the bridge at the outset 😉

If there is to be a final learning point from all of this, it is this:  That we are very busy and forever looking to be better and more efficient at what we do, however equally we need to take some time out, slow down, try new things, look out for experiences, connect with people, including new people, and build memories.   When my time comes (as it almost did on that Gondola) I want to look back on all that I have done and experienced.   I very much doubt that I will be that bothered about how efficient or busy I have been!

Cardiff IT Event

This is a particularly busy week starting with me traveling to Cardiff to speak to IT staff in schools.   In Cardiff my presentation was very much on the state of IT in schools and on the challenges which I see ahead.   As such I thought I would share some of my thoughts post the event.

Digital: The only path forward

I have long spoke about technology and its potential in schools and education more generally.  I remember a talk from 2013 I gave through in Dubai where I talked about a pyramid of requirements which led eventually to teacher and student confidence in technology use, and the resultant embedding of technology in teaching and learning.    Am not sure if we have moved on quite as much as I would have expected from 2013, however, we have certainly moved on.     The world we live in certainly involves more technology and technology is becoming a necessity.   In schools, the pandemic has had an impact pushing more schools to use technology although funding and cost continue to be a notable roadblock for many schools.    And more recently we have seen such interest in artificial intelligence and how it might impact schools including how it might start to help us to address the teacher workload challenge.

But in line with this we have an issue of widening digital divides.   Some schools have invested in infrastructure and devices, whereas others have invested to a lesser extent.   Some students have access to the internet and devices at home, while others’ only device may be their mobile phone, and some may not even have one of these.    And in relation to mobile phones, some schools will seek to ban whereas others manage phones and discuss with students the benefits and risks of mobile phones and online services such as social media.    We also now have generative AI with some schools embracing this, talking and working with students on the appropriate use of generative AI, whereas other schools seek simply to ban it.

Strategy

I have written in the past about my changing views on digital or technology strategies.   I think in the early days of technology use maturity, having a strategy setting out what you want to achieve and how you will go about it is key.   The first steps are big ones and you want to ensure you take people, your staff, students and parents, with you so having a clear strategy is critical.   That said, as technology use in a school matures and is embedded it is more about strategy evolving over time, and adapting to new technologies and changes in how the school and its staff and students operate.   At this point the steps arent that big as you have an embedded technology platform, its more like minor course corrections and adjustments to take advantage of new technologies, new processes or changes in the context of the school.

Cyber and data protection

If there is something that gives a director of IT or a network manager sleepless nights it’s a cyber incident yet they are unavoidable. It’s not an “if” it’s a “when”.    I think it is important that we accept this but also that we ensure we see cyber incidents not as an IT issue but as a school or college-wide issue.   If your internet isn’t working or your MIS is down, it will impact on teachers and students, not just IT staff.    Once we accept that 100% secure is impossible we can work towards doing what is possible and what is reasonable given the available resources.   I previously talked about some key basic activities such as patching, backups including testing of backups and MFA among other things.   If we can do these we reduce the risk and hopefully push the incident which will hit the school further into the future.   But if we accept a cyber incident is guaranteed this gets us to the next key activity being planning for that eventual incident.    This is where a desktop exercise is very useful in identifying assumptions and allowing all involved to explore options but without the pressure and stress of a real life incident.   The Benjamin Franklin quote regarding failing to plan being planning to fail sums this up so very nicely.    And again, this needs to be done at a school level and not limited to IT as the key thing during an incident will be how students are managed, how they are kept safe, how staff are kept informed and how the school manages to maintain as much of a business as usual approach as is possible.

Linked to cyber security I think it is also worth picking up data protection as schools are increasingly processing more and more data.   I know from my own school I can plot the increase in data being stored and the increase in data crossing our internet threshold.   If we are to keep data secure we need to know what data we have, why we have it, who is responsible for it and where it is stored.  Once we have these basics we can then delegate data protection compliance to the relevant data owner and like cyber, see data as belonging to those making the decisions regarding what data is gathered and how, rather than seeing data as an IT issue.

Artificial intelligence

Now any technology post at the moment wouldn’t be complete without some mention of artificial intelligence and this post is no different.   Generative AI has such potential to provide us all with a low-cost assistant which can help, and that’s for both staff and students.    Generative AI isn’t perfect but that’s fine, as if it was why would we need humans at all, and what would it mean to be a human with no purpose, given AI could do everything we can do?    That said AI will continue to improve and get better.   I am already using AI on a daily basis, having sought to identify where it can help with some of my workflows.    The key for me is the AI genie is out of the bottle and there is no putting it back, so we therefore need to see how we can use it as effectively and appropriately as possible, and that’s staff but also students in my view

Conclusion and networks

Technology change is happening at an ever-increasing pace.   Schools and education more generally need to do their very best to keep up but this is a challenge.    But maybe technology shows us our best opportunity of achieving this.    Social media, AirBnB, Uber and many other services are all about crowd-sourcing content and sharing and maybe this is the method we need to use in keeping schools and education up to date.   One of my favourite quotes continues to be from David Weinberger who said “The smartest person in the room is the room”.   So we need to build big rooms full of educators, IT in schools staff and others, and ensure we share and discuss.   Our biggest potential is achieved through collaboration, through sharing and through facing technology change and technology disruption collectively.   That is why I consider myself privileged to be part of some really big rooms including the ANME, the Digital Futures Group and the ISC Digital Advisory Group.   Through networking and sharing we have our best opportunities to keep abreast of constant change, including technological change.

Schools and Academies Show 2024

It was the Schools and Academies show recently and I was once again fortunate to be given the chance to speak at the event, as well as being given the opportunity to be involved in their hosted leaders events prior to the main show.   It was a busy day or so, but equally very useful.

Now the event started with my usual travel woes and my second train being cancelled leaving me looking for a plan B to get to London.   Am not sure why these things keep happening to me;  Is it bad luck, karma or simply a less than resilient rail network operating in the southwest of England?   I suspect there is a bit of everything thrown in.   Thankfully I managed to find an alternative route and made my way to London, and I will admit using the Lizzy line meant that I wasn’t too badly delayed when compared with previously using the tube and DLR.  

So the hosted leaders event before the main event was fun speaking with a variety of different people outside of my usual EdTech crowd including a head from a school abroad, a school SENCO, a school business manager and someone representing a teachers union.  Additionally there was some brilliant music from two students showing off how important the creative arts are.   

As to the event itself I have a fair few meetings with vendors in the diary with these being useful and giving me things to take away from the event.   This included an impromptu discussion with a company providing a managed telephone service aimed at children, looking to help address the challenge of students with smart devices and keeping them safe.   I also met with a well-known interactive whiteboard provider as to some of their recent developments.    Additionally, as I walked the show floor I bumped into people resulting in discussions, often also meaning I was less than timely in my attendance at my scheduled meetings;  To those I turned up too late, I do apologise.

There were also the usual presentations and panels, although this time I didn’t manage to attend as many of these as I had hoped although I did manage to attend a great session towards the start of the day including both Gemma Gwillam and Neelam Parmar.     One session I was annoyed I missed was the session on AI including Sir Anthony Seldon.   Oh, and then there was the panel session I was involved in, and speaking at myself, looking at phones in schools and whether we should seek to ban them.   I will write more on this session and my thoughts in the near future.    It was interesting on reflection that as a panel we were generally in agreement as to the direction of travel in the need to manage phones rather than ban, and also on the importance of education of students and of parents.  The fact the “ban phones” discussion keeps coming up is frustrating given how long it has been discussed however the panel, in my opinion, seemed to show that progress has been made and that many are adopting a more pragmatic and context-driven approach rather than a blanket ban;  This for me is good news.    I will however note that I am not sure if a panel who are all in agreement is a good thing, or maybe we are an echo chamber?   And maybe this is exactly the challenge facing our children, and more broadly society, is the balance between binary arguments and polarisation, and echo chambers and constant reinforcement of current viewpoints.   How do we reach balance?  The chair did try to stir things up by asking what we would do if research did establish a negative causal effect of smartphones on learning, however in the social sciences I think proving such a causal link is nearly impossible as there are simply too many variables at play.

One thing that made this event stand out for me was the DFG (Digital Futures Group) and being involved in the Schools and Academic Show alongside such valued colleagues as Gemma Gwilliam, James Garnett, Darren White and Abid Patel.   The Schools and Academies Show actually saw the DFG officially announce our launch and I look forward to some exciting times ahead with the group and in the lead up to the EduTech Europe event later in the year.   

Also, it was great to catch up with the team from the ANME as well although I did not spend as much time with them and on the ANME stand as I would have liked.   As a group they continue to offer the IT staff in schools and colleges a source of support, help and guidance which is all the more important as technology use increases and given the challenges associated with IT roles which often operate invisibly to the school except when things are going wrong.

In terms of both the DFG and ANME, the quote I so often use, from David Weinberger, is “the smartest person in the room is the room”, and the DFG and the ANME mean I benefit from being part of a very big room, and hopefully am all the better for it.

And if I am looking at the bucket list then this is the first conference I have ever been thrown out off!   And no it wasn’t due to poor behaviour, or controversial views or similar but due to the fact myself and others were so engaged in discussion post-event that the security staff felt the need to (rudely) force us to leave.   Apparently there were issues with public liability as we stood continuing our discussions.

Oh and also I temporarily found myself drink an orange substance that wasn’t the amber nectar, the Irn Bru.  The photo of me during the panel sessions provides evidence of this although the app for the event listed me twice so maybe the non-Bru drinking Gary was actually a doppelganger.    It was a shock to the system but I promise all that normal service was promptly resumed and upon returning home I will drink many cans of the Bru to clear my system of the non-Bru liquid!

So, I write this on the train heading back to somerset, and a three hour trip, all being well which with me is far from guaranteed.  (additional note:   On the return leg, my second train looked like it was going to be cancelled however did turn up just a little late;  that had me worried as the following train wasn’t until 1hr later and it was already 930pm).   So onwards to my next set of events, and what has so far been a very busy 2024;  Better busy than bored, plus sharing and networking continue to enrich my professional development way beyond any CPD course I have ever attended.   

Maybe the DFG and ANME are the model more people should adopt in forming groups, sharing, collaborating and growing together, across different educational sectors and contexts.