Tag: Journal

Attendance or Family Time?

There is currently much debate in the UK on school attendance and parents who choose to take kids out of school to benefit from cheaper holiday costs during term time.   The debate is often framed as quite basic in that taking kids out of school impacts their learning however I feel the issue is more complex and multifaceted, touching upon academic performance, mental health, family bonding, and socioeconomic factors. As education systems around the world emphasize the importance of regular attendance for student outcomes, families face the challenge of balancing these demands with the need for quality time together. This balance becomes particularly complex when families consider taking children out of school during term time to take advantage of cheaper travel options.

School Attendance

Regular school attendance is widely recognized as a key factor in academic success. Many studies show that students who attend school regularly are more likely to achieve higher grades and perform better on standardised tests.   Additionally, schools provide students with a structured environment where they can develop important social skills, learn to work in teams, and build friendships. These experiences being essential for developing emotional intelligence and resilience, with attendance at school therefore being a prerequisite.

But attendance is not just about being present; it’s about engaging with the curriculum, participating in class discussions, and building relationships with teachers and peers. An unhappy child is unlikely to be “fully” present so this might point to the importance of family time and holidays possibly.

We also need to consider that the attendance discussion is largely being promoted from the point of view of government, from that central viewpoint where, on average, students with poorer attendance achieve less than those with good attendance.   But there is an issue in terms of how “achievement” is measured as it is often measured in terms of exams or standardised tests;   Are these tests, this grading and categorising of students all that really matters?   Or is there more to education than a GCSE or an A-Level?

Family Time

While the importance of school attendance is generally clear, family time is equally crucial for a child’s development and well-being.  Quality time spent with family fosters a sense of security, builds strong relationships, and provides opportunities for parents to impart values and life skills. For many families, vacations and time spent together are important for bonding and creating lasting memories.  In today’s fast-paced world, both parents and children often lead busy lives, and taking a break to relax and enjoy each other’s company can reduce stress and improve overall wellbeing. These moments of respite are essential for maintaining a healthy work-life balance and preventing burnout.

Traveling with family can also be educational. Exposure to new cultures, environments, and experiences can broaden a child’s perspective and enhance their learning in ways that classroom education sometimes cannot, igniting curiosity, encouraging a love for learning, and providing practical lessons in geography, history, and social studies.

But for many families, the cost of travel during peak school holiday times can be prohibitively expensive where traveling during term time can make vacations more affordable.   So, some parents may decide to take kids from school to allow for a family holiday and their children to experience destinations they might otherwise not be able to visit. This economic consideration is particularly relevant for lower-income families who may have limited opportunities for leisure travel outside of term time.

Conclusion

The current attendance or lost learning argument is yet another false dichotomy.   Additionally, we need to be careful in viewing holiday time with parents as frivolous and without any educational value.  This is a very simplistic view of learning, and might result from the narrow association of learning with traditional exams and standardised testing.    Learning is much broader, more nuanced and more complex than this.

I feel there is a balance to be reached as parents taking students out of school, when done proportionately and with appropriate communication with the school, can have educational and more importantly wellbeing benefits.    It is therefore very much about the relationship between school and parent, accepting that both have a responsibility for learning, and that such responsibility is interdependent.

Or maybe schools should look to vary their timetables to challenge the holiday, supply-and-demand model, or the travel agents need to be challenged on their pricing model and prevented from pushing prices so high during the holiday periods?    Sadly I suspect these options are difficult to implement, so it is very much about school and parents communicating and working together.

ANME South West

Last week I ran the ANME’s South West meeting, once again allowing me to take part in some of the excellent discussion with other IT staff in schools across the South West.   It was also great to see fellow ANME ambassador, Andrew White, back at the meeting after his recent health concerns.   As always the event proved useful in allowing IT staff from schools in different contexts and at different stages in their digital journey to get together and share thoughts and ideas.    It fits perfectly with the David Weinberger quote I so often use, “the smartest person in the room, is the room”.    In seeking to manage the increasing pace of technology and change, sharing and seeking collective solutions is likely to be our best chance to be successful and to thrive or flourish.  

One of the sessions, delivered by Michael Bewis focussed on wellbeing among school IT staff.   Now I found this session to be very refreshing as when looking at workload in schools the focus is often on teachers with well known research such as the teacher wellbeing index seeking to assess stress and workload of teaching staff over time.  But what about the IT staff, who are often quietly working behind the scenes to ensure the technology works as it should, often being very busy to make sure everything works, even when it all seems to be working well, never mind how hard they work when things aren’t going so well.   As such it was good to see some feedback from a survey of IT staff, involving SalamanderSoft and the ANME itself in gathering the data.   That ¼ of IT staff feel their workload is unacceptable and 40% feel undervalued is concerning although I do think this goes to a wider issue in education, including with teachers.   Now budgets, and linked to this staffing, were mentioned, however this is outwith our control, however our expectations in terms of what is done, when and to what standard is within our control, plus communication is also within our control.   We can therefore focus on what is within our control to hopefully seek to reduce workload and increase job satisfaction.    In the session I mentioned my current 3 keys words or entropy, prioritisation and reasonableness.    That we need to accept that education as a social endeavour has so many variables that there will also be a bit of the unexpected and a bit of chaos, but in dealing with this we need to prioritise what matters and do what we reasonably can.    I also note in relation to workload I have concerns as to the efficiency narrative, and trying to solve the issue by being more efficient.  This invariably leads to simply doing more but maybe we should be asking what matters most in schools, in teaching and learning and in IT, and then focussing on this rather than simply trying to do more.    I also think a key part of workload isn’t the tasks, but the culture of the team and of the organisation.  Is working long hours, being first in and last out, being knackered seen as the sign of a good employee?   Or is a good employee the person who gets the job done but knows when to say no or “not now/yet”, and sometimes works late, but other times leaves early, who clearly seeks to balance out work with their wider life?     It is the little things which build the culture, so do the little things in your school build a culture of wellbeing or not?    And as to wellbeing groups and initiatives, I am not a fan, as all too often these are just things tagged on in the interests of being seen to do something, rather than the cultural change which is really needed, and for cultural change to work it needs to be at all levels, at teacher and support staff level, middle leaders, senior leaders and even governors and trustees.

The other session delivered by Toby Ratcliffe, another ANME member, discussed building a resilient IT support team.    I liked the acknowledgement that things are never simple and plans seldom progress as you planned.  This aligns nicely with my concept of entropy as mentioned earlier.    Some of the other ideas presented matched very much with mine such as the importance of gathering data in relation to the performance of the IT team as a whole.   I personally make use of data from our help desk ticketing system as well as office 365 usage and storage information plus also data gathered from an annual staff and student perceptions survey.  This data allows me to highlight all the work my team do plus the ongoing increase in work as we have more systems, more users and more data to support, helping others understand the nature of the work we do on a day to day basis, never mind when things go a bit wrong.   The annual perceptions survey, as Toby noted, tends to be very subjective however, this aside, having some data is surely better than having no data, as would be the case if you never run a survey.   The key about satisfaction surveys in that it allows you to make decisions based on data, or data driven decision making as it may be referred to.  

Overall, it was a very useful and interesting day, with lots of sharing and discussion above and beyond the two presentations mentioned above.    Discussions dipped into cyber security and business continuity, esports (and I note this came up randomly and not of my doing…..honestly 😉) and Windows 11 deployment among other areas.

So that’s the last of my ANME meetings for this 2023/24 academic year, but I look forward to 2024/25 and further meetings in the new academic year.  Through sharing and collaboration we can best meet the challenges of the future, especially where technology is moving at such an increasing pace.

Reflecting on 2023/24

And so another academic year draws to a close so I thought I would share some initial reflections:

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

AI continued to be a big topic of discussion throughout 2023/24 and saw me speaking to school leaders, teachers but also to school support staff on its potential as well as the risks and challenges.    I think like a lot of Tech AI has those which are heavily engaged and supportive of its use, then a larger body with are unsure or reluctant, followed by those that are anti and against its use.    As such at the moment the impact of AI when viewed generally, may appear less than its potential or what those positive about AI are proclaiming.   For me it is about getting more staff experimenting and finding out how AI can benefit them in schools, often in little and simply ways rather than the flash examples we often see.   Personally, I am slowly introducing greater use of AI into my various workflows and in doing so seeing benefits in time saved but also, and possibly more importantly, on the quality of outputs.    By using generative AI to assist me, AI and I (??) are coming up with more ideas, using a wider vocabulary range, creating better graphics and reducing errors among other things.    Two heads, even if one is a headless AI, are better than one!

Digital Divides

I have already mentioned AI and generative AI but it represents yet another aspect to the issue of digital divides.    Technology, and generative AI has such potential to enable greater creativity, address imbalances such as those related to SEND or to language proficiency, support collaborative and communication and much more.   But you need to have access to the technology, the software, the hardware, the internet bandwidth and more, with this access often the product of a digital strategy or plan, and the relevant budget and finance.   You also need access to support and help, to a culture which embraces the potential of technology and generative AI, at school but also add home and in your local community, friends and colleagues.    The number possible divides between those that have and those that have not is only increasing, and the magnitude of each divide is only widening with each passing day as those that have, experiment, adapt and innovate, while those that have not are held back, continuing to work in ways that are long established, as the world around them changes.

Digital Future Group (DFG), collaboration and sharing

Generative AI advancement is just one indicator of the increasing pace of technology change, with resulting impact on society more broadly.   But how can we keep up with these dizzying advancements and changes?    Can one person keep up with all the apps, the tools, the different approaches?  For me the key here is in approaching the problem collectively and collaboratively rather than individually.   For example, this year has seen the creation and my involvement in the Digital Futures Group, which is all about sharing and networking.   I am so blessed to be part of a group of professionals who operate across different contexts, in different roles and with different skills and experience, across the UK, and I am better for my involvement.   I have also had the pleasure of being involved with the Association of Network Managers in Education (ANME) and also the Independent Schools Council (ISC) Digital Advisory Group.    Each of these organisations has allowed me to network with some amazing people, gaining from their experiences, their values and views, the knowledge and maybe even their humanity, and in a world of increasing use of AI, maybe our humanity, and sharing our humanity is all the more important.

Wellbeing

I think another reflection on the academic year relates to wellbeing, and it may be that this jumps to mind due to a recent presentation at the ANME South West event in relation to wellbeing and IT support staff.    This academic year has for me been a very difficult one personally with a major personal upheaval hitting me in the first term, something that I am not sure I have fully recovered from as we complete the final term.   Actually, thinking about it I don’t think it is about recovery but more about adapting to the changed circumstances I now find myself in.   This has forced me to stop and reflect and in doing so identify a lot of personal practices and habits I have developed which have led to an unbalanced life.   It took a significant life event to make me stop and reflect such that I am now trying to rebalance and establish new habits.   This has also got me thinking about the “be more efficient” narrative and what it means to be a good employee.   I get the concept of being more efficient and therefore doing things quicker or using less energy, etc, but if all this leads to as being asked to do yet more things, surely this isn’t a sustainable model.    Laura Knight talked about resilience and how this isn’t something we should aim for as its ok to being resilient to short term issues, but having to constantly exist in a state of resilience isn’t really living and in all honesty isn’t something we can do for any significant period of time.    For me “efficiency” may suffer similar problems.    And if being efficient is driven by an organisational need for efficiency, so does this mean that to be a good employee I need to be efficient and get more done than others, and if this is the case does it not possibly drive unsustainable hours, stress and workload issues.   So maybe schools and other organisations need to consider what it is to be a good employee, with leaders modelling this and with the expectations clearly espoused.  Maybe we also need to stop and identify what really matters, rather than constantly adding more tasks, more requirements and more considerations to our everyday roles.

Conclusion

This for me has been a year of difficulties but also of a greater sense of community and collaboration.   AI, Digital Divides, Networking and Wellbeing are definitely the four themes which currently stick out for me from what has been a busy academic year, but then again when are academic years in schools or colleges not busy?    Am hoping that 2024/25 will be another positive year and soon enough it will be upon us.   I am going to post in the coming weeks a month by month review of some of my highlights for the year including some photos but for now let me just wish everyone a good holiday period acknowledging that myself and my team, plus many others, particularly IT teams, will actually be working much of the holiday period on IT upgrades and many other things, ahead of the new academic year.    All the best to all.

Running fast but standing still?

The last 12 months have seen things in my life change significantly and I find myself still trying to establish new norms.   It has also got me thinking about life and its meaning, something which I have enjoyed exploring through reading psychology and sociology books.    So, I would just like to share some reflections both for myself, hoping to find some logic in the act of writing down my thoughts, but also maybe in the hope that it might help others or lead to others sharing their thoughts which might further add to the discussion.

The pace of life is only increasing

I have long considered that the pace of life is increasing but generally I have put this down to age.  I have put it down to the fact that as we get older there are less “new” experiences in our lives, where these experiences are markers of time in our memories.  As such when we reflect on being younger we find lots of markers as everything was new at some point, but as we age the markers get further apart as less things are “new”, creating an illusion of time moving quicker.    

But what if this is only part of the story?   The world has and is becoming increasingly digital and technological, driven on by increased convenience, such as on-demand TV and next day online delivery.    Technology has also provided us with short video social media content allowing us to quickly while away our time, or fill any gaps in our day, but without engaging in more significant content such as a movie or TV series.    We also have email, SMS and chat software allowing for immediate contact and sharing, and now are staring down the face of generative AI and its potential to allow us to be more efficient and get more done, quicker.    Its all about doing more, so maybe this drive for convenience, do more and do it quicker, is all resulting in lives where the pace of life is only quickening, with no sign of this abating.

Handling a fast paced life

As the pace of life increases, whether due to tech or due to age, we develop strategies to help us manage the situation.    In particular we look to automate ourselves, building human habits to reduce the cognitive load and ensure we get more done, quicker.    For example, going out for a run in the morning; by making sure that your trainers and your running gear is at the side of your bed, you seek to automate your behaviour minimising friction such that you are out of bed, dressed and out the door without the need to think.    This is but one of the many routines and habits we build to help us navigate life, with these habits becoming all the more important as the pace of things quickens.   Could it be though, that for all these habits are a good thing, they also have a drawback?   Yes they aid efficiency and allow us to get more done but at what cost?

A habit of habits

I suspect I have fallen into a habit of habits, where I have developed habits for running, for getting regular tasks done, using online tools to help with this, for getting housework and chores done, and for much beyond this.    Building habits have become a habit, and I would go so far as to say, a successful one if the measure is how much I get done.  If life was a quantitative game I would be winning.   It is only that a sudden change in my life has disrupted this leading to me evaluating my situation and at times leading to me feeling a little bit lost and at times, depressed.    My routines have been disrupted such that I have suddenly had some downtime, some alone and reflection time, and in this time, the difference between this and the busy, habit laden norms I have developed, there is a gulf.   Looking back on the pace of life, when things were slower and less fast paced, the difference between a busy period and quiet reflection time was notable but not huge.   As the pace of life has increased the difference between these two points has only increased with a corresponding increase in the mental impact when we find ourselves stopped. 

Human Flourishing

I think part of the problem is that if we average out our lives they are getting more fast paced and busier, and we are being driven by the need to do more, do be better, to be more efficient.  Eat right, exercise, work harder, socialise, look after your family, have time for yourself, read, study and much more;  Its all about doing more but there are still only 24 hours to each day, and we spend at least some of those sleeping.    This has left me feeling lost and unfulfilled.   We are squeezing the time to stop, to reflect and to make sense of things out of our lives and this isn’t a good thing.    Yes we are getting the quantity of things done but maybe at a cost of quality of life.   We need this downtime or slow time, and it has taken a significant life change to make me aware of this, and I am finding it far from comfortable.   When I stop and have time to reflect I feel I should be doing something more productive.    I find it difficult to slow down and to live in the moment, to take things in and truly appreciate them as I feel I should be doing if I am flourishing as a human being.    In a world of efficiency, hard work, productivity and continual improvement, fast paced lives and fast technology change is it any wonder?   Am I just existing and doing, or am I truly living?    Is life measured by what we do, what we achieve, or is it how we feel about it?

Conclusions

I don’t have answers for this and this post was more about sharing and dumping some ideas rather than presenting solutions.   I feel our current trajectory is one we cannot continue on and discussions of workload concerns seem to agree.   AI can help but if all it does is allow us to do even more, then it may actually play into the problem rather than solving it.    For me I think we need to slow down, we need to seek to do less, focussing on what is most important, we need to find a better balance.    As I said, I am not comfortable with things at the moment, but maybe I need to be uncomfortable for a while, maybe its desirable difficulty.    The thing is it took a major life upset to get to this realisation, so I suspect many will be that busy being efficient that they might never have the time to make this leap.    As a society do we need to take another look at what is truly important, whether it be in life, in education or in any other sphere which we as humans operate?

EdExec Live – London

I recently spoke at the EdExec live event, talking about school IT strategy.   I thought I would share some of my somewhat rambling thoughts from the event.  I note one of my opening slides related to Star Trek and what appears to be an ipad-esqe device in captain Piccard’s hands, back in a 1992 episode of The Next Generation.   Now Star Trek TNG is set in the 24th century, yet the iPad made its appearance in 2010, in the 21st century.  This shows how poor we are at predicting the future, however also hints to the pace of technological change.

Tech is here and here to stay

We just need to look at our lives today and we can see that technology is a key part of it.  On my way to London for the EdExec event I used digital train tickets, I listened to music via spotify, worked on some blogs using my MS Surface while also engaging in social media discussion.   I also used Google Maps to help me navigate my way to the event venue.   Technology is now an essential part of our everyday lives.   And looking at schools it is no different.  When I qualified as a teacher, back in the late 90s (and that does make me feel old!) you put your lesson content on a roller blackboard or acetates for display via an OHP.   You recorded student attendance manually in a register.   Now, all of these things involve technology, recording attendance on your schools Management Information System (MIS), putting digital content on your digital panel, smartboard or projector.  You also use digital tools for safeguarding, for communication and for much more.    All of our schools are digital, to some extent, already.

Strategy

And if schools are digital there should be some sort of plan to manage the training needs of staff, sustainability into the future, renewal and updates, etc.     Although the technology is already here, we need to ensure we have a plan to make this situation sustainable into the future.    Beyond the basics, if you are looking to significant innovation, such as rolling out a learning platform or 1:1 devices for the first time, we need a detailed strategy and plan to ensure we get all the basics in place, such as infrastructure, training and support.   After this, once technology is largely embedded and mature, such as at Millfield where 1:1 devices have been in place 2012, office 365 has been phased in since 2019, and Teams/OneNote from 2022, there isnt the same need for a distinct technology plan and technology now takes its lead from the broader school vision and strategy.  So the need for a distinct technology strategy varies with the technology maturity in the school.   I also note as you go down the iPad route, over chromebooks or windows laptops, or Office 365 rather than Google Workspace for Education, etc, and as these become embedded, it becomes increasingly difficult to change path.

A key issue in all the technology decision making is that it is not about the technology, the shiny new Chromebooks or Google Classroom, but about the Why and what you hope to achieve.   Is it about improving access for students with SEND, or about students with EAL?   Is it about supporting the development of soft skills such as creativity, communication, collaboration and problem solving?  Why are you seeking to use technology and what do you how to achieve?    Once you have this you can then look at which technology or technologies are the best fit for your requirements.

Balance

I also highlighted the importance of balance during my session.   Everything we do, which we do for good reasons, will have a negative implication.   We ban phones and students will still use them, plus we lose an opportunity to teach students about appropriate use of their devices.       We buy 1:1 devices and we increase the safeguarding risks as students now have their own personal devices, while also possibly having a wellbeing impact due to increasing screentime.   There is a constant balance and very few, if any, binary situations where something is purely good or bad;   The reality is that technology tends to be good and bad.   The key therefore is the need to consider the options and the good vs. bad continuum and then to work out what works for your school and where on the continuum you will sit, your risk appetite.

Some of the future

I also spent a little time looking towards the future, but acknowledging that we are poor at predicting the future, so I had opted for some future advancements, which are almost here, or here but not fully implemented at this time.     Now this clearly had to include mention of Generative AI (GenAI) and how education and schools need to look to adapt to this new technology, which both students and staff are already using.    If GenAI gives all students the ability to create coursework, homework and other content, but with a broader vocabulary, independent of their primary language, independent of any special educational needs or disabilities and of their creative thinking, isn’t this a good thing?   But if this is the case, how do we continue to grade student work and award them their GCSEs and A-Levels, or maybe we no longer need to rank and order students in the same way we used to?    There is the potential for such a broad shift in education resulting from GenAI, but I also am concerned that there is also potential to expand the digital divides which already exist.

Linked to the above is hopefully that shift towards digital exams rather than sitting students in an exam hall once year with paper and pen.   And I am not talking about the “paper under glass” exams which are planned for the coming years, where the paper exam is just made into an identical digital exam.   I am thinking more about adaptive testing, allowing students to take exams as and when they are ready, allowing schools to manage 100’s of students through a Maths exam for example, but where they don’t have that number of devices and therefore have to put students through in batches.   It may even be that students don’t even sit these exams in the school but can actually engage in them anywhere and anytime.

And in the way of balance, with GenAI, and with a shift towards digital exams, and with more digital time generally, we need to consider the risks related to addictive social media content, data protection of increasing volumes of data being shared, particularly where the data relates to young people, the risks associated with fake news, and with influence and manipulation of people via social media and other platforms.   

A solution?

I finished my session with my favourite quote, which I have been using for years, the quote from David Weinberger, “the smartest person in the room, is the room”.    In a world where technology is moving so fast, and where education has a tendency to move much slower, our best change to maximise the positive impact of technology, while minimising and controlling the negatives, is to focus on the power of the collective.   Working collectively, sharing ideas, what works, but also what doesn’t, will allow us all to be better than any of us can be individually.    Our biggest strength is in networks, in collaborating and in sharing.    The bigger the room, the smarter we all are.

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!

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”.

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.

2024 + 2 months: A review

Ok so its now the end of February, that’s 1/6 of the year gone already and I am left wondering where the time has gone.   Now part of me thinks time is flying simply as we are all becoming busier, as we do more, try to be more efficient, try to do things better, while part of me also thinks its an age thing (but I am not keen to admit to the 2nd option).    I also need to acknowledge taking on quite a number of projects however I am finding keeping busy and the diverse nature of the projects to be fun and engaging and therefore keeping me in a more positive place than I was back in December;  That said I also need to ensure I do say “No” where appropriate.    So with 2 months from 12 gone I thought it might be useful to have a quick review against my pledges from the start of the year, so here goes…..

Doom Scrolling

I think my doom scrolling on my phone has reduced which is good but I still feel I reach for my phone a little too much at the moment.   It’s the old issue of my phone and its notifications providing me with the dopamine fix, leading to checking my phone more often due to increasing dependency on this fix.   It is now less social media I am looking at and more the likes of WhatsApp;  Am not sure if that makes it better screen time or not, however the need to constantly check my phone feels like a bad thing.   That said for the time period from December to the end of February my average daily screen time had dropped to just below 2hrs 40mins which is below the 3hr target I was looking to hit so this seems to be good progress.   I will however need to continue to review this especially around my habits   

Fitness

My target was 500km for the year so with 2 months gone I am happy enough with 95km completed.  Projecting this out, if I kept up the current rate would get me above the 500km target by the end of the year.    I have also seen my pace improve and now am generally sat around the 6min/km which is a pace I am happy with.   At this point I still haven’t engaged with any social running such as a parkrun so this is definitely something I need to look towards, plus I haven’t looked at runs beyond the 5km range so again this is something for me to look at.

Exploring

So far I haven’t managed any real exploring, aside from a trip up to Sheffield to work with The National College;   There wasn’t much exploring done during the couple of days up there due to a focus on filming a number of webinars.    So this is definitely something I need to look to address with Easter likely to be the first opportunity although I suspect Easter will be focused on family rather than exploring so it may be that any exploring has to be put off until the summer at the earliest.

Happiness

This is always a difficult question to deal with;  At work our perception is likely we are happier when on holiday, but if we quantify our happiness, the reality is we are often happier when busy, engaged and operating autonomously at work.    I think I am a little happier at the moment than I was in late December and I suspect a lot of this relates to being busy and engaged in different and diverse projects and events.   But maybe this leads to a question about how I balance this out in terms of my downtime?    I am reading a bit more and spending time with the velociraptor (she’s actually a German Sheppard but having eaten 3 dining room chairs among other things I think the velociraptor reference is more than fair) plus am running regularly and there are a few other things in their early stages which are making me feel a bit better, but I suspect I have a long way to go in finding the balance I want to achieve.  My current book, Lost Connections: Why you’re depressed and how to find hope, is an interesting read which is helping, although I note I am not reading it as I necessarily feel “depressed” but more because the topic and managing our lives in this busy and technology driven world is something that interests me.   We will see how I feel about the book once I am further into it.

Achievements/Contributions

I think as with 2023 things are already shaping up well with the upcoming ISC digital conference, my work on the ISBA’s Technology Survey, work with the Association of Network Managers in Education (ANME), an event looking at esports within schools, my work with the amazing Digital Futures Group ahead of EduTech Europe 2024 and a number of other things on the cards.   The key in all of these events are the brilliant people they allow me to work with, collaborate with and bounce ideas off of, plus the amazing educators which I get to network and share with.   Oh and I can’t not mention the really enjoyable Cyber Security webinar I did only the other day with Mark Anderson and Abid Patel; Is always great sharing with these two amazing individuals, but I clearly need to continue to work on Mark in relation to moving over to Scotland’s favourite soft drink rather than coffee. Abid is on the Irn-Bru Extra which is at least part way there!

Conclusion

I think, two months into 2024, I am still trying to find my new normal but I am happier with that than I was.   Maybe my new normal isn’t a fixed place but something more fluid, but where I am more accepting and happy of this fluidity?    It is still early days for 2024 but I am positive about what lies ahead and that’s a good place to start from.   

As I often find myself saying; onwards and upwards!