Category: Journal

A-Level results and football: Another enlightening analysis

Now the A-Level and GCSE results are out the usual sets of analysis and observations based on the data have started making an appearance.    As usual causal explanations have been developed to explain the data, using what Naseem Taleb described as the backwards process.   The resulting judgments have been established to fit the available data without any consideration for the data which is not available.

The perfect example is an article in the guardian (Wales A-Level results raise concerns pupils falling behind rest of UK, Richard Adams, Aug 2016)  discussing the A-level results in Wales as compared with the results in England.   The overall drop in the percentage entries achieving A* and A dropped in England “only slightly to 25.8%” while in Wales I “fell more steeply to 22.7%”.     The causal explanation apparently arrived at by one “expert” was that boys had been “possibly distracted by the national football team’s success at Euro 2016”.    This fails to consider the total number of entries in England when compared with Wales;   I suspect Wales would have less entries therefore resulting in increased variability in Welsh results versus English results.      The data also fails to include any information in relation to the students GCSE results.   Had the Welsh students achieved lower GCSEs results than their English counterparts it may be that their overall lower level of achievement could amount to “better” results given their lower starting point as measured by GCSEs.

Another possible conclusion, which is easy for me to draw as a Scotsman and most likely more difficult for an Englishman, is that the data shows something which wasn’t related to the Welsh football performance at all.    The English A-Level results could be better due to English students throwing themselves into their work following England’s poor showing during Euro 2016.  It’s the same data but a different conclusion which has been generated and made to fit the data available without any consideration for the data which isn’t available.

Having considered further this issue I think I am now more inclined than ever to agree with Talebs comments regarding the importance of the unread books in a library rather than the read ones.    Talebs discusses how a home library filled with read books gives a person the illusion of knowledge; the person has read it all.    A library filled largely with unread books however makes clear all that we do not yet know and have not read.    Reading each of these commentaries and analysis in relation to the A-Level data isn’t making me more informed or more educated, in fact it may be blinding me to the “true” facts or to other possibilities.    I think, therefore, that this will be my last post moaning about “expert” analysis or results as from now on I need to stop reading the analysis in the first place!

 

Schools and Big Data

As Director of IT I am often directly involved with our School Management Information System (MIS, sometimes referred to as a Student Information System, SIS).   Throughout my career I have encountered and worked with a number of different MIS vendors.     My general opinion is that they are all “much of a muchness” as although they have different features, strengths and weaknesses, when you average them out the benefits and drawbacks are equal in terms of their magnitude.

These systems contain and allow us to collect a variety of data including both formative and summative student performance data.    We then design reports which allow us to interrogate the data and display it in different data.    This addresses the functionality side of an MIS however is rather weak in terms of the usability.    Users need to know which report displays which information so they can select and use the correct report at the correct time.

Within my school we are currently working on making our system more usable by developing a dashboard system to present important information directly to teachers without them have to seek it out.   This would represent an improvement however I feel still falls some way short.

One way improvement could be brought about on the above is to put more power in the hands of the users, allowing them to easily create their own reports using the data which is available.    The issue with this is it relies both on staff having the skills in data analysis to be able to design effective reports, plus it relies on them having the motivation to undertake this task.   Personally I believe this approach would be very beneficial for a small number of staff within a school, with the majority being unable to access it, even where the schools culture is very much around the use of data.   It would also potentially add another job to teaching staffs role in the need for them to design reports to analyse their data, which would represent an issue given the current situation in relation to workloads.

I think the solution lies with Big Data.   Within the IT world there is a lot of discussion with regards Big Data where large data sets are analysed to reveal trends or patterns, with this info then presented to users.   I see this as being of benefit in education.   As opposed to having to check different reports showing different sub-sets of our data such as the performance of male students vs female students, the system would identify the trends that exist for us.   The system would identify where there are correlations, without users needing to be aware of a potential correlation, therefore removing the potential for a correlation to be missed as we weren’t aware of it.    The system would also be able to look at data at a micro and macro level, either down to individual teachers groups assessment results this year, our out to patterns which may exist across a number of years.

Almost all schools have an MIS these days however they are still very much based on their origins, that of very structured data being analysed by reports.     It is about time we looked at the potential for data warehousing, data mining and Big Data to have an impact on how data is used in schools.

 

 

The end of 2015/16

The school year, 2015/16, has finished and we are now in the holiday period awaiting the start of 2016/17.

Its been an interesting year for me, being my first year in a new position, that of Director of IT, plus my first year back in the UK after a 7 year absence while out in the UAE.

Firstly I think its important to note that I am shocked at how quickly the year has gone.   It feels like only yesterday that I boarded a plane from Dubai airport to return to the UK in order to undertake the interview for the position I now hold.    In reality that was a year ago.   Yet, it also feels like I have been in the UK the whole time without ever leaving.    An interesting sensation which highlights the confusion of memory.

The year has been very much about adapting to changes in my routines.   During my time in the UAE I had developed various routines around everything from the commute to work, to meetings, to professional development, etc.     The routines I had worked well within the specific context I was operating in including the individual schools and projects with which I was involved.    The change in context resulting from my new role and relocation has required changes to my routines and also some totally new routines as well as the abandonment of some routines which no longer serve their purpose.   These often little things have a big impact on life.

It has also been a year in which I have been aware of a greater sense of the unknown, the random and of variability.   While in the UAE I had a number of years experience and this helped to make everything seem familiar plus to provide baseline information to help with decision making.   It got to the point that decisions and actions felt almost natural and requiring little in the way of conscious effort.   Within my new role, everything is new and therefore I am less comfortable due to a lack of familiarity with how things work, as well as with the people concerned.   Everything requires conscious effort.   Thinking back I cant remember having the same feeling in the UAE however I suspect this is a trick of my memory, allowing me to recall the later period of my time in the UAE, but preventing me from remembering how things were in that opening year.

With all the changes I have to acknowledge also the similarities.    During my time in the UAE I had built up an image of what I will call the “UAE way of doing things”.    This image implies that things in the UAE are different than they are back in the UK.    In some ways they are however I viewed education in the UAE as also being different.    Having come back to the UK I am now more inclined to same that there are more commonalities than there are differences.    Curriculum change, staffing issues, workload and centralised inspection are issues which concern staff in both the UK and in the UAE.   The nature of the concerns may be slightly different in either context however the overarching issues are the same.     How do we get qualified, experienced and skilled staff?    How do we handle changes to qualifications and the curriculum?   How do we manage to meet all the accountability measures and enact all the latest initiatives while maintaining a work/life balance?  (Note: I always found working in the sun while sat by the pool as at least a partial solution to work/life in the UAE.)    How do we handle the pressure and expectations resulting from school inspections and how can we make sure inspection findings are fair?   I suspect these questions reappear the world over.

The question I find myself asking is what can I take away from the year;  what have I learned?

I think the key thing I have learned is that we are all very adaptable to change however we are equally set up to be adverse to it.     Change however can be a good thing.     I also realise that our memories are not as factual as we believe them to be.  As such my memories of the UAE, for example, focus mainly on the later years and the period in which I had become comfortable and not on those initial years where everything was new and different, and therefore more comparable to the year I have just had.   It is important to be aware of this fact and to consider the implications when presented with decisions which represent potential change.

2016/17 now looms on the horizon.   The challenge is to meet it head long and to work to ensure that it represents a “better” year than the one just passed.    “Onwards and upwards”, as I often find myself saying.

 

Reflections on 6 months of 2016

It’s the end of June, and six months have passed since I set my resolutions for the year.    I must note and thank for pointing out we are ½ way through the year and time has passed that quickly that I hadn’t actually realized.

I think the first thing to acknowledge as I think back over the first half of the year is the speed with which time has passed.   This may very much relate to the fact that this year everything is pretty much new to me.   1 year ago I was still working across a number of schools in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, providing consultancy services and focusing on the IT infrastructure and #edtech within new schools being constructed.    Today I find myself back in the UK working within a single independent school.    The roles are very different.    The work required and people involved are very different.   And the climate is very different…….  Oh I wish for the sun again!!

Looking briefly over my targets I think I am doing quite well.    My blogging target for example was to blog twice per month however for the last couple of months as part of #44weeks I have been blogging at least weekly.   I have also started to try and share additional thoughts via pages on the blog on the books I have read and my favourite apps.

My twitter activity has very much gone through periods of ups and downs however it has always remained about my target of 1.9 tweets per day.   By the end of May I already had tweeted 900 times.

Late last year I achieved Google Certified Educator Level 1 status and the plan was to achieve Level 2.   This is one that I have made little progress on however there is time yet.   In addition I have applied to become a Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert which hopefully I will achieve.   I am also in the process of working towards an IT professional qualification.    These two qualifications more than accommodate for the Google qualification and as such I am considering this target to be progressing well.

With regards my reading of one book per month I started very well however have trailed of a little in recent months.     This is very much due to other workload issues.   The target of 1 book per month continues to be the target I wish to work through however it may be that I will need to work hard on this during the summer holiday period.

As to my other targets I am making some progress in each one and therefore am happy at this stage in the year.   The one big area where I still need to make progress is that of fitness and physical activity which is still very limited.   I think I have the mental want to do this when I reflect but a lack of the motivation to actually get up and do something about it.     I also think that I am still adapting back to the UK after so many years as an Ex-Pat and that this is playing a part in my motivation.    It may be that Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is playing its part and in being mindful about how I feel I can identify this as likely.     Having spent years with constant heat and sunshine, with brilliant sunrises being my normal drive to work, I would suggest it is little wonder that the UK weather is leading me to feel a little bit down which is therefore impacting on my motivation to undertaken physical activity especially where this activity might involve being outdoors.    I need to meet these feelings with a positive outlook if I am to address this area for development.

So its 6 months or half of the year done.    The specific targets identified at the start of the year are all well on their way to being achieved or are already achieved so the outlook focusing on these areas is highly positive.   The outlook on the bigger picture and the less tangible is less positive however this relates to the new situation I find myself in and the need to continue to adapt to this new context.     The challenge is to continue to remain positive and to take steps to build on the first 6 months of this year.    In 3 months time I will have completed a full year back in the UK.    I wonder what my reflections will be then, once everything is no longer new?

 

 

22 Years of EdTech

Having turned 40 years old not so long ago has made me a little more reflective than I have previously been.   The last week or so in particular I have been thinking back to my now 22 years experience in education (Note: I include 4 years of teacher training which included regular serial placements) and on how educational technology has evolved during this time.

I remember 1997/98 and introducing a flat LCD panel for use with a conventional overhead projector, to a technology department I was doing my placement in.   The LCD panel sat on top of the old style projector and allowed the images from the computer to be projected in much the same way as a data projector does.   I think the lesson was regarding orthographic projection and I was using a small piece of software I had written in order to show students  the 3 views of a 3 dimensional object.  This was the time when the Archimedes and the BBC B still had a place in schools.

1998 saw one of my first jobs as a qualified teacher morph into something different as I introduced a network to the technology department I was working in, in order to facilitate both file and print sharing.   I think it was Windows 95 if I remember correctly.

1998/1999 brought me away from Scotland and secondary education and saw me start working in Further and Higher education.    The college I worked at was still largely working on Windows 3.1 however during my first year they engaged in the migration to Windows NT.    This was all a major undertaking as everyone had to adapt learning materials and approaches to learning to the new operating system, new software and the overall new user interface.   It was also not without a few technical challenges.

In 2001/02 I took possession of a number of Promethean whiteboards for use in my department while working in a 6th form college.    I don’t remember actually choosing the boards, instead I think they just appeared as was the way at that time.   My initial response at the time was very positive however on reflection I think I was taken in by the “shiny new thing” phenomenon and a certain amount of naivety.    What followed was a period of engagement as my team all sought to use the devices as best we could, accompanied by a lot of lost interactive pens!    My feelings on interactive whiteboards started developing at this point as I started to see limitations.    Today I would class myself as being NOT an advocate of IWBs.

Learning management systems were the subject of the year in 2003 (I think it was 2003!) as we looked at various options before finally adopting Learnwise as the chosen platform.    Since then I have also used Sharepoint, Moodle and a few others and overall I am not a fan of the LMS, VLE or whatever you want to call it.   Or at least I am not a fan where the system is applied to all, as one size does not fit all.

2005/06 saw me take possession of a new set of Xbox 360 devices for the colleges gaming club which had begun just over a year previously using the original xbox gaming systems.   We used the systems as an enrichment activity but also to build interest in games programming and games graphics among other games related IT roles.

At the end of 2008 and start of 2009 I found myself working in a totally new context of schools in the UAE.   Technology availability was minimal with most classrooms lacking any tech at all.   The IT labs included standalone desktops with no network and the schools overall internet connectivity was a domestic connection which had developed into an unstructured network providing internet access, albeit unreliable access, to the school as a whole.    At the time I engaged with schools to try and resolve this situation by putting in place more structured networking as a temporary solution to bridge the gap until the education authority deployed its own IT improvement project across schools.    I was also lucky to get involved in the IT project.

2010/11 saw me working with a school using Intel Classmate laptops which were little notebooks complete with a touch screen and stylus.    These were Intel Atom based units so not exactly fast however this was the start of putting devices into students hands.    I combined the devices with a solution which allowed students to wirelessly send their screens to a projector and even to allow for 4 way split screen which all added to the flexibility.

My first educational blog was created in 2013 although initially it didn’t see much use.   It wasn’t until the following year that I made more significant use of my blog plus a number of other micro blog sites I created for specific training programmes.    It was around the same time that I also started making use of social media including Twitter and Pinterest in particular for my own professional learning.

2014/15 for me was the year of the iPad as finally after many years resisting Apple devices in favour of a more techie Windows or even Linux solution I had to give in and admit the iPad had its place.     This was the year that first saw me singing the praise of the Apple eco-system and the large number of educational apps which were available.

Its interesting reflecting back on how technology has changed over the time I have been working in education.   It is also interesting how the technology differs within different contexts and countries, plus how my own viewpoints and beliefs have been shaped by my experiences.    I wonder what the next 20 years have in store?

Reflections on May 2016

As Victor Meldrew would put it:  “I cant believe it!!”

We are now at the end of May, the 9th Month of the academic year.    Time seems to be flying by as it seems like only yesterday I was posting my reflections on April.    I am not sure whether this is a good thing, as in “time flies when you are having fun” or a bad thing in so much as I don’t think I have achieved all the things I had hoped I would achieve by this point.     I think I will stick with the optimistic view and put it down to engagement, fun and possibly a bit of flow or my “element” as Ken Robinson would put it.

My previous reflections have all focused on the targets I set my self all that time ago back as the sun went down on 2015.   This time month I would like to do something a little different.

Recent weeks have had me reflecting on my time out in the UAE and on all the things I have done while there.    Thinking back the various events, dates, items and other very tangible items don’t elicit much of an emotional response.   They happened, I remember them but they lack any real richness.    The things I really, really, remember are those events to which I have now attached a story.      These stories have a rich detail which I happily share when appropriate.    They also elicit an emotional response in that I find myself smiling when I think about them, or for some stories it’s possible more likely a grimace than a smile.

So the question is what are the stories which arise from May 2016?

It was my birthday this month and my plan had been to try and get through without any real fuss; to have a quiet one so to speak.     That failed as my colleagues became aware of the event and decided that I would look all the more professional leaving the school site with a helium birthday balloon floating above my head.    The mug they provided me makes me laugh.

Now am not sure if this means that I should smile more at work or smile less.

My exercise level in May has not improved at all.   A perfect piece of evidence for this is the flower bed in my garden.

I might claim that it is like that on purpose as part of a wildlife conservation scheme however I doubt anyone would believe me.   Maybe by the time we get to the end of June some effort and work may have been done on this and I may be able to report a greater level of exercise.   Time will tell.

I think my reflection on May is the need to consider both the quantitative data and qualitative data in reflections and reviews of life and of progress.   I may hit targets I set around social media involvement, courses attended, etc but how important is that if when I look back I have no stories to tell or no rich memories.     What are your stories from May?

 

Reflections on Month 4 of 2016

Another month gone, so we are now into May 2016.

Its been quite a frantic and busy month and even more so than March, April seemed to disappear in the blink of an eye.

April contained another excellent #appsharelive event which once again involved some excellent App ideas.     In addition I found another site for app ideas which has further allowed me to add to my toolbox of app ideas.    April also saw me take a trip down to London for the Westminster Education forum which I blogged about previously, and I got my #staffrm mug.

Throughout April I managed to blog a number of times, maintaining my target as part of #44weeks to blog at least once per week.   I keep trying to set aside a specific day to write and post my blogs however never seem to manage to keep to the schedule I try to set myself.   Going forward I think I will need to just accept that this irregularity is likely to continue and that I will just need to take care to ensure I manage the minimum of 1 blog entry per week.    One particular technique to help with this is that I am setting a weekly set of goals and am including the need to blog on this goal list.

My twitter activity in April increased on March largely due to my involvement in #sltchat on a couple of occasions plus my attendance at the Westminster Education Forum during which I tweeted a number of comments and images.    I also finally got round to starting to tidy up my twitter account in terms of creating lists, etc.   Clearly I would have benefited from doing this at the start of using twitter rather than leaving it until now which required significantly more work to sort.   I will need to try and ensure I periodically tidy things up as I go forward as opposed to putting it off.

My book reading in April was pretty steady although “Thinking, fast and slow” is quite a significant book to read and therefore took me some time to get through.    I am already making very quick progress through “Drive” which is already around 50% complete after only a couple of days.   It is interesting that I had selected both books independent of one another however having started “Drive” I was interested to find the author D. Pink referenced D. Kahneman the author of “Thinking, fast and slow”.

Fitness and exercise still sits as an area where I am making little progress although I need to admit that I did exceed my step target on a number of days in April which is an improvement and my overall weekly exercise level in terms of average steps per week has steadily increased in the last few weeks.   I need to try and continue to build on this.

I have also set myself a couple of new goal areas however I may write about those later.   Overall April has been another good month so onwards to May.

My teacher fail.

Read loads of Teacher Fails posted on Staffrm over the last few days, many of which I can identify with. The burst pen which you then unwittingly use to colour your face or colour the whole pocket side of your shirt along with the inside of your best suit. The mismatching shoes. I even split my trousers once when interviewing for a middle management position. I got the job as it happens although this may have been the result of the interview panel showing pity on me, but I digress.

The recent discussions make me reflect on a particular teacher fail from my teaching career. The lesson in question was being specially delivered for a lesson observation. Note that this was during the period when lesson observations where generally considered the best method for assessing teaching ability and therefore held some importance.

I had planned to push the boat out a little with a Computing class and get them examining how we might handle arrays of data through actually jumping around in a giant array grid I had taped to the floor before they arrived.

The idea was sound. The learning should have been engaging.

I failed to consider a couple of things. The first thing was that I hadn’t had this particular class for long and therefore they hadn’t fully became used to my active teaching style instead being more used to a passive almost lecture style approach. I also failed to consider that a senior school leader sat at the back of the classroom with a clipboard was a significant variable impacting on the potential success of the lesson.

When it came time for the students to get “engaged” they didn’t. Their nervousness at departing from the norm in terms of both being active and also in terms of such energetic behavior in front of a senior staff member, overcame any enthusiasm and excitement that might have otherwise existed. Despite my best efforts to encourage the students and drum up some excitement the lesson ended up being flat. It failed to live up my expectations.

The lesson learned from this is that it is all well and good having the best intentions regarding an active and participatory lesson however we need to give some consideration to the current norms. If students are used to being sat passive it is unlikely they will be able to directly progress to a lesson filled with student directed activities and groupwork. This particular lesson served me very well when I moved to work in the UAE where initially at least I found students very reluctant to express personal beliefs, views and feelings. There however, having learned my lesson, I went about encouraging and developing this in a more gradual way of a period of time.

On reflection it wasn’t a lesson fail, more a case of Not Yet the lesson I have hoped it would be.

Photo, Fail, by Amboo Who on Flickr

Reflections

It’s the end of March, 3 months into 2016, 25% of the year gone already!    2 out of 3 terms of the academic year finished!!   Where is the time going?

It is that time to reflect once more on the promises I made to myself back at the start of the year.   I honestly cant believe that we are already 25% of the way through the year as it seems like only yesterday I was writing my promises.   It seems like only yesterday that I returned to the UK after 7 years living and working in the Middle East.   Am going to chalk it up to “time flies when you are having fun” however I have to admit it hasn’t all been “fun” thus far.

So to my resolutions and progress to date.

  • To blog twice per month.

After a very busy February with #29daysofwriting and a blog every day I have became a little tired during March which has caused me to seek to recharge my batteries allowing some of my resolutions to lapse a little.    That said I have still managed to maintain and even exceed this target as part of #44weeks.    Currently I am managing to write a post weekly as opposed to every two weeks.    It is my hope to continue this going forward.

  • To tweet on average 1.9 time per day or more

My contributions to twitter have significantly dropped as a result of my need to recharge.    In February I managed over 230 tweets within the month however so far in March I have only managed 70 tweets.   70 tweets is above my target however only just so this is an area I would like to improve on.   I think I also need to acknowledge that most of my tweets in March have in fact been retweets as opposed to new content.     This has served its purpose in March however I think it is important that I am contributing to the twitterverse rather than just consuming.

  • To achieve Google Certified Education Level 2

Still have made no real progress on this one.   Given the Easter holidays it may be something I can address over the coming weeks.

  • Read at least 1 book per month

My reading in February significantly dropped as a result on writing so much for #29daysofwriting.  Sadly in March I have done little to address this.    I therefore need to get back into the habit of making time to read at least every couple of nights.

Overall I am still doing reasonably well against my targets however a reduction in my momentum is clearly evident when compared with January and February.   I would suggest that this is inevitable however I would also suggest that the Easter break comes at the right time to allow to recovery and a reset for the next term with renewed momentum.

Bring on term 3!!

 

Time to recharge

The last week or so has seen me less engaged in the social side of education, including blogging and tweeting, than normal.  I have also been less engaged in reading and almost totally disengaged in anything akin to exercise.   I have found myself content to arrive home at the end of each day, do some prep work for the following day and then lapse a dazed state watching popular TV watching.

Looking at my twitter activity over the last few weeks I have returned to the point of re-tweeting some brilliant posts and ideas from others rather than contributing anything much new myself.  This is something I am a little critical of as in my early use of twitter this was the limited extent to which I was involved.   At that time, and on reflection, I vowed to make an effort to be a sharer but also a contributor and therefore a return to sharing alone represents a step backwards.

The question at hand is why this has happened and why I now find myself in this situation.    I think the answer to this question lies in looking at all the things that went on during February.   During February I took place in #29daysofwriting during which time I wrote 29 blog entries, 1 for each day of February.   I also took part in #teacher5adaysketch and made some attempts around getting a little bit fitter as part of #teacher5aday.

I have previously written on the benefits of treating life as a series of sprints as opposed to a marathon (you can read this posting here) however there is a down side to this approach.    The downside for me appears to have hit me during the last few weeks.

My sprint through February has left me a little depleted in terms of energy and motivation.    As such my TV watching has been an attempt to recharge my batteries and build up on my currently depleted reserves of energy.

Looking back at my posting on sprinting through activities I still stand by my comments however in hindsight I will add one additional point.  If you plan to sprint through an activity be aware of the impact it will have on your energy reserves and the fact that following the spring you will need to rebuild these reserves.  Also, the bigger the sprint, the bigger the required recharge period so after 29 blog posts in a month, plus a number of other activities I need a larger recharge period than if the sprint was focused on a lesser or single activity.    Looking back I now see the importance of including a period for recharging within my plan and making sure you stuck to it.

I now feel I am coming out of my recharge period, which is further helped by the bank holiday weekend.   With that in mind, onwards and upwards!!