Category: Journal

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?

Balance and pluralism

I have written a few times on balance however a recent post by my Digital Futures Colleague (DFG) Darren White talking about risk (“Lets talk about risk”) got me thinking it was about time for another balance post.    Now it is easier to explore balance by looking at a specific situation so I would like to look briefly at 1:1 devices.   As with a lot of things there are those who evangelise about 1:1 devices and about the many ways they benefit students, meanwhile there are the doomsayers who plead that we must avoid the evil of 1:1 devices due to all the damage they will do to our youths.     It’s the old binary arguments.    But the world is not that clean and simple with clear demarcation of the good and the evil, the positive and the negative.    We need to get better at adapting to pluralism and the fact that 1:1 devices, and other things, can be both good and bad.   If we can adapt to this we can start doing what we really need to do which is to take a risk based view and reach a reasoned professional judgment, understanding both the pros and the cons.

So lets just dip into the positives of 1:1 devices then;   Lets start with the fact that the world is increasingly digital.  As such getting students to work in a digital world, to establish their skills and experience, and even establish their identity online, can be good in preparing them for life beyond compulsory education.    We also have the benefits of the various accessibility tools which exist within devices which might assist SEND students with accessing learning content or with contributing to lessons, or producing coursework, homework and other materials.   The same can be said in terms of language and how technology can help EAL students better access learning through being able to easily translate content into their principal language, or from their principal language into English.  And I note tools which will help SEND and EAL students often have a positive impact on all students, rather than just SEND and EAL students.    Next we have access to communications, collaboration and creativity tools, to research materials, to a wealth of content way beyond what any school can offer on its own, all  through devices in the hands of the students.    

But there are drawbacks;   1:1 devices are great but when the student goes home do they have access to high speed internet, parents that understand and embrace technology, etc.   1:1 devices can open a digital divide where the same divide isn’t as apparent when it comes to pen and paper, and school text books.     We also have the issue of students possibly spending too much time staring at screens particularly late at night, or if using devices simply to mindlessly scroll through social media content.     And linked to this students may start to suffer reduced attention spans and become more easily distracted as they become used to the constant notifications and alerts, the quick surfing from site to site, which is the staple of the internet.   We also have safeguarding risks, as although devices might be included in school filtering and monitoring, no filtering and monitoring solution is perfect meaning there is a risk students may be able to access upsetting or even dangerous content. 

The issue with all of this is that we cannot have the advantages without the disadvantages.  Its like having your cake and wanting to eat it.    And the same can be said for mobile phones in schools, generative AI and many other things.   Its not a binary, it’s a pluralism, that the good and the bad are linked and you cant have one without the other.   Faced with this it then becomes about risk or value based assessment.    Does the value of a tool, solution or process, outweigh the risk?   It also becomes about communication and transparency, being open within the school community including with parents about why something is being done, what the benefits are, what the risks are and how reasonable efforts are being made to reduce the risks,

Additionally, this gets me thinking of some discussion in Nassim Talebs “The Black Swan”.    It breaks down to, the more we learn, the less we know, which I think is attributed to Einstein.   So, as we learn more about the risks and about the complexity of the world we live in, plus the more we come to need to adapt to rapid change, the more we need to accept we know less than we think we do.   Given this, binary arguments as to how we should or shouldn’t use technology need to become a thing of the past.   The world is not that simple and clean.   We need to adapt a risk based decision making process, accepting pluralism.

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!

Wellbeing and muppets

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

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

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

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

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

FutureShots 2024, Part 1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Gondola Incident

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cardiff IT Event

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

Digital: The only path forward

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

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

Strategy

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

Cyber and data protection

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

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

Artificial intelligence

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

Conclusion and networks

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

Schools and Academies Show 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Google Discovery Day

I was lucky, thanks to a kind invite from Gemma Gwilliam, a colleague from the Digital Futures Group (DFG), to join staff from several Portsmouth schools in a visit to the Google offices in London.  Now I note my school largely uses Microsoft however I have made use of Google as the primary platform in previous schools I have worked with.    For me, the focus for all schools should be using the best tool for the job and therefore this may involve using Google and Microsoft tools at different times and for different jobs.   In this post, I would like to share just a couple of my key takeaways from the event.

Accessibility

This was definitely one of the key areas for the event in discussing the various gaps which exist within education, whether they are academic performance gaps or digital gaps.    The gap related to disadvantaged students, in particular, was discussed but also gaps in relation to accessibility related to special educational needs and disabilities were also raised, including a visit to the Google Accessibility Discovery Centre (ADC).  It was key for discussions and the various sessions which were delivered that technology, including Google technology, has such potential to help us with narrowing these gaps but in itself this presents a bit of a paradox as we would need to first address the gap of access to reliable infrastructure, devices, support, etc.   

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Unsurprisingly AI was on the list of discussion points and I was really happy to hear some of the same messages I have provided being reiterated.   I liked the example used in terms of how a generative AI solution works in particular.  We as humans when given a question use the information we have absorbed to predict the answer, and a generative AI solution isn’t that much different.  I also liked the comment in relation to hallucinations being a term we should avoid however my concern has always been about this anthropomorphising genAI solutions whereas on this occasion it was raised that it was providing an answer we didn’t expect or which was simply wrong;   Would we want our students claiming they had simply hallucinated or is a wrong answer a wrong answer?      The key here was definitely that AI will increasingly make its way into our daily workflows and the suggestion was that for many of us, it will simply appear in the products we already use and therefore will be almost transparent to us.   This seems to ring a bell as we have been using AI for a while in our spellcheckers, preference functionality in Amazon and Netflix and our search engines, yet have never really identified it as being AI as opposed to being simply how the platform works.

Networks and sharing

One of the key takeaways from this event as with so many other events I have attended is the power of a group of people sharing.   We might not all operate in the same context in terms of our schools, or have the same views, but together sharing ideas, successes and failures, we are all better collectively for it.   David Weinbergers quote continues to be my go-to quote:  “The smartest person in the room is the room”.   The more we share, the more we come together and discuss, accepting disagreement as much as we accept agreement, being brave and encouraging diverse people and views, the better we all are.  

Context is king

One of the other points which really stuck with me in the event was in a presentation which talked about educational research.  The key thing which chimed with me was a warning regarding people who quote that “research says…..”.    I have heard this so often however the reality is that most research is limited in scope to be suggestive in terms of the context, impact, application, etc.    That’s not to discount research as educational research is very important, but we mustn’t lose sight of the importance of context and how something that succeeded or failed in one content, may do the absolutely opposite in a different context.    Education is simply too complex with too many moving parts, the students, the teachers, the parents, the school and many more variables which means that research can be very helpful but it will never provide a cause and effect.   So it’s a great guide and provider of direction but never an out-and-out proof of what will work across all schools, students, etc, in general.

Conclusion

I very much enjoyed the event and feel I took quite a bit from it.   My day-to-day largely does involve Microsoft however I try to avoid referring to my school as a Microsoft school.   We seek to use the tools which have the best impact so it was great to see and hear what Google have to offer and there definitely was a lot that they can offer.  And, an opportunity to network with staff from other schools and contexts is always valuable.    This I suppose is why I believe so strongly in the Digital Futures Group which myself and Gemma are part of, and without which I am not sure this opportunity would have arisen for me.   The more networks like this that exist the better, and hopefully the DFG will help show some of the potential impact and point the way for others looking to set up similar networks.