The BETT conference is now only two days away.  Now I won’t actually be going on day 1 however I do plan to be visiting with some colleagues on Thursday.    I haven’t attended the BETT conference in over 8 years having been out of the UK for that period of time although I have attended similar events in the UAE including BETT and BFE, before they were discontinued, and then GESS and GEF following that.

As I prepare to visit BETT I would like to summarize some of my predictions and hopes for the event.

Interactive display technology including the humble Interactive Whiteboard is likely to still occupy a significant number of the vendor stands on display.   I am unhappy with this given that IWB technology is now around 25year old however equally I can understand why this might be the case:  IWB technology is interactive plus can be demonstrated without any real preparation and where visitors are not required to have any pre-requisite skills, experience or learning.   In a class this lack of need for pre-requisite skills is useful at the start of the year when students are new however students don’t remain new for very long.

I expect to see a number of content vendors on show selling interactive content designed for various subjects.   Again this is not something I am particularly fond off mainly due to the wealth of free content available on the internet plus the ease with which content can either be created or adjusted by teachers as needed.

I have noticed an increasing number of learning platforms, especially cloud hosted systems, making appearance.   I would suspect this trend will continue at BETT.

I expect to see most vendors offering solutions which are incremental improvements on what they previously have offered.    I accept that this incremental approach may result in improvements although I question the magnitude of the improvements.    I doubt we could consider the improvements to be innovative and it is something innovative I am seeking.   I also question whether rather than seeking to be slightly better we should be seeking to do something different, something creative and to bring about disruptive innovation.

My hope is to see some vendors with something truly creative and original.   I know of one vendor who will be in attendance who will be demonstrating something which at least partially fits my criteria.   They will be demonstrating giant dice like devices which students can sit on but also which students can interact with as part of the lesson, passing and throwing around, answering questions by orientating the dice in various ways.  Student interactions with the devices can then be communicated back to a teacher device via Bluetooth allowing for assessment of learning to take place.    As such learning becomes both a physical and mental activity while providing teachers with data as to student learning.

I observed another example of what I consider innovative at an event in the UAE.   It was a School Management System styled like a social media site with the system making predictions as to what information and users may be useful much in the same way Amazon or similar shopping site predict what other items we may wish to consider buying.   The system also made use of a very visual user interface.   Sadly since the demo I have been unable to locate this solution so either it never went beyond demo stage or it went out of business at some point.     Although the fact it doesn’t exist now is hardly a great selling point, I think the underlying idea had lots of merit and was in a number of ways, innovative.

I hope that BETT will include a number of creative and new solutions for use in learning and that my visit to BETT on Thursday fulfills my expectations!   Only time will tell!!

This increase in teaching and learning options puts a demand on IT support and on a schools’ IT services to be flexible and dynamic enough to support these new options.   My belief has always been that the focus is on teaching and learning and therefore it is up to a schools’ IT services to find or develop solutions which provide for the needs of the students, teachers, parents and other stakeholders.   As such IT services should act as an enabler to allow stakeholders to use the resources which they need.

The issue here is that IT services have a number of constraints acting upon them that may run contrary to the needs of the users.   One such constraint is that of budget and especially total cost of ownership.   Users may want specific equipment to meet their specific needs however this usually costs significantly more than having standardised equipment across a school.   Standardised equipment is also easier and therefore cheaper to support.   Interoperability of systems is also an issue as end users may want specific software however this software may not work in conjunction with other software being used within the school.    Another constraint is that of legal requirements.   A school’s IT services has to be conscious of the Freedom of Information Act and Data Protection act among others.   If teachers are making use of a variety of different cloud based services such as Edmodo, ClassDojo or Google Classroom how can a schools IT services ensure that the information held on these sites is kept up to date plus how can the school ensure that they have up to date records as to what data is held on which sites plus who is responsible for this data and ensuring it remains up to date.

The key as far as I see it is balance as it is important for IT services to support the needs of those engaged in the critical job of teaching students.   That said, IT services has a responsibility to bring their skills and expertise to the table to ensure that solutions are in line with legal requirements plus are scaleable and sustainable for the longer period.

Image courtesy of Salvatore Vuono at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The EdTech presenters at these events often present some very good examples of approaches they are using within classrooms or schools.   The use of iPads has been a central theme across a number of presentations I have seen over the last year or so.   The discussion of EdTech as a disruptive force operating on education to bring about change has also been discussed on numerous occasions.     The issue is that these presentations although sometimes excellent are not mirrored in the average practice I see within schools even where schools have the equipment.    Added to this is the issue that not all schools have the equipment as evidenced by one attendee at a session I ran recently who pointed out all my web app ideas were great however wouldn’t work in his school as there was no Wifi capabilities in classrooms.     As such should we be spending so much time discussing EdTech and how it can improve learning?

I suggest that the answer is that we shouldn’t be spending quite so much time on EdTech and that we should re-examine the balance of our educational discussing.    For me the answer might lie in those schools where EdTech is being used very successfully to encourage and support collaboration, communication, etc.   The successful use of EdTech did not come about because of the introduction of the Tech.  A school culture which encourages creativity, collaboration and the valuing of ideas within a supportive environment plays a large part in making successful use of EdTech.   Teachers need to feel they can try new things, even where they fail, that they can seek support from others and that they can share ideas.    This is all to do with an open or healthy school culture.   So a school effectively using EdTech is likely to have an open and healthy culture.

Considering a school with an open or healthy school culture but without the EdTech resources or with limited EdTech resources again we would expect sharing and collaboration.   Again this would be expected to lead to positive learning experiences for students as teachers discuss and share ideas to ensure students receive the best experience possible.   Where a limited amount of Tech was available it should also lead to the creative and effective use of this tech to leverage the maximum impact possible from it. So an effective school, whether not it is using EdTech effectively, is likely to have an open and healthy culture.

So if the culture of a school is so important to schools in general as well as to schools engaged in using EdTech why is so very much of the educational conference time spent on discussing EdTech?     Should we not be spending less time discussing EdTech and much more time on discussing creating open, positive and healthy school cultures?   Now it may be that culture, as a very intangible trait of schools, may be more difficult to discuss and therefore we are choosing the easy option in the tangible EdTech or it could be related to the many vendors trying to sell us the latest tech?    Either way I think we need to relook at the balance of our educational discussions.

Image courtesy of digitalart at freedigitalphotos.net

Walking around I saw some very interesting stands providing quite specialist engineering equipment such as pneumatics equipment for students studying technology, or robotics equipment.    There were also specialist stands for those seeking furniture, uniform or manipulatives for use with younger children.   Now I suspect last year these stands were at the conference however I myself failed to notice or pay much attention to them.    This year I paid a little more attention.

So, to the more common stands……..and yes, once again Interactive Whiteboards were very predominant.     There were a mixture of fixed boards and datashows, datashows with integrated IWB capabilities, as well as touch screen displays.      Vendors demonstrated the various “unique” features of their software;  One vendor showed how the display could be split into 4, so that 4 students could interact with the display at once, with each students contributions individually coloured.   Despite all the “unique” features of each vendors offering I could not help but see an IWB as being nothing more than an IWB; a technology created over 20 years ago, which is fixed in place almost always at the “front” (Why does a learning space have to have a front?    Does the teacher really need a desk as the centre of classroom attention?   Should an IWB be the focus of attention?   Or should the space be about learners and learning, changing as required?)  of the class and can be interacted with by only a small number of students at a time.   Also, after over 20 years, these devices still remain relatively expensive.    Why is this technology still so popular and why isn’t it seen as old technology?

The other thing that was quite common at the conference was media rich content.    A number of companies were providing their answer to where schools can find content to engage learners.   Now some of this seemed ok especially where the content was designed for younger students and as such was very graphical and simple in nature in order to appeal to younger children.    I could see this content working across most schools assuming it is multilingual or in the language of the school it is aimed at.   However I questioned the materials available for older age students;  Why would I pay for content when I can easily find content on the web through YouTube and a multitude of other websites.   I can have students develop their own content using a number of applications or can even develop my own materials as the teacher, such as where I intend to use the flipped classroom model.       How often am I going to use the content I purchase and is it worth the cost given this?

Now you may be reading this and thinking I have a very negative view of GESS/GEF; I don’t.    The conference had some very good presentations, and I only visited on day 1.    I am sure this will continue to be the case of days 2 and 3.   The fact that vendors at the show seem to focus on IWBs and also generic content meant to fit all schools, is a concern.     So what is the solution…….I am not sure at this point, although I suspect it will be different for each school.   I think it relies on dynamic content created by teachers and students to match the needs of students and learning, as they/it changes from day to day, week to week and year to year.

Maybe GESS/GEF 2015 will include a vendor with a solution.   We will need to wait and see!

Daily I read about ideas for the use of ICT within learning and teaching.    A large number of the ideas presented often rely on the availability of a laptop, desktop or tablet per student or small groups of students.   Some of the ideas rely on a 1:1 laptop or tablet scheme, a BYOD/BYOD implementation or a school which invests heavily in mobile technologies for use in its classrooms.   All of this is excellent for those schools which have this equipment.  ( I suspect these schools are still in the minority within the world as a whole however the number is growing, although I have no real evidence to support this belief )

But what about those schools which do not have this kind of equipment.    I think it is safe to say that the common IT equipment found in schools, is likely to be IT hardware centralised in IT Labs plus maybe a data projector and desktop in classrooms.    So how best can classroom teachers across subjects make use of limited equipment, where only limited equipment is available, to integrate ICT into their lessons?    What websites, simple peripherals, applications, etc. have you used?

Consider the situation where a teacher shares a resource with students via a blog or a website, or via google drive or some other method.    The student accesses this resource using their browser of choice.    Should they find it useful they automatically bookmark it for later use, or if the relevance is to their studies is very clear they may instantly drop the resource into google drive.   Having done so the student realises that their friend is off ill, so they share the item via google drive with them, sending an email, using their mail client of choice, to their friend to let them know about the lesson and the shared file.   A thought then strikes the student about something similar they have recently read online so they look through their browser history to find the material, before tweeting the URL to the class group so that they too can consider this in their studies.

The above example shows personalisation at work.    The device is the students own device and therefore has the applications they use already setup with the appropriate account details already entered.   As such the student can seamlessly move between applications, sharing, collaborating, researching, creating and more.

As a teacher I find myself doing the same.    I find a useful tweet and I retweet it, and I might email myself the link for later reference.   If it is appropriate to what I am doing or to what my colleagues are doing, I may share it with others via google drive.    If it is an image I may make use of pinterest for sharing or I might include it in a prezi or share it via slideshare.   I move between my chosen applications quickly and easily.

So the question is can we as teachers in the current technological world continue to prevent students from bringing their own devices into the class or should we embrace personalisation and endeavour to reap the benefits which it may present?

As I drove the long, relatively straight and fairly unpopulated road, I sat thinking about my post from yesterday, the day I had spent discussing ICT in schools and also the whole issue of encouraging the use of ICT in lessons across a school. The word “school” in the phrase “ICT use in lessons across the school” stuck in my head and I couldn’t work out why. As such I gave some thought to what it meant I arrived at the fact that it referred to the use of ICT by all teachers in the school. The word “school” was being used as a general term to cover all those involved in teaching.

So all teachers should use ICT, but are teachers not each individual’s with individual skills and experience? Is the job of the teacher not to provide students with the best learning experiences possible, even if that may not involve ICT?

As a teacher said to me, some staff have very basic ICT skills and are not that motivated towards the use of ICT. If they provide high quality learning experiences, should this matter?

This brought me back to the term “school”. It was being used as a general term to mean all teachers as the school is the sum of all teachers efforts, among other things. But what if what “school” should mean, is that across the school there should be SOME evidence of ICT use in lessons? It would then be for school leaders to decide what “Some” means in terms of how often, how many teachers, etc, and this decision could be justified based on knowledge of the staff, equipment available, etc.

We often refer to the need to use ICT in lessons because our students live in a technological world and have been brought up with this level of technology however how often do we consider that some teachers were not brought up in this world, barely engage in the digital world in their daily lives and are not motivated towards it. We don’t consider it fair to drag students back, but have no concerns about pulling ALL teachers forward, despite the fact that there are those that neither have the skills, experience or the motivation.

Consider the factors that might impact of the use of technology within a school:

• Availability of appropriate hardware and software including internet access and filtering
  • In IT labs or centralised areas
  • In classrooms
  • Student equipment
  • Mobile equipment
  • Availability of appropriate IT support staff
  • Teacher IT skills and IT confidence including motivation
  • Teacher pedagogy with regards using IT in teaching
  • School culture and in particular opportunities to share and discuss ideas for using ICT
  • School IT strategy
  • School vision for IT within teaching and learning
  • School budgets for equipment, time for sharing and professional development

Now I don’t believe these are the only issues.   In addition the issues are not fixed, and change with time plus they are interdependent.   Consider the availability of hardware and software;   The computer hardware ages with time and therefore becomes less usable in classrooms, which in turn leads to a reduction in teacher motivation towards the use of IT.    This reduction in motivation then gathers pace and results in a change in the school culture with regards sharing ideas and discussing IT usage in lessons.

So how do we make sure IT is used effectively in lessons?

I can’t help but think that it is up to every teacher to do the best they can with what they have; Not exactly a new perspective given we hope that teachers do this in respect of all resources at their disposal or not at their disposal as the case may be.

It is up to schools to try and provide everything else to help teachers do the best they can.   Now the key here is how do we know what teachers need.   The answer is, schools need to ask.    Schools need to enter into dialogue with teachers as to what they need and what they want.    This then needs to be aligned with whole school needs, curriculum needs and needs of external bodies including school inspectors, but it should start with the teachers.

Do all teachers in a school need the same thing?   Do the same IT tools work in all subjects, at all times for all teachers?    I would suggest not, plus would suggest that for some teachers, ICT may be an area of weakness, however their teaching may be outstanding.    Now this is not to suggest we shouldn’t use ICT in lessons, but maybe we should look more carefully at those who we wish to use it and what they want and need, as the professionals who are responsible in the classroom for the learning that takes place.    We should also look more at a varied rather than standardised ICT provision across schools, as this is more likely to meet the needs of individual or groups of teachers.

Does anyone work in such a school where a diverse range of ICT resources are provided across different groups and individuals with the school?     Or are we all working with the “schools” ICT equipment?

So where to begin:  Well I think the best place to start is to look at what the 21 century skills are.   The Partnership for 21^st Century skills identified 6 key areas:

1. Thinking critically and making judgements
2. Solving complex, multidisciplinary, open ended problems
3. Creativity and entrepreneurial thinking
4. Communicating and collaborating
5. Making innovative use knowledge, information and opportunities
6. Taking charge of financial, civic and health responsibilities

The question then becomes how can IT help in develop these skills required for the 21^st century, or is that the right question?    Consider the world we now live in and the 6 areas listed above; which of the areas could or maybe more accurately, would be, done without IT?

Points 2, 4 and 5, I would argue, would not normally be undertaken without IT.   To solve complex, multidisciplinary problems requires collaboration, communication, research and analysis.   Communication and collaboration in the current world involves the likes of skype, twitter, google drive, pinterest and a whole manner of other software and apps, to bring people together such that geography is no longer an issue, and sharing ideas, thoughts and questions is easy.    As to knowledge and information, and also research I do not think we can discuss these areas, in the current world we live in without the word “Google” popping to mind.   Now that covers 50% of the points, so 50% of the 21^st century skills would normally involve IT so why isn’t  IT more embedded in education?   Why are we still looking to use IT as an “aid” to develop skills which actually necessitate the use of IT?

Now I could also argue that IT has its part to play in critical thinking and in creativity however I am not going to do so, as I think another problem lies here.      In what way do we teach students to be critical and creative thinkers, to question to norms, to be innovative?      I don’t think we do quite enough of this, mainly because we are busy teaching students the “right” answers, so they can pass the tests, get good marks, improve league tables and help to make the country look better in the all important standardised tests.   As such students’ critical judgements are only valid as long as they are in the domain of the teaching they have received, but outside this domain who is to say they will fare as well?   As to their ability to be creative thinkers, I think almost no time is set aside in schools to help develop this area.   Please note I am talking creative thinking here, and not Art, Music or Drama, as I am sure I can hear some people reading this, in the far corners of the web, muttering regarding the fact students receive lessons in these subject areas to provide them an opportunity to be creative.

All in all education has a way to go in terms of helping students develop the skills required of the 21^st century.   Let’s just hope we get it right before the 22^nd century is upon us!

References

21^st Century Skills, Education and Competitiveness (2008),The Partnership for 21^st Century Skills.
Image from http://www.freedigitalphotos.net : “Technology In The Hands Of Businessmen” by KROMKRATHOG

Traditionally IT within schools has taken the form of IT labs filled with computers.   In some schools these may be in use all of the time, however in other schools these are often empty and underutilised.   Recent years and the reduction in the costs of mobile technology and wireless infrastructure have allowed some schools to exploit technologies which can be redeployed easily within schools, in ways the traditional IT lab hardware could not be.   Moving a little further forward to today we find large numbers of students with access to personal devices they can use in learning.   These may be mobile phones, tablet PCs or various types of laptop, however they belong to students and therefore could support students in their learning across all subjects as they carry it with them.   Isn’t this want integrating IT into learning is all about?   My son already uses my phone to use apps when we are out and about, he uses an Android and a Blackberry tablet at home, and he is only 7.

At this point I normally hear people comment about what a simplistic view I am taking.  Some of the arguments against this approach are:

• What if the equipment is lost or damaged at school?
• How do we keep control of student school data?
• How do we keep students safe when using their own equipment in school?
• How do I create lessons for use across different platforms in school?
• What about students who don’t have devices to bring to school?

For those without IT equipment, surely schools can provide for these students at cheaper cost and greater impact than they can when installing traditional IT labs which result in very variable student:computer ratios, which do not even taken into consideration actual machine utilisation.     Looking at the other arguments I could present an answer to each of the above issues however I am choosing not to right now.   Instead let us consider a common factor of the above: school.     In schools we assume students have to be perfectly safe, data mustn’t be lost and all equipment must work.   We also provide a set of software which we decide is appropriate.    In other words we create a separate IT world in which to teach.    Schools, their teachers and leaders assume responsibility for all aspects of IT usage however due to the predominance of technology and in particular Wifi and cloud based apps is this reflective of the real world?    Should students not be taught and required to take responsibility for equipment and data as they will need to in life beyond school?   Should they not be taught to deal with issues with technology as they arise?

We aim to use IT in a little safe bubble, where we can use IT without concern and as such we limit ourselves.   Now this is not to say that some things, such as certain websites, don’t need to be blocked, controlled or limited, however surely educating students to the dangers and also harvesting student ideas as to technology, especially given they have grown up with it, would yield greater long term benefits.

Now some schools are using BYOD/BYOT and embracing the opportunities it presents, and also the restrictions and difficulties it brings, as surely any new approach will, however why is it that so many, if not the majority, of schools persist with traditional IT Labs?    This is more surprising still when you consider the potential budgetary advantages as well as learning opportunities which the use of BYOD/BYOT may bring to schools.

Image from http://www.freedigitalphotos.net, Contributed by adamr