I have this ongoing discussion with Ian Stuart from Islay about the worth of blogs and wikis. Ian is adamant that a wiki is infinitely more useful than a blog, but I like to uphold the value of blogging. The great thing about a wiki is it harnesses collective intelligence, where as a blog in many ways promotes the ’self’ – I’m sure I’ll return to this in the future!
Recently, a number of people blogged their thoughts about the things they had been to at SETT – whilst this has been very enlightening, I can’t help but agree with Ian on this one – it would have been much better as a wiki.

A number of people suggested to me that it would be good to have a wiki for discussing SETT, and I agreed. Only one person that I talked to about this (to my knowledge) set up a wiki, so it would be good if people could go and visit it – add in the things that you saw to the navigation and link to any posts that you have made about seminars/keynotes/spotlights etc. That way, there is a single point of reference for the web2.0 version of SETT 06, and a central place for discussion (and links to discussions that are already taking place)? Otherwise, what we have is lots of good discussion taking place in lots of different places. That’s great if you know where to look, but if you don’t then you’re missing out.

Great idea Kathleen – I hope it works!

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One of the things that I have been thinking about since SETT and TeachMeet06 was the difficulty many enlightened web2.0 teachers/users face when trying to incorporate web2.0 technology (or more specifically social networking software) into their own teaching environments. It’s one thing to talk about the potential uses of this technology, but as soon as your Local Authority blocks sites, then any advance is effectively impossible.

It’s easy for me to write about this, as in Argyll & Bute we presently block a number of really useful web2.0 tools – Flickr is the obvious example here.

At TeachMeet06, Neil Winton asked the perfectly reasonable question of ‘Who is it that decides what is an unacceptable website?’ – here in Argyll & Bute, there is a group that meet to decide what should be allowed through the content filtering system – the group is composed of teachers and technical staff. Ultimately, the teachers have the final say on curricular use of websites in education, with technical staff serving as very well informed advisers. I think it is important that there is a team approach to content filtering (if there is any need for it at all!)

Miguel Guhlin in Texas writes concerning this issue. He has set up a wiki that will allow folk to add to a list of open source, downloadable tools that local authorities could install on their internal servers. This would effectively create a ‘walled garden’ of tools that could be used in the educational establishment, and not have deal with firewall/content filtering issues as they are internal to the Local Authority. This is well worth a look. While many Local Authorities may be unwilling to free up access to international sites such as MySpace, Bebo or Flickr, they may be quite prepared to host a similar tool on an internal server.

This ultimately can only be second best. Ideally, we would have open access to all sites, and we would teach our young people how to surf appropriately and safely.  What if ‘Glow’ or ‘Glow 1.1′ had these tools as part of it? That would still be a walled garden, but a national one? Food for thought, maybe.

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A few moments in the last week have got me thinking about how much time I spend in front of a computer, or talking about matters educational.

At TeachMeet06 I was speaking with Nova and Ian at one point about how many feeds we subscribe to in our respective aggregators. I am appalled and ashamed at how many feeds I read on a far too regular basis. If it is possible to be addicted to technology, then from here on in I’m going to try and kick this addiction – and make no mistake about it – it is an addiction. I’ve spent far too many days trying to eat my breakfast whilst sifting through an over-full aggregator, when almost everything I subscribe to pertains to my job. I’ve answered the phone too many times outside of office hours to talk about educational issues, to the detriment of my own life outside work.

Now I’m going to try and get that back into perspective.

So forgive me, reader, if I don’t get back to you instantaneously, or if my reply only comes in office hours – but you’re asking me about work anyway, right?

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This year was quite hectic. I picked the best/worst day to have a closing date for my flat, and I wish I had been better prepared for the two days. Dishing out the free wifi was a disaster, so sorry to those of you that didn’t get it, or didn’t get very much of it. We will definitely sort this out for next year, so that folk can get access.

It’s always great to meet up with so many people from all parts of the country, but I always feel as though I don’t achieve what I hope to with my time at SETT. Next year I hope to be better organised in terms of my time.

What was my SETT highlight? Obviously the huge congratulatory hug from Nicola in the concourse when we discovered that I had infact sold my flat at the 12:00 closing date! Aside from this? TeachMeet06 was great, and Brian Boyd’s spotlight session was inspirational.

What was my SETT lowlight? Dr. Edward de Bono’s keynote. Perhaps I was expecting too much, but I was hoping for inspiration rather than sales pitch from a man that doesn’t need to do a sales pitch. The discussion in the TES Staffroom seems to agree here too.

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Dr. de Bono sat centre stage beside an overhead projector. Interesting to see, when over the last two days we have seen nothing but data projectors or flat panel screens. He then proceeded to draw curious illustrative diagrams that if seen without his narrative would have been largely unintelligible.

For around 2,400 years we have done nothing about teaching thinking – since ‘The Greek 3’ – Socrates, Plato, Aristotle.

100% of our teaching on thinking in school could be summed up by saying “Is it in the box?” – all that we presently do is test conjecture.

Judgement is all about the past, what we need is design. We need to think about what can be.

We are far too concerned with truth – not enough interest in possibility.

Software for human thinking

Operacy – the skills of doing, not just knowing.

(Atkey) Teaching thinking improved every other subject by 30-100%
Self-esteem increased by teaching thinking.

Argument – A says this, B says that. Why is this inefficient?  You don’t explore, you argue. You don’t investigate, C or D.

Parallel thinking is what we need instead. If everyone sees every angle, then we are in a far better position to discuss.

What are the 6 hats?

White – information – What do we have? What is needed? What is missing? How do we get it? Questions
Red – emotion - stating our feelings without any need to justify them
Black – critical thinking
Yellow – positive – what are the benefits and values?
Green – creative - effort to be creative, look for new ideas, alternatives, possibilities
Blue – organising (‘sky’ and ‘overview’)

Perception – 90% of errors in thinking are issues of perception
There are directions for attention in perception – C&S – consequence and sequel
PMI – ‘plus, minus and interesting’ look at these points in any issue of perception – what are plus, minus and interesting points?
OPV – Other Peoples’ Views
These attitudes on their own do not exist in the brain – acronyms however do exist in the brain – therefore we remember them

- I stopped typing here – for a couple of reasons. 1. Nicola and I had to leave to make another appointment. 2. I had lost all interest in what Dr. de Bono had to say.

Am I alone in this? I don’t think so. Having spoken with a number of people since, quite a lot of people felt quite ‘flat’ after this keynote. Dr. de Bono did spend quite a bit of time on a sales pitch – ‘so and so’ uses my theories, and ‘so and so’ also uses my theories. We get the point – I have no doubt as to the value of your theories, and you don’t have to sell anything to me to have received my attention. The title of the keynote specifically addressed ‘teaching thinking explicitly as a skill’, yet this was not the focus of the keynote. I’m sure there were many individuals present who were very familiar with Dr. de Bono’s theories, and who were looking forward to hearing about their application. This he did not address.

I guess I’m not too bothered that we left early therefore. On a positive, completely unrelated note, I did sell my flat today though!

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Here I am in my one and only spotlight session – Brian Boyd was my ‘Professional Studies’ class tutor when I did my PGCE, so I’m looking forward immensely to hearing him again.

Brian feels like the trailer for Edward de Bono! Up until today, he thought he was doing a workshop (he is speaking to hundreds of people just now in a packed Lomond suite)

From out of nowhere, this issue of creativity has appeared. Why? What is it? What has to happen to change to this? Dual focus – he will try and look at learning & teaching.

“When I look back at all the crap I learn in high school, it’s a wonder I can think at all” – Paul Simon.

One task – what question would you ask about this picture? (He is showing us a picture of a road leading directly away from us leading towards a mountain range in the far distance, with a sign containing a question mark.)

Key issues and advance organiser – what is creativity? Why is it important? How is it fostered? What are the challenges? (How) should we evaluate it?

Big ‘C’ or a small ‘c’? (Howard Gardner) Big ‘C’ is the Einstein, Picasso’s of the world – the ability to continue despite numerous failures. Our brains are designed to be creative.

‘Dispositions’ – (Perkins). We don’t seem to encourage a disposition in our young people to be creative. If anything, we seem to dismiss this by the tasks we ask. We need to do this with our teachers. Teacher in the past have been risk-takers – are we now?

Give us time to think about ACfE – don’t send us a grid – give us a couple of other inset days just to talk about it and to think about it.

Brian doesn’t think you can share good practice – you can take a cutting of it and plant it in your own environment.

Strategies and techniques – (Fisher)

Self theories – intelligence, self-esteem (Dweck)

We need to be talking about this with our kids and debunking some theories. Intelligence is plastic. Our kids need to know this. There is no correlation between intelligence and creativity – we need to know this too.

“Using the imagination to fashion outcomes which are of value”

Why is this important? Maya Angelou – “loving children to understanding” – how many of us in education are scared of this word ‘love’?

Economic competitiveness seems to be a driving focus in education – this worries Brian. This, if anything, should be a by-product of education.

Fulfilment of potential – lets not just take a snapshot of assessments – people fulfil their potential later on in life

Learning for the unknown – we need to teach people how to deal with what they don’t yet know – this is the complete opposite of what we presently do for SQA assessments.

Making connections – learning is a social process (Vygotsky)

How is creativity fostered?

Create obstacles, cognitive challenges, taking risks – are willing to celebrate failure? It isn’t a by-product – it is essential in our learning process.

Engagement, challenge, high expectation

Working with others – creativity needs to be collective – by its nature, it involves ‘trying out’

What are the challenges?

Learning without limits (‘Challenging Persistent Myths’ – Donald Macintyre, Stirling University) – as teachers, we need to ask can we realistically teach a class believing that all students are capable. Probably, we teach thinking that some are limited in their capability. Just because someone doesn’t understand something, doesn’t mean they are unintelligent, it just means that you can’t unlock their understanding.

Teaching for creativity – we need to start out with the belief that it is central. Why are we not still talking about ‘de-cluttering’? (Has anyone heard this term recently?) If we don’t say this, then we will never be creative – there simply isn’t the time. Encouraging innovative pedagogies – as teachers, we are duty bound to explore how we teach.

Creative curriculum; creative school. (ACfE) More democratic – the bureaucracy is what stifles creativity? Schools need to be far more collegiate and collaborative than they are at present.

Schools without walls (harnessing the community). We need to make use of the huge skill set out there.

(How) should we evaluate it? Please can we do this from the heart? Can we avoid grids and check-sheets?

Opportunities – if we can’t come up with them, then ask the kids.

Rich Tasks (Reggio Emilia) – by their nature, they will be cross-curricular

Qualitative, ‘soft’, collaborative, engaging… – how is this perceived?

Observation, interaction… this is far less intrusive than exams, rather we are looking at the individual.

“I hate to lose… but I’m not afraid to fail” – Thierry Henry.

Despite being in a packed Lomond auditorium, Brian did not have time for questions, as the vast majority there were leaving to go to Dr. de Bono.

I really enjoyed this session. When Brian was my tutor I found him refreshingly liberal, and it was great to hear him again. Frankly, he should have been doing a keynote.

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I’m always disappointed when there are conflicts on the SETT calendar. I really wanted to be at all of TeachMeet06, but equally I really wanted to hear people’s reactions to Ian’s seminar on the DIVA project with Macromedia. The result was that I missed the first half of TeachMeet06, but heard Ian. Compromise never creates winners, does it?

Not entirely sure what I missed in the first hour, as I was told it took a lot of time to get things set up. I think we have learned a lot from this event though!

After I got a seat (I realise how lucky I was to get one – the room was completely packed and spilling out into the corridor!) I listened to David speaking about Flickr, and then Sean and Katy speaking about Teen Second Life. We then had a quick introduction to Immersive Education’s ‘Media Stage’ (which I’m embarrassed to say has sat in my drawer since purchasing it at BETT – I was impressed then, now I’m even more impressed!) Last but not least was Ollie Bray speaking about geotagging using Google Earth and yahoo maps (I think – I was also in discussion in the corridor at this point!)

Did I enjoy TeachMeet06? – undoubtedly yes. Having spent a bit of today walking around a hall having sales pitches thrown at me, here was a wonderful group of people who were prepared to share for free. That’s worth it’s weight in gold in my opinion.

When we had the last ‘meetup’ in Edinburgh, I think there were about 8 of us in the pub, and then a different 8 met up for dinner. I suspect with all the comings and goings there would have been around 40-50 at TeachMeet06, and around 30 went for dinner.

Was TeachMeet06 worth it? – undoubtedly yes. Here was a group of people that organised an event in a wiki and got together and shared real ideas for using in the classroom. That to me is what SETT should be all about. All too often I see great things at SETT that have a hefty price tag, or sit in a ‘look at me’ seminar and fail to see how it could be applied well in a classroom. TeachMeet06 was completely different to this – a group of people who share. I don’t know about you, but I find that much more inspiring than looking at products that I know a departmental budget can’t stretch to.

Thanks to Ewan for all the hard work, Promethean (for the wifi) and Stormhoek (for the wine) – perhaps that’s why there were so many people present?

Also, it’s great to meet people you have been reading for ages. Great to put faces to Neil Winton, David Noble, Ollie Bray, Steve Beard, Sean and Katie Farrell and Mr & Mrs Blethers, and to meet Robert Jones.

Shame I didn’t get the chance to present on my ‘educationally seismic’ topic, but maybe I’ll post about that in the future?

Also a shame the event ran into the Glow mentor bash, as a great number of ‘scotedubloggers’ are now Glow mentors too. Anyway, here’s looking forward to the next one!

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Ian is a good friend of mine that teaches in Islay High School. Over the last session, Ian and a number of his pupils took part in the DIVA project with the SQA. The company Islay High partnered with were Macromedia (Now Adobe). They tested a new Intermediate 2 qualification in digital design using Macromedia (Adobe) Studio 8.

Having been closely involved in this project from the Local Authority perspective, I sat and listened to Ian as he gave his presentation instead of blogging notes live. I also took part in the discussion at the end of the session, answering some of the questions with my ‘Local Authority’ hat on.

The key to Ian’s presentation was the focus on ‘client brief’ – each of the students taking part in the project produced a website under the instruction of a ‘client’ – they then learned the skills in order to meet the client’s brief. It is great to see things turned on their heads, instead of the abstract teaching of skills that happens in the majority of our classrooms. (I realise that may be a sweeping statement!) Using this method, you learn the skills you need in order to achieve a task that is relevant. (As a teacher, the one question I always encouraged my students to ask was ‘Why?’ – this may have been easier for me as a teacher of RE/philosophy than it might be for others, but I doubt it.) Ian did not speak for the whole session, instead he encouraged a lively discussion following his presentation.

For many present at this seminar, the teaching of digital design was a welcome inclusion from the SQA. From a Local Authority perspective, I talked briefly about how we have since had discussions with the Art & Design and Computing departments in the other secondary schools in the Authority to see how we can take this course forwards in those other schools. This course is ideal as it gets departments working together – you get the ‘techy’ aspect from those that know it, and the design aspect from the artists – ideal in my mind.

It was good to be there for this session. Ian regarded this as ‘less exciting’ than the other presentation he was giving at SETT this year, but I for one think this type of course is really exciting.

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Instead of my usual forray into techy stuff at SETT, this year I thought I’d try and take in something that wouldn’t usually have jumped off the page at me. So here I am in the small (but select) company of about 20 folk to hear all about the ‘Money Week’ project. I love the idea of suspending the curriculum for a week, and doing something specific and multi-disciplinary, so I’m very interested to hear how this went.

Fiancial education is a cross-cutting theme. This bring a real link to employability, as the financial industry is a large employer in the UK. Lots of individuals struggle with managing money, so it is vital that we educate well. This is part of the anit-poverty agenda.

Roz is DHT at Dunblane primary. Resource that started a few years ago from a throw-away comment from HMIe – although kids had good numeracy skills, they weren’t financially savvy.

Money week is learning in context and a cross-curricular theme. Standard Life are paying for this to go into every school. Schools need to request this from LTS if they don’t get it. It covers financial understanding, financial competence, financial responsibilty, financial enterprise.

Change in shoppiing habits – very different to how we were taught. Credit and store cards. Kids didn’t realise that electricity is paid for (direct debit hides this transaction). Do kids understand that in order to take money out of a hole in the wall, you have to have money in the bank to cover it!

‘Prostitiute to Materialism’ – throw-away comment about Carol Vorderman’s loan adverts.

There are very few traditional shops – most kids experience shopping in different ways, yet traditionally we still teach handling money in the old ’shop’ environment.

We grew up in a cash based economy, but our kids have grown up (largely) in a credit based economy. Cultural diversity – Muslims for example cannot take part in interest reaping/gaining financial services.

Money week is in themes for each stage. Covers every area of the curriculum (except PE! – although you could have presumably done something with Nike etc and how they product test/develop/market – just a thought?)

It cost £48 to run Money Week for 19 classes and 2 pre-5 units. Not bad, eh? How much would you have been spending that week on ‘normal’ education?

If we don’t give our kids the opportunity to manage money, how can we expect them to be responsible citizens?

I found that quite interesting. I really like the idea of centrally coordinated and produced packs that schools can choose to use or not. I’m a great believer in cross-curricluar learning, so it’s great to hear of such an initiative.

The pack will be issued to schools by Christmas. If schools decide to run a Money Week, could they let Jim Lally at LTS know? It would be good to get a picture of how popular it has been across the country.

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Success and sustainability, by, with and across our schools.
No song to start?
Sustainable leadership. Concerned with 3 things – trying to understand what teachers do in their teaching – you need to understand who the teacher is. You need to know them – you don’t just wheel then in and out of a cupboard.
We need to know how to manage our classrooms, our pupils. It is an intellectual practice, about organising and communicating. An emotional practice – by desgn or by default. We need to take care of the emotional element of teaching. Too much educational change of late has focused on the ‘behavioural’ and ‘intellectual’ and not enough on the ‘emotional’ (well said!)
If we manage any change badly, then teachers become disaffected. When asked about change, a group of 50 teachers regarded it as largely negative. What about centrally managed change? Most stories people tell are about badly managed change. What about self-initiated change? Most stories told are exciting, empassioned accounts that they are happy to tell. Where did these accounts of change come from? In most cases the change agent initially was a central initiative – it was how they themselves as teachers had run with it. What made the difference between good change and bad change was the leadership given. The more leadership was distributed, the more effective change became.
It’s not just that leadership matters, it is that leadership is sustainable. They as leader build community, develop capacity, introduce new initiatives. Quite often, leaders regarded as ‘classically good’ leave before the results are seen, and leave no legacy for their successor to continue their plans. It is vital that leadership is sustainable therefore.
Sustainable development does not depleat other developments – it works in harmony with them. It is concerned with the sustainability of the teachers, pupils and community.
7 principles of sustainable leadership:
1. Depth - it matters – focus on learning first, achievement and testing will look after themselves
2. Endurance - it lasts - how do you spend special project money? Don’t spend on resources/coordinators that will disappear once the money has gone. Do we do this?
3. Breadth - it spreads - the more you distribute leadership, the better learning becomes.
4. Justice - it does not harm the surrounding environment – conditions should be as good (if not better) for the most disadvantaged students. This is one of the hardest challenges in sustainable leadership.
5. Diversity – it promotes diversity and cohesion – standardisation diminishes diversity. Weak organisations prescribe. Strong organisations have high degree of diversity in the curriculum and in their organisation and capacity.
6. Resourcefulness – it conserves expenditure – this is all about energy. Financial – there is no achievement without investment. The two go together. The second is human resources – you cannot build change without investment in human resources. How many people stop at DHT level? The pressures of work are too great at HT level, and many DHTs don’t want it. Generation X are a bit more careful about the work life balance, and are discerning – they don’t want the pressure of the top job. We need to change this.
7. Conservation – it honours the past in creating the future – build the future on what you value from the past. HTs are prone to the same problems. A good HT audits the assets it has – and builds on this knowledge. What are the key strengths in your school? Are you utilising these talents?
These 7 are vital – it’s not a menu. You can’t pick and choose. Some might take precedence at times, but you need to address them all. “It’s not the solutions that matter – it’s the way we approach the situation”.

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