‘When the winds of change come, some build walls, others build windmills” - Ancient Chinese proverb.

Today I had the privilege of attending the ‘Building Windmills: Ayr’ event taking place in the new building of Kyle Academy in South Ayrshire. There, I joined with all the Head Teachers of South Ayrshire for day one of a two day CPD event looking at what they collectively can do in this time of great change. (If you want to see what was tweeted about it, follow the hashtag #bwayr)

I was lucky enough to be presenting this morning – you can find my slides embedded here:

This isn’t the first Building Windmills event I’ve attended. I was fortunate to be in attendance in Feburary of this year when Con Morris brought his astonishing idea to life in Stirling for all the CPD Coordinators for the 32 local authorities, and indeed, fortunate enough to be speaking then too. (If you’ve got a Glow account, why not check out the Glow group for the first Building Windmills event?)

My thanks to Fiona Taylor and Alastair Smith for inviting me to speak to their Head Teachers in the Local Authority. I know time is precious, so I really appreciate the attention they gave me for my session, and for the amount of time they as the senior managers in schools are devoting to this activity. They meet 5 times per year, but this two day event was an addition.

What did I make of day 1?

The day started with a thought piece from John McCarney of RM. I’ve never actually hear John speak before, so it was good to hear the thoughts of the man behind education at RM speak on a subject close to his heart. Of the thinkers John chose to illustrate, I was reminded once more of the work of Prof. Wim Veen on what he chooses to call ‘Homo Zappiens‘, and how radically different the information rich, connected world is of our young people today compared with that in which I grew up in the 70’s and 80’s. Times really are a changing.

I followed John, covering what I like to call the three ‘elephants in the room’ – the things we know we need to talk about, but don’t feel comfortable doing. The three things I think leaders need to address in their establishment to make more effective use of technology are 1. access to technology, 2. teacher competence, and 3. collaboration. This promoted a lively debate about what kit schools are allowed to purchase, and how much time we devote to CPD.

After I had spoken, we had lunch, closely followed by Ollie Bray covering a whole host of new technologies that he feels Head Teachers need to know about. I could listen to Ollie for hours on this subject, as he has so much to share and puts things in such simple terms that people can easily identify with and understand. He covered a great variety of tools including Google Alerts, Google Reader, Delicious and Twitter amongst others, each with a grounded story of why they have made a difference to his competence and ability as an educator. The furious scribbling I could see from the participants proved to me that he had given a great many ideas for them to follow up.

After Ollie, Mr. CPD himself Con Morris took to the floor. He led the group in a specially prepared version of the Random Activity Generator to help us all think creatively. The topics ranged from ‘professional competences as product packaging’ to ’support for NQTs as a weather forcast’. Initally, this activity was met with what would be fair to say were looks of shock (you want ‘me’ to do ‘what’?), but very soon, folks seemed to get into the swing of it.

That ended our day. Unfortunately, I’m not going to be there for day two, so I hope they get the chance to build on what was covered today. Tomorrow, there’s another thought piece from Ollie, and then a look around the great use of Glow around the country from my colleague Katie Barrowman, and then a further task session led by Con.

What did I make of the event?

I always seem to be impressed by what I hear South Ayrshire do at the moment. It’s no surprise to me that they have the vision to try out this event in their own locale, and I hope that other Local Authorities follow suit. Any local authority that has the conviction to spend such an amount of Head Teacher time on a development challenge is going to reap what it sows. If we want to see change in our education system, then it needs to be led by example. The discussions I was involved in today, lead me to believe that South Ayrshire are facing this challenge head on.

The south-western coast of Scotland is notorious for it’s windy conditions. I don’t expect the educators of South Ayrshire to be building walls to deal with this in the future.

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I’ve often found the terminology used to describe portable computers as quite funny – laptops are more often used on desks (but the name ‘desktop’ has already been taken by hulking great devices that frequently sit underneath desks – go figure), notebooks don’t resemble ‘notes’ or ‘books’ at all, and netbooks similarly lack any ‘bookish’ quality.

For many people, the greatest hurdle to get over when using technology is that it just isn’t intuitive – turn on any device and many absolute beginners still don’t know where to start – no doubt why Microsoft in 1995 chose to label a button ’start’ to give people an idea of what to do next.

With multi-touch technologies, things have got slightly easier – if you’re not sure what to do, give something on the screen or surface a prod, and something invariably happens.

For most people, the transition to using technology happens because they are looking to do something they already do, but in a more productive way. For this reason, the post throughout the week on Gizmodo caught my eye, as I’m always interested in new devices/interfaces to help people get the most out of technology. It turns out Microsoft have been working in secret on a ‘booklet’, and for almost the first time ever, I’m looking at a device that actually warrants that term. It looks just like a book, but with all the advantages of digital connectivity.

What do you think? Is this something that learners or those fearful of embracing technology could easily make use of? I’ll await pricing/specifications with interest.

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‘Rescind’ is a strong word – if I could, I’d probably take that one back.

Today I re-tweeted a message from Alan Stewart concerning Chartered Teachers. Very quickly, Fearghal Kelly and Andrea Reid commented that they disagreed with the comment Alan had made, and therefore by association with me for re-tweeting it.

It’s too much to explain in 140 characters, hence a blog post to explain why I re-tweeted what Alan had to say.

From the off, can I say that I think the concept of Chartered Teacher is a great one.

Years ago, I watched with interest as people went for promotion as Senior Teachers. A large number of them had no interest in management positions, but rather wished to be recompensed at a higher rate than a classroom teacher for their experience and ability. Until the role of Senior Teacher was introduced, for many people in education the only way they could gain a higher salary than a classroom teacher was to go for a management role.

When the Chartered Teacher programme was introduced, I immediately agreed with it. I though it was great that teachers could be rewarded for their experience and ability, and receive a higher rate of pay for it. I also thought it was great that in order to become a Chartered Teacher, one could either be rewarded for work already done in their field of expertise, or could study a number of modules or units to gain an increasing higher qualification and pay in relation to their work.

I’ve watched with interest how this role has developed, and with some concern that CT would go the way of ST in many schools, as being another rung on the promotion ladder.

Over time, I’ve met a number of people in education that were probably brilliant teachers, but didn’t display the same level of ability as managers. Many of these people found themselves ‘forced’ (by society and the beautiful term that Oliver James uses to describe a particular condition he feels we in the ‘West’ suffer from – ‘Afluenza’) to go for promoted posts in a bid to gain a higher salary, yet would probably have served education far better had they stayed at what they were good at – classroom teaching.

I really like the notion that a teacher can be rewarded and achieve recognition for staying in the classroom, by following the chartered teacher programme. I think it’s important that ability and experience can be rewarded.

At the moment, I am not registered as a teacher with the General Teaching Council for Scotland (although a couple of months ago I did send away for the pack to re-register). When I took up a secondment with LTS a couple of years ago, it seems my registration fell between two stools – my then employer stopped deducting the fee from my salary, and my new employer didn’t pay it either. Five years out of the classroom as an Education Support Officer, and two years down the line with LTS I would argue that I don’t have recent classroom experience. Should I just be able to re-register as a teacher because I have been continually working in the field of education? If I hadn’t driven a car for 7 years, would you feel comfortable being a passenger with me at the wheel?

Alan suggested that if someone has been out of the classroom for more than 5 years, they should have their CT status rescinded. I re-tweeted that statement. Why? To me, the entire point of CT was to reward and recognise someone’s dedication to classroom teaching. I have no objection to people taking up secondments and spending some time out of the classroom – in fact, I think many educators would benefit from doing so. But if someone is out for more that 5 years, are they dedicated to classroom practice? Should they go back in at the same level? I think that rescind is too strong a word, but I would call into question someone’s commitment to classroom teaching if they haven’t been doing it for more than five years.

What do others think? How recent does experience have to be to still hold validity?

(On a vaguely related note, does everyone else RT only when they completely agree with a statement, or when they find it interesting/controvertial?)

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