teaching Scout

Honestly – would you on a day of your holiday – spend an evening packing your stuff, get up early the next day, get a ferry at 8o’clock in the morning drive for about 5 hours across Scotland just to do some CPD? Bearing in mind you’ve still got to get back home. Ian Stuart and Andy Wallis did. Are they insane? Nope – because there were teacher’s and educators from all over Scotland travelling for a few hours after a work to get to TeachMeetPerth. People joined the TeachMeet from even further afield through the Flashmeeting. Seriously I cannot recommend enough - if you do one piece of CPD in the coming year get yourself to a TeachMeet!

Why? It is full of enthusiatic, knowledgeable and practical teachers who share what works in the classroom. Based on experience, teachers have 7 minutes to share how they’ve been using Technology in the classroom. I have been priveledged to be at 2 TeachMeets and both times I have been bowled over at how I been made to feel part of a community of educators that love making things better for pupils. Getting involved in this has had a huge influence of how I have approached teaching. It not only provides me with a ton of ideas but allows me to reflect outwith my department.

So what did I learn. Firstly – I want to make it a long term target for myself to get 80-90% of pupil written work in a digital format. Why? Two reasons – from seeing Ian Stuart’s ease at which he organises, provides feedback and pupils collaborate on their handheld Q1’s – I want to do that. OneNote looks like a fantastic application – amazingly intuitive and easy to use. And also from Robert Jones’ recommendation: “where should we start the roll-out of 1-1?” and I want to be so ready that they couldn’t possibly choose anywhere else”. I don’t know how long it will take – but if I can and it’s practical I want to get rid of all unneccessary bits of paper both for me and the pupils.

The other person I thought was great was Nick Hood. He made a quick get-away afterwards and I really wish I had been able to speak to him. I admire the “no holds barred” way that he conducts himsself on the net – and I mean this in a positive way. He is refreshingly honest and humorous and his short presentation was cutting it all back to basics. You don’t need to go all high tech, just get a projector and a wireless mouse and there’s loads of potential. In his Authority everything is blocked and he gave a fantastic explanation of a teacher who refuses to give up and persists in finding effective ways of using the web2.0 tools that are out there.

Finally, a big heads up to Neil Winton, English teacher and blogger who organised the whole thing. His “7 tools in about 3 minutes” was a whirlwind tour of neat stuff that can be really useful in the classroom. In particular I loved Fleck, the website annotation tool. I can see loads of use for this in the design classroom. He also managed to book a pretty fantastic curry that allowed for some great chat.

So Islay Ian has a lot to live up to as he is proposing an Islay High School open day showcasing the unique things they are getting up to. In particular, I would love to see a school that has removed age and stage restrictions let alone a school with the lowest photocopying budget in the world* If you have one thing to do in June, get your ass self over to Islay High School, cos it looks like there might be another TeachMeet horizon!

*All I know is that the Design and Technology department managed to spend about £7 over the course of a year on photocopying. Eh, lets see someone beat that!

How many times have you heard ‘Aye, they did that 20 years ago, and then changed it and now they’re changing it back again”. Or “Yeh, it’s the next flavour of the month”.  I’ve only been a teacher for 10 weeks or so and I’ve heard it plenty. From a lot of different people. Different backgrounds. Different schools.

At our council CPD meetings the most people address us (the NQT’s) with the words “You are the future of teaching. You are young. You can make change happen”.

Change. It’s a big theme, and it’s not like it is new or is the flavour of the month. It is something that no-one can escape from. People 400 years ago were thinking pretty similar things to what you are thinking just now. Maybe in a different context, but essentially the same stuff. But turning to the voices of those cynics – why do it? “If its not broke, don’t fix it” Is education a series of cliches? Sometimes from my young eyes I feel that it could easily be if we let it. “Do you want a learning intention with that?” I heard that one in the staffroom. But I’m supposed to be part of something, the new blood, the teacher of the future. But how do I battle against the cynics? Why should it be a battle? Why do things seem to change so much? And why should they?

Even in this web2.0 arena which provides us with ‘tools’ that are coming out our ears, we seem to go through fads. I honestly hardly blog about all these technologies because I feel that by the time I blog it, it will be out of date and the next thing will have come along. In the same way (I am told) Education goes through fads. Does it? I seem to have started my career at the start of a God almighty changing point. AcFE, AifL, Sustainability, Citizenship, Health Promoting Schools, Enterprise. 

Could we all just not agree on something and stick to it? It would satisfy the cynics of change. But I know that this couldn’t be the case as education really is an evolutionary process. It needs to be diverse and different and suit the learner and teacher. So why, when I go to CPD, am I constantly told to incorporate a million different techniques and values into my lessons. I feel I should make up a checklist for myself: Enterprise, yes? Citizenship, yes? Use of technology, yes?

 I feel if you want us to be the ‘teachers of the future’ advise yes, but don’t suffocate.

Krysia’s dissertation

In the spirit of ’sharing’, here’s my dissertation ‘Sharing Good Practice: A focus on Collaborative Working’. Sounds fascinating? Well kinda, if you want to shoot me down – please don’t and just tell me it was very…’informative’.
When I was researching this area I found out a whole bunch of insightful things that I hope will give me  good footing when entering into teaching in August. Instead of writing an ‘abstract’ for you, here is some of the more salient points, in a much more informal manner than found in the PDF. I started off with the principle that ‘Working together is good. Working alone is (generally) not so good’. Yes, I know, kinda obvious.
If we are to work together for the better here is what I feel is vital:

• An approach is taken which focuses on the needs of the learner and teacher. To do this we (the teachers) need to be at the centre of decisions and NOT policy makers or traditional leaders

This of course needs a careful degree of facilitation to get us all working together….

• In my opinion this should be given in partnership with the Local Authority to start with who should figure out how much influence they should play in getting schools working together. It should be important that GROUND LEVEL LEADERS are used so as to make sure of the INCLUSION OF EVERY TEACHER. This is really vital, I got a clear opinion that there is a whole bunch of teachers who quite simply aren’t involved with others. If we are to change, then there is no point a select bunch of people thinking its fantastic. It should be important for us all to feel of value and included. I looked a lot into the idea of ‘flattening hierarchies’ and in the end figured that a bottom up approach is the best but I don’t think people will feel comfortable with a totally flat world.

Therefore

• The methods in which we work together to change and improve should cover as many bases as possible. If there is one that EVERYONE should focus on, it’s lesson observation – it offers us a place to keep any ‘debate’ focused within the realities of the classroom (pupils/ teacher at heart). Getting into each others classes on all levels, HT, PT, class teacher etc etc, not assessing each other but figuring out together what the best way of do things is.

But

• For us to feel comfortable doing this, we need the right climate. My favourite phrase is this ‘FAILING FORWARD’. At the moment I feel that education is in a bit of a straight jacket of do’s/don’t/target’s/ and measures (though probably less so than before). We don’t want to look stupid infront of other people and as a result even our blogs are sometimes too carefully considered for really cool innovation to happen. Sometimes it is better to think out loud – I mean we’re all in a constant state of change anyway so exposing others to our strengths/weaknesses should allow for greater confidence and willingness to move forward.

My research wasn’t really focused on blogging or all the fantastic web2.0 technologies open to us. Though, as usual I’ve figured out some opinions/questions that I think the blogging community should consider (or have you already?)
We’ve got the potential for real large scale change. Yeh? Well it’s not going to happen with a ‘community’. It’s going to happen with everyone. At the moment I’m getting (really good) community vibes, but everyone needs to be given the opportunity to embrace web2.0. Some of my research REALLY REALLY REALLY showed this wasn’t the case and it made me concerned.
But change is slow isn’t it? Of course, but I think the way to tackle it is to allow every teacher to web2.0 opportunities IN A WAY THAT IS RELEVANT TO THEM. Not everyone wants to express their opinion – (haha, I’m one to talk) – and these people need to be given opportunity to feel ‘safe’ in working with everyone else.
Also, I feel that blogging is so broad. People are talking about everything. But I feel that we should adopt common focus to make change for the better. It may just be me, but there is so many things and ideas going on I feel it could be a bit of an innovation overload (what a phrase). If we really focused on some certain areas and all chipped away at them, would that not be better?

I’m gonna stop there, I think I’ve covered enough for just now. There’s loads more I’d love to say and question but maybe later. If you read my dissertation then read the Literature Review/Results/ Recommendations as they’re the bits with (what I feel) is good info. Enjoy!