Latest from Tech & Learning in Techlearning-international

Inspecting Computing in Schools: 6 Research Questions

Terry Freedman — Fri, 29 Sep 2017 00:10:00 +0000

There was a time, in the dim and distant past, when the schools inspectorate for England and Wales carried out subject inspections -- and published periodic subject reviews. Amongst the most useful, for those of us whose main concern was information technology, were the reports on ICT -- Information and Communication Technology.

cross-posted at www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Digital Education."

The Computing Curriculum in England: A Timeline of Hopes and Experience

Terry Freedman — Mon, 10 Jul 2017 06:06:00 +0000

Has the Computing Programme of Study been an unequivocal success? In my article It Wasn’t Me Wot Done It, Sir! The Depressing State Of Computing As A Subject, I said that many students were voting against Computing qualifications with their feet, and also that girls were under-represented. Moreover, I stated that the situation was entirely predictable (many of us indeed had predicted it).

I expanded on the article in my newsletter, Digital Education, by including a list of references for people to consult if they wished to.

Basically, the story is one of hubris.

Does it matter? Yes. Computer Science is a great subject, but it isn't for everybody. We need ICT qualifications too. Unfortunately, in terms of both school qualifications, in which ICT has disappeared, and the Computing Programme of Study, which many people seem to interpret as 'coding', choice has disappeared. What happened to the concept of a 'broad and balanced' curriculum?

In this article I set out what I see as the key milestones in the journey to where we are now. I have included quotes from the sources, and also given the source in each case so that you can check out the sources yourself.

cross-posted at www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Digital Education."

It Wasn’t Me Wot Done It, Sir! The Depressing State of Computing as a Subject

Terry Freedman — Wed, 05 Jul 2017 06:50:00 +0000

Well here’s a surprise. Apparently, students are abandoning Computer Science in droves. Many of us in ed tech have been warning for ages that this would happen, and that girls in particular were being put off from taking the subject. Now the BBC has picked up on it, in a report by Rory Cellan Jones entitled Computing in schools - alarm bells over England's classes.

What I find galling is that nobody responsible for this situation has stood up and said “Sorry, we got it wrong”. They have pointed out that their preferred more balanced version of the Computing programme of study was rejected, which is true. I have even heard one person state that the reason for the emphasis on coding is that the media focused on it, which is dubious. That wasn’t the impression I had at various conferences — see, for example, my article The hidden messages behind the Year of Code.

cross-posted at www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Digital Education."

Our Lives in Data: London Transport

Terry Freedman — Mon, 22 May 2017 06:00:00 +0000

Inside a London Bus, by Terry Freedman

There is a small but interesting exhibition in the Science Museum in London. Called 'Our lives in data', it tells us how our data is collected and what is done with it -- or could be done with it. And it challenges us to think about how much data we are prepared to give away.

cross-posted at www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Digital Education."

Conference: Global Teacher Education Knowledge Mobilisation Summit

Terry Freedman — Mon, 01 May 2017 06:10:00 +0000

I think it's well known that there is a teacher retention crisis as well as a recruitment crisis -- not just in the UK but across the world. So this summit is very timely, as is focused on bringing together knowledge about strategies, tools and processes which support a self-improving profession and improving teacher retention and quality. The implementation of the 'marginal gains' strategy outlined in the report from the first Summit provides one key focus.

cross-posted at www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Digital Education."

The State of Teaching in the UK

Terry Freedman — Thu, 16 Feb 2017 06:00:00 +0000

Here's an infographic I was sent, about the state of teaching in the UK. The single most cited reason for teachers leaving the profession is workload.

Well there's a surprise.

The Department for Education is running a survey aimed at ex-teachers, to find out why they switched to something else.

Why do ICT and Computing teachers leave teaching?

cross-posted at www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Digital Education."

Bett 2017 Bulletin #6: What I've Seen, What to See

Terry Freedman — Thu, 26 Jan 2017 06:50:00 +0000

Sesterday was the first day of Bett 2017, and while it was exhausting (as usual), it was great fun. I was invited by Groupcall to interview Sir Bob Geldoff, which I did as a recording. Someone said to me "You're going to have to edit out all the swearing afterwards." "But there won't be anything left!", I replied. But as it happens, Sir Bob was more than usually restrained, and only used the 'f' word twice -- each time entirely appropriately, so I will leave them in. Unfortunately, people at Bett have no respect and refused to maintain 15 minutes' silence, so I'm going to have to try and reduce all the background noise before publishing the interview, but do look out for that.

On the subject of Groupcall, they have some great products for enabling schools to make sense of, and use of, the data they collect through their information management systems. See, for example, my write-up of their Emerge application, Saving time and money with Emerge, so do visit them on Stand B188.

cross-posted at www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Digital Education."

They don't know exactly what they want.

And even where they do:

They don't have the in-house experience or expertise to determine if what they want is practical, or even feasible, nor do they know what everything should cost.

One common mechanism utilized in many countries is the establishment of a special 'innovation fund', designed to support the exploration of lots of 'new stuff' in the education sector. Such efforts can be quite valuable, and they often end up supporting lots of worthwhile, innovative small scale projects. (The World Bank supports many 'innovation funds' related to the education sector around the world, for what that might be worth, and the EduTech blog exists in part to help document and explore some of what is learned along the way.) There is nothing wrong with small scale, innovative pilot projects, of course. In fact, one can argue that we need many more of them -- or at least more of them with certain characteristics. That said, introducing and making something work at a very small scale is a much different task than exploring how innovations can be implemented at scale across an entire education system.

In such circumstances:

What is a ministry of education to do?
How can it explore innovative approaches to the procurement of 'innovative' large scale educational technology programs in ways that are practical, appropriate, cost-effective, likely to yield good results, informed by research and international 'good practice', and transparent?

For a variety of reasons, and for better and for worse, many governments are interested in exploring how 'public-private partnerships' (variously defined) can be helpful and worthwhile during the course of planning and implementing large scale educational technology initiatives in their country. That said, a big information asymmetry exists almost everywhere in the world between the related knowledge, experience and expertise in the private sector and what exists in the public sector.

Let's be honest: In many cases in many places, big vendors function as de facto, and often quite influential, advisors to ministries of education when it comes to educational technology stuff, for the simple, and in many cases understandable, reason that their employees are much more knowledgeable about, and current with, related topics, tools and practices than are the government officials in charge with articulating related policies and strategies, overseeing and coordinating related initiatives, and monitoring and evaluating the impact of project implementation. Like it or not, this is an observable reality.

This is generally true, I find, most everywhere around the world, but this information asymmetry can be especially acute in many middle and especially low income countries. (Vendors don't have a monoply on practical knowledge related to the implementation of large scale educational technology projects, of course; NGOs, academics and external funding organizations are also important sources of useful related insights and domain knowledge in many developing countries, and not all policymakers in such places are playing 'catch up' -- even if, in my professional experience, a good number of them are.) This state of affairs, where the advisor is also the group most likely to directly profit if the advice given is followed, can, and should, raise all sorts of red flags related to potential conflicts of interest (and worse). This isn't to impute bad motives to all such groups as they try to give good advice to governments. (It is possible for a fox to help guard the henhouse ... but we shouldn't be too surprised if at some point it gets hungry and decides it is time to eat. And of course most vendors aren't foxes -- even if, at least in my experience, many of them tend to be viewed as such within some ministries of education.) But: Figuring out how to implement greater transparency around interactions between the public and private sectors around educational technology issues is critically important if governments are to be be able to implement related policies and decisions that are practical, implementable, scalable, equitable, and have a decent chance of success, while at the same time being open and transparent in ways that can help reassure all stakeholder groups that there is no funny business going on.

A few years ago I was part of a team that helped a large developing country investigate, articulate and evaluate its available options and priorities as part of a planning process for a massive proposed project to utilize ICTs in thousands of its schools in ways that were 'innovative'. The education folks responsible for this effort in government were highly capable: experienced (both at home and abroad) and principled, with diverse backgrounds and skill sets. The key people had been involved with large scale education and technology initiatives in the past (as well as with a few initiatives at the intersection of these two fields). Some of these were successes, some were failures. The head of the project was very aware of her team's strengths and their weaknesses, and was wise and humble enough to admit what scared them the most: "When it comes to trying something new and innovative for the first time, you don't know what you don't know."

Within this operating context, here's how they proceeded:

1. A request for Expressions of Interest (EOI) was published, inviting companies, non-profits, and academic institutions to provide inputs into the related planning process.

2. The EOI request presented a general set of objectives that the government wanted to see achieved and sketched out a very general sense of what it thought might be done to help achieve them.

3. A notional (and quite large!) budget envelope (at the time, this was, to my knowledge, the largest proposed educational technology project in the world) was announced to help give a sense of the order of magnitude of what was desired, and what could (potentially) be funded.

4. Groups were given a deadline to respond, proposing what could and should be done, together with evidence (research, experience) to support their suggestions.

5. By mandating that responses include specific citations to research and experience, both domestically and internationally, the government hoped to tap into and benefit from international and local know-how, experience and expertise.

6. Groups were encouraged to self-organize into consortia as they developed their recommendations (and individual firms and organizations were free to participate in submissions from more than one consortia – or to go it alone).

7. Groups were informed that their responses would be made publicly available, both in order to aid transparency, and also to make sure that good lessons and promising practices would circulate quickly -- including to the key decision makers in government. To aid in transparency and the sharing of knowledge about what different groups knew, and proposed, a number of the groups who put together the best EOI documents were invited to make half hour presentations describing what they recommended be done, the evidence base that informed their recommendations, and what everything might be expected to cost.

8. The government said that the eventual requests for proposals (RFPs) that would be issued as part of the process to procure related goods and services would draw heavily on these EOI documents.

9. In order to incentivize groups to participate and share their knowledge and ideas (something which usually many organizations might consider to be trade secrets of a sort), the government had a budget and process for providing monetary awards for EOIs that were used to help to build the eventual RFPs that would be issued. Groups were further encouraged to share what they knew about what was possible and recommended because, in the likelihood that what they proposed ended up in the eventual project design, they might be in good positions to compete for the resulting contracts.

10. Based on government objectives; what local and international industry, civil society, academic institutions and stakeholders thought was possible, feasible and practical; and a notional budget; the government utilized this collective input, together with other knowledge and supplemental advice from other local and international experts and actors (note: as advisors, my team fell into this group), to build a project outline which would inform the drafting of related requests for proposals. One constituent model that I worked on as part of a very large team during this process was affectionately, if somewhat cheekily, called a 'Frankenstein', because it borrowed parts from many different places as a way to create a coherent whole. Rigorous risk assessments, financial projections and value-for-money analyses of this model were done as an input into related government decision making going forward. The goal was to flag potential problem areas up front and offer potential ways to mitigate a variety of related risks.

The model, and process, was much more complicated than what I've attempted to describe quickly here, but hopefully I was able to convey some general information about what was attempted, why and how.

Might this sort of process be relevant to governments in other countries exploring potentially 'innovative' approaches to the use of informational and communication technologies in their schools? I don't know. But the goal in briefly sketching all of this out here was to offer one practical, real life example of how one government methodically, and seriously, explored what it considered to be a new and 'innovative' approach to planning for the procurement of ICT-related goods and services across its education system. Along the way, it sought to tap into knowledge and experiences that government itself did not have, and to engage publicly with a multitude of vendors and stakeholder groups in ways that were open and transparent.

In the end the project did not happen -- in large part because of what was learned in the course of the process I've outlined here. Whether or not the project happened in the end is not my point in relating all of this, however. The point is that, when faced with a status quo that was not considered to be working, a government wanted to explore potentially new and innovative approaches to use information and communication technologies to help meet a variety of educational objectives. Looking forward, and acknowledging the rapidly changing nature of the technology world, it didn't want to assume that it knew what was possible, or practical, nor what a related project should cost. Instead of trying to trying to do related research, perform due diligence and conduct consultations in secret, relying only on its own internal manpower and consultants, it 'thought aloud in public', along with many of the groups whose participation would most likely be necessary to implement what the government might propose to do.

When considering doing something new and innovative, the government explored a sort of 'business unusual'. Whether this sort of thing is relevant to governments in other countries planning for the large scale introduction of 'innovative' educational technology-enabled projects: I don't know. But hopefully what is described here will help provide some useful food for related thought.

cross posted at blogs.worldbank.org/edutech

Review of the PA-BESA Conference 2016

Terry Freedman — Wed, 14 Dec 2016 00:10:00 +0000

The annual conference of the Publishers' Association and the British Educational Suppliers Association took place on November 25th in London, and had the theme of "Shifting Landscapes". Here's an overview of it, and how it related to education technology.

cross-posted at www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Digital Education."

What's Changed: Ten Reflections on Ten Years of Technology Use in Education

Michael Trucano — Thu, 01 Dec 2016 07:17:00 +0000

illuminating things in Seoul

Earlier this month, the Korea Education Research & Information Service (KERIS) hosted the tenth annual Global Symposium on ICT Use in Education in Seoul. For the past decade, the World Bank and the Korean Ministry of Education have co-sponsored this event as part of a longstanding strategic partnership exploring uses of technology in education, together with other partners.

One of the early, decidedly modest goals for this event was simply to bring together key decisionmakers from across Asia (and a few other parts of the world -- it would become more global with each passing year) in an attempt to help figure out what was actually going on with technology use in education in a cross-section of middle and low income countries, and to help policymakers make personal, working level connections with leading practitioners -- and with each other. Many countries were announcing ambitious new technology-related education initiatives, but it was often difficult to separate hope from hype, as well as to figure out how lofty policy pronouncements might actually translate to things happening at the level of teachers and learners 'on-the-ground'.

As the first country to move from being a recipient of World Bank donor assistance to become a full-fledged donor itself, Korea presented in many ways an ideal host for the event. (Still is!) The Korean story of economic development over the past half century has been the envy of policymakers in many other places, who see in that country's recent past many similarities to their own current situations. Known for its technological prowess (home to Samsung and many other high tech companies) and famous in education circles for the performance of its students on international assessments like PISA, educational technology issues could be found at the intersection of two important components in a Venn diagram of 'Brand Korea'.

Since that first global symposium, over 1400 policymakers from (at least by my quick count) 65 countries have visited Korea annually as part of the global symposium to see and learn first hand from Korean experiences with the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in education, to be exposed to some of the latest related research around the world, to share information with each other about what was working -- and what wasn't -- and what might be worth trying in the future (and what to avoid). Along the way, Korea has come to be seen as a global hub for related information and knowledge, and KERIS itself increasingly is regarded by many countries as a useful organizational model to help guide their own efforts to help implement large scale educational technology initiatives.

While international events bringing together policymakers to discuss policy issues related to the use of new technologies in education are increasingly common these days, across Asia and around the world, back in 2007 the Global Symposium on ICT Use in Education represented the first regularly scheduled annual event of its type (at least to my knowledge; there were many one-off regional events, of course, many of the good ones organized by UNESCO) bringing together policymakers from highly developed, middle and low income countries.

Participating in the event for each of the past ten years has offered me a front row seat to observe how comparative policy discussions have evolved over the past decade in a way that is, I think, somewhat unique. What follows is a quick attempt to descibe some of what has changed over the years. (The indefatigable Jongwon Seo at KERIS is, I think, the only other person to have participated in all ten global symposia. As such, he is a sort of spiritual co-author of these reflections -- or at least the ones which may offer any useful insights. I'm solely responsible for any of the banal, boring or inaccurate comments that follow.)

---

Given the recent proliferation of such sorts of international meetings, it will be interesting to see what path the Global Symposium on ICT Use in Education may take going forward. Is it still needed? Is the format still relevant? Are there other information or networking needs for policymakers not currently being met through other means that the symposium might evolve to address? Only time will tell.

Those are questions for the future, however. The field of ICT use in education looks much different in 2016 than it did back in 2007, when the first Global Symposium on ICT Use in Education was held. This year's gathering, which included policymakers from 36 countries, offered an opportunity to reflect on what has changed (and what hasn't) over the past decade, at least as was reflected in conversations with, and observable preoccupations of, hundreds of policymakers who have participated, and in the specific technologies and technology-enable education approaches which were highlighted each year. In case they might be of any interest to a wider audience, here are some related observations and comments that were shared in the final session of this year's Global Symposium on ICT Use in Education in Korea:

What's changed: Ten reflections on ten years of technology use in education

A decade of discussions with policymakers at the

Global Symposium on ICT Use in Education in Korea

1. Aspiration --> capacity; periphery --> (increasingly) mainstream or central
The general tone and nature the policy discussion around technology use in education has changed over the years. Many of the first global symposia featured declarations of hopes and aspirations about what might be possible; over time, as the capacities of many countries to implement educational technology projects have greatly increased, discussions have become more grounded in practical realities. Based on the profile of people who have attended, and the nature of the discussions that they were interested in pursuing, it has been increasingly clear that what was often a fringe or frontier topic for discussion in many countries (the use of new technologies in education) has become increasingly mainstream, and in many instances, more and more central to educational planning. In part this has no doubt been a reflection of the fact that many governments are now spending lots of money on this stuff; in many places this seems, in part, to be a result of a lack of satisfaction with the staus quo in education, and so the introduction and use of ICTs is seen as an important part of an educational reform agenda.

2. Desktop --> mobile
In the early years of the event, the desktop was still king and the laptop was ascendant. Today, today discussions largely center around mobile devices like tablets and, increasingly, phones. The implications of this evolution have been both subtle and profound.

3. Device --> connectivity; device ratios --> multiplicity of devices
Over the years, specific attention to the specifications for individual devices has given way to broader consideration around the need for, and approaches to providing, and impact of connectivity. Connectivity-related discussions have evolved from ones focused on providing simple access via dial-up to the need for, and uses of, broadband. Where devices have been discussed, the nature of those discussions have changed in some important ways. What is the ideal student:computer ratio? This was a regular topic of conversation in early years of the symposium. Over time, as devices have proliferated, 1:1 has increasingly been the accepted goal (even if in most places it is far from being achieved), and there has been a realization that, in some circumstances and contexts, challenges and opportunities have emerged as a result of students and teachers having access to more than one device (a shared computer at school and a tablet at home, for example -- and a mobile phone everywhere).

4. [____] --> new tools and initiatives
In November 2007, the first Global Symposium on ICT Use in Education was held. At that time, many of the technologies and large scale educational technology efforts which would later come to dominate discussions at the symposium were in their infancy (and some were still to be born). In January of that year, the iPhone was announced (it would appear in stores later that June; smart phones of course existed before the iPhone, but the smart phone era in many ways began at this point), only about a month after Facebook opened up for use to the public (previously it was limited to university students) and two months after the first stable release of WhatsApp. (Instagram wouldn't appear until 2010, WeChat debuted a year after that.) Uruguay's Plan Ceibal, the pioneering effort that provided free laptops to primary school students and connectivity to all schools (and which represented the first large scale implementation of the One Laptop Per Child program), kicked off in May of 2007. Potential uses of instant messaging in education were hot topics in the early years of the event, by 2016 forms of instant digital communication had become so commonplace (although in different forms) that they were hardly remarked upon or discussed.

5. Small projects (NGO) --> large scale initiatives (government)
Where specific initiatives were explored in depth in the early years of the event, they were mostly small scale pilot projects, often conceived of and implemented by NGOs. Over time, more and more large scale, national efforts led by government were featured.

6. ICT literacy --> Coding
Discussions of the importance of basic 'ICT literacy' (often a shorthand for fluency with Microsoft Office applications) have been eclipsed by discussions around the importance of 'coding' (and, to a lesser extent, topics like educational robotics and 'making') and, in conversations usually initiated by policymakers from more 'developed' countries, 'computational thinking'.
sidebar: There is much that hasn't changed, of course. For better or for worse, discussion and rhetoric at the global symposium related to things like project- (or problem-)based learning has evolved very little over the last decade. While the technologies have changed, discussions around pedagogical models haven't changed much (perhaps because they have changed very little in practice?). The importance of teacher training, professional development and support has always been high on the symposium agenda. Complaints about the political nature of many educational technology projects has remained constant (politicians love to be seen handing out devices to kids -- perhaps because real impact on learning is harder to achieve, and rarely offers an attractive photo opportunity). Understanding of a variety of common worst practices has also been rather constant -- even if such practices remain widely observable. Issues related to data privacy were pretty much non-existent in the early years of the global symposium, and not much really changed over subsequent years; it appears that this is still an emerging, 'frontier' topic in most ministries of education around the world.
7. Cyber addiction --> ethics, safety and citizenship
Especially in discussions led by academics from across East Asia, topics related to 'cyber addiction' were quite prominent in the early years of the event (and focused mainly on contexts somewhat specific to Korea, Japan and China). Over time, related issues were largely subsumed within larger discussions around cyber ethics, online safety and digital citizenship.

8. Little evidence --> more rigorous impact evaluations related to learning
Where impact evaluations were discussed in the early years, they were often focused on things that were easy to count (e.g. how many computers had been delivered) and, where an impact on learning was investigated, metrics often related to qualitative perceptions of what had changed, and what the impact of this change had been. (Perhaps not surprisingly, perceptions were almost always positive!) Over time, more and more evidence from rigorously conducted research began to be featured -- both because there was a growing appetite by key decisionmakers to learn from such research, and because there has increasingly been a body of such research from which useful lessons can be drawn.

9. Access --> equity
Another noticeable general trend has been the gradual shift from discussions about the importance of access to technology to a greater concern about the potential differential impacts of this access, and the observable inequities that are becoming apparent in many places as a result of increased technology use.

10. Answers --> questions
Looking back on my notes from the past ten events, it is notable how much the basic nature of conversations has changed. In the early years of the global symposium, there was a lot of certainty professed around various 'solutions' or answers that were put forth (perhaps because, in many countries, educational technology was still a rather fringe topic within many ministries of education, and so a posture of certainty was strategically useful when trying to get things off the ground). As discussions have evolved over the years, there has been much more focus on asking better and more sophisticated questions (what to do?; is this worth it?; and: how might we know?). In part this has been a reflection of the fact that, as it has become more clear to many people in charge of educational technology efforts in many countries that things aren't quite as simple as they might have first appeared, and so a certain degree of (useful) humility has set in. (To me, this has been an encouraging development!)

---

Those were some personal, and perhaps idiosyncratic, qualitative reflections on how the nature of discussions at the annual Global Symposium on ICT Use in Education have changed over the past ten years. No doubt they reflect my own biases and interests, and every general 'trend' identified oversimplifies the complexity and diversity of related discussions, as well as the specific contexts of policymakers from a wide variety of countries who have participated in the symposium over the years. (Korea and Cambodia, which have been represented by policymakers in each year of the event, are in many ways at different ends of the spectrum when it comes to economic development, and thus of the use of technology in their respective education systems.) That said, it is clear that much has changed. Conversations have become richer, and deeper, and more tethered to reality.

How will such discussions evolve in the coming years? Who knows? While no doubt a lot of fun, and attractive fodder for both intense research and idle speculation, predictions related to the future of technological advances, and the implications of such advances on teaching and learning, will in many cases look rather silly in hindsight. It is hard to argue, however, that discussions related to the planning for, use of and impact of technologies in education will not become more important, and acute, in the coming years, whatever form those technologies may eventually take.

Special thanks to the Government of Korea, and the Korean Education & Research Information Service, for their support for the Global Symposium on ICT Use in Education over the past decade. It's been a privilege and honor working with you. 감사합니다 - Gamsa hamnida!

Note: The image used at the top of this blog post ("illuminating things in Seoul") comes from the Wikipedian 조연주 via Wikimedia Commons and is used according to the terms of its Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

cross posted at blogs.worldbank.org/edutech

Computing Discussion Topics: Brexit and Biometrics

Terry Freedman — Tue, 27 Sep 2016 05:50:00 +0000

When I was a teacher, I always devoted some lesson time to what was going on in the news. I thought, and think, that one has to do that in order to keep the subject relevant.

Here are two topics that came up recently, and which are capable of being discussed by both primary and secondary pupils, with the appropriate adjustments in language of course.

These discussion topics were first published, along with several others, in the July 2016 issue of Digital Education, which is a free newsletter. You can sign up to it here if you wish: Newsletters.

cross-posted at www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Digital Education."

11 attributes of the ideal ICT and Computing inspector

Terry Freedman — Fri, 23 Sep 2016 06:31:00 +0000

September 20, 2016

Should an inspector come to look at your ICT or Computing provision, what sort of "qualifications" would you like them to have?

I've placed the word qualifications in quotation marks, because I don't think that formal qualifications are necessarily the most important. If you disagree, then feel free to add something like "Has a degree in Computer Science" to my list. However, given that in England at least there isn't a surfeit of teachers with a qualification in Computer Science, I don't think inspectors with such a degree is a realistic proposition. At least, not yet.

So, here is my list.

They have taught the subject...

To some extent, an expert in teaching in one subject can evaluate a lesson in any subject, because there are common criteria to look at. For example, are the pupils on task, is there a good atmosphere, conducive to learning, do the pupils give you good answers when you ask questions like, "Why are you doing this?".

Nevertheless, an expert in the subject itself will be able to tell whether or not the pupils are asking incisive questions and, crucially, whether the teacher's answers are correct.

Plus, having taught the subject is necessary for establishing credibility.

cross-posted at www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Digital Education."

EducationTechnology News: 4 Forthcoming Events

Terry Freedman — Fri, 09 Sep 2016 06:54:00 +0000

Event 1: ResearchEd

Tomorrow, ie Saturday 10th September, sees the annual ResearchEd conference in London. I attended my first one last year, and was extremely impressed. Looking at this year's agenda, there is plenty of variety -- and I'm delighted to see that Marilyn Leask, Sarah Younnie, Jon Audain and Christina Preston are speaking. Why delighted? Because I know them, know their work and I like the fact that the conference is affording academics the opportunity to bring their findings to a wider audience.

I'm not entirely sure I can attend myself although I hope to. If I do, I'll report on it in the next issue of the Digital Education newsletter. If you attend, feel free to offer an article for the newsletter as well.

I wrote about two ResearchEd conferences earlier this year, and interviewed Tom Bennett, the founder. In case you missed them, you'll find those articles in my pre-Bett newsletter.

cross-posted at www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Digital Education."

Extending Learning- Involving Parents

Silvia Tolisano — Wed, 24 Aug 2016 00:10:00 +0000

Involving parents in their children’s learning has been proven to yield higher learning achievements. Our students learn with greater enthusiasm, motivation and the make deeper connections to their lives.

As I am coaching a group of teachers at the Goethe Schule, a German school in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the topic of why and how to increase parent involvement is a hot topic. The following blog post was originally written in Spanish (see below for original post) as part of the documentation of our work together.

Studies like The Harvard Family Research Project among others have found, that involving parents has been associated with higher academic achievement. These studies suggest to

communicate regularly
offer volunteer opportunities
assign interactive homework
support home learning

Involving parents in supporting their children’s learning at school is NOT a luxury says Edutopia — “– it’s an integral component of student achievement and school reform. “. Edutopia refers to decades of studies on the effect of meaningful parent involvement programs in schools

Gaining parent involvement has been a difficult task for many educators. The idea to only communicate with parents via a newsletter, invite them to the classroom to observe or bring in snack food for a celebration will not do the trick. How do we involve parents in a “learnflow” to extend and amplify learning for our students? New words like “learnflow” , “Home Learning” and “Crowdsourcing” are gaining importance in the realm of 21st century teaching and learning. Parents have a significant role to play in these changes.

In another article by Edutopia, Lisa Mims observes the differences between traditional methods and modern methoda of involving parents.

Traditional Methods

Agenda Books
Flyers
Test folders
Phone calls
Inviting parents to the classroom

Modern Methods

website
blog
twitter
Notification apps (ex. Remind)

Linda Yollis, a teacher from Los Angeles is having much success in involving her students’ parents over the years. We can observe through her blog how she invites parents and other family members to participate through comments on the blog, contributions as authors when they are traveling and with images to provoke and extend learning discussions in the classroom.

Graciela C, a teacher fromthe Goethe Schule in Argenting, has investigated pedagogical techniques to involve parents for the purpose of extending learning. Graciela, not only extended the learning objectives and goals of her curriculum content, but also exposed her students to 21st century skills and literacies, such as communicate, collaborate, connect, critical thinking, network literacy, digital citizenship and information literacy.

Through her blog, Graciela has been documenting her learning journey of these pedagogical methods, but we can also see the results of he work. We can see her learnflow:

Introducing curricular content> Family Challenge> Parent contributions with their children > Create a video from individual family contributions> Share the final video with students> Group reflections > Individual reflections via blog comments > parent survey.

Through various blog posts (if you don’t read Spanish, you can use Google Translate), Graciela supports different phases of the learnflow and shares the final video, she put together of the crowdsourced contributions from families.

Her students were not only aware of their own thinking (metcognition), but they saw their classmates’ examples and connections between what they had learned in school and their lives at home around the concepts of responsibility and collaboration.

In order to close the learnflow cycle and learn more about parent involvement as a method to extend learning for her students, a survey was sent to the parents who had contributed. (Results of the survey to come soon…)

Compartiendo los resultados de las contribuciones de las familias: Desafíos familiares

Take a look at other examples of crowdsourced videos and blog entries to solicit and take advantage of family contributions to extend learning in the classroom.

Blog Graciela C.

Introducing the blogging platform to parents: Compartiendo el blog con los papás
Invitation to contribute to Classroom Learning around Colonial Times Compartiendo el aprendizaje
Amplify resources to learn about colonial times: Buscamos interesados

Alejandra O’s Blog

A Kindergarten teacher asked the parents of her class to contribute video clips, filmed at home, as they talk with their children about traffic safety and they demonstrate in various scenarios their understanding. Watching the crowdsourced video back at school, gave the children an opportunitiy to not only share their own “segment” from home, but they learned about their classmates’ personalized perspective as well.

Educación vial

Les pedimos a los padres que nos envíen un vídeo corto de los chicos hablando acerca del tema y armamos una película. Miramos cada vídeo con los chicos en la sala y fue muy rico para ellos, ya que no sólo se vieron a sí mismos sino que también a sus compañeros y el haber hecho participar a las familias también le agregó mayor importancia y valor.

Gabriela B’s Blog

Gabriela B, another Kindergarten teachers asked parents to support their children in learning about a specific animal. As children become “experts” of their chosen animal, they record a video sharing their research and articulate their learning. That video was then shared on the classroom blog as well as presented by the students in class.

Trabajando juntos : KIGA y Familias

En las próximas entradas iremos compartiendo con Uds un trabajo muy especial. Los niños manifestaron el deseo de saber mas sobre algunos animales. Por lo tanto cada uno de ellos eligió uno para realizar una investigación personal. Esta investigación la harán en sus hogares con ayuda de sus familias, enviando el producto de la misma al Jardín para presentárselo a sus compañeros.

How are YOU investigating parent involvement and the connection to extend learning with your students? What are some techniques your are investigating? Please share some of your thoughts and examples on the topic.

Involucrando a las familias en el aprendizaje de sus hijos ha demostrado que el logro del aprendizaje (learning achievement) es más alto, nuestros alumnos aprenden con más ganas y la motivación y las conexiones que los alumnos hacen con la vida real son más profundos.

Estudios como The Harvard Family Research Project concluyeron que al involucrar a los padres se ha asociado con logros más académicos más elevados.

Hay más estudios y investigaciones que comparten ideas como lograr involucrar a los padres. Esos estudios sugieren:

comunicar regularmente
ofrecer oportunidades de voluntar
asignar tareas interactivas
apoyar “home learning” (aprender en casa)

Involucrar a los padres para apoyar el aprendizaje de los hijos en el colegio no es un lujo, declara Edutopia (la fundación educacional de George Lucas)– “es un componente integral del logro académico y de la reforma de las escuelas”. Edutopia se refiere a décadas de estudios de investigación sobre el efecto de acompañamiento (involucramiento) significativo de padres.

Lograr un “involucramiento” significativo ha sido una tarea difícil para muchos docentes. La idea, no es solamente comunicarse con los padres o invitarles a la sala a observar, pero poder integrarlos en un “learnflow” (un flujo de aprendizaje) para extender y ampliar el aprendizaje de los alumnos. Palabras como learnflow, además de “Home Learning” (aprender en casa) y “Crowdsourcing” (colaboración abierta) están tomando cada vez más un rol significativo en el mundo de la educación del siglo XXI. Los padres tienen (juegan) un papel significativo en ese cambio.

En otro artículo de Edutopia, Lisa Mims muestra métodos tradicionales vs. métodos modernos a involucrar los padres.
Ella nombra como métodos tradicionales :

agendas
folletos
carpetas
llamadas telefónicas
invitar a los padres a la sala

y como métodos modernos:

página web
blog
twitter
apps de notificación (ej. Remind)

Linda Yollis, una docente en Los Angeles, EEUU está logrando con mucho éxito involucrar a las familias de sus alumnos hace varios años. A través de su Blog podemos ver como invita a los padres y familias a participar a través de comentarios en el blog, de sus contribuciones como autores cuando están viajando y contribuyen con imágenes que provocan discusiones estimulantes.

Graciela C. ha investigado técnicas pedagógicas y ha avanzado con mucho éxito en distintas oportunidades a no solamente involucrar sino también en aprovechar, sumar la ayuda de las familias para contribuir y extender el aprendizaje de sus alumnos.

Graciela, no solamente extendió las metas y objetivos del área del currículum escolar, también expone a los alumnos a capacidades y alfabetizaciones significativas del siglo XXI como comunicar, colaborar, crear, conectar y pensamiento crítico, alfabetización en las redes, de los medios, ciudadanía digital y alfabetización de la información.

A través de su blog, Graciela documenta su viaje de aprendizaje de estas técnicas pedagógicas, podemos ver los frutos de su trabajo y pasos de aprendizaje de ella y el de los alumnos.

Podemos ver el learnflow (flujo de aprendizaje):

Introduciendo el contenido> desafío para la casa> contribución de los papás con los chicos> crear videos> compartir el video (crowdsourced) final con los chicos> reflexión en grupo > reflexión individual a través de comentarios > encuesta a los padres

La siguientes entrada al blog de Graciela apoya la documentación de las diferentes estaciones del “learnflow”. Más abajo verán los videos que Graciela trabajó para no solamente mostrarlos videos contribuidos, poder mostrar un “crowdsourced” video de colaboración abierta entre todos los participantes.

Los chicos, no solamente fueron conscientes de sus propios pensamientos, pero pudieron ver los ejemplos y conexiones de sus compañeros entre lo que hablaron y aprendieron en la escuela con su vida (home learning) en sus casas alrededor de los conceptos de la responsabilidad y la colaboración.

Compartiendo los resultados de las contribuciones de las familias: Desafíos familiares

Otros ejemplos de crowdsourced videos y entradas de blog con la contribución de las familias para extender el aprendizaje.

Blog de Graciela C.

Introduciendo la plataforma del blog a los padres: Compartiendo el blog con los papás
Invitación a contribuir acerca de la época colonial: Compartiendo el aprendizaje
Amplificar los recursos para aprender acerca de la época colonial: Buscamos interesados

El blog de Alejandra O

Educación vial

El Blog de Gabriela B

Trabajando juntos : KIGA y Familias

Para cerrar el learnflow de esta experiencia de Graciela sobre el tema responsabilidad y colaboración, pedimos una vez más la ayuda de los padres para aprender más sobre la pedagogía de involucrar a los padres y los efectos en el aprendizaje de los chicos. Por favor respondan a la siguiente encuesta.

cross posted at langwitches.org/blog

Silvia Tolisano is a Curriculum21 faculty member, author of the book Digital Storytelling Tools for Educators and founder of the Around the World with 80 Schools project. Read more at http://langwitches.org/blog.

ICT Direct Reassures Schools on the Impact of Brexit on ICT Equipment

Terry Freedman — Thu, 21 Jul 2016 00:10:00 +0000

I received the following article from ICT Direct, the company that advertises on this website. Like other commentaries I've read about the effects of the UK's leaving the EU (Brexit) will have on the education technology, it's worth reading -- not least because of the comments about the possible price changes of solid state drives.

With all the uncertainty around Brexit and the impact this will have on UK businesses and residents, ICT Direct can reassure schools throughout the UK that it will be business as usual.

The supplier of refurbished ICT hardware to schools will see minimal impact, certainly in the near future. Stocks of PCs, laptops, printers, etc are purchased from corporate businesses across the UK, therefore, there aren’t any implications on imports or exports of products.

cross-posted at www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Digital Education."

Education Provides the Analogue Foundation for Our Digital Lives

Michael Trucano — Wed, 22 Jun 2016 00:10:00 +0000

tearing down, or reinforcing,
longstanding divides?

"Digitale Teilhabe für alle" (digital participation for everyone) was the theme of last week's Volkshochschultag 2016, an international conference convened in Berlin by the German Adult Education Association (DVV) to explore the impact and consequences of the increasing use of digital technologies in education around the world, especially as they relate to equity and inclusion. "Does digitisation provide an opportunity for educational justice or does it strengthen the unequal access to education even more?" This question (which admittedly flows off the tongue a little better in German than it does in English) animated a related debate (in which I participated) on the last day of the conference.

In support of my pithy, one word response to this question (an enthusiastic and deliberately argumentative ja!), I drew heavily on the 2016 World Development Report, which the World Bank released earlier this year. This widely read, 'flagship' annual World Bank publication explores a topic of broad relevance in the fields of international development and development economics. The 2016 report, Digital Dividends [pdf, 10.8mb), examines the impact that the Internet and mobile networks are having (and not having) around the world.

As a primer on the uses of ‘informational and communication technologies for development’ (what’s known as ‘ICT4D’ by those in related fields who like acronyms), the 2016 World Development Report is quite comprehensive. Surveying and exploring how ICTs are impacting fields such as agriculture, finance, government services, education, energy, the environment and healthcare (and many others), ‘Digital Dividends’ is a World Bank report written for people who don’t normally read (or perhaps even care about) World Bank reports.

It is relatively catholic in its worldview, although not surprisingly there is a decided focus on things the Bank cares about (e.g. economic growth, jobs), but thankfully in language a bit more accessible than what one often finds in publications put out by an institution which employs over 1,000 PhD economists. Happily, there’s not a single mention of a ‘production function’, for example; and I really like the cover!

But I don’t mean to ‘bury the lede’, as journalists say. Here, quickly, are the main messages from the 2016 World Development Report:

Digital technologies can be transformational (no surprise there, but …)
Benefits often remain unrealized (indeed …)
The digital divide is still wide open (and it is important to acknowledge that …)
The largest barriers are not in technology (and that …)
The digital revolution needs a strong analog foundation

While there’s nothing particularly subversive in these findings (that’s not the role of something like the World Development Report), the authors are pretty clear in conveying one general, overarching point, which the official related press release summarizes quite succinctly:

“The benefits of rapid digital expansion have been skewed towards the wealthy, skilled, and influential around the world, who are better positioned to take advantage of the new technologies.”

Over the course of 330 information-dense pages (which include 74 boxes, 142 charts and figures, 14 maps and 29 tables), the authors document and examine what this ‘digital expansion’ looks like in practice, with lots of specifics. In few other publications will you find details about such varied topics as the sequencing of e-health development in Montenegro, evidence of internet content filtering around the world, spectrum assignment in Latin America (in MHz blocks), or African tech hubs.

For those with a specific interest in education, there is much here to consider. The report itself has a short section on education, a much longer one on ‘skills’, and brief highlights about a number of initiatives and trends (MOOCs, Khan Academy, Rio's Educopédia, One Laptop per Child) that are enabled by education technologies.

More fundamentally, though, considering the report as a whole, it is clear that education is one of the central connective themes that sits at the heart of what the 2016 World Development Report is about, and its relevance for decisionmakers going forward. Digital Dividends calls for the “strengthening the analog foundation of the digital revolution.” Going forward, development success will not be so much about technological advances (which will no doubt continue to occur, at an increasingly dizzying rate, in all sorts of exciting ways), it argues, but rather as a result of success with two things: policies and people.

The report states (see figure 3.17, for those who like citations) that "digital technology projects funded by the World Bank are more successful in countries with higher-quality institutions." This perhaps shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, but it highlights that beliefs about technology being a simple ‘silver bullet solution’ to so many of the most pressing challenges facing communities around the world today are misguided. As the historian Melvin Kranzberg observed (and as Kentaro Toyama likes to remind me), “technology is neither positive nor negative – nor is it neutral.”

Those most likely to benefit the most from the emergence and use of new technologies are those already advantaged in many ways. This isn’t to contend that advances will only accrue to such groups – certainly not!

New technologies will continue to emerge that offer exciting potential applications to help address many long standing ‘problems’ around the world (and along the way introduce a few new ones, presumably). Recommendations such as those found in the 2016 World Development Report about “making the internet universal, affordable, open, and safe” can be important guiding principles in ensuring that these technologies can be utilized to their full potential.

However, we face a “changed world with unchanged classrooms,” and it is the young people who emerge from such classrooms, together with those who continue to learn after their formal schooling has ended, who will chart the course forward. They may increasingly be aided by algorithms, and some of the roles they would have performed in the past may be performed by machines in the future. However, in the end, it is the extent to which our educators and education systems are able to support and nurture the development of the analogue foundation of our increasingly our digital lives that will be critical.

That’s the real challenge if the ‘digital dividends’ analyzed and celebrated in the 2016 World Development Report are to realized -- not only for the ‘elites’ in economies and societies around the world, but rather for and by all citizens, no matter where they may live and the circumstances into which they were born.

You may also be interested in the following posts from the EduTech blog:

Thanks again to DVV International, the Institute for International Cooperation of the Deutscher Volkshochschul-Verband e.V. (DVV-International), for inviting me to participate in Volkshochschultag 2016. Note that a version of this post originally ran on the main World Bank education blog to coincide with the release of the 2016 World Development Report.

Note: The image used at the top of this blog post of a section of the Berlin Wall at Friedrichstrasse in East Berlin in 1990 ("tearing down, or reinforcing, longstanding divides?") comes from the Wikipedian Bengt Larsson via Wikimedia Commons and is used according to the terms of its Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

cross posted at blogs.worldbank.org/edutech

Quick Wins in the Computing Classroom

Terry Freedman — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 00:10:00 +0000

It's good to have long-term plans -- essential, in fact -- but what about the period before those plans come to fruition?

The economist John Maynard Keynes famously said:

"In the long run we're all dead."

The question is, what can you do right now, or tomorrow, to improve your students' experience of Computing?

I like to think in terms of quick wins, things that are fairly easy to implement but which have a disproportionate impact. To give you an idea of what I'm talking about, here are some of the quick wins I've implemented in various roles, and the effect they had:

cross-posted at www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Digital Education."

Computing Options at GCSE:Interim Survey Results

Terry Freedman — Wed, 08 Jun 2016 00:10:00 +0000

A word cloud of the GCSE options that schools are offering in Computing and related subjects

A couple of weeks ago I launched a survey to find out what GCSE options schools were offering to their students. In return for completing the survey, you receive an up-to-date list of officially approved qualifications in Computer Science and other digital technology subjects. If you would like to take part in the survey and by so doing acquire this marvellous freebie, here is the link:

ICT and Computing Qualifications Survey

Actually, that's the link even if you don't wish to take part in the survey, but you know what I mean.

Anyway, here are some initial results. Bear in mind that I haven't had the chance to send out this "call to action" in my own newsletter, Digital Education, yet, so these results may change once I've done that.

The big picture

First thing to do is look at the word cloud above. I thought that would be the easiest way of conveying the gist of what schools are doing. As you can, Computer Science is the main offering, with the European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL) a close second (perhaps unsurprisingly given that one organisation has claimed to be able to get students through it in three days -- see this news article).

cross-posted at www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Digital Education."

How Students in Uruguayan Schools are Being Taught English Over the Internet

Michael Trucano — Wed, 25 May 2016 05:50:00 +0000

How students in Uruguayan schools are being taught English over the Internet by teachers in Argentina -- and in the UK & the Philippines

viewed from afar, some things seem sort of strange

Recognizing its relevance in the global marketplace, the small South American country of Uruguay has placed increasing emphasis on improving the abilities of its schoolchildren to speak English. In trying to achieve this objective, however, it has faced a very acute resource constraint: There just aren't enough qualified teachers of English working in Uruguayan schools.

What to do?

How do you strike a balance between the immediate needs of students *right now* and an education system's requirements to train teachers to help meet such needs over the long term?

The traditional approach to dealing with such a challenge in many places has been to focus primarily on pre-service training, gradually introducing new teachers into classrooms over many years who have prepared to teach the subject through dedicated courses of study at teacher training colleges, together with occasional in-service professional development activities for existing teachers (normally during holiday breaks). In Uruguay, it was recognized that the gap between the abilities and capacities of many teachers to teach English, and student needs to learn English (which became compulsory in 2008) was so huge in many parts of the country that they needed to do things differently than they had done in the past. Instead of having teachers learn English separately, might it be possible to have them learn alongside their students, in their own classrooms?

As it happens, almost a decade ago Uruguay began its ambitious and innovative Plan Ceibal, which (among other things, and as profiled in a number of previous posts on the EduTech blog) made this small South American nation the first country to connect all of its schools to the Internet and provide all primary school children with a free laptop.

Given the technical infrastructure and know-how that was developed under Plan Ceibal, Uruguayan policymakers asked themselves:

Now that all of the schools are connected to the Internet,

and all students have their own laptops,

might it be possible to offer high quality

English language instruction live over the Internet,

connecting to teachers many miles away from the schools?

The answer to this question, it would appear, is 'yes'. Working out of its remote teaching center in Buenos Aires, its global digital learning hub in the neighboring country of Argentina, the British Council is beaming out English lessons to children in hundreds of individual classrooms across Uruguay, complementing and supporting the work of local teachers in these same classrooms. This is not a 1-to-many broadcast of the sort commonly done in many countries through the use of broadcast television, but rather connects individual classrooms in Uruguay with individual teachers sitting in other places. Some of these English teachers are based in the Uruguayan capital of Montevideo, many others next door in Argentina, and still others much further afield -- including halfway around the world in the Philippines and the UK! Along the way, the capacity of local teachers, who continue to lead English classes on their own other days of the week, is developed, through their interactions with and observations of the remote teachers.

---

A few months ago, some folks at British Council offices around the world shared lessons from what they've been doing, and learning, along the way with World Bank staff interested in learning more about practical issues related to 'distance teaching'. This was done using the same online tools that the British Council uses to support its remote teaching activities in Uruguay, and elsewhere. (As it happens, the choice in advance to use 'distance learning' tools here was fortuitous, as this was one of the winter days when offices were closed in Washington, DC due to inclement weather.)

How it works

English instruction for around 25 students occurs three 45-minute classes a week -- once with the remote teacher (in which the classroom teacher also participates), plus two classes led by the classroom teacher herself (typically building on and practicing what was introduced and practiced during the 'remote' lesson. Quite often, the local classroom teacher speaks very little English, and so she is, in some sense, learning along with her students, both by improving her English language abilities, and through exposure to pedagogical strategies in how to teach English. (Sometimes, the remote teacher utilizes elements of so-called 'scripted' lessons that the classroom teacher then utilizes in subsequent activities.) Over the course of a week, over 3000 classes are conducted this way in over a 1000 Uruguayan schools.

This model is conceptually similar in many ways to what typically occurs in a number of countries through 'interactive radio instruction'. That said, 'remote teaching' of this sort represents a gigantic leap forward over IRI: the remote teacher appears on a large screen in the classroom (giving her a 'physical presence' of a sort) and a remotely operated camera provides the remote teacher with the means to zoom in one individual children's faces, or zoom out to see what the class as a whole is doing. An LMS (learning management system) further enables the sharing of messages and additional content between the remote teacher, the classroom teacher and their students.
If you want to see what this looks like in practice, have a look at these videos. Here is more information from the British Council web site, some comments from remote teachers themselves, and a related hour-long presentation delivered using some of the same tools utilized in the remote teaching project.

When it comes to the use of technology use in education, there has long been talk of the potential for so-called 'blended learning' (a term I actively dislike; isn't all learning a blending of various sorts, with technology increasingly involved in vaarious ways?). What is happening in Uruguay here is in many ways a form of 'blended teaching'.

Challenges

Teaching remotely brings with it many very obvious challenges. How can you monitor the quality of teaching and learning, observe classroom behaviors and maintain discipline and student engagement in a remote teaching environment? By conducting these classes at such a massive scale, the British Council and Plan Ceibal have been developing an increasingly good, hyper-practical understanding of pedagogical practices that work (and don't work) in a remote teaching environment. The Uruguayan experience is demonstrating that not only is it possible to present information (distance learning activities utilizing television and radio have shown this to be the case for many decades), but also that it's possible for teachers and students to interact with each other in ways that support and enable learning. It's this interaction -- between teachers and students, between teachers, and between students -- that the folks at the British Council say is what students and teachers say they want, and what the remote teaching methodologies strive to help bring about.

Teachers and students who have spent time in classrooms where ICT use has been integrated into various teaching and learning practices know from firsthand experience that, at some point, whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. How do they deal with the inevitable technology problems that pop up during some distance teaching activities in Uruguay? Here are a few very practical ways:

Plan Ceibal, the national educational technology initiative in the country, has technical people on call (e.g. to help with connectivity problems).
Teachers are encouraged to plan and test the equipment before test beforehand (always a good plan of action, of course -- but not always possible).
Students receive a printed 'user guide' that helps orient them and complements what is happening during a remote teaching session.
Remote and classroom teachers open up an electronic 'backchannel' (via Skype, testing, WhatsApp, etc.) so that they can communicate with each other about logistical issues.
Teachers receive training on what to do when the technology doesn't work -- and to anticipate that such things will happen, no matter how well prepared they are, and so not be frightened of these difficulties when they do occur.
Sometimes the remote and classroom teachers (both of whom have mobile phones) call each other and talk through approaches to dealing with technology difficulties.

Do these approaches always 'solve' the related technical problems? No, of course they don’t, not always, but over time, as experience accrues and teachers and students get more comfortable with the remote teaching approach, technical challenges are decreasing, and the ability to work around them becomes yet another skill that participating teachers had added to their pedagogical repertoire.

Research

A number of related research activities are underway to try to document [pdf] what is happening under this project, and the impact it is having. According to the British Council, preliminary research seems to suggest (unfortunately I have no related link to share with you here) that there are virtually identical outcomes in Uruguayan classrooms which utilize remote English teachers and those which feature Uruguayan English teachers who have been trained 'face-to-face'.

side note: Given the huge investments made across its entire primary and secondary school systems in educational technologies, Uruguay represents a fascinating and potentially quite fertile laboratory for education researchers interested in investigating how ICTs can be used to support and enable lots of different teaching and learning activities and processes, as well as what impact this use is having. Recognizing this, the Uruguayans have set up a dedicated center to help support such research activities, as well as made available related funding.

Remote teaching of English seems to be working in Uruguay. But what might this effort reveal or suggest about other contexts, in other places? The British Council is utilizing similar approaches in tools in a number of other places around the world to help teach English (in remote parts of the Amazon, in Pakistan, in refugee camps), and is encouraged by hat it is seeing, and learning, from these efforts. But it certainly isn't hard to imagine that such approaches might be relevant in circumstances where improving English language instruction is not the goal. After all, there are scores of countries around the world that are currently buying lots of devices and rolling out connectivity to schools in places where existing teacher training and professional development simply isn't working well at all -- or where what is working simply doesn't scale. And: It is perhaps worth noting that, in places like Uruguay where the infrastructure is put into place to enable the remote teaching of English (and not only the physical infrastructure, but the related pedagogical know-how on how to utilize it effectively), this infrastructure can then be used to support teaching and learning in other subjects as well. (As it happens, the British Council is currently exploring how to utilize and adapt some of its 'distance teaching methodologies' honed in its experience in Uruguay to promote mentorship for entrepreneurs in various places around the world.)

Trade-offs

When it comes to trade-offs that education policymakers around the world have traditionally faced when debating whether or not to roll out approaches to 'distance education', they have often asked themselves: Do we compromise on price, or on quality? 'Distance education' may not yield the type of results we would hope for, but it is a lot cheaper, and so we can reach more students with it. Fair enough: There are limited funds available to finance public education in most countries, and such trade-offs are thus par for the course. But really, given the stakes involved, when it comes to education, it is perhaps worth asking: To what extent can we *really* afford to compromise on quality?

Wider relevance?

Huge sums are being devoted to rolling out and improving connectivity for schools in many education systems around the world -- in many cases, without clear ideas at a practical level on what exactly this connectivity will be used for. While Uruguay is a country hardly known known for its prowess on the ice at the Winter Olympics, I am reminded here of the words of Walter Gretzky, who urged his son (who later went on to become the greatest hockey player in the world, if not ever) to 'skate not where the puck is, but where it will be'. Uruguay, given its large investments in connectivity and devices for students, is demonstrating some very practical ways that it might be possible to make productive use of such investments going forward, doing some things that previously simply weren't able to be done. While it may take quite some time, and no doubt there will be many (expensive) misfires along the way, I expect many middle and low income countries will eventually have a technology infrastructure available in their schools like what Uruguay has today. What will they do with this infrastructure once it’s in place?

By demonstrating one possibility of where 'the puck might be', connecting teachers in Manchester, Manila and Montevideo with their counterparts in primary schools across in Uruguay to help teach English to students, the remote teaching initiative from Plan Ceibal and the British Council presents educational policymakers in some other countries with a provocative picture of some of what might be possible to do in the future.

Note: The image used at the top of this post of Puente Barra Maldonado in Punta del Este, Uruguay ("viewed from afar, some things seem sort of strange") comes from Wikimedia Commons and is in the public domain.

cross posted at blogs.worldbank.org/edutech

New! Updated ICT and Qualifications List Now Available

Terry Freedman — Mon, 23 May 2016 05:30:00 +0000

It's ready at last! Oh joy!

You may have been led to believe that Computer Science is the only game in town as far as the EBacc and league tables are concerned.

It isn't.

And in any case, in my opinion what matters first and foremost is student choice.

I've spent so long slaving over a computer that I can't stand up straight

cross-posted at www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Digital Education."

7 Must-Attend Conferences For Ed Tech Teachers

Terry Freedman — Tue, 17 May 2016 20:45:00 +0000

Here’s a round-up of forthcoming conferences that may be of interest to teachers who use education technology, or teach ICT or Computing. They are listed in chronological order. (Unfortunately, they are all in England. My newsletter, Digital Education, often features conferences in other parts of the world though.)

Future of the teaching profession in England: recruitment, workload, standards and professional development

Tuesday 10th May 2016

London

Westminster Education Forum

This conference isn't aimed at ed tech teachers specifically, but I think it looks very interesting and useful.

cross-posted at www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Digital Education."

West Herts College Selects itslearning

Tech & Learning — Mon, 29 Jun 2015 12:00:00 +0000

West Herts College has signed a five-year agreement with itslearning as a key part of their e-learning strategy.

West Herts College in the United Kingdom is a Further Education College spread over three campus locations catering for over 12,000 students aged 16+ in Hertfordshire, England offering a wide range of vocational and non-vocational courses.

itslearning is a cloud-based learningenvironment that allows teachers to engage students anytime, anywhere and on any device. For more information, visit http://www.itslearning.co.uk

7 Characteristics of a Good Computing Scheme of Work

Terry Freedman — Thu, 23 Apr 2015 07:09:00 +0000

So what are the attributes of a good ICT and Computing scheme of work? Here's the list of what I've always looked for:

It must address the requirements laid down by the District or State or Government.

Now, say you teach in England, and you have an absolutely brilliant scheme of work for Computing. Only, it doesn't match the National Curriculum's Programme of Study for Computing at all. Then perhaps you are going to have to go back to the drawing board on that one.

However, I'm now going to cheat! Because what I would say is, if the scheme of work is brilliant but doesn't seem to match the Programme of Study, you have a couple of choices:

cross-posted at www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Digital Education."

Preparing to teach the new Computing curriculum

Terry Freedman — Mon, 11 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I've been giving talks on preparing for the new Computing curriculum, and as well as waxing lyrical that also involves listening to others' concerns. It also means hearing about some innovative approaches that colleagues have adopted.

At the same time, I have been conducting a survey of what people have been doing to prepare for the new curriculum. I'll be publishing the results in due course. In fact, some of the resources mentioned in the collection of coding resources in the early July 2014 edition of Digital Education came to my attention from that survey.

So, given that at the time of writing there's about 2 or 3 days to go till the end of term, what can you realistically do at this stage to prepare for September?

No need to panic -- yet!

The obvious answer is “not a lot”. But hopefully you will have already started to do something, even if you are yet to be able to convince yourself that you are ready to tackle the subject.

However, what you can do is to draw up a list of a few things that you will consider or do. Hopefully, the list below will give you some ideas and make the whole thing seem more doable.

Make connections

If you don't know how to do computer programming, it is imperative to find someone who does. There used to be an advert on British TV for the Automobile Association's roadside rescue service.

“Do you know how to fix this?”, the hapless passenger would ask when the driver announced that the car had broken down.

“No”, came the reply. “But I know a man who can!”

Where will you find someone who “can”? I suggest the following”:

Join Computing at Schools (CAS) if you have not already done so. Incidentally, I recommend CAS a lot because I think it does a good job of connecting people and facilitating the exchange of ideas and resources. I'm not on the Board of Management or anything like that.
Once you've joined CAS find out where your nearest Hub is and go to meetings and events. There probably won't be anything going on now, but see if your hub has a calendar of events coming up in the new term.
While you're there, make a note of the name of the Master teacher in your area. He or she should be able to give you some useful pointers or help you find out about training going on in your area.
And also while you're there, see which other local schools are listed, and then make a note to connect up with one or two of them next term. It may be possible, for instance, to arrange some mutual in-service training. Or another possibility: what if you divided up the next couple of terms' work between you, so that you share the preparation?
If you work with colleagues in the same school, you can do that in-house. By dividing up the units of work between you, covering the curriculum becomes much easier. It also becomes more enjoyable, because if each person in the team takes responsibility for particular units, they can approach each one in a way that they will find most engaging for themselves. By “taking responsibility” I mean ensuring that the curriculum objectives are met for that unit (eg an understanding of loops, cyberbullying, networking, or whatever), devising the materials and other resources, coming up with suitable assessment tasks, and training the rest of the team in how to teach it.
Contact your local college if there is one. You may be able to take on a student to help train you, hold your hand in the classroom, or help you deal with issues of understanding arising in the classroom.

In the early July 2014 edition of Digital Education, John Partridge extolled the virtues of project-based learning (PBL). Interestingly, the survey I've conducted revealed that it's not just secondary (high) schools that have been adopting PBL, but primary (elementary) schools too. So what's the attraction?

For a start, it makes it easier to cover the different elements of the Computing Programme of Study – Computer Science, Digital Literacy, Information Technology and e-Safety – in a meaningful way. Breaking up the subject into strands may make it easier for those who know about Computer Science to keep track of what they've taught, but it doesn't make much sense in the real world, and it's hard to make the subject interesting by doing it that way: who wants to do a module on loops, or one on e-safety?
Almost any real-world problem can be a PBL starter: how can we make the roads around our school safer? How can we make the next Open Day run more smoothly?
A huge benefit, both for pupils and their less-than-confident teacher is that they only have to learn coding on a need to know basis. That is to say, they can learn the aspects of it that will be useful for this particular project, and ignore the rest of it. That in itself makes teaching the subject as an expert much more doable. (Don't take any notice of anyone who tells you it's OK just to be a facilitator and not know anyhting, for reasons given below.)

Unfortunately, there's no avoiding this, for three main reasons:

Firstly, you'll feel a lot more confident in the classroom and in planning, not to mention assessing.

Secondly, unless you are able to delegate the teaching of coding entirely, I don't see how you can avoid it. Ofsted looks for subject expertise in teachers, and so they should: would you want to be taught by someone who is one lesson ahead – if you're lucky?

Thirdly, I don't see how you can confidently and competently move pupils on to their next step, or to clear up their misconceptions, if you don't know really know the subject.

So what can you do?

Forget all the nonsense you hear about being able to learn coding in a day. Computer programmers, like experts in any other field, spend years honing and expanding their skills. You may be able to learn the principles in a day (I don't know: I think even that is a stretch), but not much more. In any case, learning how to code isn't the same as learning how teach others how to code. In my opinion, all that making pronouncements about “you can learn to code in a day” does is make people feel inadequate. To my mind, it's the equivalent of someone who knows how to draw announcing that anyone can learn to sketch in a day. Baloney.
Try out one or two of the online resources given in the early July 2014 edition of Digital Education, which had a focus on coding. I'm reluctant to suggest this, because teachers are tired, and have a six week summer break for a reason. But if you can bring yourself to spend 20 or 30 minutes a day teaching yourself some coding I think you'll feel a lot more confident about it all come September.
If that last suggestion sounds awful, try reading the free book I mentioned in that issue, Computing Without Computers, by Professor Paul Curzon. It doesn't sound much like holiday reading, but it is quite entertaining, with puzzles to try and examples from the world of magic and everyday life. It's a huge tome, but you can download individual chapters if you prefer. Here's the link: http://www.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/~pc/research/education/puzzles/reading/.
Get some training when you get back. Yes, easier said than done, I know. I'm quite appalled at the number of times courses have had to be cancelled because headteachers won't let their staff out on courses. Short-sighted doesn't even come into it. But as a teacher said to me last year, it's like asking a teacher of French to teach Russian from next September. I don't think it's quite that bad – at least, if you were following the last (ICT) Programme of Study properly it shouldn't be – but I think she had a point. Maybe that's the argument to use if you are unfortunate enough to work for a headteacher who thinks you don't need to go on any training.

Well, I hope that some of those suggestions are useful, and give you some ideas about things can you can do to make the whole thing less daunting.

This is a slightly modified version of an article that was published in the late July 2014 edition of Digital Education, the free newsletter for those with a professional interest in educational ICT and Computing. You can see the full table of contents here: http://www.ictineducation.org/home-page/2014/7/16/digital-education-latest-edition.html. To sign up for the newsletter, please complete the form at http://www.ictineducation.org/newsletter/

cross-posted at www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Digital Education."

A is for Assessing Computing: 16 criteria and 5 considerations

Terry Freedman — Mon, 14 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000

A student writes a program. What are you going to assess it on? There are at least 16 criteria you could take into account. Not all of these will be apposite – it depends on what you’re teaching and who you’re teaching. Also, I’ve framed the list below in teacher language; it’s up to you to adapt it into language that is more appropriate for your students.

Is the program intended to address a problem? (The ‘problem’ could be: how do I get the computer to say “Hello, world!”)
Does it address the problem adequately? In other words, is it fit for purpose?
Before writing the program, did the student have to work out what the problem actually was, in terms of computational thinking and then identifying the type of program that would be required to address it? This was a point very succinctly put by one of the delegates on a course I ran recently about assessing Computing and ICT.
Did the student write the code from memory, a crib sheet, or trial and error? Using a crib sheet isn’t terrible in itself, unless you are testing memory. In fact, in many circumstances it’s pretty sensible.
Does the program work?
How does the student know if it works: have they tested it?
How did they test it? For example, did they ask someone else to test it?
If it didn’t work, did they fix the problem/s?
How did they go about fixing the problem/s?
Have they kept a record of what worked, what didn’t work, and how they finally came up with a program that runs smoothly?
Does the program work as efficiently as it might?
Is it user-friendly?
Will it work on, or could it easily be adapted for, different platforms?
Does it, or could it, contravene data protection laws ( a lot of apps potentially do: it just hasn’t been tested in a court of law yet. Note the word ‘yet’).
Does it contravene copyright laws (eg in the form of an image used if there is a ‘splash’ screen)?
If the app or program has potential commercial viability, has the student identified the need to ensure her/his intellectual rights are protected? You may think I have become carried away here, but this is a serious issue. If a pupil comes up with a brilliant idea that nobody has thought of before, someone needs to make sure they don’t get ripped off. For example, don’t encourage students to enter programs for competitions unless you read the small print and are satisfied that by submitting the program they don’t lose all their rights in it.)

You can take the above list, and map it to the strands of the new Computing Programme of Study, ie computing, information technology, digital literacy and e-safety.

Whatever your criteria, 5 things are clear:

You have to know what they are…
… and so does the student….
… and so do any colleagues who teach the subject with you….
… and so do parents, because they need to know that although (for example) their son wrote a brilliant program from a coding point of view, it didn’t fare too well in your grading because it was impossible for anyone apart from him to work out how to use it.
You are not going to cover all of those criteria in one piece of work – unless it is a phenomenally long and detailed assignment!

This post was written to supplement a previous article I wrote on the subject, called A is for … Assessing ICT. It’s still worth reading that, because it makes a few additional points to the ones listed here.

Also, in the forthcoming edition of Digital Education, John Partridge discusses his approach to assessing project-based learning.

cross-posted at www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Digital Education."

The 6 Fundamental Computing Assessment Scheme Questions

Terry Freedman — Thu, 10 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Whether you decide to create your own assessment scheme from a blank sheet of paper, so to speak, use a ready-made scheme created by someone else, or do a bit of both, there are 6 questions you need to ask:

What’s the underlying rationale?

Bloom’s taxonomy? SOLO (Structured Overview of Learning Outcomes)? Something else entirely?

Knowing what the underlying rationale is means that you can be consistent when changing the scheme over time, and also makes it easier for others to understand.

What required behaviour will be ‘proof’?

A statement like:

“Knows that processors have instruction sets and that these relate to low-level instructions carried out by a computer.” (From the Progression Pathways Framework.)

is fine – but what does it mean in practice? It’s no good asking the pupils to assess themselves on this; at least, you can’t rely on that alone. They need to do or say something that will prove that they understand it.

What are appropriate activities or questions?

So that brings us on to the next issue: you need to devise activities that will enable the pupils to do or say things that will prove that they understand it – or that they don’t.

What about validity?

And that in turn brings us on to the next critical question: are your activities or questions valid, ie do they measure what they purport to measure? In other words, do they really test IT skills, knowledge or understanding, as opposed to, say, linguistic or mathematical skills, or even common-sense?

How will you know if a pupil has ‘got it’?

In other words, how will you know when a pupil is displaying the behaviour that you have decided would prove they have the understanding you’re looking for?

You may need to observe them. You may need to ensure that they do the work on their own, not as part of a group. You may need to ask them to solve an unfamiliar problem using the tools of the trade that you hope they have acquired.

How will you all agree?

Finally, how will you and your colleagues agree on what proof of understanding looks like? You may need to create or find exemplars of work to illustrate it. (In my experience, devising lists of criteria, perhaps in the form of a rubric, often leads to more questions than it answers.)

Incidentally, the need for consistency between different people also applies to yourself: how can you ensure that a grade you give a piece of work next week will be the same as the grade you gave it today?

The conclusion to all this is, of course, that you still have to do a lot of thinking for yourself. You can’t just take an assessment scheme off the shelf and then tick that particular line on your to-do list.

In the assessment training I do I try to give delegates the information by which they can help to answer these questions for themselves.

Have you downloaded the Assessment Innovations document yet? I updated it recently. It's free to subscribers of Digital Education -- and that's free too!

cross-posted at www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Digital Education."

The (digital) revolution comes to the London Barbican

Terry Freedman — Tue, 01 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Digital Revolution explores and celebrates the transformation of the arts through digital technology since the 1970s. The exhibition brings together for the first time a range of artists, filmmakers, architects, designers, musicians and game developers pushing the boundaries of their fields using digital media. It also looks to the future considering the impact of creative coding, DIY culture, digital communities and the creative possibilities offered by technologies including augmented reality, artificial intelligence, wearable technologies, robotics and 3D printing.

Ah, those were the days!The (interactive) exhibition (with talks and films) takes place from 3rd July to 14th September 2014, and sounds fantastic. It explores the use of technology in art, music and fashion, to name but three, plus looks at what the future might hold — and the opportunity to go back in time to the first website, created by Berners-Lee, and the video game Pong.

There are concessions for school groups. I think this sounds like a great opportunity to explore, with your pupils, what technology has done and can do — and to move beyond the dry and uninspiring talk of algorithms, coding and computational thinking.

The exhibition website is: http://www.barbican.org.uk/digital-revolution/home/#

Here is a video trailer, which looks fascinating: http://vimeo.com/95007792

This article first appeared in Digital Education, the free newsletter for those with a professional interest in educational ICT and computing. Details of how to subscribe may be found below. Other articles in the same edition included London’s Tech City Week, What computer programmers can learn from magicians, and the role of teachers in a world where “there’s an app for that”. The full list of contents is given here:

cross-posted at www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Digital Education."

9 Approaches to assessing Computing and ICT–#9: Cognitive Development

Terry Freedman — Fri, 27 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

The DfE recently announced the winners of its Assessment Innovation Fund: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/schools-win-funds-to-develop-and-share-new-ways-of-assessing-pupils

The purpose of the fund was as follows:

By collecting and promoting examples of innovative approaches to assessment, we want to give schools ideas and options as they upgrade their systems in response to the removal of levels.

We are therefore asking schools and organisations to present their approaches to the Department: where needed, we can allocate funding (of up to £10,000 per unique application) to help create a simple, easy-to-use package for others schools to transfer and use in their own setting.

Each package will then be made freely available for other schools to access, download and use.
(See https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/268361/Assessment_Innovation_Fund_launch_doc.pdf )

I’ve been reporting on the winners and the descriptions of their approach. These descriptions are more like thumbnail sketches at the moment. I have used them to suggest ways in which they might be adapted for use in assessing ICT and Computing. I hope you find these suggestions useful, or at least a good starting point for your own further work.

In each case I have kept the text of the DfE’s announcement, and then added my thoughts under the heading “Applying this to Computing and ICT”.

Today: Cognitive Development.

Frank Wise School, Banbury, Oxfordshire (special school)

This school has developed and refined a series of assessments that screen the level of development of basic cognitive skills. Their developmentally progressive assessments enable teachers to establish a baseline understanding of a child’s stage of development, allowing them to plan appropriately challenging targets for future learning. This enables them to understand appropriate progression for children with atypical developmental patterns as well as to identify and address gaps in development which may result in delayed progress. The school has worked closely with local mainstream schools, a number of whom have taken on aspects of assessment to use in their own setting.

Deputy headteacher Simon Knight said:

As a special school we are particularly pleased to be involved in this exciting project and to be able to share our approach to identifying gaps in expected cognitive development. This will provide an opportunity for more children to have their individual needs identified more quickly, without necessarily waiting for the symptomatic indicators of delayed development to become apparent.

Applying this to Computing and ICT

You might think that a psychological approach would not be applicable to a subject like Computing or ICT. However, it would be interesting to see a scheme of work and assessment based on what pupils could understand and do according to their level of cognitive development. I seem to recall that some work has been done in this vein in the context of Economics education, for example.

One immediately practical aspect of this approach would be the recognition of pupils’ development in the context of e-safety, an integral element of the new Computing Programme of Study. We tend to assume that pupils over a certain age just need to be taught properly and they will stop engaging in risky online behaviour. However, researcher Nancy Willard maintains that young people are unable to take safe decisions until they are in their 20s:

Teens brains are a work in progress. During the second decade of life, the frontal lobe is undergoing significant growth and development. The frontal lobe is the portion of the brain that allows reasoned decision making.

(See Willard, N. 2011, Cyber Savvy: Supporting Safe and Responsible Internet Use; Why Teens Make Unsafe Choices Online, http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/columnists/willard/willard003.shtml)

For more detail about the school’s approach, see http://sentineluk.wordpress.com/2014/05/07/assessment-innovation-fund-frank-wise-schools-proposal/

cross-posted at www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Digital Education."

9 Approaches to assessing Computing and ICT–#8: An Iterative Approach

Terry Freedman — Wed, 25 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

The DfE recently announced the winners of its Assessment Innovation Fund: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/schools-win-funds-to-develop-and-share-new-ways-of-assessing-pupils

The purpose of the fund was as follows:

By collecting and promoting examples of innovative approaches to assessment, we want to give schools ideas and options as they upgrade their systems in response to the removal of levels.

Each package will then be made freely available for other schools to access, download and use.

(See https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/268361/Assessment_Innovation_Fund_launch_doc.pdf )

Over the next week or so I will report on the winners and the descriptions of their approach. These descriptions are more like thumbnail sketches at the moment. I have used them to suggest ways in which they might be adapted for use in assessing ICT and Computing. I hope you find these suggestions useful, or at least a good starting point for your own further work.

In each case I have kept the text of the DfE’s announcement, and then added my thoughts under the heading “Applying this to Computing and ICT”.

Today: Progression planners.

Swiss Cottage School, Camden, North London (special school)

It's all in the planning. Photo by Pete https://www.flickr.com/photos/comedynose/

The school has developed a series of ‘progression planners’, which focus on the assessment for those learners whose attainment falls significantly below the expectations outlined in the new ‘Year 1 programmes of study’. They are themed around priority areas for individuals with severe learning difficulties and are consistent with the principles and ethos of the new national curriculum. It is based on precise outcomes and provides a clear basis for tracking progress and reporting to parents.

Judges viewed their approach as particularly innovative, practical and based on sound SEN educational thinking. They thought their approach would have relevant application in both mainstream and special education.

Tracy Edwards, the school’s leader for curriculum and assessment, said:

Over the past year, we have been developing a series of progression planners to complement our level-based assessment. These are used by teachers to set personal learning intentions for each pupil, which address priority individual needs, develop key skills, and promote positive health and wellbeing.

Our progression planners have started to promote a professional culture, which views progress, in new and more exciting ways. Through using our progression planners, for example, we are able to evaluate those significant achievements, which fall outside of the national curriculum level descriptors, and identify any misunderstandings which need to be addressed to offer learners increased challenge.

The progression planners we have developed also enable us to have more meaningful dialogues with parents, which move away from being an abstract conversation about levels, to a much deeper exploration of what their child is more intrinsically learning.

Applying this to Computing and ICT

Progression Planners could be applied in the context of ICT and Computing. This approach sounds similar to the ladders approaches that other schools have developed, except this seems to be more personalised.

The sentence “Through using our progression planners, for example, we are able to evaluate those significant achievements, which fall outside of the national curriculum level descriptors, and identify any misunderstandings which need to be addressed to offer learners increased challenge.” Is significant I think. How can you take into account what pupils are perhaps doing completely independently of school, but which may appear to be outside the scope of the Computing Programme of Study?

I say “appear to be” because the new Computing Programme of Study’s descriptors are minimalistic, so this approach would entail doing some mapping on an individual pupil basis.

The Progression Planner approach can incorporate some very precise expected outcomes, making it relatively easy to identify pupils falling below expectations in a particular area.

Information from the DfE and Ofsted has been used in accordance with the terms of the Open Government Licence http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/2/

To read the first post in this series, please go to 9 Approaches to assessing Computing and ICT–#1: Skills Passport. To gain access to the whole series in one document, just sign up for Digital Education.

cross-posted at www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Digital Education."

9 Approaches to assessing Computing and ICT–#7: An Iterative Approach

Terry Freedman — Fri, 13 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

The DfE recently announced the winners of its Assessment Innovation Fund: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/schools-win-funds-to-develop-and-share-new-ways-of-assessing-pupils

The purpose of the fund was as follows:

By collecting and promoting examples of innovative approaches to assessment, we want to give schools ideas and options as they upgrade their systems in response to the removal of levels.

Each package will then be made freely available for other schools to access, download and use.

(See https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/268361/Assessment_Innovation_Fund_launch_doc.pdf )

In each case I have kept the text of the DfE’s announcement, and then added my thoughts under the heading “Applying this to Computing and ICT”.

Today: An iterative approach

Sirius Academy, Hull, Yorkshire (secondary)

The Sirius design and technology assessment system encourages the development of creativity, innovation, practical skills and student progress within the new design and technology curriculum. The system caters for preparing students for the range of options available within the subject whilst keeping a balanced focus on assessment of both the rigorous academic and practical abilities of students. The school is clear to pupils that by taking risks and working through many iterative cycles in various areas, their progress will not always be linear. The school has had positive feedback from pupils. They feel that it allows for a smooth transition between assessment in design and technology up to the end of key stage 3 to key stage 4 and beyond.

Applying this to Computing and ICT

This is a wonderful-sounding approach. However, it can be difficult to apply to an assessment scheme for Computing to some extent. The main reason is that assessment schemes tend, by their nature, to have built-in expectations about what constitutes achievement in a certain area. If a pupil is being truly innovative, you may not be able to properly make judgements unless you radically change your way of doing so.

You could have a two-tier approach. In order to assess what a pupil has done as far as being creative and innovative are concerned, you could hold interviews with them in which you ask them to explain what they have done and why. This would clearly be too time-consuming to be of practical use in a school, but you could adapt this approach. For example, you might interview small groups of pupils at a time – this can be done while the rest are getting on with their work. Or you could ask each pupil to make a 5 minute video explaining what they have done and why. Or you could have their work looked at by outside experts such as students on Computing courses.

The other tier is to have some straightforward skills tests/assessments to ensure that pupils have mastered the basics and are not just up in the clouds. You might think that would not be possible, but I have heard innovative musicians fall down trying to play a simple tune like “Happy Birthday”!

The idea of an iterative approach is a good one. Pupils acquire and master skills in layers, not all in one go.

Information from the DfE and Ofsted has been used in accordance with the terms of the Open Government Licence http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/2/

cross-posted at www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Digital Education."

Computer Education Projects Book Update

Terry Freedman — Wed, 11 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

How are teachers preparing for the new Computing curriculum, which is due to start being taught in September 2014? Some time ago I created an online survey in order to ascertain the answer to this question. Although there have been fewer respondents than I’d hoped for (though probably more than I’d expected), the results are quite interesting. Here is a very brief summary.

Things could be worse: imagine having to teach programming on this! Picture by James Vaughn https://www.flickr.com/photos/x-ray_delta_one

My longer-term aim is to publish all the responses for which I have permission to do so. I’d like to do so in the form of an ebook, which will be free to download. But as that is a fair amount of work, I’d prefer to wait until I receive a few more responses. (The amount of time taken to mail-merge and format etc doesn’t increase proportionately to the number of entries.)

If you would like to contribute, please complete the survey here:

Computer Education Projects Book form.

Most responses have been from secondary teachers (approx 70%)
Many schools are adopting a project-based learning approach. Perhaps surprisingly, this is not confined to secondary schools.
Some schools are adding computing to what they are already doing.
In some schools, the teachers have been preparing themselves for a while, by skilling themselves in computing, and adapting the curriculum (they could clearly see the writing on the wall).
In several schools, teachers have been worried about the new curriculum, and have been teaching themselves coding using books and online resources. Part of the ebook I’m planning will include a list of the resources people have cited -- with links of course!
I get the impression that many schools have regarded the new curriculum as an opportunity to be innovative and a bit more daring. Perhaps it’s because of the minimalistic nature of the Programme of Study (ie less seemingly prescriptive than the old one), I don’t know.

I know that this summary is not quantitative, but I just wanted to give you a flavour of some of the responses so far. It would be great if you could contribute your thoughts and ideas too. Just to remind you, the survey may be found at:

Computer Education Projects Book form.

cross-posted at www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Digital Education."

9 Approaches to assessing Computing and ICT–#6: Another Ladder Approach

Terry Freedman — Fri, 06 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

The DfE recently announced the winners of its Assessment Innovation Fund: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/schools-win-funds-to-develop-and-share-new-ways-of-assessing-pupils

The purpose of the fund was as follows:

By collecting and promoting examples of innovative approaches to assessment, we want to give schools ideas and options as they upgrade their systems in response to the removal of levels.

Each package will then be made freely available for other schools to access, download and use.

(See https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/268361/Assessment_Innovation_Fund_launch_doc.pdf )

In each case I have kept the text of the DfE’s announcement, and then added my thoughts under the heading “Applying this to Computing and ICT”.

Today: Another Ladder approach

West Exe Technology College, Exeter, Devon (primary and secondary)

Also using a ‘ladder’ approach (see 9 Approaches to assessing Computing and ICT–#2: The ladder), the school uses objectives driven by curriculum content. Each objective is a short, discrete, qualitative

Kevin Hadley, Assistant Headteacher said: and concrete description of what a student is expected to know and be able to do within a specific subject area and topic. In the interim, formative assessments act as periodic reviews of learning and in summative (end of topic) assessments. Accuracy of assessment judgments are moderated by experienced professionals to ensure consistency in their approach. The school feels that the ladders work extremely well as a practical checklist to inform students, parents and teachers of next steps in learning.

The judges were particularly impressed by the local collaboration that school has driven and the ‘all-through’ nature of their approach to assessment.

We’re delighted to have secured funding through the Assessment Innovation Fund which will allow us to share with other schools the great work we’re doing on assessment. As a school and member of the Exeter Learning Trust, we are always keen to share quality information with our parents and carers about the progress of their children.

Assessment Learning Ladders are helping us to further build a working partnership with parents and carers by making clear the next steps needed in learning so that the very best possible progress is made.

Applying this to Computing and ICT

The key aspects of this approach that lend themselves very well to use in Computing and ICT are:

Specific descriptions of what the pupil is expected to know and be able to do by the end of a particular unit of work.
The use of professionals for moderation purposes.
The fact that the ladders double as a checklist to help pupils see what knowledge and skills they need to acquire next.
And the fact that the scheme has been devised by both primary and secondary colleagues. If you can achieve this sort of collaboration then you are really on course to have a successful assessment approach I think. You may find the article 11 Reasons to collaborate with other schools in implementing the new Computing Programme of Study useful in this context.

Information from the DfE and Ofsted has been used in accordance with the terms of the Open Government Licence http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/2/

cross-posted at www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Digital Education."

9 Approaches to assessing Computing and ICT–#5: A Growth Mindset

Terry Freedman — Tue, 03 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

The DfE recently announced the winners of its Assessment Innovation Fund: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/schools-win-funds-to-develop-and-share-new-ways-of-assessing-pupils

The purpose of the fund was as follows:

By collecting and promoting examples of innovative approaches to assessment, we want to give schools ideas and options as they upgrade their systems in response to the removal of levels.

Each package will then be made freely available for other schools to access, download and use.

(See https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/268361/Assessment_Innovation_Fund_launch_doc.pdf )

In each case I have kept the text of the DfE’s announcement, and then added my thoughts under the heading “Applying this to Computing and ICT”.

Today: A Growth Mindset approach.

Durrington High School, Worthing, West Sussex (secondary)

The school describes its approach as a “growth mindset” that encourages pupils to improve their knowledge and skills using effort, feedback and resilience to aspire to excellence. In the first instance, the school uses key stage 2 data and other supporting assessments early in year 7 (eg CATs, reading tests, internal tests), to group students into 4 ‘thresholds’ based on their prior assessments - excellence, secure, developing and foundation. These banded thresholds of knowledge and skills can then be used to give students ongoing formative feedback, based on their day-to-day work, about how to improve and move through the thresholds, towards excellence. Summative assessments (half termly/termly) are used to further assess how well students are doing towards the end of the unit of work against each threshold.

Deputy headteacher Shaun Allison said:

The key goals of any assessment system should be simple. It should celebrate what students already know, whilst building their aspirations towards excellence and supporting them to achieve this, through high expectations and quality feedback. This is what our growth and thresholds model of assessment aims to do.

Applying this to Computing and ICT

I love the idea of a “growth mindset”. In the context of Computing and ICT, this approach would involve finding out what pupils already know, perhaps by setting a baseline test or task, or by asking diagnostic questions at the start of the year, term and each new piece of work.

By incorporating the results of such explorations into a formal assessment scheme you would be actively acknowledging pupils’ achievements outside school and/or prior learning.

As with any assessment approach you would need to be clear about the criteria for being put into each threshold in each area of the Computing curriculum.

See Assessment without Levels for a much more detailed exposition of the school’s approach.

Information from the DfE and Ofsted has been used in accordance with the terms of the Open Government Licence http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/2/

cross-posted at www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Digital Education."

9 Approaches to assessing Computing and ICT–#4: A Mastery Approach

Terry Freedman — Fri, 23 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

The DfE recently announced the winners of its Assessment Innovation Fund: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/schools-win-funds-to-develop-and-share-new-ways-of-assessing-pupils

The purpose of the fund was as follows:

By collecting and promoting examples of innovative approaches to assessment, we want to give schools ideas and options as they upgrade their systems in response to the removal of levels.

Each package will then be made freely available for other schools to access, download and use.

(See https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/268361/Assessment_Innovation_Fund_launch_doc.pdf )

In each case I have kept the text of the DfE’s announcement, and then added my thoughts under the heading “Applying this to Computing and ICT”.

Today: A Mastery approach.

Trinity Academy Halifax, Yorkshire (secondary)

The new national curriculum is broken down into units (categorising difficulty as foundation, elementary, intermediate or advanced) which translate to planned teaching programmes of study for lessons and subsequent category tests. The content of the units has been devised with substantial expertise from the maths and English teaching communities and based on leading curriculum models (eg Shanghai and Singapore).

Students complete a test to ascertain their degree of mastery. Their level of success places them at a particular point within a category:

“no progress”
“expected progress”
“exceptional progress”

Students must master particular unit content before being in a position to master the next stage. This means that students who plateau at a given level can be given focused support to unlock understanding and progress further.

Judges thought this was a very strong application that placed good consideration on progress from key stage 1 to key stage 3, particularly bearing in mind that it is a secondary school.

Vice Principal Rob Marsh said:

The opportunity for us to take control of assessment and develop a system based on the needs of our students has been transformational. It has been developed with the expertise of many teachers and leaders with passion and enthusiasm. The result is that we now have the ability to assess students’ progress accurately, identifying their successes and, crucially, pinpointing areas of misunderstanding. This leads to effectively targeted support and ultimately successful intervention at an early stage.

Applying this to Computing and ICT

The concept of “mastery” is a well-established one. I like the idea that if pupils reach a plateau they will be given focused support to help them move up.

I think this could be applied to the Computing curriculum. However, I think it is worth pointing out that it has often been the case that “Mastery” approaches have been interpreted as competency-based. What that can translate to is a very “atomistic” approach whereby skills are broken down into smaller and smaller sub-skills.

In the context of Computing you could end up with a situation in which a pupil achieves mastery in, say, Scratch programming, but be completely unable to transfer the learning to a different program or even not be able to solve a different sort of problem, even using Scratch.

Nevertheless, the Mastery approach has much to commend it. And, of course, how you define “Mastery” and how you assess whether it has been achieved can in themselves be innovative. You might, for example, enlist the help of local organisations or students at a nearby college or university to help in the final assessment of each skill area.

Information from the DfE and Ofsted has been used in accordance with the terms of the Open Government Licence http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/2/

cross-posted at www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Digital Education."

9 Approaches to assessing Computing and ICT–#3: A Scoring System

Terry Freedman — Tue, 20 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

The DfE recently announced the winners of its Assessment Innovation Fund: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/schools-win-funds-to-develop-and-share-new-ways-of-assessing-pupils

The purpose of the fund was as follows:

By collecting and promoting examples of innovative approaches to assessment, we want to give schools ideas and options as they upgrade their systems in response to the removal of levels.

Each package will then be made freely available for other schools to access, download and use.

(See https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/268361/Assessment_Innovation_Fund_launch_doc.pdf )

In each case I have kept the text of the DfE’s announcement, and then added my thoughts under the heading “Applying this to Computing and ICT”.

Today: A scoring system.

Westminster Academy, London (secondary)

The academy uses a percentage score system to reflect a student’s mastery of the curriculum. Granular data on topics within the curriculum allows for high-quality formative feedback, which drives both teaching and independent learning. The school has found this easy for parents and pupils to understand. The curriculum is divided into discrete topics (approximately 15 per year), each of which are independently assessed by an in-class quiz, homework, and an end-of-term exam. An overall score is derived from performance for each topic, with an average produced to cover all topics. Teachers use formative assessment data to coordinate interventions and guide their planning.

David Thomas, the school’s joint maths curriculum lead, said:

Our system tells teachers, students and parents exactly how well a child is learning and exactly what they need to do to get better. By tracking what each student has learned we build one coherent picture of their knowledge from which to guide teaching and learning. There are no vague levels, just clear guidance on how to make even more progress.

Applying this to Computing and ICT

Breaking down the Computing curriculum into 15 discrete topics makes it manageable. However, if you are going to use a project-based learning approach then this would make each project quite short (around 2 weeks on average). So you would need to consider:

A) which topics would lend themselves to a 2 week project approach?

B) Could some topics be combined, such that one project lasting around 6 weeks could cover 3 topics?

C) Could you devise a curriculum that uses a combination of the two, ie have some discrete topics lasting a week or two, taught in a non project way, while bundling other topics together to make more substantial topics?

The scoring idea has a lot of scope and would be easy for people to understand. But the tracking would have to be extensive and very specific and precise in order to help pupils make further progress. Otherwise the scores could become “Levels” under another name. Adding together scores from different areas of the curriculum is not, on the face of it, very meaningful – but then again the same criticism can be levelled at adding the scores from different answers on a test paper. But that wouldn’t prevent pupils, parents and possibly even teachers from discussing and comparing overall scores as if they were meaningful.

Information from the DfE has been used in accordance with the terms of the Open Government Licence http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/2/

cross-posted at www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Digital Education."

9 Approaches to assessing Computing and ICT–#2: The ladder

Terry Freedman — Tue, 13 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

The DfE recently announced the winners of its Assessment Innovation Fund: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/schools-win-funds-to-develop-and-share-new-ways-of-assessing-pupils

The purpose of the fund was as follows:

By collecting and promoting examples of innovative approaches to assessment, we want to give schools ideas and options as they upgrade their systems in response to the removal of levels.

Each package will then be made freely available for other schools to access, download and use.

(See https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/268361/Assessment_Innovation_Fund_launch_doc.pdf )

In each case I have kept the text of the DfE’s announcement, and then added my thoughts under the heading “Applying this to Computing and ICT”.

Today: The Ladder.

Hiltingbury Junior School, Eastleigh, Hampshire (primary)

Using a ‘ladder’ approach to maths, reading and writing, the school agrees expectations for each year group, dividing each subject into key skill areas. Children use a ‘ladder booklet’, which enables them to identify their next steps for each new unit of work. Children can identify their progression targets in more detail, allowing them recognise the areas for improvement and what next steps look like. These steps are divided in to the areas of:

exploring
achieving
exceeding

Judges felt this was clear, engaging and accessible for both children and parents. They were also impressed by the positive feedback received from parents.

Headteacher Sam Hunter said:

Our system is designed to ensure that pupils can readily see their next steps in key reading, writing and maths skills, as well as being able to keep track of the progress that they have made so far. This is easy to share with parents too. For teachers, tracking and target setting is all in one place.

Applying this to Computing and ICT

9 Approaches to assessing Computing and ICT - #1: Skills Passport (ictineducation.org)
How well is Ofsted reporting on the most able? (giftedphoenix.wordpress.com)
37 features of outstanding ICT and Computing lessons (ictineducation.org)

Information from the DfE has been used in accordance with the terms of the Open Government Licence http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/2/

If you can’t wait for the full series, subscribe to Digital Education and download the whole lot in a single document!

cross-posted at www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Digital Education."

5 principles of assessing computing and ICT

Terry Freedman — Wed, 07 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

There are lots of assessment grids and approaches being developed for the new Computing curriculum, which is wonderful. But how do you know which one is right for you? In this article I provide a few principles of assessment which I hope will provide some food for thought. These come partly from a course I’ve been teaching on the subject.

These are general principles which I have applied to the context of computing and ICT.

Know why you are assessing

There are many possible purposes of assessing, but the three with which you are most likely to be concerned are:

Diagnostic

What do your pupils already know or understand about, say, programming in Scratch? You can’t just ask them (see the “How” point below). What are their misconceptions, if any?

Formative

Often known these days as “assessment for learning”, formative assessment is used to check pupils’ understanding of what you are currently teaching them, or enabling them to learn. If you subscribe to Digital Education, our free newsletter, you will be able to download a pdf document entitled “31 Assessment for Learning Techniques”. This looks at, erm, 31 assessment for learning techniques that can readily be applied to computing or ICT.

Summative

This is finding out whether pupils have learnt what it was intended for them to learn by the end of a block of time like a term or a year.

So far so ordinary, but the challenge arises from the fact that it is not the assessment method that determines whether it is diagnostic, formative or summative. For example, a test may be summative, but it could be formative if used in a different context for a different purpose. And it’s also worth bearing in mind that setting a test every week, say, to see what the pupils have learnt in the past week doesn’t make it formative assessment: it just makes it a lot of summative assessments.

Know what you are assessing

This is key. Let’s suppose you want to assess whether your pupils understand what a conditional statement is. Do you set them a task that involves writing a snippet of code in a real programming language, or will you be happy with pseudocode? The reason this is important is that if I write a statement like:

If button is pressed, show message “OK”, otherwise show message “Please press button”

then that shows I understand what a conditional statement is. However, if you ask me to write it in proper code, and I can’t, you will need to do some further probing, ie some diagnostic assessment. Why? because my inability may stem from either of two reasons:

One, I may simply have forgotten the syntax to use.

Two, I may not understand the programming language sufficiently to be able to make an educated guess.

When I used to do a lot of programming in Visual Basic and Visual Basic for Applications, half the time I couldn’t remember the syntax, but I was usually able to work it out because I understood how the programming language was structured.

Once you have determined why I cannot write the conditional statement in code you, as the teacher, will be able to take appropriate steps to deal with the matter.

Know how you will assess

The assessment grids I referred to earlier are very helpful – up to a point. The trouble is, a statement like “Pupil understands conditional statements” tells you nothing about how you will know whether or not he or she does. Until scientists discover a way of checking people’s understanding and knowledge directly by looking at their brains, we will have to make do with inferring such things from their behaviour. In other words, what would you expect someone who understands conditional statements to do to demonstrate that?

I’m sorry if this is obvious, but it does mean that even if you download an assessment grid and decide to use it as it is, you will still have to do some work to decide what evidence you will look for.

But this, and the preceding point, raises another issue….

How will you know you’re assessing what you think you’re assessing?

This is known as the ‘validity’' problem’. If we go back to the ‘what’ point earlier, you may think you’re assessing my understanding of conditional statements by asking me to write one in Python, but you may actually be testing my memory instead. In a spreadsheet-based question, you may be testing my numeracy skills rather than my ICT understanding. In other kinds of task you may be inadvertently assessing my language skills. Examination boards spend a fortune, and employ an army of statisticians, to avoid the validation problem, so don’t think that you will do so completely! But it is something to be aware of in order to avoid making a simple but avoidable mistake. For example, the numeracy issue can be avoided if you give pupils the mathematical formula for doing the calculation, so that in the spreadsheet they just have to focus on how and where to use it.

Assessment should be reliable

I mention this for the sake of completeness. An assessment procedure is said to be reliable if it produces the same sort of results with different groups of similar pupils or, more simply, produces consistent results. This is another major issue that examination boards and others throw loads of money and brain power at. Given that your class is not only different from the one next door, but even different from itself when it’s windy outside, you’re not going to solve this one either.

Nevertheless, I think it’s worth knowing about so that you can avoid some pitfalls. Reliability is going to be very difficult to achieve if, for example, you give each teacher in your team (if you have one) a set of criteria by which to assign different grades or levels to work, and then leave them to it. Even setting out something as seemingly black and white as a rubric cannot be guaranteed to produce reliable results, because teachers interpret the criteria differently from each other – and even differently from themselves at different times. You would need to ensure there are plenty of opportunities for training, moderation, and seeing examples of pupils’ work at various levels or grades.

So, a lot to think about!

Don’t forget to subscribe to Digital Education and obtain your copy of 31 Assessment for Learning Techniques.

cross-posted on www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Digital Education."

Where are the girls in ICT and Computing

Terry Freedman — Thu, 01 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

It was International Women’s Day on March 8th, so it seems quite timely (in a belated sort of way) to focus on gender issues as they relate to computing and ICT.

Start them young: Social Computing, by Laura Blankenship https://www.flickr.com/photos/lorda/

What are the gender issues?

In the context of technology, the main issue is that not enough girls go into computer science studies beyond the statutory provision, or computer-related jobs. Various figures are cited, but it seems to be generally agreed that only around 16 or 17% of students in undergraduate courses in Computer Science in the UK are female, and only around 27 or 28% of employees in information technology jobs are women — a figure that is true for both the UK and the USA.

Why is there such a discrepancy?

Various reasons are cited, all of which are probably true. They include:

A perception that it is too geeky
Too many boys on undergraduate courses — I saw a figure cited in one forum that there is a ratio of 5:1, males to females; that’s probably anecdotal, but it kind of doesn’t matter whether it’s objectively true or not, because it’s perception that determines behaviour, not necessarily reality; of course, this means that the imbalance is a self-fulfilling prophecy
Too few female role models
Probably the perception that being a “computer geek” means spending long periods without washing or sunlight, and living on beer and pizza
In school, unless checked, boys tend to dominate classroom discussion.

Now, before anyone complains, I should just like to say that I have not intended this article to be an academic treatise, but a statement of what seems to be many people’s perception of the situation. The important thing is, what can be done about it? I would suggest the following.

Solutions

In no particular order of priority:

Ensure the work you set is interesting, involves problem-solving and, importantly, involves collaborative problem-solving; I realise there is a danger of gender stereotyping, but I would say that from my experience of teaching, girls are more engaged when the classroom is a place of collaboration rather than competition; in fact, I have also found that project-based learning is better for boys as well
Ensure the work is authentic, in the sense of having potentially useful application in real life
You could, if you like, establish a computer club for girls only. I don’t agree with that approach (except in girls’ schools, obviously), but such a course of action does have the merit of keeping the boys out of the picture altogether; if the girls in your school feel intimidated by the boys, this may be the answer
However, I think a better option is to establish rules of engagement that preclude the boys hogging discussion, calling out the answers to questions, or behaving in ways that make girls feel less self-confident than is justified. For example, there are several assessment for learning techniques you can employ that will address these points. (Subscribers to Digital Education can avail themselves of a free resource I created called “31 Assessment for Learning Techniques”, which is in pdf format.) That would also teach boys how to behave constructively towards females in wider society.
Make classes aware of the role of women in both the history of computing and in society today. See the Resources section below for help with this.
Seek out women speakers who could inspire the girls in your school. These may include people in local companies, or students at a local college in university.

This is another set of solutions, but I think it is so important that I have decided to make it a section in its own right.

You need to know the data.

How many girls opt for your subject(s)? If there is a wide disparity between the two genders, find out why. Ask your “non-customers” why they didn’t choose your options. This information could be useful next year. You could even run a survey now, asking pupils what sort of course would interest them, making sure to provide them with some genuine options.
Do you know how well girls are doing in ICT and Computing compared with boys? If there is a disparity, why? And what are you going to do about it?
Are the girls in your classes more, less, or equally as active in discussions as the boys? If not, why not, and what are you going to do about it?

You can use your pupils, and your school’s digital leaders, if it has them, to help you devise ways and means of (a) finding out the answers to some of these questions and (b) helping you come up with solutions.

You know, if you’re stopped for speeding and you tell the police you weren’t aware of the speed limit, they will inform you that ignorance is no excuse in the eyes of the law. I believe the same holds true when it comes to how different groups of pupils – in this case girls and boys – are doing. If you don’t know, find out!

Resources

“The women are here”: special edition of the free magazine, Computer Science for Fun, which you can download from here: http://www.cs4fn.org/annual/cs4fnannual2.pdf

“Mind the gap: getting girls into computing”: special edition of Computing at School’s magazine, Switched On, which you can download from here: http://www.computingatschool.org.uk/data/uploads/newsletter-spring-2013.pdf This includes contributions from such people as Carrie Anne Philbin, the creator of Geek Gurl Diaries at https://www.youtube.com/user/GeekGurlDiaries, and others.

“Who are the Tech Age Girls?” An interesting UNESCO initiative, reported on here: http://www.unescobkk.org/education/ict/online-resources/databases/ict-in-education-database/item/article/who-are-the-tech-age-girls/

cross-posted on www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Digital Education."

10 ways to prepare for the new Computing curriculum

Terry Freedman — Tue, 15 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000

ith the new Computing Programme of Study looming on the horizon, schools do not have an enormous amount of time left in which to get ready for it. What practical steps can you take in order to be up and running in September?

1. Read the Computing Programme of Study

Rather than panic and try to make sense of various interpretations of what is required, read the Programme of Study, which you can find on the DFE website.

You probably have read it, but read it again. There is not an awful lot of it, which means you have a lot of freedom to come up with a really interesting scheme of work and associated activities.

2. Get to grips with the terminology

OK, you’re allowed to panic if you like, because of all the “jargon” in the Programme of Study, like “algorithms”. But there are excellent reasons for having the proper terminology in there, as I have explained in the article Computational thinking? Algorithms? Why all the jargon?.

A good place to start is to download and read Paul Curzon’s book, “Computing without Computers”, which explains all the “jargon” in everyday language.

3. Join Computing at Schools

Computing at Schools is free to join, and has thousands of members who are teachers just like you (ie not all computing geeks!). It’s a fantastic resource because just about every day people are uploading documents like worksheets, assessment grids or even whole schemes of work for others to comment on and adapt for their own schools.

4. Teach yourself to program

There are lots of free resources “out there”, but one that I really like is Code Academy. It has step-by-step tutorials for several programming languages.

5. Look at Computer Science for Fun

Computer Science for Fun is a magazine and a website. The magazine is edited by Paul Curzon, mentioned earlier. It has great ideas and interesting articles about how computer science is relevant to everyday life. You can download it as a PDF, but you can also have multiple copies for your students – if the organisation is able to secure the funding to do so!

The website also has some great ideas and resources for use in the classroom.

6. Attend a training event

There’s funding available for professional development. Computing at Schools, mentioned above, has a number of Master Trainers and a network of “hubs”. Many of the events run in these hubs are free. By joining CAS you will be able to find out which one is nearest to you.

7. Look at your current scheme of work

You shouldn’t need to throw out your current ICT scheme of work completely. The new Computing curriculum emphasises computing, but still recognises the need for digital literacy and information technology.

8. Check out Ofsted’s requirements

You can find out Ofsted’s generic and subject-specific grade criteria here . I recommend reading what they regard as “Outstanding”. They say you shouldn’t use the grade criteria as a checklist, but I certainly think it’s a good starting point for finding out what you already have in place and what you need to do about the deficiencies. See the next two points as well.

9. Carry out a SWOT analysis

SWOT, by Jean-Louis Zimmermannhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/jeanlouis_zimmermann/Draw up a table with boxes for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats, and write down a few sentences in each. Hopefully, you will discover that you have a lot going for you already. However, it should also suggest where things are not wonderful. So you will need to start planning….

10. Draw up an action plan

Using your completed SWOT analysis, draw up an action plan. I’ve written more about this process in the article Planning for the new Computing curriculum, but in a nutshell you need to make sure that you have an idea of not only what you want to put in place but what you are going to do each week or month in order to do so. Being realistic, if you haven’t started planning at this stage then you’re unlikely to have everything ready by the start of September. But you need to do something.

I’d also recommend identifying a few things you can achieve fairly easily, and soon. These kind of “quick wins” will not only allow you to cross through a few items on your planning to-do list, but will also make you feel good, and so encourage you to keep on keeping on!

Conclusion

At first sight, the new Computing Programme of Study looks pretty daunting. However, there are lots of resources available, and you probably have more things you can use than perhaps you realise right now. You may not think so, but creating a vibrant Computing provision taught by experts really is doable.

cross-posted on www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Digital Education."

Computational thinking? Algorithms? Why all the jargon?

Terry Freedman — Mon, 07 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000

The new Computing Programme of Study has been criticised not only for its content, but also for the terminology it uses. In particular, it speaks about “computational thinking”, “algorithms” and “decomposition”. “Surely”, the argument goes, “they could have used ordinary everyday language?”

Had “they” decided to do that, there would no doubt have had so many people panicking about it all. So, it’s a compelling suggestion. It just happens to be wrong.

Photo from an event called "Creative Computing Symposium". I love this picture because it shows that computing involves talking to people! Picture by ScratchEd Team http://www.flickr.com/photos/scratchedteam/

Computing, like any other discipline, has its own terminology, and we should use it, and our curricula should use it. My field used to be Economics. I’d have been horrified if there was an Economics Programme of Study that stipulated that pupils should learn how to “balance up alternatives”. That is what they would need to learn to do, but the correct term is “opportunity cost”. And as an ICT teacher, advisor and specialist, I was clear that the ICT Programme of Study and any schemes of work arising from it should use terms like “data logging” rather than some half-baked but easier-to-understand alternative.

There are several reasons for my position on this issue of terminology.

First, specialist terms have specialist meanings. For example, “stress” means something different to a physicist than it does to a psychiatrist, and our everyday use of the word is completely different again. It’s much easier to learn the right terms and their meanings in the first place than to have to try and unlearn them at a later date.

Second, although we don’t necessarily want every pupil do become a computer scientist, we do want every pupil to be able to think like a computer scientist (otherwise, what’s the point of the whole exercise anyway?). That means, we should expect them to use the correct terminology. When I was an ICT teacher, for example, in the early days pupils (and some teachers) would refer to the computer monitor as a “screen” or a television”. I always corrected them.

Third, I think there is an important psychological consideration, one that potentially has practical consequences. If I were a Head of Computing or a Computing teacher in a school and I wanted to ask the Headteacher for more money or time, I want to know that I have the backing of a Programme of Study that makes it clear that I am teaching a proper subject, a niche one with its own “jargon” and way of looking at the world.

cross-posted on www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Digital Education."

Planning for the new Computing curriculum

Terry Freedman — Thu, 03 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000

At first sight, it seems bizarre that despite the fact that many teachers urgently need professional development, and time, in order to be ready to teach Computing in September, headteachers are not always allowing them to attend courses during school time. A business planning approach by ICT leaders in school could help.

You may think that a business plan is not relevant to you because you’re not running a business. But actually, many of the things that a business has to do, like marketing and budgeting – and planning – are what you do have to do in one form or another. All a business plan is is a statement of where you would like to be at a certain point in the future, and what steps you need to take in order to get there.

Before talking about business planning, though, I’d just like to explain how this post has arisen. What’s the story behind it?

The story

Business planning, with colleagues if applicable, is essentialI chaired and presented at a conference about implementing the new Computing curriculum, run by Understanding Modern Government. Featuring a great line up, including Ian Livingstone, Peter Marshman, Neil Rickus, Alan Mackenzie and Drew Buddie, the conference was intended to convey the message that the Computing curriculum can be engaging, challenging (in a good way!) and, above all, doable. I think we largely succeeded, and the comments we received bears this out:

“fantastic course, I am taking back loads of ideas to implement”

“lots of information that can be used/tried – good to have enthusiastic speakers”

“lots of ideas given – food for thought”

“well delivered course, very informative”

“comprehensive, relevant and using current information to present new computing curriculum in succinct chunks”

“many inspiring speakers with great ideas for implementing the new computing curriculum”

With regard to that last aim, of helping people to see that implementing the new arrangements was not an impossible task, Neil and I ran a workshop towards the end of the day in which we took delegates through action planning. One of the outcomes of this was that delegates realised, or had confirmed, that they would need more time to get to grips with it all. For example, they would need time and space just to look at the plethora of resources that speakers recommended throughout the day. The issue arose: how do we make our headteacher realise we need more time? Hence this article.

A business plan doesn’t have to be an in-depth, week by week, list of fully-costed actions – you're not applying for a bank loan! But it does need to contain rather more detail than this:

I’d recommend the following outline plan to share with your headteacher, and I’d aim to make it no longer than a side of A4 if you can. I’d also strongly recommend drawing it up with other members of your team, if you have one.

1. A statement of what needs to be achieved, and what it means

It is possible that headteachers don’t always fully understand the change that may be required. A Head of ICT told me she thought it was like asking a teacher of French to teach Russian from September. We were supposed to be doing a lot of this programming stuff anyway. As I reminded a group of teachers at the conference I mentioned a moment ago, it’s been on the National Curriculum since the very beginning, in 1989. Nevertheless, Ofsted consistently found that some parts of the old ICT Programme of Study, such as data logging and programming, were honoured more in the breach than the observance. In short, some ICT teachers do not have the requisite subject knowledge, and many schools will need to look at, and either tweak, or radically overhaul, their current scheme of work.

Don’t forget that it’s not just the subject knowledge but also your assessment methodology that needs to be worked out. You also need to know what resources you will need, and how much budget you will need in order to buy them.

And of course you will need to think about what technical support you need in order to offer the new curriculum. For example, do you need to negotiate with your technical support team to have a closed-off section of the school network in which students can create and run their programs?

2. A timescale

The new curriculum has to be taught from September. I don’t wish to speak for Ofsted or any other form of officialdom, but I should imagine some allowances will be made if you don’t have every single thing in place come September 1st. However, you need some things in place, like a scheme of work, the first unit or two, and the subject knowledge and resources to teach them, and a way of assessing pupils’ knowledge.

3. Professional development

What will arise from the foregoing is a good idea of what professional development you will need, and of what kinds, in order to reach a particular minimum starting point in September. For example, you may decide that you, or a member of your team, needs to go on a programming course. You may decide that you need to go on a course such one I run called New Assessment in ICT (which covers the new Computing Programme of Study) or Differentiation in Computing, or a course specifically about implementing the Computing curriculum in a secondary school, say.

(For some further ideas about courses, check out the list of providers in 9 Computing course providers to explore.)

And as likely as not, you will identify the need for a block of time in which you, and possibly a few colleagues too, look in some depth at the various resources and advice available. You will – or should – wish to meet with colleagues in the local primary schools if you are in a secondary school, or your local secondary school, if you are in a primary school, as I explained in 11 Reasons to collaborate with other schools in implementing the new Computing Programme of Study.

4. The outcome

What you should end up with is an outline plan that will convey information such as:

In order to have things in place by September to take us through the first half term, we will need to have done the following:

One day course on X in April

One “away day” for the ICT/Computing team in May

and so on.

You may find it helpful to set this out graphically instead.

5. Risk analysis

You may think that you will never be granted the time that you need, and you may well be right. However, you need to set out very clearly what the risks are of not having the time and support you have identified that you need.

For example, if you don’t have enough subject expertise, you will immediately make it less likely that the ICT/Computing provision in your school will be judged by Ofsted as “outstanding”. More importantly, you will find it more challenging to set appropriate work for your pupils, ie work that helps them progress beyond their current comfort zone. You will find it hard to assess pupils, and therefore to advise them on, and support them in, their next steps. Peer collaboration is all very well, but you still have to know enough about the subject to be able to group pupils in the most educationally useful way.

Another risk could well be that good teachers decide it’s time to go. I’ve heard of two cases where this has happened, because the teachers concerned didn’t have the confidence to learn how to teach computer programming etc.

A simple but effective approach to risk assessment is set out in an article called, perhaps not surprisingly, Risk Assessment.

Conclusion

A simple business plan such as the one suggested will be helpful in three ways:

It will help you to see what you need to achieve by September, and what you need to achieve, by when, in order to get there.

It will enable you to explain to your headteacher what needs to happen and, crucially, the risks of its not happening.

Finally, if the worst comes to the worst and you are not granted the time you think you need, and Computing in your school ends up not being as good as it might be because some of the things you were afraid might happen do happen (such as critical staff leaving), at least you will be able to remind the headteacher, as he or she is demanding to know why things aren’t great, that you did present an outline plan that included all the risks.

This isn’t as entirely as defensive or as negative as it may sound. When I was a manager of quite a large team, I had to explain to some of my staff that if they gave me their honest and expert assessment of what needed to be done in order to achieve or circumvent a particular situation, I could take a managerial decision about it. But I’d be pretty upset if, in the interests of not being the bearer of bad news, they didn’t inform me of all the facts in the first place. By presenting to your headteacher a business plan that includes a risk assessment, you provide him or her with the information they require to properly judge your case on its merits, and weigh your needs up in the context of the needs and resources of the whole school.

cross-posted on www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Digital Education."

The new Computing curriculum and its assessment is a great opportunity

Terry Freedman — Wed, 02 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000

(For the benefit of readers who don’t live in England, in September there will be a new Computing Programme of Study (ie the specification laid down in the National Curriculum), and schools no longer have to use “Levels” to assess pupils’ work.)

I was involved in a conference about preparing for the new computing curriculum recently (see Planning for the new Computing curriculum), and one of the delegates asked me:

“But what are we supposed to do about assessment now?”

“Well”, I replied. “Regard it as an opportunity.”

Cue guffaws of laughter.

But it is an opportunity. It’s an opportunity to be creative in what we teach (the aforementioned Programme of Study provides the barest of outlines), how we teach it, and how we know whether what we’ve taught has actually been learnt. It’s the first time in years that such freedom has been explicitly given.

Above all, it’s an opportunity for teachers, and schools, and also pupils and their parents, to think about assessment in a different, perhaps deeper, way. I realise that that statement could be construed as insulting, so allow me to explain what I mean.

If a particular way of doing things is laid down, you clearly have to think about what you’re doing, but that thinking is, by and large, within the constraints imposed by the system under which you are operating. Once that is taken away, you are pretty much on your own.

I think it would be a great pity, though, if people merely re-created what they’ve “lost”: another system of levels, whether based on Bloom’s Taxonomy or not. It would be much better, in my opinion, to consider lots of options, and then decide. You may end up with a facsimile of the system that’s been rejected, but I think that the process of getting there will have been enormously valuable.

Judging by the amount of activity in this area in CAS, a lot of teachers are doing a lot of this kind of thinking. For those still worrying about whether you’re up to the task, I’ll repeat what I said to a room full of teachers recently:

“You’re professionals, you know what you’re doing. You know when a student has learnt something or not. Above all, you have the intellectual and experiential tools to think about such things.”

I was reminded of the importance of thinking recently as I am reading Oliver Quinlan’s book, The Thinking Teacher. It’s readable, relevant and thought-provoking – which is just as well, really, given its title!

I’ll be reviewing that in the next issue of Digital Education, in which Oliver writes about educational research. Look out for that soon, or have it delivered to your inbox by subscribing. And do it now, before you forget!

cross-posted on www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Digital Education."

The Amazing Computing Education Projects Book

Terry Freedman — Thu, 27 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Lots of people are preparing for teaching Computing in the next school year. I thought it would be interesting and useful to collate some ideas, concerns and resources into a free ebook. Read on to find out how you can get involved — and why you should.

Hello! Thank you for coming here. Before you complete this form, there are just a few rules we would respectfully ask you to abide by:

What is it?

I’ve set up an online questionnaire. Once I’ve received a reasonable number of submissions, I’ll read them, check that the links to any suggested resources work, collate them and publish them.

“Fine”, I hear you say. “But I’m struggling a bit and trying to make the best of the situation. I don’t think I can provide any useful information."

An understandable response, though not necessarily an accurate one. You may well have thought of something very simple that other people haven’t. Or you may have discovered, or even created, a resource that others may find helpful.

So the answer to a question like "What sort of things am I looking for?”, is “Whatever you have found helpful, or interesting."

Why should you submit your ideas?

For three reasons:

First, if nobody submits any information, then nobody will gain anything from this exercise.

Second, by contributing your information you will almost certainly help others. Even by stating your concerns, you will be helping others to realise that they they are not alone.

Third, it’s a good way of bringing your ideas to a potentially very wide audience. Obviously, I can’t guarantee that, but when I conducted a similar effort a few years ago, to produce The Amazing Web 2.0 Projects Book, it was downloaded by at least 35,000 people ( I stopped keeping track when it reached that number!).

How can you submit your ideas?

By completing a fairly short online form, the URL of which is provided below.

Why should this exercise work?

Well, it has done before, when 35,000+ people downloaded The Amazing Web 2.0 Projects Book, so hopefully it will again.

When?

Now! The deadline for submissions is Midnight GMT on 3rd April 2014.

OK, I’m convinced. Where’s the form?

Here ya go:

Computer Education Projects Fill out the following information and click 'Submit'.

* Any resources you recommend should be free

* They should be available now, even if they are works in progress

* You must have permission to recommend them and allow their use by others (e.g. via a Creative Commons licence)

* By submitting this form you agree that we can publish your answers along with your name, Twitter name and blog/website (we won't publish your email address). If this is not the case, please say so in your answer to the last question.

Thank you!

*First name: *Surname: *Email: Your Twitter Name: *Your blog or website: *Country: United KingdomUnited StatesCanadaMexicoAfghanistanAlbaniaAlgeriaAmerican SamoaAndorraAngolaAnguillaAntarcticaAntigua and BarbudaArgentinaArmeniaArubaAustraliaAustriaAzerbaijanBahamasBahrainBangladeshBarbadosBelarusBelgiumBelizeBeninBermudaBhutanBoliviaBosnia and HerzegowinaBotswanaBouvet IslandBrazilBritish Indian Ocean Terr.Brunei DarussalamBulgariaBurkina FasoBurundiCambodiaCameroonCape VerdeCayman IslandsCentral African RepublicChadChileChinaChristmas IslandCocos (Keeling) IslandsColombiaComorosCongoCook IslandsCosta RicaCote d'IvoireCroatia (Hrvatska)CubaCyprusCzech RepublicDenmarkDjiboutiDominicaDominican RepublicEast TimorEcuadorEgyptEl SalvadorEquatorial GuineaEritreaEstoniaEthiopiaFalkland Islands/MalvinasFaroe IslandsFijiFinlandFranceFrance, MetropolitanFrench GuianaFrench PolynesiaFrench Southern Terr.GabonGambiaGeorgiaGermanyGhanaGibraltarGreeceGreenlandGrenadaGuadeloupeGuamGuatemalaGuineaGuinea-BissauGuyanaHaitiHeard & McDonald Is.HondurasHong KongHungaryIcelandIndiaIndonesiaIranIraqIrelandIsraelItalyJamaicaJapanJordanKazakhstanKenyaKiribatiKorea, NorthKorea, SouthKuwaitKyrgyzstanLao People's Dem. Rep.LatviaLebanonLesothoLiberiaLibyan Arab JamahiriyaLiechtensteinLithuaniaLuxembourgMacauMacedoniaMadagascarMalawiMalaysiaMaldivesMaliMaltaMarshall IslandsMartiniqueMauritaniaMauritiusMayotteMicronesiaMoldovaMonacoMongoliaMontserratMoroccoMozambiqueMyanmarNamibiaNauruNepalNetherlandsNetherlands AntillesNew CaledoniaNew ZealandNicaraguaNigerNigeriaNiueNorfolk IslandNorthern Mariana Is.NorwayOmanPakistanPalauPanamaPapua New GuineaParaguayPeruPhilippinesPitcairnPolandPortugalPuerto RicoQatarReunionRomaniaRussian FederationRwandaSaint Kitts and NevisSaint LuciaSt. Vincent & GrenadinesSamoaSan MarinoSao Tome & PrincipeSaudi ArabiaSenegalSeychellesSierra LeoneSingaporeSlovakia (Slovak Republic)SloveniaSolomon IslandsSomaliaSouth AfricaS.Georgia & S.Sandwich Is.SpainSri LankaSt. HelenaSt. Pierre & MiquelonSudanSurinameSvalbard & Jan Mayen Is.SwazilandSwedenSwitzerlandSyrian Arab RepublicTaiwanTajikistanTanzaniaThailandTogoTokelauTongaTrinidad and TobagoTunisiaTurkeyTurkmenistanTurks & Caicos IslandsTuvaluUgandaUkraineUnited Arab EmiratesUnited KingdomU.S. Minor Outlying Is.UruguayUzbekistanVanuatuVatican (Holy See)VenezuelaViet NamVirgin Islands (British)Virgin Islands (U.S.)Wallis & Futuna Is.Western SaharaYemenYugoslaviaZaireZambiaZimbabwe *School type: -= Select =-State schoolFaith schoolFree school AcademyCity Technology CollegeState Boarding schoolPrivate school *Age range(s): Nursery Primary (Elementary) Secondary (High) Sixth Form College Further Education Higher Education Other: *How many teachers teach Computing? -= Select =-12345678910Other Other: *How are you approaching the teaching of Computing? *What do you think is good about your approach? *What issues concern you? *What resource(s) or website(s) would you recommend? Anything to add? *Permission to publish: YesNo

cross-posted on www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Digital Education."

Bett 2014 Review

Terry Freedman — Fri, 07 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Is it really a week since I came trudging home from Bett 2014? I'm still in catch-up mode, which is why I haven't yet published my thoughts about the experience yet. But, I'd love to hear yours.

Please take just a few minutes to complete the Google Form below. My intention is to collate and share the findings.

Thanks!

A Bett 2014 Collage

cross-posted on www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Digital Education."

5 Things to do after attending Bett

Terry Freedman — Mon, 03 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +0000

There is always a danger that no matter how good an event is, it will turn out to have very little impact in the longer term, as you forget what you saw and more pressing concerns vie for your attention. Here are 5 suggestions for preventing that from happening. There are more suggestions in the free guide, Getting the Best out of Bett.

Children working hard at the Bett show

Plan ahead

Draw up an action plan for following up. That may take the form of arranging visits to other schools, or demonstrations from suppliers, or introducing some new ideas into your lesson plans.

Meet the leaders

Arrange a meeting with the Headteacher or other senior leader as soon as possible after your team meeting. The aim is to discuss with them what you learnt at the show that may impact what you are doing, or the school’s plans. If you discover that you are ahead of the game and don’t need to change anything at all for the time being, that is in itself an outcome that needs to be conveyed to your boss.

Make sure that you are well-prepared for the meeting, especially if you will be suggesting changes in what the school does, or you wish to ask for extra funding.

Also take into consideration whether your boss is a shoot-the-messenger type, if you need to report back on a new – and unwelcome – Government direction.

Be patient

Allow at least a week after the show to hear from any suppliers to whom you gave your business card.

Find out what I’ve seen and thought

Check the ICT in Education website for news and reviews about the show. I have already highlighted some things I saw, in Quick looks at Bett 2014. I wrote that in the middle of Bett week.

Contribute to the 2014 Bett Review ...

... by completing this form.

What did you think of Bett 2014? Did you see anything you really liked? Please share, by contributing to the 2014 Bett Review by by completing this form. Thank you!

cross-posted on www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Digital Education."

Being connected without being connected

Terry Freedman — Fri, 24 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I have finally – finally! – realised what all the Facebook status updates I find so tedious have in common. That is, apart from the fact that they ostensibly have nothing in common, and that I find them tedious. I talked about the things I find irritating in How much should we share online?, so there's no need to rehearse it all over again.

What they all have in common is that none of them make any connection with me. Indeed, the people who write them make no attempt to engage my interest or feel a connection. None of them makes any effort to make me care.

This is strange when you consider that most of the people I follow in Facebook are in the educational technology business in one way or another, and who therefore will have taught kids that when they are writing a report or making a presentation they must take into account the needs of their audience. Instead, I feel like I have been metaphorically grabbed by the lapels, pinned against a wall, and had bellowed in my face “Look at me, look at me! Aren’t I wonderful? Today has been another resounding all-time success in my life, and it’s not even 10 am!! Aren’t I wonderful? Go on, admire me!”

Spark London: before the show at the Hackney Attic

I realised this when I wandered along to a Spark London event recently. Until now, I have been listening to their podcast, as I said in Relaxing with technology, but not attended a live event. The strapline of Spark London is “Connecting people through stories”, and I have to say that it seems to live up to its ambition.

Perhaps when we teach children how to make a podcast, we ought first to teach them how to tell stories. To tell stories effectively, you have to be able to put yourself in the other person’s shoes. In other words, you have to be able to connect. If we have enough kids who “get” that, maybe in due course we will be able to “friend” people on Facebook without fear of being shouted at!

Spark London was started by Joanna Yates. To hear her personal story about struggling with dyslexia, which was undiagnosed until she was fortunate enough to have a teacher who knew what she was looking at and what to do about it, listen to the podcast called Words.

I’ve also written about Spark London in the context of writing: 4 ways that Spark London is good for writers

The Future of Story-telling is a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course). I’ve just enrolled, even though the course has already run, because all the materials are available still (as far as I can tell). Thanks to Tom Whitehead for telling me about it. Here’s a video about it:

cross-posted on www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Computers in Classrooms."

Getting the best out of Bett now available

Terry Freedman — Mon, 20 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Over 170 hints and tips from a Bett veteran! Yes, this is my UNOFFICIAL guide. Feel free to download it or share it, via an embed code.

Now includes a floor plan!

If you have already downloaded it, you may wish to download it again, as this is a revised edition containing extra information.

The latest edition of our annual unofficial guide:

View/download the guide:

Getting the best out of Bett 2014 2nd ed v2 from Terry Freedman

To view it full size, click on "Slideshare". To download it from Slideshare, click on "Save".

cross-posted on www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Computers in Classrooms."

5 Tips For BETT

Terry Freedman — Sun, 19 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000

My annual guide to Getting the Best out of BETT is pretty much complete. I’m just waiting for one more item to be sent to me, and then it’s all systems go. I’ll be making it available to subscribers to our newsletter first, and then more widely. In the meantime, I thought I’d publish a few extracts from it. These extracts are just a small sample: there are over 150 suggestions altogether.

The cover of the new, stupendously useful, and FREE guide to Bett 2014!

Don’t dismiss the exhibitors

Some teachers have an unfortunate tendency to display a bit of an arrogant attitude towards exhibitors. While there are undoubtedly some exhibitors who see education as fertile ground for easy pickings, in my experience most are not like that. Many have been teachers themselves, and all of them will have consulted, and had their products tested by, teachers before coming to market. So they probably have more experience of what works in the classroom, albeit indirectly, than you might think.

In any case, it’s the exhibitors who make Bett possible in the first place. If you think they’re beneath you somehow, that says more about you than it does about them, and you may like to read Pete Yeoman’s “No such thing as free” for his (rather angry) take on this. In fact, read it even if you’re not like that because it’s a good read and spot on.

Refrain from buying

An odd thing to suggest, at first glance, but before signing on any dotted line in order to enjoy a “special show price”, take time afterwards to check out alternatives. For example, I imagine quite a few companies will be launching new schemes of work and lesson resources, but there are quite a few free ones available, so it’s worth taking the time to do a proper evaluation of the various options available.

Arrange to have a free trial or free samples

This is the corollary of the preceding point: do ask for samples or a free trial so that you can fully compare the commercial product with its free alternatives.

Freedman’s Rule of Free products and paid-for products

Not everything that’s good is free, and not everything that’s free is good.

Corollary:

Just because something has a price doesn’t make it good quality.

Buy a set of good quality business cards

I have never really understood the idea of having cheap business cards to give to other people. In my opinion, cheap business cards feel cheap. They’re fine for putting into boxes or jars for a prize draw, but not to represent yourself to other people.

Your business card represents you. Do you really want to convey the impression, however subliminally, that you don’t consider yourself worth investing a bit of money in?

cross-posted on www.ictineducation.org

Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Computers in Classrooms."

Latest from Tech & Learning in Techlearning-international

Inspecting Computing in Schools: 6 Research Questions

The Computing Curriculum in England: A Timeline of Hopes and Experience

It Wasn’t Me Wot Done It, Sir! The Depressing State of Computing as a Subject

Our Lives in Data: London Transport

Conference: Global Teacher Education Knowledge Mobilisation Summit

The State of Teaching in the UK

Why do ICT and Computing teachers leave teaching?

Bett 2017 Bulletin #6: What I've Seen, What to See

Top World Bank EduTech Blog Posts of 2016

Top World Bank EduTech Blog Posts of 2016

BREXIT and Education Technology

Introduction

Data protection

An Innovative Approach to the Procurement of "Innovative" Large-Scale Educational Technology Programs?

Review of the PA-BESA Conference 2016

What's Changed: Ten Reflections on Ten Years of Technology Use in Education

Computing Discussion Topics: Brexit and Biometrics

11 attributes of the ideal ICT and Computing inspector

They have taught the subject...

EducationTechnology News: 4 Forthcoming Events

Event 1: ResearchEd

Extending Learning- Involving Parents

ICT Direct Reassures Schools on the Impact of Brexit on ICT Equipment

Education Provides the Analogue Foundation for Our Digital Lives

Quick Wins in the Computing Classroom

Computing Options at GCSE:Interim Survey Results

The big picture

How Students in Uruguayan Schools are Being Taught English Over the Internet

How students in Uruguayan schools are being taught English over the Internet by teachers in Argentina -- and in the UK & the Philippines

New! Updated ICT and Qualifications List Now Available

7 Must-Attend Conferences For Ed Tech Teachers

West Herts College Selects itslearning

7 Characteristics of a Good Computing Scheme of Work

Preparing to teach the new Computing curriculum

Make connections

A is for Assessing Computing: 16 criteria and 5 considerations

The 6 Fundamental Computing Assessment Scheme Questions

What’s the underlying rationale?

What required behaviour will be ‘proof’?

What are appropriate activities or questions?

What about validity?

How will you know if a pupil has ‘got it’?

How will you all agree?

The (digital) revolution comes to the London Barbican

9 Approaches to assessing Computing and ICT–#9: Cognitive Development

Frank Wise School, Banbury, Oxfordshire (special school)

Applying this to Computing and ICT

9 Approaches to assessing Computing and ICT–#8: An Iterative Approach

Swiss Cottage School, Camden, North London (special school)

Applying this to Computing and ICT

9 Approaches to assessing Computing and ICT–#7: An Iterative Approach

Sirius Academy, Hull, Yorkshire (secondary)

Applying this to Computing and ICT

Computer Education Projects Book Update

9 Approaches to assessing Computing and ICT–#6: Another Ladder Approach

Introduction

West Exe Technology College, Exeter, Devon (primary and secondary)

Applying this to Computing and ICT

9 Approaches to assessing Computing and ICT–#5: A Growth Mindset

Durrington High School, Worthing, West Sussex (secondary)

Applying this to Computing and ICT

9 Approaches to assessing Computing and ICT–#4: A Mastery Approach

Introduction

Trinity Academy Halifax, Yorkshire (secondary)

Applying this to Computing and ICT

9 Approaches to assessing Computing and ICT–#3: A Scoring System

Introduction

Westminster Academy, London (secondary)

Applying this to Computing and ICT

9 Approaches to assessing Computing and ICT–#2: The ladder

Introduction

Hiltingbury Junior School, Eastleigh, Hampshire (primary)

Applying this to Computing and ICT

5 principles of assessing computing and ICT

Know why you are assessing

Know what you are assessing

Know how you will assess

How will you know you’re assessing what you think you’re assessing?

Assessment should be reliable