Is consumer IT compatible with the DfE Academy vision?

There are many interesting blog posts¹ and articles on the consumerisation of school IT networks (so called Bring Your Own Computer/Device or BYOD) and some successful examples in industry too². If you are unaware, the idea is that your school/workplace stops insisting you use an old XP workstation or a remnant from the laptops for teachers programme and lets you bring in and integrate your own machine; spanky netbook, Android tablet or even IOS device. Besides the need for network technicians to be conversant with the settings and options of a variety of OSes there is also the issue of safeguarding (personal photos, files and calendars?) and security from viruses, trojans and the like. A network technicians course I attended last year focused on letting visitors use iPads on corporate networks to do more than just access Internet – mail settings, webDav and other features like file sharing or even FaceTime are potential headaches that most techies will say “Sure, use your gadget but don’t expect support”. The latest developments include Microsoft System Centre 2012, Centrify cloud support for Linux/Android and Apple iCloud which any network technician is obviously fully knowledgeable and competent with? No?! A training course on the cards then?

The alternative to an unmanaged service is the extensive process of blacklisting, ensuring anti-virus software is installed/updated, assigning IP/MAC addresses, serial numbers and policies of trust. This works ok in large corporations but what about small secondary school IT troubleshooters or primary school network managers (usually shared between a few schools or an enthusiastic teacher). There is another factor now too and that involves the DfE vision for Academies. In this futuristic vision (snigger), school networks won’t be advised by and maintained by LA technical support (at either primary or secondary schools) but by the Academy organisations themselves. Not all are the same obviously but some of the major players are run on a ‘for future profit’ business model and so looking to invest in the short term but reap in the near future. In my experience, networks in grouped Academies have improved massively within the first year after conversion (gone are the Win XP machines and varieties of Win Servers) but with it comes new security measures. In one academy, the workstations have no USB or optical drives and the login process forces an Internet agreement that excludes the use of gmail and dropbox – how can you use your own device under these conditions? No chance… unless… oh yes of course. Your device may have a SIM card and access to 3G – now unsupported total unrestricted access is open to you and this is the fact about BYOD in an academy because of the ratio of machine to student, they are likely to want to ‘just check out wikipedia on my smartphone’ or ‘search for an image to help me on my iPhone’ etc. Also just as likely is inappropriate content, music on demand etc so ‘phones and devices get banned (but brought in anyway). Yes, this is common and I’m sure isn’t quite part of the vision for either BYOD or DfE Academies. The strategy for transforming education using consumer IT was published in 2005 – shame the business managers of some academies haven’t bothered to have a look at it.

¹http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ukschools/archive/2012/01/03/bring-your-own-device-byod-at-saltash-net.aspx

²http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17017570

Sneaky marketplace

Seems like there is a sneaky bit of marketing going on with social media sites and educational technology companies. If I’m not mistaken, more and more colleagues are being asked to do ‘positive promotion’ (yes, I’m being diplomatic with my chosen language here) when using social media in exchange for badges of notification, beta-testing of software or free CPD. This isn’t new in itself; the most prominent example of this is the Apple ATI event where training takes place and  you and your school are marketed at – not so bad as you wouldn’t attend the event if your school wasn’t thinking of investing in equipment. A spin off of this is the Apple Distinguished Educator badge (ADE) that started in the States as a notifier for internal school CPD knowledge and peer sharing.

Being an ADE involves 4 primary roles – advocate, advisor, author and ambassador. Each is connected to our relationship with Apple and the devices we use in our teaching and learning.
Advocate – passionate users of Apple technologies and able to present to others how to use these tools in education
Advisor – feedback to Apple how these technologies influence education
Author – publish examples of work using Apple technologies for others to learn from and use
Ambassador – build global communities to “expand the walls of the classroom”

Usually mac fans (I am one) are pretty evangelical about the kit anyway so its not such a stretch to be an Advocate. When does this come down to sales and renewed contracts though? In my experience of running ATI events there is an element of bums on seats and if there isn’t the interest then your badge can be transferred to a rival organisation… you shouldn’t need the badge to be able to run a free CPD event. But then. you don’t get access to gratis kit and or beta software either.

Other companies are following suite in this way (Microsoft Accreditation obviously, AutoDesk, Google Teacher Academy amongst others). What is developing now is the way the advocation is being pursued using social media sites in very subtle ways (owing much to Internet marketing techniques) and not obviously positive promotion either. Some examples: the hashtag for ukedchat is attached to social media discussions on Twitter for UK Education. On one occasion the discussion was moderated by a company offering educational awards and the subject was: Educational Awards! So blatant a promotion (even if not intended) that there was cyber-outrage…

Where does this stop? Google Teacher Academy ‘graduates’ discussing how useful Picasa is at opportune moments? It is neither the most user friendly or cheapest online photo storage service so should be discussed in the context of other services surely… maybe I’m reading too much into this trend of product placement but if it isn’t with us now it certainly will be soon…

Extract from sales banter:

Do you know where to find your target market?

Do you know what your message is?

Many people jump into social media marketing without any kind of action plan. They jump on the bandwagon and start Tweeting their message to anyone who will listen, hoping that it will land on captive ears. And, they turn off many potential friends and ambassadors in the process.

Now consider this in terms of your social media discussions of products and services – as tweeting teachers you are a potential market to be (subtly) exploited! Nuff’ said.

TV Profanity and classroom swearing thresholds

(cc) CHRISTOPHER MACSURAK photo of Adele on Flickr

At the New Year, the BBC broadcast a live concert by Adele at the Royal Albert Hall based on the songs recorded for her album “21″. It was absolutely stunning, powerful, emotional and thoroughly entertaining. Adele’s audience consisted of a cross-section of appreciable society including all ages (kids under 10-ish could be seen clapping and cheering in their seats amongst grandparents and teens). My parents sat down to watch at their home too as they are big fans and Adele’s opening welcome rang out across the airwaves: ”Hello f*cking Albert Hall!”

It was well past the TV watershed (most taboo words are allowed in the UK terrestrial TV channels after 9 pm) and our house we got into the gig and even watched the ‘red button’ interactive extras. Wow and double wow. However, my parents turned straight off…

“Did you see Adele on TV last night?” I asked the next day. “No; absolutely disgusting foul mouthed. Totally unnecessary” was the response.

“But…but…” I protested to no avail. This got me wondering about cultural and age based thresholds to profanity on TV. Every language has it’s taboo, forbidden words and profanities (even Japanese despite common misconceptions) but what we may find acceptable in our streets and classrooms amongst the young don’t necessarily resonate with the older generation. Recent research¹ has suggested a link between swearing and aggressive behaviour – did our parents and grandparents live in politer, gentler times? Think not – I’ve heard all kinds of tales of Mersey dockers, coal miner’s wives etc.

The populare rise of Gordon ‘Chef’ Ramsey and in contrast, the furore over the Ross/Brand/Sachs affair and even the Panorama TV special² on swearing (fronted by comedian Frank Skinner) in which over 50% said there was too much swearing on TV are all at odds – what will we put up with and should we?

My beef is in the classroom where low level disruption is to be tolerated (don’t make mountains over molehills) and some words have become part of everyday language. So I can ask a pupil to ‘mind her language’ but be oblivious to Adele’s potty mouth whilst I for one still remember the taste of soapy water from my childhood.

¹http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/19/us-profanity-tv-idUSTRE79I5OH20111019

²http://news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/front_page/newsid_7851000/7851466.stm

Natural bokeh

Bokeh is the term used to describe the quality of background blurring in a depth of field photo.

This is my second photo from my 365 project (a photo a day for the year, although there are technically 366 days this year as its a leap year). Other photos can be seen on my project website at: http://365damoward2012.posterous.com/

I won’t be cross-posting to both sites as this site is for thoughts and musings as opposed to creative photo projects!

Happy New Year

Five things (2011)

Five things achieved this year:

1. Got to grips with Traded Services
2. Made my work more ‘business-like’
3. Spent more quality time with my family (yes really)
4. Left my job (not entirely through choice)
5. Returned to school teaching

1. There is nothing like a funding-cut to focus the  ind and many of this year’s achievements are based around the end to funding suffered in April this year. The first quarter of the year really focused on Traded Service models to raise money to keep in employment. ‘What will schools pay for?’ and ‘How much?’ can be a force to change or a complete challenge… overall a steep but satisfactory learning curve especially as the brochure I designed really was top class!

2. A private education? Well the targeted group that drew funding were potential NEETs (Not in Employment Education or Training) and after a pilot last summer 8 other cohorts did intensive short courses. All who stayed on achieved GCSE equivalents… even external examiners thought it a viable business model BUT… yes there always buts to this kind of enterprise and unfortunately it wasn’t to be!

3. When things in your job aren’t going well, you savour time with loved ones. Time spent on short break holidays have been the highlight of the year!

4. So I made the decision to leave employment before the service was closed down as none of the internal redeployment opportunities were really suitable for a teacher like myself… this was a difficult process and I am happy to say my online community supported me with encouraging tweets! Which leads me on to…

5. A return to school – although I had been teaching it wasn’t in a school setting so I experimented with several voluntary settings (including Primary) before going on to Supply/cover work. This is a goal achieved, albeit not an ideal one as I had always intended to return (guessing at 5 years away not 3 and a half) but would have preferred a permanent job.

Tips for Supply teaching

Uh-oh, I am back in school this close to Christmas as a supply/cover (aka substitute) teacher. This is particularly pertinent to me at the moment having returned to the classroom after a 3 and half year absence (working for the local authority). I’m no expert so I had to google around for the tips I needed – hence the blog post as helpful aid to someone else.

This is definitely not just about survival, it can be summarised in a set of tips and a well organised school may well give you the lowdown as part of a mini induction.

• Be as early as you can. Make contact and introduce yourself. Ask for a map/school layout. Ask about behaviour policy.
• Prepare the room and formulate a structured lesson (starter, main, plenary).
• Use seating plans if provided or divide b/g/b/g – own the classroom space.
• Reinforce basic rules during the lesson. Keep them on task.
• Assess safety risks involved based on pupils’ (and your) actions. Respond quickly (i.e. have a strong coffee that morning).
• Ask your school contact about sanctions and rewards. Be firm and consistent with both.
• Use support systems and keep records of challenging behaviour.
• Use colleagues who offer support (i.e. to quieten down noisiness, as a safety net for unruly kids).
• Keep a register of the names of all the pupils in the room for each lesson.
• Avoid shouting; doesn’t work. They will not have developed the rapport with you to know that when you shout it is intended to shock there fore all they have done is wind you up.
• Avoid any physical contact with pupils – common sense.
• Mean what you say, say what you mean. Follow through on threats. Be assertive.
• Display a sense of humour and a caring attitude with frequent, honest (but not forced) smiles.
• End each lesson on a high; insist on a tidy room and sat in silence before they leave. Works best near break, lunch and end of school

There are several books about assertive/positive behaviour management that are worth looking into. These include Assertive Discipline (Canter, 2009), Classroom Behaviour (Rogers, updated 2011), Behaviour Management Pocketbook (Hook and Vass, updated 2011) and (excuse the language in the title) Getting the Buggers to Behave (Cowley, 2010).

Feel free to add suggestions to my list (especially welcome from experienced supply staff).

One Smartphone Per Child (OSPC)*

*Ok, so the OSPC doesn’t exist but let’s use a bit of imagination here for a Monday morning.

What about a similar aim to provide each child with a low-cost, low-power, Smartphone instead of the conventional idea of a super cheap and rugged portable? To this end, we can imagine hardware, content and software for collaborative, joyful, and self-empowered mobile learning. With access to this type of tool, children could be engaged in their own education, and learn, share, and create together. They become connected to each other, to the world and to a brighter future. (Yes this is the OLPC mission statement – bear with me).

What if the technology were available to provide each child with a Smartphone like device that had stunning battery power, connectivity to the web and multimedia production capability and yet cost under $99? Would you invest in them for your child/school?

Imagine:

Underneath its corn starch bio-plastic exterior, the OSPC has some of the latest technological features. Included are 4G data network support, a 5-megapixel still- and HD video-camera with 3x digital zoom, integrated speakerphone, a GPS receiver, stereo Bluetooth support, a microSD slot (that can hold a card up to 32GB) and voice command processing and dialling. The OSPC’s recycled glass touch screen LCD is a respectable 3.7 inches (9.5 cm). The battery offers a more-than-respectable 6 hours of talk time and in ‘airplane’ mode an amazing 12 hours use.

Software included includes all the XO features of OLPC but with the added ‘hack’ mode to enable programming and own software development. The standard mini-DVI out port enables the screen to be shared on any large monitor for extended use as a computer CPU.

Now, the green part:

The OSPC is not entirely made from corn. It is constructed 40% from corn-based bio-plastics and another 40% from other recyclable material. The remaining 20% is kryptonite. Solar cells on the back of the device enable trickle charging even during storage in a classroom window.

Our conclusion:

What’s your conclusion? If a device like this really existed, would you invest in it? Shouldn’t we be working as teachers and parents to unify children’s everyday tech and provide for something truly revolutionary for their futures? Oh well, Monday morning is a time for dreaming.

Creative photo techniques

Original photo taken on Canon IXUS (Sicily, 2006)

Taking a good photo is not always about the equipment you use or even the subject matter; e.g. framing techniques that photographers use (such as rule of thirds) can be corrected later if necessary using the crop tool. Some creative techniques that follow can be applied to photos taken with a camera phone, high specification pro camera or even a pinhole camera as long as you can digitise the end image! As for subject matter – yes, it helps to have something interesting as the focus but not entirely necessary as you will see. The software used in the examples is Photoshop but similar effects can be achieved with ANY photo editor and even many of the free online ones.

Black and White

Many contemporary photographers return to B&W imagery as an aesthetic appreciation of the grey tones, depth of tonal variety and balance of chromatic composition. Rather than take their digital photos in B&W usually they are chromatic (coloured) and adjusted. A simple convert to greyscale produces adequate results but with no level of control. For a more creative approach try Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Black and White then click OK and use the sliders to adjust each colour preset.

‘HDR’ Style

A High Dynamic Range between the lightest and darkest areas of an image can create a more ‘painterly’ feel for the photograph. HDR has a long technical history and can produce some stunning results when done well. A HDR style fix in Photoshop can be achieved by Image > Adjustment > Shadow/highlight and set up values: shadows amount:50%, tonal width 45%, radius 44px; High-light amount 67%, tonal width 65%, radius 46px;duplicate layer “background” and set up its layer interaction to Color Dodge. Repeat the second step, but layer interaction to Linear Burn. Set up foreground color to black and use command Select > Color range, fuzziness should be set to 100. Now click on Add Vector mask, the new layer mask will be added and black will disappear. Use Gaussian blur filter to smooth out any unwanted blemishes. Duplicate layer “Linear Burn”, set its interaction to Overlay, select Add Vector mask and press Ctrl+I / Cmd +I (invert). This interaction darkens light shadows and raises contrast. The creative bit: adjust layer Opacity; do this by eye to see the effect you want. Recommended: Overlay layer 40%, Linear burn layer 55% but trial and error is best. Colourise your image with some red tones using Gradient map.  Set up interaction of new layer “Colourise” based on the background layer and apply as a Hard light setting and set opacity to 42%. Again, adjust as necessary to get the desired feel you require.

Selective Focus (Tilt/Shift)

Selective focus can direct the viewer’s attention to a particular area of the image while de-emphasising other parts. This is sometimes known as Tilt/Shift in reference to particular camera lens set ups that achieve this effect. There can also be an appearance of miniaturisation especially when the subject is taken from an elevated position; more on this here. Select Quick Mask Mode > Gradient tool > Reflective gradient. Draw vertically upwards from where you want the point of focus to be up the screen to the top of the window and release the mouse button. A red transparent line should appear. Select Standard mask Mode > Filter > Blur > Lens Blur. For a more unnatural feel you can increase the saturation and contrast in the photo. Try adjusting radius values for the best effect.

References

http://visualphotoguide.com/tilt-shift-photoshop-tutorial-how-to-make-fake-miniature-scenes/

http://photo.tutsplus.com/tutorials/post-processing/7-black-and-white-photoshop-conversion-techniques/

http://www.nill.cz/index.php?set=tu1

Pupils question reliability of lesson content

When a learner challenges the validity or reliability of your lesson, is it just creative thinking or a symptom of our disbelief in Internet content?

Image from 'Capricorn One' (1978) - credit: www.themoviedb.org

In a recent Year 3 lesson I observed on the topic of the Apollo 11 Moon landings, the whole afternoon’s lesson was put into jeopardy by one pupil saying to the teacher “I don’t believe in the moon landings.” Wow. It wasn’t as if he’d been asked to consider the existence of alien life forms or even acknowledge the omniscience of God. The teacher dealt with it in an unexpected way (to me at least). She said: “That’s fine. It’s ok to have your own beliefs but lots of other people believe that people went to the moon.” This take it or leave it approach to human achievement isn’t a question of metaphysics originating in a 5 year old or wider ontological debate with a Year 3 class; however, there is a factual denial going on here that touches on power relations (teacher-pupil) and the use of the Internet for research. Teacher’s lessons should be reliably factual and there is an inefficacy in the power relationship (if knowledge represents power) if we appease a Y3 and respect beliefs which can then call into question the validity of the lesson objectives.

Some examples of factual denial with greater implications:

• Moon landings faked as NASA conspiracy during Cold War
• Global warming
• Evolution
• Wikipedia
• Holocaust

Denial of global warming is obviously not on a par with malicious Holocaust denial but raises an interesting question in respect to acceptance of ‘personal beliefs’ rather than valid and reliable historical facts. Wikipedia incidentally is often cited by teachers as an unsuitable and unreliable source of information although there is much evidence to the contrary.

Perhaps our learners are exercising their creativity or are they getting suckered into believing in dodgy conspiracy theories presented as fact on sub-level TV stations? Maybe some of the blame lies in the ubiquity of inaccuracy on some web sites and the way we rely on getting our information fast-food style from the Internet. Not so much the reliance on the Wikipedia encyclopaedia but the lack of cross reference or deeper reading past the first set of search results.

We could/should adapt the reliability checking techniques used in KS4 such as:

I use nature, origin, purpose and knowledge and then look at limitations based on those 4 areas within each source. I have also tried to get them to consider context which has been a bit harder. They have nicknamed it PLONK after playing with the initials. This was recommended by an AQA examiner. 

Finally, to the question of power relations raised by fact denying learners; authority of any kind is ultimately based on consensus, an agreement to acknowledge the validity of that authority. This consensus may based on traditionally shared beliefs, values and attitudes. Appeasement of historical inaccuracy isn’t out of respect in a right-on politically correct way. Instead, it creates a classroom power vacuum that can lead to disrupted shared values of society and problems later on. Put the kids straight on the facts and show them the evidence as a part of your lesson content.

LRO image of moon surface (NASA)

References

http://litd.psch.uic.edu/personal/jwiley/Sanchez_ICLS06.pdf

http://beyond-school.org/2010/01/03/wikipedia-wikipedia-is-not-a-reliable-source/

http://news.cnet.com/2100-1038_3-5997332.html

http://newfoundations.com/AltBlog/?p=75