Following up my presentations in 2007 at Naace in Feltham  ‘The Importance of Computing as a Specialist Subject in Schools‘ and in 2010 at Computing@School in Birmingham ‘Computing at School‘, I am hosting a table at Collabor8 4 Change at BETT 2012 this year .

Titled ‘Conceptual framework for computing‘ it is planned to be a discussion of how we can be clearer about the nature of the computing subject at primary and secondary level and in particular how we can know better the continuity and progression for learners.

My challenge, in the context of computing and ICT  is:

1. I believe we need to find out what knowledge children can attain at which age
2. I suggest we could do mass practitioner research to answer that question
3. What’s wrong with this proposition?

Here are the few slides to kick off the discussion – I shall add an update to this post when we have had it!

UPDATE 13/1/2012 after attending:

The two sessions went well, with interesting feedback. For most participants, there were more important issues at the level of teacher competence, school organisation and the government’s upheaval of ICT and Computing, which deserved more debate time. On the other hand few felt that I was wrong!

I enjoyed Kathryn Day’s session, ‘ ICT vs Computer Programming curriculum ‘ which usefully contrasted the many documents that inform (or confuse) the practitioner when planning.

I also attended Chris Ratcliffe’s session ‘ How much should pupils be, or feel, in charge of their work? ‘ which clarified some of the barriers to further responsibility being transferred to pupils, whilst agreeing it as a good thing.

Finally I joined Steve Philip for his session ‘Curating the past is more important than creating the future’ in which he proposed the term ‘curativity’ – the act of curating the avalanche of creative work made possible in schools with digital tools through selection, deletion, categorisation and preservation/presentation for an audience. Highly relevant to the National Archive of Educational Computing!

Well done to all the presenters & participants and to  the organisers: Penny Patterson, Dave Smith and Terry Freedman and to compère Russel Prue – the round tables format has a lot to recommend it, with more time for exchange in contrast to the more theatrical Teachmeet.

“The DCSF will say there is a fair procedure in place for schools who feel the way we do- they have 42 days to produce an Alternative Business Procurement Case that the business experts in their Local Authority will have had 18 months to work on (in our case 107 pages long).”

and he continues to say –

“This is a trick, there is no way any school can show economy of scale (even though I actually have the figures to prove we can- it won’t be accepted, it’s sacrilege to suggest it) or show ‘transference of risk’ (we don’t talk about transferring the risks of educating our children elsewhere, we talk about professionals taking responsibility in house- isn’t this a lesson from the credit crunch?)”

It’s hard not to sympathise, but I wonder: can schools like Paul’s club together across the UK and share the burden?

Isn’t this an excellent opportunity for open source procurement thinking?

I am giving the closing keynote in a few minutes at this venue for the JISC South Western Regional Support Centre’s Summer Conference. The theme is social software and naturally, I am speaking about the way we can build from past thinking and find foundations for future improvement.  Here are the slides as a PDF.

Almost five years to the day that Ultraversity was validated at Anglia Ruskin University, we have received conditional approval for a new scheme based on the same philosophies of learner-centred, work-focussed, community-supported, action-inquiry and innovative assessment.

This IDIBL course framework validated at the University of Bolton is more ambitious in scope, more refined in character and draws fresh inspiration from the organisational thinking from its home in the Institute for Educational Cybernetics.

We can now begin to recruit in earnest for a Masters course in ‘Learning with Technology’ and follow it up with further courses in Regeneration & Sustainable Communities, Chronic Healthcare and other societal thematic problems which need active and vibrant attention.

In each case the proposals will be relatively cost-effective to approve by basing their pedagogy and organisation on our IDIBL framework:

I have been speaking on the issues surrounding Social Software in learning here at the Heads of eLearning Forum meeting in Coventry.

Here are my slides as a pdf

“Will ‘staying on’ to 18 raise education standards and improve the employability and promote social mobility as the Government believe?”

This was one of the questions put to a panel and a small audience at the debate tonight at Channel 4. Some interesting debate, some intense and challenging moments, but best for me was the point at the end:

“We have spent all evening discussing the ‘engineering’ of a solution, but failing to look for clarity on the aims of education”.

A recurrent problem, well observed in my view, and begged my concern that we should not forget that education is fulfilment in itself, not simply preparation for life.

This was the title of the Thirteenth Askes’s Education Lecture held in the Haberdasher’s Hall, West Smithfield, London, given by Dr Anthony Seldon, Master, Wellington College.

Anthony delivered an impassioned plea to sit up and take notice of the damage done by league tables and subject examinations to the notion of a broad education and the well-being of future citizens. He observed that education had improved markedly in each of the preceding three decades, but that the whole child was only being developed in few schools and without proper acknowledgement. Part of the blame was placed on the university system with its exam expectations, narrow academic focus and selection processes.

I asked Anthony (and others): where is innovation in higher education to spring from to improve the situation? Imaginative action is needed – I’m ready!

When Stan Owers became Dr Stan Owers, this lecture was initiated.

It was to be held annually to address the issues surrounding manufacturing industry and education. This third in the series was a really challenging event with Jeff Roche, a 2nd year undergraduate giving us a frank review of his learning trajectory so far. Raj Rajagopal, IET trustee and long experienced in the world of manufacturing added his global perspective, pointing out that where the design and manufacture goes, the research and development follow.

A vibrant discussion ensued and a real sense of action required to improve the awareness amongst school students of how industry works.

See also

• my colleague Malcolm Moss’ report
• Mindy Wilson’s account on the Make Your Mark web site

Not a complaint I suffer from, but the hot potato of synthetic phonics mashed well at Channel 4 by uncompromising feisty primary heads, publishers, educators, authors and reading experts alike.

It seemed to me there is not enough recognition of the power of a school staff team, working together and determined to eradicate poor reading skills, which almost certainly makes more difference than which variant of phonics you employ.

Another in the series of events promoted by my long-term friend, colleague and mentor Stephen Heppell, to showcase creative use of technology by young learners from all kinds of educational settings. The photo shows one youngster for whom the event was proving exhausting, but mostly the adults were knocked out by the interesting ideas on show. I was most excited by the use of the Nintendo DS for exercising number facts – an annoyingly useful knowledge which deserves entertaining and competitive challenges to make learning more delightful.

A day which thoroughly overlapped two intriguing events, but I managed to make breakfast at the RSA for Becta’s Harnessing Technology: Research Forum and then skip across the road to present at the BCS KIDMM MetaKnowledge Mash-up and then back again for the wrap-up session at the end of the day back at the RSA. Diane Oblinger obligingly begged my question, she having identified as three purposes of education: Economic Wealth, Citizenship and Social Mobility. This left me with the opening to ask about the status of Cultural Enrichment and Individual Fulfilment as further aims for education, and how digital creativity might be central to delivering these aims?

Platform 8:

“The Chinese Government has recently commissioned the building of more than 1600 new design colleges, with a view to ending the division between the design of an object and its production.”

This was a very small part of an astonishing show in a large tent in Hyde Park, over the road from the Royal College of Art. The students on the MA Product Design had been organised into six ‘platforms’, focii led by their tutors. The words quoted above, from the Platform 8 poster they were giving away, are fascinating in the context of Stan Ower’s work around the culture of tools and gives me food for thought as I prepare for the next Owers Lecture.