Firstly, it has been over 6 months since I last posted a blog article and as I was involved in this workshop today I thought the least I should do is write about it on my blog. I can't claim that it's the most reflective piece of writing but I've tried to capture some of the ideas presented and bring together links to the topic, presenters and organisers on this page.

I was asked a few weeks ago if I would speak at a workshop for postgraduate students in the College of Social Sciences, here at the University of Glasgow. The full title of the workshop was: “Spreading Ideas without Selling Your Soul: How to Use the Web to Create Professional Networks, Market Yourself and Develop Your Employability While You Are Doing Your PhD”. It was arranged by two research students, Giuliana Tiripelli and Daniel Yue Li.

During the workshop I twittered about the ideas that were being presented by the various participants. I used the #csspgrworkshop tag to track my entries and these can bee seen in #csspgrworkshop - twazzup.

The first speaker was Dickon Copsey, who I didn't tweet about due in part to my lateness in arriving (he'd already started) and the walk from the St Andrew's building to the Adam Smith building leaving me breathless and perspiring. From my recollection Dickon was talking about basic issues relating to the use of the Internet to promote research student's identities. He spoke about creating web pages associated with the University to promote student's work. He also talked about Mahara and its use as a PDP portfolio. Click here for his example page.

The next speaker was Laura Tyler. She spoke about the different, popular tools that are available for research students. She identified some of the benefits and challenges in using Facebook, Twitter and blogging.

I was meant to be next, but I agreed to swap with Sarah Armstrong who spoke about the: Ethical considerations of doing and presenting research online. She addressed ethical issues relating to the internet: privacy, confidentiality, consent, dissemination, etc. She also showed the Social Science Research Network website and encouraged all to visit and use the site.

There then followed a brief few minutes of discussion about the presentations so far.

The second session started with Muhammad Idrees Ahmad talking about expertise on the internet. As I was listening to him I was reminded of ideas in Cult of the Amateur and issues aroundcitizen journalism whilst he outlined his experience with his website Pulsemedia and the reason he engaged with blogging.

I was next to talk with a presentation entitled: Engaging with Web 2.0 to promote an Academic Identity. The full PowerPoint is on Slideshare.

The second slide starts with a photograph of myself and then is overlaid with various avatars, I've created. Unfortunately this animation is not reproduced in slideshare.

The last presenter was Matthew Waites talking about Managing public, professional and personal identities. He approached the issues from a very interesting perspective discussing, Habermas, Gramsci and Foucault and their perpective on identities.

We finally finished and adjourned to another room to enjoy some refreshments and some chat.

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Last week I was to give an interactive lecture and demonstration to the PGDE (Primary) cohort on interactive whiteboards (IWB). This involved me taking a Promethean activboard from an ICT lab to the allocated room which sat 100 students.

As an experienced ICT teacher I was aware of the complexities involved. I needed the IWB, a projector, a laptop and the associated cables. So 30 mins prior to the class I started the task of relocating the technology.

I got the board, the projector and the laptop into a lift to travel down two floors and the length of the building. I started setting up when I realised I needed a VGA splitter and an additional cable, so back up to the lab I went.

The laptop I had is a dual boot MacBook. So the day before I'd gone hunting for the installation discs. I could only find the PC version of the iwb software so that made the decision as to which operating system I would use.

I connected everything: laptop to the splitter, splitter to both of the projectors, board to the laptop and all parts to the power supply. The board beeped. The projectors lit up, but no signal was being received. I pressed some function keys in the hope that the signal would be refreshed. Next I restarted the laptop, looked away, and it restarted in Mac mode. The Mac desktop appeared on both screens. So I knew everything was connected correctly. So I restarted this time in PC mode but no signal was being received.

Now I was 15 mins into the class and still didn't have a working IWB. So I restarted into Mac mode and proceeded to give my presentation without it.

When I returned to my office I discussed my problem with my colleague. His suggestion was that the resolution on the PC needed to be reset to a lower setting. He was right. But why didn't I realise this?

In the heat of the class and with time running down I cut my losses and went with the simpler PowerPoint option. I could have spent longer setting up the equipment and get it working earlier. I could have asked the ICT technicians to set up the equipment. But I should have managed this myself: I'm an ICT teacher.

More importantly if I struggle with the technology how can we expect teachers with less experience in using ICT to cope?

When ICT complexity obstructs teaching it makes you question how effectively it can be embedded in the classroom.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Here's a really good video arguing against the concept of learning styles.

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This posting was created on my new iPad using BlogPress Lite for an iPod/iPhone.

I'm wondering if there's any point in using the app when I can access the webpage in Safari. The downside being that this is an iPhone app so I have to scale up the screen. There's also no facility to alter text style from within the app or to insert a link or. :-(

I can insert a photograph from the ones stored on my iPad.


Lastly to test the spoon my iPad I've tried to add a hyperlink to the word iPad.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad...

On Friday 11th June I attended the Looking to the Future conference at Heriot-Watt. The majority of the day was good: meeting former students and colleagues; attending workshops and listening to keynote speakers. However the really impressive part was a workshop hosted by Prof Keri Facer - Beyond Current Horizons.

The workshop explored some social and technological trends that may have implications for education. Participants engaged

in a ‘rapid scenarios’ activity to challenge their assumptions about future trajectories for education and technology and to explore the outer limits of possibilities.

It was a really engaging and stimulating workshop and one I have been relating to my colleagues (and anyone who will listen) since. She introduced some trend ideas:
Augmented digital reality
Polarisation of workforce or democratisation of creativity
Trust/Mistrust of Technological Systems
Gross Domestic Happiness vs Gross Domestic Product
Open/democratic vs Closed/managed Internet
Bio/Nano/Geno Prosthetic Cognitive Enhancements

So I thought I should find out more about the presenter and see if there was anything on the internet about the ideas from the workshop. I discovered a keynote she gave at the FutureEverything Conference 2010 which expanded on the issues she introduced in the workshop.

Keri Facer - Learning to live in interesting times from FutureEverything on Vimeo.

Lastly imagine what education and schooling would look like if intellectual ability could be genetically modified or knowledge could be gained from a Nano technology implant?

More information can be found at Beyond Current Horizons.

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Here are some games development links:

• Adventure Maker
• Adventure Author- Neverwinter Nights 2
• MissionMaker
• Thinking Worlds
• Game Maker
• Alice
• Scratch
• Mama
• Kodu
• AgentSheets
• Robo
• ToonTalk
• 2DIY

Feel free to leave a comment describing how you use one of these environments in your school/class.

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I was recently reading David Warlick's blog posting - Is this Creativity and was indirectly inspired to write some of my thoughts about creativity, here they are...

I'm always concerned when I read about creativity in teaching. The use of the word "creativity" is often used inappropriately or in an ill-defined way. It's often used in the Arts to create a division with the Sciences. It is often mistaken for novelty. It is also believed to be innate.

Firstly I believe that creativity is the ability to form a thought in your head not an ability to communicate it. So I can imagine a beautiful sunset but I can't draw it or write a poem to communicate it. I separate the act of thinking from the artistry that you use to communicate the idea. When a teacher judges artistry instead of creativity (imagination) they tend to associate the artistic talent as an inborn trait. This adds to the mythologising of the concept of creativity.

The next issue is that we react to the novelty of an idea: we tend to categorise work as creative when it appear new to us or appeals to our aesthetic sensibility. Teachers praise novelty over creativity. When a pupil impresses us with an idea that we didn't expect we categorise them as creative. When they demonstrate artistry that is beyond the teachers ability we categorise them as creative.

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I was at the TeachMeet Student Edition Glasgow (#TMSEG10) last week at Strathclyde University and had planned to do a short demonstration on Algodoo.

What is Algodoo?
It's a clever piece of software (available for PC, Mac and Linux) that allows you to create two dimensional physics models that can then be animated (it's a 2D physics model sandbox).

It lets you model real world objects and see how forces such as gravity act upon them. Here's a short video that demonstrates the simple activities available with the software.



You can download a copy of the software from here.

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What's next for Initial Teacher Education in Scotland? This is the question being explored by Graham Donaldson in a Review of Teacher Education in Scotland (RTES). In an article recently in TES, Mr Donaldson poses the question, "How can we support our teachers and the wider education community to engage with confidence in this agenda (CfE), and with an unknowable future agenda?". He also outlines the process of the review and finishes by encouraging readers to engage via TESS forums and RTES Discussion Page (a feedback page is available but not a discussion page).

As an interested party (GTCS registered teacher, University Teacher in Faculty of Education, Tutor on both PG & BEd teacher education courses) there are numerous ideas and questions that come to mind.

Firstly, should the profession accept a government lead review which does not include an executive member of the GTCS? Whilst there are teachers on the Review Team there does not appear to be a representative of the GTCS. However in the report from the Council meeting, 20th January 2010 the Chief Executive in response to the RTES stated: "The Council would need to play a central role by offering advice and assistance throughout the process of the review."

Secondly, is there a place for Universities in the education of teachers? Prior to the Universities taking on teacher training in the 90's the responsibility lay with dedicated colleges of education. Are the demands being placed on faculties and schools of education in the universities undermining the quality of teacher education in Scotland?

Thirdly, there's a large number of approaches to teacher training in England. Would teacher education in Scotland benefit from adopting some of England's approaches? Would PGDE students be better prepared to teach if they were educated in schools full-time? The problem with this would be one of cost: you would have to salary the beginning teacher rather than the tuition fee cost of a student teacher.

Fourthly, should teaching in Scotland be a Masters Profession? This depends on how you define a Masters level qualification. Is it an academic qualification that is only based on reading and research or a postgraduate qualification that validates learning which is a balance between reading and practice.

Finally, if we keep debasing the knowledge and skills required to teach and elevate the knowledge of educational theories we will fail to educate teachers for the 21st Century.

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Are local authorities in Scotland exploiting Probationary Teachers by arranging staff induction days prior to the individual's contract start date?

I came across this issue last year when I was talking to a student teacher, who indicated that she would be participating in two days induction training prior to the start of term. I asked if she was being payed for these two extra days, she was not. I asked where in her teaching contract it stated that she was required to work 2 additional days, no mention could be found.

Whilst I'm not arguing about the merit of these induction days, I can imagine them to be extremely useful, I am wondering why councils feel it's acceptable to invite beginning teachers on their probation to meeting prior to the start of their contract. I'm also curious as to why none of the teaching unions have raised or addressed the issue. I'm also surprised that the GTCS are promoting these days by posting the dates on their website.

Let's take two examples, starting with Renfrewshire Council. According to their website teachers return on Monday 16th August but on the GTCS website they will expect probationers to attend for two days on the 11th & 12th August. In East Lothian teachers also return on the 16th August, whilst the probationers are expected to start a week earlier on the 9th August and to work for three days.

Perhaps these probationers receive additional pay (not likely in these fiscally prudent times), or perhaps they receive commensurate holidays instead. I will be interested to hear from any interested parties (EIS, GTCS, Council Officers) on this issue.

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