I've recently been involved in assisting a colleague, Dr Cathy Fagan, with her work on the International Journal: Citizenship, Social & Economic Education. I thought I would write a short blog to highlight the e-journal she edits and the association she chairs www.IACSEE.org.

It's a very eclectic journal which is open to writers from schools, universities and other research backgrounds. The journal covers a variety of issues, such as:

- Curricular analysis of education programmes
- Cross-country comparisons of curricula and practice
- Analysis of economic education programmes in different countries
- Studies in political and economic socialisation
- Accounts and analyses of innovatory curriculum practice
- Studies in how children develop identity
- Analysis of learning about culture
- Studies in citizenship education
- Analysis of education-community-business partnership activities
- Studies in enterprise education
- Co-operative enterprise and community education
- Studies in financial education
- Values and ethical considerations in social and economic Education

The previous 23 issues are available online for free. They give an interesting view of citizenship, social and economics education across the globe over the last 14 years. I would encourage you to read and to write for this journal if you find one of the many issues of interest.

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If spelling and grammar are expected standards in literacy, what are the acceptable standards in ICT? There are numerous essay correction codes in teaching to indicate to a pupil where the spelling errors in their work are. But where are the codes to indicate errors in the use of ICT?

Having recently spent many hours marking essays, I'm very aware of the silly technical mistakes students make when word-processing their writing. I had one student write his whole essay in bold: forgetting to click bold to return to plain text. A more common mistake is the failure to consistently indicate a new paragraph: mixing indenting with a blank line or failing to use either. I also received an email asking for an extension but with no text in the subject field of the email. And don't get me started with people accidentally replying to all in their emails.

To be honest only the email examples are mistakes in relation to ICT standard, the others are typographic mistakes. But the point I'm trying to make is that knowing when to take a new paragraph does not educate pupils as to how to take a new paragraph when word-processing.

I have written about this topic before in the posting: Underlying ICT. If ICT is to be embedded into the curriculum then either the 'traditional' subject teachers need to learn the ICT standards or Computing/ICT teachers need to be given the time and classes to teach it to the pupils.

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I came across the term in the title whilst watching James Clay talk with Alan Graham. The blog posting with the video can be found here.

I attempted to search for the phrase Cushion Computing through google and yahoo; and on wikipedia and wiktionary. No result! I then tried to add an entry to wikipedia which then directed me to wiktionary. I entered a definition in wiktionary only to have it reviewed and deleted. :-(

So here's my definition:
Cushion Computing
noun
a situation where portable computers are used in a relaxed environment on a sofa or other cushioned furniture. An example of cushion computing is the use of laptops, netbooks, smartphones and tablet PCs in bedrooms and living rooms.

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I was inspired to write the following after reading Don Ledingham's posting Campaign against budget cuts in Scottish education.

In the posting he raises the question about how we will afford education in the next 3 to 7 years. He indicates that radical thinking will be required by those involved in education to address the shortfalls in spending.

It is this concept of radical thinking that intrigued me enough to start writing a reply to Don's blog. I didn't post it there because it wasn't a direct response to his original post but rather a series of thoughts inspired by it. So here's my muddled thinking...

Can a concept like radical thinking work in a democratic domain? If you are in a position where you have to seek and gain the consent of a majority then simply conceiving of a radical plan is insufficient to ensuring it's implemented. You need to communicate and persuade the majority of your radical plan and then over time implement it.

Don manages through his TES column, blog, and various other web2.0 outlets to place his [occasionally radical :-) ] ideas into the public domain. I'm sure he also uses more traditional methods to communicate to parents, teachers and pupils. He uses these channels to transmit his ideas to those involved in education.

Then the concepts have to transition from the abstract to the actual. Similar to the process around CfE - from the what in documents to the how in schools and classes; and the with of teachers and pupils. The complexity of this process will take a long time, possibly a generation.

But radical ideas are not associated with long periods of time they are associated with moments - tipping points in time.

I wonder if the virtual world of the web has raised our expectations in relation to how quickly ideas will manifest themselves in the real world. Has the web2.0 generation shortened the timeline of expected implementation. Not only do we want ideas to happen in the now we want them to be free or at least inexpensive.

Do we expect more for less from the web2.0 world - because the income model doesn't ask us for money?

Is it simplistic to think that the radical idea is enough, when the reality require time, patience and money. Is it that the radical idea is merely an acorn? Does it take a lot of time and effort to make the oak grow?

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I downloaded the light version of blogpress to try blogging from my iPod touch. Not sure if I can enter HTML or links.





I can however insert photos from my photo album.

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