Lark Rise

The Willow Way

The Lincolnshire fens have been my home for the last 25 years though even our children born in the house where we live have not really earned the prize of being local. If you do not know the area imagine a landscape as flat as can be, with some trees, but not many; not a place of small and interesting corners or little fields but one of big spaces and skies and few meandering footpaths.

It is two miles to the local primary school, or rather 2.2 miles, the 0.2 being significant in local free transport arrangements when the children (all four of them) were small. But in the school’s 125 year history the right to free transport is a modern invention. For the generations of children brought up in our cottage the way to school was via the Willow Way. This rare thing hereabouts, this public path, connects us to the school and by its arrow like direction shaves a little more than 0.2 from the passage to school. If you walk this path today (and if you do you will only have me for company) you will not pass any willows but in its length a single elder and a fugitive hawthorn.

Our elderly neighbour used to tell of the journey to school, the mishaps on the way, the dawdlings, the soakings, the wild flowers and yes, the willows. The school log books, fortunately preserved from 1876 when the school opened, tell of the absent Postland children, as our area is known. For when there was snow or rain or harvests or a local fair or one of the many measles outbreaks then the Postland children stayed at home. From the tone of the school board records and the frustrations of the headmaster I think the Postland children must have been a rowdy and headstrong lot, at least I like to think so.

I think a lot of those children as I walk the nearly two miles between our cottage and the school each day. The dog is nose into rabbit holes the whole length, unless distracted by a pheasant or partridge. The grasses come waist high and must surely have soaked the five year olds trailing along after the others all those years ago.

Those big skies must still have been there and the wind too, though maybe the willows and hedges gave them shelter from that. The barn owl that seems to track our progress along the path on a winter afternoon, the odd rat surprised to meet us and the hare already travelling fast away as we approach, surely all these featured in the lives of those children.

There is now only one school age child in Postland, ours having long since passed through the system. His journey to school Land Cruiser style misses the Willow Way by 0.2 miles and a good measure of this local being. The Willow Way though does not mourn the passing of the young feet. It is just there, without my fanciful feelings, ready and waiting to share its riches with who ever would like to sample them.

(The Willow Way runs between Shepeau Stow and Queens Bank in South Lincolnshire, UK. The photographs were taken yesterday morning).

What about the whiteboards?

(Ramblings about interactive whiteboards in English primary schools)

(The following is my own inimitable distillation of recent papers from Futurelab, Bridget Somekh and others.)

Funding initiatives have led to the widespread introduction of interactive whiteboards (IWB’s) to English primary classrooms. This has been an interesting phenomenon, seemingly led by the technology rather than pedagogical imperatives! Not that I would argue for them to be taken away; whatever the relationship between the teachers and the whiteboard there would be very few who would willingly go back to only a dry wipe board.

The board and the projector are not inextricably linked for while the board is useless without the projector the reverse is not true. It is probably true to say that when the IWB arrived most teachers received a short session on how to use it with a sprinkling of lesson ideas if they were lucky. Typically this led to the teacher increasingly presenting their lessons with prepared material and the internet onto the board but using only limited interactive facilities from the board itself. In fact, many teachers would have known little difference if the board was replaced by a screen.

While the boards have been rolling into classrooms the Department for Children, S Schools and Families (DCFS) in their quest to raise literacy and numeracy standards have been rolling out what is now the Primary Framework (http://tinyurl.com/42cnzh) with a strong element of whole class didactic teaching running through. This is of course a marriage made in heaven for the IWBs since they support teacher led whole class teaching so well. Many would say that the IWB has transformed whole class teaching and brought about the much sought after integration of ICT into subject teaching. Certainly there is no denying lessons are generally brighter, more dynamic and interesting. Children like the boards and engage quickly with them.

OK, so what about the interactivity bit? It is unfair to say that the Primary Framework promotes only whole class teaching. Back when the National Numeracy Strategy was first launched back in 1998 the teacher training packages were strong on punchy and energetic lesson starters with quick fire questioning. No one could doze on the carpet then! Ten years on it seems that some of this has transferred into everyday practice but there has something of a relaxation too. A handful of great Interactive Teaching Programs (ITP’s) have become truly embedded in practice and the IWBs have been ready and waiting.(ITP’s at http://tinyurl.com/3bf6rt)

Looking at the messages from the DCFS we see encouraging language. We have “personalisation, learner demand, empowering learners, transform teaching, dialogue and participation” cropping up everywhere; and still the IWB is ready and waiting.

In fact, it turns out that the IWB is actually just a tool! If we are to have the empowered learners and all the other laudable language reflected in practice then the IWB has only a small stake in the process. It seems that it is the pedagogy itself that will have to change. There, I’ve said it! Isn’t this what education professionals have been saying forever; but changing practice is a slow process.

Don’t we always take in what we are ready for? Does this go right back to our early schemas! We can roll out a national initiative like the Primary Strategy and the bits that get adopted into mainstream practice are those that fit comfortably with what we know. If the DCFS really wants all those buzz words to get off the page and into classrooms then something more will have to happen. Here’s a bit from the Futurelab paper:

“There is a clear need for the government and training providers to exemplify deeply interactive learning experiences and environments at classroom level. These should include examples and suggestions about the ways in which various technologies, including IWBs, might be used to enhance such experience. Clear reference to the policies, strategies and initiatives that underpin this needs to be made, and a clear statement to help teachers and schools recognise they have â��permission to innovate’ in this area. This should not, however, take the form of a â��how to’ approach, as this might be viewed as topdown and prescriptive, but rather it should seek to encourage teachers to be active in developing their own specific approaches, informed, but not prescribed by, a clear and transformational educational vision of the future.”

It seems that there is work to be done before the IWB is ready to show its true colours.

References

Somekh, B and Haldane, M (2006). How can interactive whiteboards contribute to pedagogic change? Learning from case studies in English primary schools. Paper presented at: Imagining the Future for ICT and Education Conference, 26-30 June 2006, �lesund, Norway. http://ifip35.inf.elte.hu/alesund/?q=node/155

Futurelab (2007) Interactive whiteboards in the classroom. http://www.futurelab.org.uk/events/listing/whiteboards/report

Reflecting on blogging at school

It is always worthwhile to stop a minute and reflect on how things are going. When a school blog has been running for a year then it seems a good time to reflect.

I wonder what needs more work in the coming year?

Even the keen teachers sometimes find it difficult to write very regularly and school blogs and websites should not stand still. I previously had my own idea that blogs should be updated every week…and I still think that is a good idea. But I think it is more difficult until the teacher/class/student feels that there are people waiting to read what you write. That readership provides the two way channel that will ensure the blog gets updated regularly and is very motivating. It will not happen over night though and hanging on in there, seeking out others with similar interests and all the other things that successful bloggers say are relevant.

Although the children have some home access they tend not to update their blogs unless specific time is allocated in school. As has been said forcefully elsewhere the key is in engaging in conversations with others, but in the case of the children even this is not enough. Whereas if I ever get a comment on my own blog I am thrilled and reply within the hour (or so!) the children are much more laid back and will not reliably respond.

I think this happens for a number of reasons. Part of it is the age: these children are from 8 to 10 and do not socially network as readily as slightly older children (not absolutely sure about that). Ownership must be an issue too. We have given them their own blogs but have to retain some control, and we moderate all comments; so the blog is theirs, but not absolutely. We have also tried to encourage them to use them in a school related context and obviously to support their writing.

I think that we just need to hang on in and also to consider dedicated curriculum time for them to blog. We should continue to build in curriculum opportunities that we will support through blogging. Finally I think we need to note when they are getting comments and to be very pro-active in supporting them to respond and engage.

Six ideas

I have been mulling over six ideas for work with schools for some time, and this week I have written to all my local schools to see if they think they are worth exploring.

I hope that some of the ideas will resonate with schools, though nothing is certain. Some of the ideas can be explored best by me working with the school but equally there are others that a school can pursue without outside interference!

I have put a new page up (guess what?- it is called “Six ideas”!) with some details and over the next couple of days I will be adding more information and links to support each element.

It would be great to have some feedback/comments!

Visual learning in literacy

I’ve been working with 8-10 year olds trying out the new Primary Framework literacy/narrative/film strand. The suggested and provided film resource “The Piano” http://tinyurl.com/66r4n2 is a powerful narrative animation to an evocative piano accompaniment.

We have immersed ourselves in this over three weeks and it has been a rich experience. We captured a set of images and first used Voicethreads to explore initial thoughts, then emotions associated with the different parts of the story. We moved on to annotate the images in PowerPoint and then used PhotoStory 3 to recreate their own versions of the narrative. (We have found that many of the children are quite shy doing voice recordings so we are planning to focus more on this after half term.)

We realised that the power of the images in this narrative setting was that the emotional context provided by the images and sound allowed the children to create their own narrative in quite a complex but original way. A common writing task based on a class book for example might use the plot as a starting point, drawing on their own experiences. With six images they were able to build and elaborate their versions, playing with the plot, with time and with characterisation. This is still work in progress but a couple of the children did blog about it, see http://leia.shepeaustow.net/2008/05/06/the-piano/ and http://connor.shepeaustow.net/2008/05/08/the-piano/.

What is a quality image?

I have been mulling over what quality might mean when applied to a digital image and have come to the conclusion that it is not an especially useful concept!

Appropriate, yes!

How good an image is can be defined in how well it meets its purpose�and this could conceivably be a blurry, poorly lit and composed image taken by a child in a role play area of the classroom that totally encapsulated what was going on for a particular child.

Did you read �Presentation Zen� (http://www.presentationzen.com/)? Garr Reynolds argues persuasively for the use of professional images in our presentations- getting the right image is important and adds enormously to a professional presentation (presumably the cost of acquiring fantastic images from iStockphoto.com is peanuts compared with the fees that he gets for presenting!- actually I loved the book and will never do bulleted PowerPoints ever again).

Lovely images can take your breath away but we are not just looking to �wow� our classes.

These images (among others), used as stimulus, were found last week by children in a class who were investigating the dangers of electricity. They provided an excellent introduction and discussion point.

and this one promoted a lot of discussion about insulators and conductors in real life. These are �ordinary� pictures but they did prove powerful in a particular context and did promote lively discussion.

Images and adding value

How do images add value to learning? I’m going for the personal experience rather than theoretical stance; I know there is lots written about learning style preferences: what I take from it is that we all learn in many different ways and that these are not fixed. My personal, classroom and parenting experience tells me that images are powerful when linked to ideas, can be very memorable and can engage one quickly at a fairly deep level. Everything I have ever read about page design, the ways we look at printed material and the power of advertising points to the link between images and learning. Is it too simplistic to say that John Lewis spent £6.2m on their Christmas 2007 advertising campaign because it was the most effective way to teach/influence consumers to buy their products?

How did the marketers design the campaign? Images of the products arranged to cast a shadow of the person for whom the product would make a great gift: images, ideas about quality and plenty to actively engage the viewer in how it might apply to them.

How should teachers choose images? Well much depends on purpose but when we consider actively engaging children then a stunning image that raises relevant questions would be a good starting point- and the £6.2m just reinforces the point!

About image searching

It is funny how the skills that we were teaching teachers (and still are) now need to be taught to children so that they can assume control- not in all cases though because teachers need to present their images too. Most of the 9-11 children I come across seem to use Google image searches and the local firewall forces a safe search. This does return a lot of rubbish though and there are copyright issues. I feel that teachers probably need a couple of one stop shops for photos because there just isn’t time to spend hours trawling. Most of the image banks designed for schools and RBC collections still seem too small to return a reliable result. At the moment my advice is still to use a Flickr advanced search with a Creative Commons filter and I am waiting for an easy to use tool that will capture the image credit seamlessly.

Has anyone got a good alternative to using Flickr?

Inappropriate content is always an issue and I think that safe search options, together with corporate filtering are worthwhile using but all children either have or will be exposed to something inappropriate, often at home. Many schools that I visit have no working policy for internet safety and this is something that I am keen to pursue in local schools; the Byron Review (http://www.dfes.gov.uk/byronreview/) has done a sensible job of putting the wheels in motion with a refreshingly measured response to the issue.

Getting into gear!

I have worked on the outside of the education system for 8 years now. When I left full time teaching I started working with schools providing courses and advice about their use of ICT in subject teaching.

Providing professional development for teachers in this area is much needed- there is much to do and schools move only slowly, a few teachers in the fast stream with many preferring to teach in ways that they know and feel comfortable with.

In the UK schools are organised into county areas and education services, together with professional development, are often provided by the local authority. The independent provider has to work with and around the local authority services and sometimes it can be tough to get work.

So, if teaching was what you did, and now you provide services to schools and teachers, you have to learn new skills and marketing gets to be an important issue. Learning to market one’s services is where I am now at. Getting into gear is what I have to do.

A low baseline in blogging behaviour

So, Day 1 of the comment challenge was to audit one’s own commenting behaviour. This is relatively straightforward for me because I have not been at all active in the field. The challenge is:

• How often do you comment on other blogs during a typical week?
• Do you track your blog comments? How? What do you do with your tracking?
• Do you tend to comment at the same blogs or do you try to comment on at least one new blog per week?

Pre Day 1, I could honestly say that I had never commented, therefore never tracked comments. On Day 1 I signed up for CoComment (but still don’t know how to use it and don’t seem to be able to connect to the site either). I have also made a few comments, but more of the “how do I do this?” type of thing.

Because I thought my blog could get a visitor for the first time I rediscovered how to ftp to it, upgraded it and started the search for a new theme. I seem to have been busy with a little teaching and trying to find some paid work, so haven’t had that much time…but I have to say that I am pleased to have signed up and will try to hang on in there, even if it is only just.