Magister XXI

I have been following, as many others have, the comments and posts on many blogs regarding the potential of Web 2.0 apps for schools and learning. I have tried to keep an open mind, setting aside as much as possible what I know about current practice. I have sought the new paradigm. I have failed to find it. I am coming the the view that there is nothing inherently valuable about Web 2.0 for schools though there are peripheral benefits.

Web 2.0 for education has been promoted because it is claimed to so integrated into student lives that schools would silly not to use it. We are quoted Bebo and MySpace, Facebook and Flickr, and so on. The premise seems to be that what students use outside school should be used inside. I do not find this convincing. Recently I heard the podcasts of Danah Boyd‘s presentation at the Education.au Seminar held in Brisbane in early August 2007. I found her presentation fascinating. What struck me was the degree to which the social network phenomenon is a product of the U.S. context where children are kept at home for their safety. Social networking sites provide these young people with a chance to socialise without direct adult supervision. This a necessary part of growing up but the security conscious U.S. does not support more face to face contact. A further contextual issue is the way that U.S. telcos cost SMS messages. They charge the receiver, not the sender! In response to a question by a participant about adults moving into MySpace and similar networked publics, she made the point that they would not really be very welcome. This should not surprise us. Outside school there are many things students do and use which is not a substantial part of teaching and learning. We need only consider TV, home telephones, parties and many pastimes. These things may make a contribution but they are not central or even a part of the formal learning process of schooling. Even the ubiquitous mobile phones, while some clever uses can be found in data recording, have not been used very much. The key question to me when looking at Web 2.0 apps is:  what can I do with them to help students learn?

Bill Kerr has already raised some concerns about the hype around Web 2.0. There are some Web 2.0 apps with obvious uses. Google doc, spreadsheets and presentations clearly have possibilities. Teacher Tube provides a means of sharing material of professional interest. Flikr is a source of useful images, particularly with Creative Commons. I find Wikipedia extremely useful and wikis have possibilities. I think blogs have tremendous potential for the publication and sharing of student work. But what Web 2.0 lacks is something which can support teachers, schools and school authorities in the administration of schooling. I know of no Web 2.0 LMSs/VLEs or adminstration systems. With the complexity of our accountability requirements and the expectations of openness and transparency, these are necessary tools today.

Technorati Tags: ict in education, educational technology

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As I read the many comments on Web 2.0 and other technologies in education and their potential, I am struck by the presence of a number elephants in the room in New South Wales (NSW). These elephants are so substantial that for me they block out most of the light and their activities and needs take up most of my time. The names of these elephants are:
1. NSW Syllabus requirements, particularly at Higher School Certificate level; and
2. The organisational structures of high schools.
The syllabus requirements and current school structures serve as disincentive for change but there is certainly no intention within the Office of the Board of Studies to obstruct schools. However, the organisational structures of current high schools are quite another matter. Their assumed permanence and immutability apply inertia to those who wish to explore alternatives. While it is possible to develop new styles of high schools based on 1 to 1 computing, as the Diocese of Wollongong has done at Oak Flats and the Diocese of Parramatta intends to do at Stanhope Gardens, what is to be done with existing high schools? We cannot expect the energy and insights from light houses to redesign Egyptian pyramids into Notre Dame de Paris. Change requires something else.

The scope of the challenge
In considering change, the first thing to be acknowledged is that the existing Catholic high schools in NSW are not “bad” or notably failing. For the most part, they are successful institutions. They are well supported by parents, satisfying places for students and reasonable places for the busy teachers who staff them. This defines the first issue: Why fix something that isn’t broken? Of course this generalised statement of a difficulty ignores the fact that no school is perfect. Every school will acknowledge that there are somethings which don’t work as well as they might. So for every school, there are things that, if not broken, need as the least, a little preventative maintenance. This changes the issue from “fixing the broken” to addressing the maintenance issues.

Preventative maintenance is a very helpful metaphor for what faces secondary schools today. The focus is rightly on maintaining and enhancing successful operation. But there is something else. The engineering concept of preventative maintenance is based upon the assumption that there will be wear in the future and possible component failure. To address these issues, components have to be regularly removed, examined to see whether they are still serviceable and replaced, as necessary. Sometimes, new, redesigned components have to be fitted. The process of preventative maintenance is endless and becomes more intensive as the machine comes under stress due to changing circumstances, wear, etc. These circumstances may change to such a degree that the entire machine may have to be replaced. Schools in NSW are currently under stress.

High Schools under stress
There are a whole range of possible points of stress for Catholic high schools in NSW. Many are local but some are common. Among these are:
1. The average age of teachers in the schools is close to 50. Many will retire in the next 5 to 10 years. This includes most in senior positions. These experienced teachers will all need to be replaced.
2. The proportion of Catholic students in our schools is declining.
3. Parental expectations of schools are increasing. This requires additional efforts in transparency and adherence to due process.
4. It is likely that national syllabuses will be introduced within the next 5 years. Their implementation and the associated Australian Certificate of Education will require much effort to introduce.
5. ICTs are pervasive in life outside school. They are in the workplace. They are in the home. They are increasingly at the centre of student social networks. What will the schools’ response be?

Addressing the challenges – a change process

Secondary schools are well aware of change and most schools have management review processes. This one is used by the Archdiocese of Canberra/Goulburn.

The processes described by this and similar models reflect both the roles of the diocese in monitoring NSW Board of Studies Requirements and in providing support and governance of its schools. These processes are ideal for the maintenance of a status quo rather than for systematic reflection, a consideration of change options and the planned introduction of new arrangements. These processes are quite adequate until the school decides that something more comprehensive is needed to address concerns. For a major review like that, a different model is needed. This is one:

This model includes a number of steps vital to planned change. It defines the limits of possible change by a consideration of the “givens” in terms of governance and resources. These considerations provide a priori limits to what can be changed. The next important step is to translate the mission statement into a definition of what the fulfillment of the mission would look like, concretely. Finally we come to the implementation options. These invite a consideration of the possible ways that the operational outcomes could be achieved. Once these are defined, each option can be considered. It is quite important at this stage not to engage in “solution jumping” but to consider each option. In this way, the school will know what it has the structures and procedures it has.

Once an option has been chosen for implementation, resources need to be allocated. This is by no means as simple as it sounds. For any major change to succeed, it needs to be accepted by the school community. Acceptance comes through discussion, debate, more discussion and more debate… Time is very important. People need to consider the change and its circumstances very carefully. And the students must be included in the process. For a large school, an entire year can be well spent on this combined with planning for implementation.

The actual implementation itself in both exciting and very demanding. By this time, people have made decisions about participating or leaving. New people join the community. After some time, the previous arrangements will be forgotten and the new will become the normal. At this point, a conventional review process can be resumed.

Final thoughts
Most Catholic high schools are familiar with change and staff are often exhausted by its speed and relentlessness. I do not believe that this is going to change. Because of the pressure of change, many schools are extremely busy places with little time to consider the future. However, for those who can sense them, earthquakes are shaking foundations and tusnamis are rumbling over the horizon. For these schools, more fundamental change is worthy of consideration.The models discussed here are generic. To be of much aid to a particular school, a change model needs to be unpacked and localised. Finally, I would emphasise that whole school change processes are exhausting, frustrating, time consuming, exhilarating and scary. The benefit is a more cohesive organisation which is much more likely to achieve its mission because its structures and procedures are aligned with its intended outcomes. I am reminded of Socrates’ words recorded by Plato in Apology 38a: “For man the life unexamined is not worth living”; for schools the uncritically accepted structures and procedures are not worth retaining.

Technorati Tags: catholic education, change, educational administration

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I came across a reference to this document recently. It is a large, complex diagram of the inter-relationships between a school and its community but the website does a good job of unpacking it. There are so many interesting things about the ideas it presents. I particularly like the coloured ribbon which runs through the diagram like a backbone. I am also quite impressed with the “Process Areas”. I think that the diagram is well worth a little reflection.

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Technorati Tags: educational administration, educational technology, history, ict in education

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It has been announced that Knowsley Council in Merseyside has decided to close its secondary schools by 2009 and replace them with Learning Centres. This is quite radical and will be worth tracking. It involves private sector funding and the Blair city academies. Not all comment is positive.

What is interesting is that the area has quite poor results in the GCSE currently. I wonder whether the council would have been willing to chance its arm if the results were better. Sometimes success can be a burden. I both creates expectations and excuses not to embrace change.

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Technorati Tags: change, educational administration, educational technology

As I read, research and attend conferences, physically and virtually, I am fascinated by what might be called the Betamax syndrome in relation to Learning Management Systems (LMSs or Virtual Learning Environments, VLEs). This is the situation where inferior solutions are adopted when better ones are readily available. Just as the adoption of VHS rather than Betamax for video-recorders was the product of competing priorities and agendas, so to the adoption of so many solutions in ICT in schools is similarly complex. It remains that victory of the inferior over the superior raises questions about the processes we use and the manner in which we make decisions.

I have used two particular systems: BlackBoard and Moodle. The first is a polished commercial solutions while the second is a highly configurable open source product. BlackBoard does serve to provide access to learning materials but its functionality is limited and bug fixes are infrequent. Moodle, on the other hand, is highly configurable, frequently updated and supported by a very active user community. For teaching purposes, Moodle is far superior because it offers so much more than BlackBoard. Even at the back-end, it is robust, simple to support and relatively simple to integrate into other systems. I am not alone in my view of Moodle’s advantages. If the old premise that a better mouse trap will cause a path to be beaten to your door held true, BlackBoard would be out of business and Moodle would have a Microsoft like monopoly… But the world is not that simple.

Firstly, Moodle and BlackBoard are not the only examples of open source and commercial LMSs. There are quite a number of others. Secondly, the people who make the decisions as to what to deploy in their organisations are not driven solely by instructional requirements and decisions are not made in isolation.

The question is what degree of compromise will students, parents and teachers be asked to make to meet the agendas of education providers…

Technorati Tags: educational technology, ICT in education, australian education, catholic education, learning management systems

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It is a strange tale.

In the Australian state of New South Wales, students, about 70,000 of them in the final year of schooling sit for public examinations. The bases of these examinations are the syllabuses. These are define the content and the learning outcomes. For students who choose to study history, there is a choice between Modern History and Ancient History. (This link will take you to  these documents). For many years, Modern History was more popular by a considerable margin but in recent time, Ancient History has caught up. Why?

As an a sometime teacher of and historian specialising in Ancient History, I could say that ancient world is inherently more interesting… I could also say that teachers who teach Ancient History are devoted to their subject and the students respond very positively to teachers who truly love their subject. However, while both these statements are true to a degree, I believe that there is another reason for the relative decline in the popularity of Modern History (this link takes you to the NSW Board of Studies statistics archive). The reason is the Modern History syllabus.

The current syllabus concentrates on events in Europe between 1900 and 1919. The section on the First European War of the Twentieth Century, commonly and inaccurate referred to as the First World War, is the only mandatory content. The rest is optional. Nevertheless, most students study the German history from 1919 to 1945 as well. Comparatively few study China, India or Indonesia and even fewer study Australia. To people outside New South Wales, this state of affairs should be seen as strange, if not bizarre.

For Australians, the world of the 21st Century is going to be interesting. During the current century, China and India will probably resume their economic place relative to Europe that they had in 1500. Relatively, the dominance of the the U.S. will be diminished. India will dominate South Asia and China will be the dominant force in East Asian, as they have historically. Indonesia will remain the most influential state in South East Asia. Australia will have a ring side seat to a most interesting century!

However the students in New South Wales schools may well be mystified by what transpires. They have only a elementary understanding of the Pacific War, the Japanese War against China in the 1930s and 40s and little understanding of post-colonialism. To even further hinder their ability to engage, their understanding of Australia’s domestic affairs and foreign policy is elementary.

There is hope however. The Commonwealth government has announced that it intends to develop an national curriculum and Australian History is included. The nature of the national curriculum remains unclear but it will almost certainly be better that the current “Modern” History syllabus.

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Technorati Tags: Australian history, NSW history, modern history

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The title should give the hint that I have a background in Ancient History and Classics.I have worked in Catholic schools and as an administrator since 1977. Prior to that I taught in government schools for almost two years. My passion is history, particularly the history of the ancient mediterranean world.

I also have a strong interest in the use of technology to aid student learn and the administration of schools. I am both challenged and excited by the possibilities of teaching and learning in the 21st Century. This blog offers my rambling, ravings and very rare good ideas on history and history teaching. Please feel free to look around and leave comments.