Too many social networks

An article from The Chicago Tribune in the USA explains how some college admissions tutors are looking up applicants on social network sites– and it often does them no favours.

It highlights an issue that is becoming increasingly important. That of teaching children (and staff) that managing their online identities is important as it can effect one’s life-chances.

On first appearance, it might seem like the admissions tutors have too much time on their hands.  However, it is easy to see how researching an applicant’s cyber-profile can make the difference between candidates with similar academic qualifications and experiences. When applying for a job, there could be far less applicants and hence the task of researching becomes far less onerous.

The article also highlights a difference in attitudes between colleges that reflects wider uncertainty in this area. It quotes one as saying that it considers social networking sites to be private and looking at them is an ‘invasion of privacy’. One also describes social sites as ‘semipublic’.

The hard fact of the matter is that if it is accessible from Google then it is public. Privacy comes from other closed forms of social networking—be it real or virtual. We have a duty to teach our children about maintaining a public profile as they grow and develop. In order to do that, we have to be confident in it ourselves.

We also need to be a bit more forgiving and accept that the outputs over time from a developing child, adolescent and young adult are a product of a process of maturation and not necessarily something to judge them on at a later date.

I do not think that this is the sort of e-portfolio that Becta had in mind when it first published the learning platform specs here in the UK. The interesting bit will be when a candidate has firm proof that they did not get a job or college place based on social-networking research and takes someone to court.

I thought this from Merlin John’s Blog was worth passing on.  I particularly liked..

It wasn’t surprising once you picked up a feel for the schools’ cultures. Laptops-on-demand and extensive wireless networks are available at both schools, and Allerton even has Sony PSPs and Nintendo DS Lites available for handheld internet browsing. Pudsey Grangefield already had a reputation for excellent ICT before it even got to it’s radical new premises. It has its own broadcasting facility, PGFM, building on the groundbreaking work it has done with the innovative and award-winning local ICT company Synergy.TV (contact below). Pudsey teachers no longer have their own classes, or pupils their own desks; the space really is that flexible.

Visit Merlin’s blog and watch the video

In looking at this, it seems to me that education wi-fi is a prime candidate for consideration through Gartner’s Technology Hype Cycle.

Gartner’s Technology Hype Cycle

source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle

The Hype Cycle represents the over-enthusiasm or “hype” and subsequent disappointment that typically happens with the introduction of new technologies. There are five key stages on the cycle that I am sure you would would recognise from some technology in the past.

1. The Technology Trigger is the release or announcement of the new product that generates significant interest.
2. The Peak of Inflated Expectations is the next stage where hype leads to over-enthusiasm and unrealistic expectations.
3. In the Trough of Disillusionment these technologies fail to meet expectations and quickly become tainted. 
4. There then comes the Slope of Enlightenment where some places continue to experiment and the benefits of the technology become clearer.
5. The final point in the cycle is the Plateau of Productivity where the benefits become widely accepted.

Looking at the five stages, we can certainly see that the original expectations of wi-fi have failed to materialise. There are a host of reasons for this, many of which are do to the configuration and set-up of equipment and issues over access and security. The costs of ‘industrial strength’ access and how to set were only really half the story.

It is fair to say that we have been through the trough of disillusionment- the low point of which being the health scares that erupted (in the UK and elsewhere) about 18 months ago. Now most people seem to accept that there are real educational benefits from wireless access.

So, if we are on the slope of enlightenment—or even heading towards the plateau of productivity—should we be building wi-fi in as standard?

The answer is both ‘yes’ and ‘no’ due to the fact that the benefits of wireless technology are only partly down to the access-point technology.  When considering wi-fi, we tend to focus on the access-technology itself (is it 802.11 a, b, g or n and so on) and the ratio of client devices to access points.  However, we also need something to access the wi-fi with and you need a reason to access it in the first place.

Returning to new builds, the educational case that is often given is the desire to move towards a 1:1 learner to computer ratio. The fierce competition that is going on in the sub £200 notebook is fuelling this and providing some very interesting possibilities. Having a 1:1 ratio can lead to more complex management issues for technology: how can we ensure equity of access; assure data integrity; provide security; how to maintain these devices and who owns them… This is an area that needs careful thought, planning and discussion with students and parents. It requires a clear vision and leadership from the top.

The other factor to consider is what learners will be accessing through their wi-fi devices and where.  There is a definite trend towards web-based applications—the learning platform initiative should be an important and defining stage in this move for UK schools. It might therefore seem safe to assume that the power of the learner devices need not increase in line with the power of the applications that are being served centrally.

Experience from the past tells us that is is only partly true.  We can be sure that increasing amounts of data will need to be shared across the network. Therefore, the infrastructure will need to cope with much larger amounts of data than we currently use. There will then be a need for more heavy duty processing on the clients’ (learners’) side to handle this.

So where does this leave us at the moment? I would say that a majority of IT in schools and colleges currently needs to be wired, and we should be planning for that. Consider the fixed and specialist areas such as admin, computer rooms, media labs and science and wire them up.  The degree of wiring in general teaching ‘rooms’ need to be thought through in line with the educational vision for the new build- so there is no formulaic answer for these rooms.

As for shared spaces and resource centres, consider wireless and other solutions that provide degrees of flexibility such as raised floors. I think it is important to build wireless access into new plans and recognise that it is an increasing trend: something that we will have to learn how to manage as we move on. I would also develop the capability for flexible and integrated use of wireless technologies amongst teaching staff and would expect all areas of the campus to have wireless access.  However, I would not, unless there was a very good reason, bet my education vision on it… not just yet.

I was prompted to think about Building Learning Power (BLP) in the context of discussions with teachers about virtual learning platforms (VLEs). Many of those I had spoken with were skeptical about, or even hostile to, the school adopting an integrated approach to virtual and classroom learning.

It’s not about making more content

Their complaint centred around the increased workload that stems from generating content for the VLE. There could be a number of reasons for this misconception: a poor understanding of what modern VLEs can do; a mind-set of teaching that is embedded in the expert model where knowledge is imparted and the curriculum delivered; or an understandable response from a stressed group of people for whom change means more work.

So what’s an alternative to content production? A VLE is supposed to be a learning environment. BLP is about learning so we should be able to map the two. In Building Learning Power, Claxton gives his Four Rs of Learning Power:

• Resilience- being able to lock in to learning
• Resourcefulness- being able to learn in different ways
• Reflectiveness- being able to become more strategic about learning
• Reciprocity- being able to learn alone and with others

Whilst I can see contributions that technology can make to all of those areas, it is the last one, Reciprocity, can initially caught my attention.

Reciprocity

Claxton breaks Reciprocity down into four more elements: interdependence, collaboration, empathy and listening, and imitation. Let’s look at each one with an eye to VLEs.

Interdependence

Claxton states:

Good learners know how to manage the balance between interacting and being solitary… The major stimulus to developing inner independence is being given manageable amounts of responsibility for choosing when, where and how to go about leaning.

This seems like a good rationale for having a VLE as an element of a school or college’s drive to develop independent learning. Furthermore, I think it makes a very good strategic intent in its own right. We could think of many ways in which the physical environment, teaching styles, time-tabling, staffing and resources could be employed in addition to technology to help realise this.

Collaboration

Children and young people need to be taught to collaborate: to be able to work with other as part of a team where the sharing of ideas is critical to achieving a goal. They already have a keen desire to communicate through technology (mobile phones and texting) which of course is different from collaborating.

Using the VLE to structure activities in which the learners have to collaborate in real-time (synchronously like a conversation or chat) or over time (asynchronously like emails or letter exchanges) can all help foster collaboration.  The teacher does need to set and enforce rules for social conduct just as they would in managing any other activity.

VLE tools that could help this are chats, blogs, wikis, forums, video and voice over IP, RSS feeds and so on.  I have even heard of a department that negotiates lesson plans with some groups using the wiki and forum features of their VLE.

Here lies to the key to not producing content. The learning here is though collaboration and not the downloading of material. Teachers engineer social activities in the same way they would a classroom activity and focus on the learning that arises.  There is room later for assessment and feedback (another form of collaboration!) later with more formal summative type tasks.

Empathy and listening

This should be ‘listening and empathy’ as it is hard to empathise unless you truly listen to someone. Listening is vital for collaboration. One of the benefits of mediating exchanges through a VLE is that there is often an ongoing log or record. Good collaboration can be taught using these logs. I.e. teach collaboration through successful past collaborations. This can be a good way of establishing the social rules for the VLE or activity from the outset too.

Furthermore, activities can be constructed so that asynchronous communication is used for those learners who need time to digest what is being said in an exchange of ideas and consider an appropriate response.  If need be, this can be supported by a mentor or coach if one-to-one help is necessary for that child or student.

Imitation

Learning from others, their ways of working, learning and doing is key and taking part in joint activities is a powerful way of achieving this. Again, planning the pairings, group members, roles within the groups and levels of support can help those who need to learn this skill.

Virtual learning gives the opportunity to broaden the range of people from who to learn. It could be older children, experts in a field or authors from simply blogging book reviews and engaging in a dialogue as a consequence.

No content but still more work

The above examples do not involve producing content, worksheets, Powerpoint Slides or anything else to be ‘published’. It does require work in planning and preparation but, once familiar with the technology, not more so than a good classroom based activity.  In my experience, children and students will be willing to collaborate using the technology outside the classroom too. So the benefits are larger.

It is important to note that for all the talk of digital natives and so on, learners still need to be taught to work in this way and, as ever, the teacher’s role is crucial to this.

Many people find Max Bosoit’s* model helpful when considering where a school or college is in relation to a rapidly changing (or ‘turbulent’) context–such as the one we experience with technology. We are assuming here that turbulence runs counter to strategy, as strategy is concerned with taking control.

Bosoit identifies four types of response to turbulence: emergent strategy, intrapreneurship, strategic intent and strategic planning. These types can be related to an organisational understanding of the area we are considering– ICT or e-learning in our case.

The chart below illustrates the relationship between these types, turbulence and an understanding of the subject area.

During a period of low turbulence, the overall direction of travel of a school or college that has not got to grips with ICT can be seen by standing back and looking at what has happened. The strategy is emergent. In this state, small incermental changes occur but any intended strategies might not fully materialise.Because the strategic planning function of the organisation does not have a full grasp of the situation, unexpected challenges occur that need to be dealt with as they arise. The executive might not necessarily have all the data to tackle the problem either.

During a period of high turbulence, low understanding leads us to a state of ‘intrapreneurship’, a state where individuals and departments respond in their own way as the organisation does not have the capability to deal with the pace of change. We often see an ad hoc response to change that moves us away from an integrated solution. This state is opposed to strategic planning and is often considered not a good place to be.

Strategic planning is a familiar state in which we are able to set strategic targets such as ‘increase the pupil to computer ration to 1:1′ or ‘ensure all students leave with at least a level 2 qualification in IT’. This is a nice place to be as turbulence is low and we have a good understanding of our area. The underlying assumption in this state is that with enough understanding, data and analysis we can send the organisation in the right direction. Typically, data is regularly passed up from the ‘bottom’ of the organisation for analysis at the top. Decisions are then passed back down.

Strategic intent is a way in which we can deal with an area of rapid change or turbulence. Strategic intents define organisational capabilities and characteristics that enable the school or college to move forward within a strategic framework whilst still being able to respond to change. They can arise from an intuitive understanding based on experience and knowledge of the subject area. A good vision leads to good strategic intents. Good strategic intents are free from the details that become obsolete by quickly changing circumstances. The ability to define, and plan from, strategic intents is extremely useful way of planning for effective ICT and e-learning.

When asked to audit a school’s or college’s ICT provision, I often look for signs that might indicate where they are in relation to this diagram. For example, seeing departments and keen individuals developing personal electronic mark-books and reporting tools indicates a level of intrapreneurship that suggests a more strategic approach needs to be taken as a whole-school or college initiative.

There are ways of developing strategic intents and, importantly, actions that can be taken to move from one strategic type to another. I will look at these states in relation to education ICT in later posts and may also refer to them when I see examples either in my work or more generally.

See the reference below for more information.

Reference
*Bosoit, M (1995) Preparing for turbulence: the changing relationship between strategy and management development in the learning organisation. In Garrat, B (Ed.), Developing Strategic Thought: Rediscovering the art of direction giving. London: McGraw Hill