Learnflow and the Digitally Normal School

I think Langwitches sums up the current situation and challenge quite nicely in the blogpost linked below.

I was talking to a colleague yesterday about the optimal suite of tools needed to create a digitally normal school. The conversation turned to how a 'digital inspector' would know he or she was actually in a digitally normal school. What would such an inspector look for?

We decided that the judgment would come down to an assessment of the authentic learnflow:

In every class and every home and everywhere else the students learn, are all the teachers, students and parents empowered and engaged in the necessary, natural and sub-conscious business of learnflow?

I suspect and hope that someone, somewhere has begun writing the inspection framework for this...

The GEMS Education Digital Standards are being launched in all the network's schools this year and I think they represent a good start down this road.


http://langwitches.org/blog/2013/10/12/workflow-and-learnflow/

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Praise for GEMS Royal Dubai School from UNESCO

It's always nice to see great practice recognised so I thought I'd share this. The UNESCO primary education research team visited GEMS Royal Dubai School earlier this year and the school received some lovely and very encouraging feedback:
"Today I had visitors from OECD whom I took to visit one of our excellent kindergartens (most of our UNESCO team members visited that institution last April while we had a project meeting here in Bratislava). This morning, while we were observing and discussing the process of integrating digital technologies into ordinary ‘play and learn‘ activities of children, strong memories from my visit to your school came back to my mind and I want to do what I should have done long time ago – I want to say that you are doing fantastic job, a leap into appropriate 21st C learning. Your and our approaches trying to harness the potential of technologies for the complex benefit of children and students have the same vision and principal values: (1) integrating technology into usual everyday learning goals and activities – always in favour of children, not as a goal but as a means, (2) caring for teachers and supporting them so that they feel safe and confident when using technologies and helping them understand the values of doing so, and (3) getting the parents involved, engaged and supporting our goals – without that no innovation would be possible at all.
Indeed, I was deeply impressed by what we have seen in your school and in spite of the fact that we are right now conducting the IITE project on ICT in Primary education, I want to comment one issue of the whole process which is the most important for me: It must start in pre-primary education already. And this is exactly what you are doing. I was excited to see your kindergarten teachers and children using digital technologies to become better learners and observers and creators... I wish we may find new ways how to continue the cooperation between the IITE UNESCO and your school in the area of harnessing digital technologies in favour of children!
Thank you very much for what you are doing and kindly pass my greetings and deep appreciation to all of your marvellous colleagues – I have already told the story of visiting your school, meeting your teachers and visiting your classrooms to hundreds of Slovak teachers, I am trying to spread what I have seen and learned from you and your staff in my country, and our teachers are impressed as much as I was!
My very best wishes!"
Ivan Kalas
team leader
Comenius University
Bratislava
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My Intro VOKI and Unit 1 Reflection for the Leading Edge Certification Online and Blended Teacher Course

And here's my reflection for Unit 1:

1.2 Reflection: Personal Learning Goal

Posted:	Apr 07, 2013, 04:51 am (22 days ago)
Due:	May 04, 11:59 pm
'Considering the online learning self-assessment you took this week, and thinking about your reasons for taking this course, what is your highest priority learning goal for this course? What are some specific skills, strategies or tools you are hoping to learn more about?' As part of the GEMS Digital Learning Team, it is important that I maintain a breadth and depth of knowledge that can sometimes be lost very quickly when we step outside the classroom.  One of our key initiatives is around blended and online learning, as we look to form and implement a vision of how this may look in our schools and organization over the coming years.  Accordingly, this course will enable me, and the other members of the team, to gain a deeper and practical understanding of the issues faced by the busy online and blended student.  I have some experience of this from my recent Master's course, but the LEC provides a more realistic immersion in the type of semi-structured learning that our students in GEMS schools are beginning to undertake. So, my TOP PRIORITY is to be able, at the end of the course, to better articulate the challenges and opportunities of blended teaching and learning.  This will feed into the GEMS vision as we move forward in this area. In terms of specific tools, I am interested in evaluating the Haiku LMS as a vehicle for delivering online courses as part of a blended learning approach.  My first impressions are that it provides a high level of functionality and interoperability, however the look and feel is fairly basic, as with Google Sites.  This may not be an issue for older students and adults but, for younger learners, it would be beneficial to look at how we can better customize the look and feel of the LMS.  It is also important, from a teacher's perspective, to evaluate the assessment options and processes as students submit work throughout a course.  For example: What are the success criteria? How is data collected? How does it all fit together to provide an overall judgment on student attainment across the whole course?

Where's Klaus?

The Trouble with 21st Century Skills

I think it's safe to say that most teachers see the need to provide their students with a much broader skills set than just being able to write a 3 hour exam with a pen, even if a bit of critical thinking may be needed to gain a higher grade on the 'paper.'

So why aren't schools churning out millions of get-up-and-go, free-spirited, creative, innovative, entrepreneurial types, ready to get in amongst it and change the world?

This excellent article alludes to what I believe is the main culprit, and the greatest barrier to progress in education we face today: an archaic system of summative assessment.

http://cagelessthinking.com/what-is-the-point-of-educational-technology/ (thanks to Jimmy Leach for sharing this)

"Schools don’t need to be progressive to be successful, they simply need to produce good results." 

And therein lies the problem, of course.   In a nutshell, if it's not assessed, it's probably not a priority in the curriculum and therefore probably not taught very well, if at all.  And the nature of most formal assessments that feed into league table data, PISA reports and the like, pays lip service to 21st Century Skills.

So what would 21st Century Skills assessments look like?  Well, just taking one view of what those C21 Skills are, http://www.p21.org/overview/skills-framework, we can see that there is little chance of them being effectively demonstrated under the current examination systems in most schools and curricula.

I don't have time to write the book on this today, so I'll just suggest 2 examples of how we could improve things...

1) The Danes are leading the way with their 'open' Internet exams, although even this probably doesn't go far enough. See http://www.caveon.com/citn/test-security-trends-denmark-administers-cheat-proof-exams-and-let-students-access-the-internet-while-taking-tests for more details.

It's perfectly normal to have Internet access at our fingertips pretty much all the time. It's also clear that the ability to draw on the vast combined wisdom of one's own PLN is a C21 Skill that we shouldn't ignore.  So why are even the Danes limiting this great innovation?  At the Global Education and Skills Forum (http://educationandskillsforum.org) held in Dubai recently, Tony Blair commented that, in change management, when you first state the idea, people mostly think it won't work.  Then, when you are going through the change, it's hell.  Afterwards, though, you invariably wish you'd gone much further.  I think the Danes will come to this conclusion.

The one caveat I see to the benefits of going open internet, is the risk that students who are better connected and have more effective PLNs simply as a result of their backgrounds, will have an unfair advantage over those who would have to work twice as hard and will probably never match the power of their peers' PLN.  This is an issue, but not insurmountable.  And, let's face it, this is the state of play in education today anyway - middle class kids tend to do better (as Hattie & also Harris & Goodall point out, this is not to do with money, but parental engagement, which happens to be better in middle class families).  So open Internet exams may not necessarily widen this gap.  At least kids would have a long time to grow their PLNs - it could even be a great leveller.  Of course, there will also be concerns around the extent to which the work is actually that of the student, but I'd say this is normal - as I write this, I'm trying to ensure that I give credit for any ideas that aren't mine. Examiners may have to up their game, but hey, so be it.

2) Forget technology.  How about really assessing interpersonal skills? There is no doubt how crucial these are today, more than ever.  How do we assess emotional intelligence, conversational interaction, negotiation skills, decision-making and so on in the current system?  It's a rhetorical question.  So how about rubrics for assessing soft skills as core skills?  We could simulate real life situations, video the students and have a rigorous system of  assessment and moderation.

I'd rather have someone who can talk to people properly and effectively than someone who can write for 3 hours.  But maybe that's just me.

So they're my top 2 for now.  Maybe I'll come back with a full top 10.  Or maybe I'll go and have a conversation with someone in real life - or even on the Internet. Would that be cheating?

Allowing students to be normal

Recognising the reality that you just can't predict whether and which students will end up with down time during the school day, this looks pretty normal to me. It's important that the students can negotiate additions to the 'approved list.'

http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/2013/2/8/7-things-you-can-always-do-in-my-class-with-your-device.html


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It's time to move on...

Mal Lee suggests the way forward after the Digital Education Revolution - and school principals are absolutely key to effecting the shift.


"Recognise that Moore’s Law is on track and that the kindergarten children
starting school this year will on current projections graduate in Year 12 using
computers with the power of the human brain."


"All principals – and not just the pathfinders – have the responsibility of
ensuring today’s digital technology is being used astutely in the realisation of
a school educational vision where the digital is used integrally, naturally and
effectively in every facet of the school’s operation."

- Mal Lee.

Read more at: http://malleehome.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Whereto-After-the-Digital-Education-Revolution.pdf

So what's normal?

Whenever I see kids learning in schools today, I always think to myself: 'Is this normal?"

By that, I mean, if they weren't in school, if they really wanted to be learning something, doing something... would they be doing it like that?  Would they be doing it with those people, in that place, with that equipment, at that time?  If the answer to any of these questions is no, then we need to ask why they're not learning 'normally.'

This is really important because, if they're not learning 'normally,' then what sort of preparation is it for real life?  I'm not saying that children are little adults and should be doing what we do in our everyday lives, but I do believe that there are more similarities between pedagogy and andragogy than there are differences.  And, where sound pedagogical theory also supports a way of working with children that does provide a more 'real life,' "adult,' or yes, 'normal' opportunity to learn, then I think it makes sense to take that approach.

Let's look at an example:

Here's a picture of something really exciting I saw recently.  A group of Year 5 children from Dubai, with their teacher, Skyping into the BETT show at The Excel, London.  They were engaged in a 3-way video link up with a school in Sweden and another group of children from a London school.

The kids really enjoyed this experience.   They knew they were on a big stage and most were pretty nervous - they'd spoken to their Swedish counterparts several times before, but this was different and they knew it.  This was great experience for them in dealing with those nerves and they carried it off very well indeed.  After the link to BETT, the teacher called the Swedish school again.  Without the pressure and the nerves, it was amazing to see how the children on both sides relaxed and began interacting more 'normally.'  The Swedish students dressed up in their winter clothes, showed off their toboggans and skates - the kids in Dubai loved it and it prompted much more authentic questions and interactions than were observed in the BETT session.  I'd suggest that one of the reasons for this was that, in the second Skype, the adults stepped back and the children really felt their new found freedom.  The teachers were still there of course, but there was no pressure on them or the children to perform to some arbitrary, synthetic standard.  The children were now in control.  The result?  Standards went up.  The interaction was authentic.

So I got to thinking - how normal was all of this from the students' standpoint?  Well, in the first call, we saw something great - students video-conferencing with peers across borders, presenting to a live audience thousands of miles away, and managing their nerves.  Not bad.  In the second call, though, they had the freedom to control their learning, to take the conversation their own way and to focus on the areas that really interested them.  Much more normal.  I heard last week that one of the interview questions for prospective Google employees is: "Tell me about your last 3 internationally collaborative projects." These students and their teachers would have a good start on answering this...

But could this be even more normal?  I reckon so.  Let's think about how.  Firstly, if I wanted to know more about life in Sweden, I would probably find it difficult in such a large group, sharing one computer.  Not everyone got the chance to speak or have their questions answered.  Would it be better to do it in pairs or one on one?  Maybe.  Next, I think it's a fair bet that the kids went away and thought up more questions they wanted answered.  What could they do about that?  Probably not a lot, maybe until the next scheduled session, probably next week sometime.  Is this normal?  No, it's crazy.  So... I would suggest this as the next step in normalising the learning on this project:

Set up computers in the classroom or elsewhere so that the children can Skype their peers when they need to, not in a session scheduled for next week, when the moment has gone.  If they have their own devices, allow them to use these for this purpose.  Of course, they should let their teachers know what they're doing and be supervised, but the point is that they have made the decision to use a tool for a specific purpose linked to their own learning journey - it's teacher-faciltated, not directed.  Imagine the excitement in Sweden when the Skype tone goes off:  Dubai calling!  And vice versa, of course. Would this be disruptive?  Maybe.  Does your Skype / phone go off at inopportune moments?  Does someone barge in and talk to you when you are too busy to welcome the interaction?  Often.  That's normal.  The children and teachers would need to learn to learn (intentional!) how and when it is appropriate to contact their peers and for what purposes.  This is a great learning opportunity.  If the Skype goes off in the middle of a maths lesson, grasp the opportunity and make up the time.  Again, normal.

Just a small next step to normal learning.  Maybe a bit scary, but I'd love to see it in action...