Richard Nealsson - Latest Comments

Re: ICT in Education

Sweyn Hunter — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 04:33:34 -0000

As a parent (I'm also an LA ICT worker, I have to admit(!); and my partner is a PT History) I absolutely love the sound of your vision for how ICT could and should be used in education. If the Scottish Government, in partnership with the ,LAs would fund some non-teaching time to enable all teachers in Scotland to be supported to become as confident and creative with how they use technical tools in the way you describe as the most-cabable of their colleagues, I would be reassured that the vision you describe might be feasible.

I'm not a Glow user (so this may be a stupid question, but here goes anyway ...): would the unified and secure login you envisage include the Glow Groups facility?

My main parental concern is that the education of the young people currently in schools, using various bits and pieces of Glow, is not disrupted by any sudden unavailability (even a temporary unavailability, of any longer than a few days) of the content and functionality they already have within the system, and use in school and at home every day. (I am particularly concerned about the situation facing current S2s, whose S4 assessments (those that will be Standard Grades for current S4s and S3s) are still not clear; I am particularly keen that the Glow replacement situation does not add to the risks they face as the first year group to experience whatever those assessments are going to be.) I see no local resources to cope even with a move of national system to another VLE with good vendor support, never mind trying to cope over the next 8 months with moving to a multi (or no) vendor architecture, and this concerns me. I am starting to despair at the lack of urgency being displayed in securing what is now the SHORT TERM situation.

Re: Gaming to save the world

Tom Chatfield — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 08:08:03 -0000

Hi Richard - intriguing post - I'm very interested that my talk helped suggest a games-based motivation scheme for your class, and would love to hear a few more details about what you did.

As you know, I feel it's an area with massive potential; although I'm somewhat allergic to talk of "saving the world", which seems to me to be an evangelical form of over-claiming that can take us away from developing powerful, practical tools and techniques in education and elsewhere.

Intrinsic rewards are all very well - and the thing we all wish people to feel - but I do feel that too great a focus on the intrinsic being "better" can miss the obvious point that if you can't get people to try in the first place, they'll never develop any kind of intrinsic engagement with what you're hoping to teach - reward structures and game-like feedback and engagement systems are brilliant at helping everyone to cross that first barrier in their own way - and once you have their attention and they're making an effort, deeper intrinsic rewards can begin to develop - especially if there's a good teacher involved who is no longer having to pour all their effort simply into trying to win people's attention in the first place....

Tom

Re: ICT in Scottish Education

James Batchelor — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 12:34:08 -0000

Will anyone acknowledge the prevailing situation and do something about it?

Re: ICT in Scottish Education

waltatek — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 11:34:04 -0000

Re Objective 4. Agreed - my table all had horror stories of schools totally unprepared for any communication with parents other than a printed newsletter, of one school that had an email address for every single parent/guardian but never used email, and of others that had started a website then allowed it to die (probably a worse scenario than those who never started!). Thankfully there are great examples of what CAN be done - eg the brilliant Andover PS in Brechin www.andoverprimary.org/

Re: ICT in Scottish Education

waltatek — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 11:27:57 -0000

Richard - thanks for taking time to write this reflective post and capture so well the nuances of the (all too short) event.

Re your anxiety about talking to the converted - see this reference on Nicola McNee's blog to breaking out of the echochamber. http://t.co/Prl2DQIR

We could do with taking some of that advice if we are to extend the debate to those who are more concerned about McCormack than how ICT is to be facilitated in their own teaching and learning

Re: ICT in Scottish Education

Gerry Dougan — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 04:37:30 -0000

Well summarised - thanks. Interesting final suggestion.

Re: ICT in Scottish Education

David Terron — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 02:43:23 -0000

Perfect! Excellent summary and good points made on our table as well as many others. Esp: how to engage teachers not on twitter etc. THEY are the ones who need to push this forward not the converted.