Naace Conference Blog

The conference podcasts are now integrated into this blog! You’ll find them in the postings for the relevant sessions, but here are some quick links to help:

Opening Keynote: Ministerial Address & Naacemark/ICTmark Awards
This not only contains audio from the opening keynote, but also the second session: The Next Three Years: Emerging National ICT Agendas

Computers in Education: An alternative view
The contraversial views of John Clare and the subject of the challenge set to Naace members.

Strategic ICT - The Way Ahead
Neil Mclean’s following morning Keynote, in which he rebuffs John Clare’s view of the purpose of education, and talks about the way forward.

QCA: The Curriculum and Technology
Mike Rumble steps in for Mick Waters at the QCA, and gives the QCA’s view on thr ereview of the curriculum and the role of ICT within it.

So the conference is over, but not the blogging
This is where we’ve put the podcasts recorded by members at the conference - listen to what they thought the hightlights of the conference were.

The members may have left Torquay but the blogging goes on.

If you have any comments on the conference in general, leave them here, or on a particular session leave them on the posting for that session. A number of Naace bloggers have already commented on the conference on their own blogs. Here’s a flavour of some of the views.

Mike Farmer:

The NAACE conference is probably like most conferences. It has good bits and bad bits. One of the best bits for me was the pleasant sunny, frosty two mile walk into Torquay from the hotel on Thursday morning. This was made even more pleasant by the company and the realisation that the first mile had taken so long that there was no chance of getting to the first conference session in time. The walk then deviated around the harbour and along the promenade ending at the superb Torquay railway station. This prompted a discusion on different classes of steam locomotive including the School’s class so I suppose it did have some educational relevance. After a pleasant coffee in the buffet room of this Brunelian station we made our way to the conference and listened to probably the best presentation of the conference … We thought Peter Ford’s session was going to be on Blogs. It wasn’t. It was on the much more important subject of teaching and it was brilliant.

Terry Freedman:

… John Clare himself has a reputation for being sceptical (I believe that is the polite way of putting it) about the benefits of ICT in education. For example, he once made a comment to the effect of schools being infested with computers to nobody’s obvious benefit, and often complains about the content-free internet-centred curriculum.

Now, here is the interesting thing. Leaving aside the fact that John Clare’s definition of attainment, and his view of the purpose of education, are not necessarily wholeheartedly shared by the rest of us (at the risk of being simplistic and therefore misrepresentative, attainment = recitation of facts, education is for transmitting the culture of the nation from one generation to the next), there was very little in his talk with which one could disagree. Indeed, some very prominent (in the field of ICT in education in the UK) people stood up and said as much. I would have too, had I been there, because I already believe that we as a group are far too uncritical, as I’ve said elsewhere.He received rapturous applause and, I was told, people were surrounding him up to 5 deep in the bar afterwards to ask him questions.

Gareth Davies:

Phew, what a week in Torquay at the Naace conference - stimulating sessions and debate! The ‘talk of the conference’ was the keynote address by John Clare, Education correspondent for the Telegraph and a fierce critic of the educational value of ICT in schools and the expenditure that has taken place in the UK over the last few years. While I expected discussion on his session to have died down by coffee time the next morning, I was still hearing comments on the Friday morning after the conference was over! It seems that he had not in fact entered the ‘lions den’, as I heard of no-one rejecting the general points he made out of hand. Indeed Naace members were prepared to listen, and happy to be challenged on their belief that ICT advances education. However, when it came to questions at the end, at no stage did he attempt to engage in ‘the debate’, which he claimed had hardly taken place …

And finally, some members comments while podcasting in the Internet Cafe, download it here:

Game On - Is the Future of Learning Playful?

Are computer games the holy grail for educating a digital generation? Or are they a red herring that we should ignore while we get on with the serious business of raising standards?

Drawing on evidence from classroom teachers using games, from practical attempts to create new games for learning and from the latest academic research in the field, this presentation will provide an overview of the current ‘state of play’ in the area of games and learning and examine what lessons we can learn from games play for the design of learner-centred and collaborative learning communities.

What Kerry Facer said:

“I’m not going to talk about games as “chocolate covered broccoli“, games as motivation.

When we are bringing these technologies we can’t just think about us doing things better. It’s not just about efficiency, it moves goals along.

It asks us how do we have to change in order to meet our present and future goals. This is not a technologist determinate environment.

Learning with games outside schools

Computer games are almost the defining technology for youth. Games are coming out of the bedroom, going mobile.

Key argument from researchers - “little learning engines” - new models of learning.

- Goals, tasks and immersive motivational
- Flow, incremental and personalised challenges
- Multi-modal learning, rich resources to support understanding and engagement
- Simulations, complex relatinships to supportthinking skills and strategies

These arguments have been around a long time.

In the 1990s, researchers began looking at:

- exploration of alternative indentities and realities
- knowledge building communities (as much money is put into this as producing the games eg. magazines sharing tips etc.)
- online games - 51% of children paly these games when they go online

Games are powerful personal collaborative online learning spaces. All of the research says that elements that are attractive in games is good learning practice.

Implementations for education:

rethink the identity of the child on schools
rethink learning relations
rethink educational goals
rethink the organisation of schools

Researchers have decided that it too hard to work with schools anymore.

Sites of creative practive - ‘machinma’ - creating new forms through games resources.

Caveats:

Research based - who included?
A lot of research is with high users of games.
Not all games, but ’some games’
Violence Health and Cutural Stereotyping
- the ‘Emily Dickinson game’ / ‘the movies’

There is a bit of a fight going on.
59% of teachers wanted to use games in schools
53% of these for motivational reasons - worrying
49% main barrier = access to equiment
but 71% of teachers don’t play games

Can you use mainsteam games in school, not for motivation but for curriculum goals

Games used:
Rollacoaster Tycoon
Knights of Honour
Sims 2

Lessons so far, full report in August

Teachers either massively enthusiast or extremely sceptical.
Some are too hard and take long to learn
They need to be rich
relevance to educational goals
age appropriateness
cultural issues
technical issues - school computers not designed for this sort of use eg. graphics.

Examples:

Susan, Rollercoaster to teach forces in KS3 Science
She ran a pilot, pupils produced a handbook for other pupils
Project rollercoaster motion onto screen; they then work out the laws of motion

Mike, Knights of Honour
Thinkng skills, decision making, working with information, comparing game with other sources of information.

Teachers need support - from SMT, both technical, and cultural from other teachers. Time to play the game, and the freedom to pilot things out and for it to go wrong.

Finally some theoretical issues - create reflective space for educational thought about the pedagogy. Teachers were suffering about not having a language to talk about learning.

What happens when the school culture meets the game culture?
Games cultures change, they get better. The role of the teacher makes the implicit knowledge explicit. But what can happens is that the games stop being games. Most important think is that the identity of the gamer changes to the educational pupil. This is fundamentally different.

LET’S CLAIM THE RIGHT TO EXPERIMENT!

What was said in this session:

Pupils and staff from the Cornwallis School and Hugh Christie

Hugh Christie Technology College - Anything is possible

A 1170 non selective school with 1:1 ratio, many being Tablet PCs.

Would a teacher of yesterday recognise our classrooms of today?

We would like to think that the answer to this is no. We have created different learning spaces of different sizes. The ICT is in classroom and in the hands of pupils and teachers.

Our objectives:

- Personalising learning

- Creative learing

- Integrated learning

Power of personalisation, example, PDAs in Year 10 Geography. The PDA is ideal tool. Jamie said:

Power of Creativity example, using Flash. Easy to make simple animations. Pupils can create animations to illustrate concepts. Teachers find it easy as well.

Power of Integration, example, Tablet PCs.

Research and Development
We’ve set up an ‘ICT champions team’ to help staff develop competencies. They run sessions for other teachers.

We also have feeder schools coming to our schools, and community projects.

Cornwallis School

We have to do more with less resources.

The lonely artisan problem - the teacher in individual classroom. A distinctive problem. They need to work together.

Some solutions:

- work on as many agendas as possible at the same time
- make it simple
- make it fast
- don’t worry about confusion
- chaos is normal

A series of 100 day plans.

Shift the budget away
Invest in technology, aim for 1:1 access
Development of a common curriculum
Develop a common communications model
Focus on teaching and learning with use of project based learning; teacher and coach model
Use of external Ofsted inspection teams
Assessment of learning every 7 weeks
Change the staff culture e-scripting
Relationship driven environment
Key Performance indicators
re-branding exercise
sell the idea of education - make it cool
data mining leads to new sub groups
offender profiling identifies those at risk

Aplace holder for thoughts, questions and discussion about this session.

Continuing teaching and learning in ICT: This session will provide an update on the ICT strand of the secondary strategy, looking at what has been learnt so far and the issues still faced and how they might be tackled. There will be a chance to consider the new testing regime that becomes statutory in 2008 as well as consideration of the progression through key stage 3 into qualifications in ICT.

The TDA - What we have Learnt and what we will be doing in the Future.

A place holder for thoughts, ideas and discussion about this session.

This session will outline the potential teaching and learning benefits of using weblogs in schools. It will also address any concerns or questions that delegates might have about weblogs. Subject to wireless connectivity being available, delegates, if they so wish, will also have the opportunity to undertake some live blogging, before, during and after the event.

A placeholder for ideas, thoughts and discussion about this session.

Over five years, more than 400 secondary age pupils completed their education via one of the Satellite Virtual Schools. More than 400 young people with chronic medical needs have gained GCSE qualifications and moved on to Universities, Colleges, further training or work. This session offers insights into the experience of these pupils, their families and teachers to illustrate what works from a management and from a teaching perspective. There will be an opportunity to consider its potential of satellite education for young people who are unable to attend regular schools, sixth forms or Colleges of FE.