Brian Sharland

Signup sheet for #digitalstudies hangout Sunday night #ictcurric #rethinkingict

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 03:39:52 -0800

In order to organise for Sunday night I have created the below signup sheet as a Google form. Please remember there is a 10 person limit and you will need to probably add me on Google Plus.

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Google Hangout meeting to discuss #digitalstudies this Sun 8:30pm #ictcurric #rethinkingict

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 12:52:00 -0800

Image: 'Meeting room stencil graffiti'

Just had excellent chat with @largerama re #digitalstudies - lots of good advice. Would like to therefore propose a move onto the next step to push this project on and that is the first in what will hopefully be a series of Google Hangout meetings on #digitalstudies.

Let's break this down into a set of points (prevent me from waffling)

First meeting will be this Sunday at 8:30pm. Can take suggestions for alternate times if enough people are willing to change.
Major purpose: Discuss route forward for #digitalstudies and if enough people are agreed to go ahead then we begin setting up resources.
Agenda could be developed if need be.
Task if you wish to join is to firstly read http://briansharland.com/tag/digitalstudies and secondly bring any ideas regarding how to move forward

Google calendar invite - button doesnt seem to be working so click the little white square

I think some make or break decisions need to be taken on Sunday. A lot of people have put a lot of work in and I do not want anyone to put anything more in unless this is going to work. If it goes well then perhaps sunday night could form the basis for creating almost a steering group to get this project fully up and running.

Hope to see you then

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@hpsupport - I've blogged to show what happens when I try to get into eprintcenter [Scanned]

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 05:01:05 -0800

Step 1:

Attempt to register for new account. This proves that my email address is already known by eprintcenter as it is the same email address I use for snapfish.

Step 2:

Check that I can login to snapfish – which I can as you can see below

Step 3:

Go back to eprintcenter.com and use the EXACT same login details I have just used to login to snapfish to login to eprintcenter and I receive a login failed message

Finally – I have reset my snapfish password to see if that changes anything – still gives me login failed.

Rye St Antony School Ltd is a limited company registered in England No. 612426

Registered Office: Pullen's Lane, Headington Hill, Oxford OX3 0BY

Registered Charity No. 309685

Please note that Rye St Antony School Ltd may monitor email traffic data and also the content of email for the purposes of security and staff training.

This message contains confidential information and is intended only for post@posterous.com. If you are not post@posterous.com you should not disseminate, distribute or copy this e-mail. Please notify bsharland@ryestantony.co.uk immediately by e-mail if you have received this e-mail by mistake and delete this e-mail from your system. E-mail transmission cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error-free as information could be intercepted, corrupted, lost, destroyed, arrive late or incomplete, or contain viruses. Brian Sharland therefore does not accept liability for any errors or omissions in the contents of this message, which arise as a result of e-mail transmission. If verification is required please request a hard-copy version.

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Figuring out teaching units for #digitalstudies

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:45:42 -0800

Ever since #digitalstudies started one of the issues has been what to
teach pupils. To begin with the strands were developed which give
good broad descriptions of 'themes' which could run through the
subject. Since then @teachesict has done an immense amount of work in
looking at what topics and technologies could be taught for each
strand.

I've been thinking about and working on the issue of how to structure
the teaching so that the approach is firstly flexible for different
schools but reaches defined aims. Years ago (2001) when I started
teaching ICT in the UK the modules of work were very much based around
the Microsoft Office Applications. So there was the spreadsheet unit,
the database unit, the word processing unit etc. Within each unit we
found a nice context we could work with and deliver a reasonably range
of skills. The following year we would perhaps do some different
units but would often just simply add more advanced skills in. There
was an overall plan but it does seem now like it was a bunch of
disparate units which although was part of a plan didn't have any
overall goals or objectives.

In an earlier blogpost I looked at the topic of hackdays as a form of
developing the #digitalstudies curriculum. I also think hackdays
where pupils have been preparing for a while can be used as a form of
assessment for pupils. A hackday where pupils present their work
after a final set of challenges is I think to prepare pupils for life
beyond school in an innovative tech startup culture (if they choose to
go down that route). Obviously someone looking to get into a
computing career may not be working for a startup but even a context
like hackdays can allow pupils to demonstrate skills in a multitude of
ways such as database development, network design and construction and
multimedia.

By giving #digitalstudies a central purpose - provide learning and
experiences which could prepare them for work in multiple areas of
industry this should in turn help teachers focus on what pupils should
be learning and doing in class.

So how could it work? For starters at the end of junior school and at
the end of year 9 I propose hackdays where pupils present their
portfolio of work and also undergo challenges. To prepare for these
hackdays pupils (or their teachers) will choose what they are going to
work on for their portfolio. This becomes a key body of work which is
returned to frequently throughout the last years of junior school and
year 7 to 9. Possible options for portfolio work could include
multimedia production, website design or app development. Depending
on the school and the teachers and pupils a pupil could have one major
portfolio piece of work or take on more. The aim is to allow
flexibility.

Once portfolio work is chosen pupils undertake skill building units
focussing on what they need to produce that portfolio work. So for
instance instead of doing a unit where databases is the major focus
and a context is tacked on the context such as websites is the major
focus and databases is taught from the point of view of supporting the
work pupils are doing on their portfolio.

After a lot of thought this still only a provisional idea as to how to
approach teaching #digitalstudies. I felt it would be necessary to at
least get this out there for those who are becoming quite interested
in the subject so that it can be thought over and hopefully tweaked.

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Tea with neighbour and found out her son is ace with #minecraft esp Lego builds

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 10:28:16 -0800

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GCSE ICT at rye

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 00:39:40 -0800

GCSE ICT at rye.ppt Download this file

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#ICT500 My thoughts on #rethinkingICT and its future #digitalstudies

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 02:37:17 -0800

The last month has been quite a hectic one for the subject of ICT.
Starting with Michael Gove's speech to BETT in January there has been
a furious pace of reports, blog posts and news articles dissecting the
ins and outs of the subject and it's issues with a huge amount of
commentary from a number of people in different fields and industries.

Now we need to take stock, analyse what tools and resources we have
and look forward with practical solutions which will produce a subject
relevant and challenging for the pupils we teach. But who should do
this? Gove spoke of industry and academics leading the charge in
developing an academically rigorous subject but neglected to mention
teachers. This is where I see the #RethinkingICT conference as a vital
tool for bringing teachers together to develop a way forward for the
subject.

I have been promoting #digitalstudies as a way forward but I certainly
recognise that there will probably be alternate approaches in many
different schools. What I think teachers who work with ICT, Computer
Science etc should agree on is the outcomes. Gove spoke recently to an
educational select committee about destination outcomes as a target
for measuring how pupils do when they leave school. If this is he way
he is going we need to move with that and realise that our subject
should be more than just promoting a set of digital literacies for
pupils but be about pupils gaining valuable skills which can be taken
forward into the workforce.

The Nesta Nextgen report early last year went into detail about the
skills the country needs to be instilling in young people in order to
provide a sufficiently capable workforce for the computer gaming and
CGI industries in the UK. Although there are certainly many other
careers for which ICT is useful for I see this as a useful example of
how we should be directing our pupils. By showing the relevance of the
skills they are learning through extensive portfolio based work I
think we can ensure the future of the subject.

After talking about teachers taking the lead in developing the subject
I do still welcome the input of industry. If we are to be producing
pupils who are ready for the workforce then we definitely must listen
to what industry wants and is interested in. For example if the
current tad is towards Ruby on Rails development then that is what we
should be pushing pupils towards.

Ultimately though if we focus not only on producing a creative and
innovative curriculum but also encourage pupils to be creative and
innovative we can only see the subject grow and strengthen. In the end
this will have benefits for the country as a whole in producing pupils
who create businesses, jobs and become productive members of society.

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Building social networking into #digitalstudies

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 07:31:00 -0800

Image: 'Close connection - Verbundenheit'

Recently when blogging about #digitalstudies I have been trying to take a bit more of a practical approach. This post is more about a 'philosophy' for #digitalstudies of placing social networking at the very core of the subject. I know in this blog post I am simply stating the obvious for a number of more social networking savvy teachers (the ones who will read this post mostly) but I know there are many ICT teachers out there who are still unsure about the use of social networking in classrooms.

In a recent article in the Guardian 'Teachers warned over befriending pupils on Facebook' a number of examples were cited of teachers who used social networks inappropriately in class. I cannot obviously comment on the merits of those individual cases but it can be said that there will always be cases of teachers misusing social networking tools in class.

This obviously leads to an issue. Traditional school leaders will probably react to that quite negatively and in a sense they have a right to do so. These are clearly examples of serious cases where the teacher has overstepped the mark.

However although social networking gives the opportunity for causing harm it also gives the opportunity for much learning. That's why #digitalstudies will have social networking built into its core rather than as an adjunct to support learning. For one thing I make sure I write the name of the subject as a twitter hashtag and certainly the strands can be written as hashtags eg Digital Creativity becomes #digcreate.

How else I can build it in I'm not sure just yet. I have a facebook account but I avoid it like the plague for more personal reasons. I suppose what I would like to do is make sure that the following happens within #digitalstudies:

Make sure that all teaching content for #digitalstudies is shareable through social networks
This will mean no paywalls for the subject unless you are accessing content, services, programs already owned by another company (which we can try and avoid although I am considering building free digital textbooks in iBooks author)
Encourage communication and collaboration between teachers and pupils both within a school and between other schools and include businesses as well

How else this is going to happen is up to anyone who is able to contribute to #digitalstudies. Social networking as a core part of the curriculum will be essential and should showcase the subject as relevant and modern. Besides we may very well see pupils beginning to develop apps for social networks as part of their portfolio!

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Hack days for developing #digitalstudies to upgrade #ictcurric

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 08:39:00 -0800

Image: 'DSC_9783'

On Thursday the 19th I led a discussion for #ukedchat on the topic of #digitalstudies. It was incredibly fruitful with a huge response across the entire hour. One idea I had which I proposed when discussing assessment was for pupils to be assessed using hack days instead of exams. This received a pretty significant response without 15 retweets over the next half an hour.

@campbellhowes also said that she had a friend at Nokia desperate to do something like this and the very inspirational @teknoteacher and his hack days for kids was mentioned. So over the weekend I had a think about the issue of hack days and now would like to suggest the following.

Hack days for education could fall into three categories

Hack days for building interest and sparking creativity
Hack days for assessment and presentation of final projects (bit of a loose definition of hack day)
Hack days for building resources and ties between teachers and industry

It's the third one I want to focus on for now particularly in the lead up to Chris Leach's excellent #rethinkingict conference on the 8th of June - http://rethinkingict.wordpress.com. At this moment this seems more like a policy and practice debate at the moment so I was thinking a more traditional hack day could be a good forum to focus on practical development of resources for a new #digitalstudies curriculum.

Let's call it #resourcehack for now and think about what the day would look like?

What would be the purpose of the day?

For developers to work with teachers and pupils to create new tools, resources and software which is relevant for the new curriculum.

Who would be involved?

Pupils - a selection of motivated pupils would be vital for developers to chat to
Teachers - we need to be there, developers or not
Developers from industry - social networks, BCS, games companies etc, blogging networks

How would it run?

This is where I would need advice as I have never run a hack day before.

What would happen with the resulting products?

Released as part of the open source curriculum.

Conclusion

Comments as always very welcome. I think this idea has merit and I would be interested to see what other people think.

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#ukedchat summary of discussion on #digitalstudies

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:40:11 -0800

ukedchat archive 19 Jan 2012.xlsx Download this file

Last night I had the opportunity to lead a discussion on a new subject which is being proposed and worked on by a small group of teachers called #digitalstudies. The aim of the evening was to give people a chance to find out about it, discuss it's implications and come up with practical solutions. After Gove's announcements recently about the changes to the curriculum it was natural that a fair bit of the conversation would be about the fallout from his announcements. The conversation was fast and furious with multiple threads and therefore this summary is only touching on some of what the archive offers.

The conversation began with some scepticism about his announcements with people saying he hadn't gone far enough to expressing concern about whether the free choice element of the ICT curriculum would come about. Some were also concerned about the about the business and commercial influence this might bring into the subject. There was also some discussion about whether his message was 'we could do what we want' or 'there must be more computing' or whether it should be a bit of both with a couple of tweets about what we could 'do' when it came to september. Another concern was whether the new curriculum could be handled by non-specialist teachers.

During the session a regular point which people came back to quite repeatedly was the discussion of terms and their definitions as well as how strands of teaching based on those terms could be taught. A pertinent comment was made that any curriculum needs balance and should be flexible to meet the needs of pupils. A lot of positivity was expressed with people wanting to design a curriculum which augments what we do as teachers.

Another theme of the evening was practical ways of moving forward either #digitalstudies or something similar. A comment was made that a lot of the current ICT curriculum could be cut back. A #rethinkingict conference was also mentioned being led by @chrisleach78 during which people will have a chance to work on developing future plans. On the topic of assessment for ICT or any new subject a suggestion was made to have pupils do 'hack days' as a form of assessment instead of regular tests and exams. Some comments and links were also posted on including EYFS in any new curriculum which was very much recommended. Training was a regular point of discussion as something which was vital for pushing forward with a new curriculum.

A selection of tweets from the evening:

@sharland #ukedchat do you see the Gove message as 'you can do what you want' or as 'there must be more computing' (or something else)?
— Miles Berry (@mberry) January 19, 2012

#ukedchat - I'm excited by what Gove did and what it could mean but how it'll be developed by schools and non-specialists is a worry.
— Richard Blaize (@richardblaize) January 19, 2012

@ChrisRat Maybe HUGE gaps for industry to help support schools/education in this then? #ukedchat
— ukedchat (@ukedchat) January 19, 2012

#ukedchat open source curriculum. We can lead it :)
— davidhunter (@davidhunter) January 19, 2012

@davidhunter #ukedchat open source curriculum. We can lead it :) - but worry is how many will not follow?
— Nick Jackson (@largerama) January 19, 2012

@eyebeams @campbellhowes i want pupils to have hack days as their form of assessment #ukedchat #digitalstudies
— Brian Sharland (@sharland) January 19, 2012

Have we considered what students want to learn in ICT? #ukedchat
— Stephen Logan  (@Stephen_Logan) January 19, 2012

Links:

http://digitalstudieswiki.pbworks.com

http://BrianSharland.com/tag/digitalstudies

http://rethinkingict.wordpress.com/

http://teachesict.wordpress.com/digitalstudies/

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10 pts about #digitalstudies for #ukedchat tonight

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 02:38:00 -0800

As I have written fairly extensive blog posts about #digitalstudies and as many people coming in tonight probably haven't had a chance to read up about the subject I thought it would be a good idea to write some brief points about it.

1. My name is Brian Sharland and I am a Head of ICT at an independent school with a number of years teaching state school under my belt as well.

2. I would describe myself as a campaigner for #digitalstudies - a subject which is in the early stages of being developed collaboratively using an open source framework.

3. #digitalstudies is being positioned as an 'upgrade' to the old ICT curriculum which includes what the UK government is proposing for the subject but goes further to include what was good about the old subject curriculum.

4. The subject includes four strands; Digital Literacy, Digital Technology, Digital Creativity and Digital Citizenship and would cover at this point key stage 1 to key stage 3 with routes into GCSE.

5. The philosophy for the subject would be collaboration and creativity through pupils working on extensive projects in what could almost be described as a 'startup' culture within the classroom.

6. Pupils, especially from late primary school and up, would be encouraged to create products, apps, media which are released onto the net and form part of a digital portfolio which is carried into HE and hopefully work.

7. Currently descriptions for the strands exist, ideas for topics exist and a basic wiki has only just been set up this week.

8. There is a lot more which still needs to be done (assessment objectives, project ideas etc)

9. Tonight therefore I hope will provide constructive and practical discussion surrounding the subject to see whether this has support and can have an impact.

10. Links:
http://digitalstudieswiki.pbworks.com

http://BrianSharland.com/tag/digitalstudies

http://rethinkingict.wordpress.com/

http://teachesict.wordpress.com/digitalstudies/

People to chat to:

myself @sharland

Chris Leach @chrisleach78

Nick Jackson @largerama

Nic @teachesict

Hashtags:

#digitalstudies

#rethinkingict

Looking forward to this ...

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Critical Study Proposal for MA ICT and Education #classblogging #sen

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 07:36:41 -0800

Image: 'Blogging for Cats'

In a slight change of pace from the impending #ukedchat on Thursday on #digitalstudies I have my critical study proposal to submit for my MA on ICT and Education.

My proposal is as follows:

I propose to investigate whether blogging as both a planned and organized activity or as a free activity can have an identified positive impact on pupils with SEN. I would like to investigate how pupils learning and for those who it is relevant social and language skills are affected. I will use a group of identified pupils in hopefully at least two schools to ensure that the pupils concerned have different levels of technological access at home.

The proposal can be brief at this point as I am simply needing to get a tutor who can work with me but it at least covers what I am interested in. I enjoy blogging and see its learning learning potential but up until now I have been concentrating on promoting general blogging for pupils as a form of reflection and self assessment. By focussing on the SEN department of a school I think this will help turn attention to how blogging can be used for pupils who I think can be overlooked when it comes to the use of technology. Furthermore our SEN head loves the idea and the head of SEN at another local state school lives two doors from me.

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Upgrading #ictcurric to #digitalstudies

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 02:52:00 -0800

This week I have the privilege of hosting #ukedchat on the topic of #digitalstudies. I will probably write another quick summary blog shortly before Thursday night giving those who are coming new to the topic a quick refresher and a full set of links. Today therefore I more want to follow on from my last post on our Secretary of Educations's announcements on ICT by thinking forward to how this is going to impact #digitalstudies.

Firstly a quick recap of what has happened so far. Late last year I saw a blog post by @mwclarkson on possible strands for ICT and I asked him if I could use those as a basis for working on my new schemes of work. Shortly after that I began to think that these strands could be used as the possible basis for a 'rebrand' of the subject and after seeing a while ago some discussion about whether the name of ICT was a problem a thought that perhaps a new name could be found. I wrote a blog post setting out my thoughts for wanting to rename the subject to #digital and after some initial reservations both online and with some colleagues @largerama proposed the addition of studies to the name and #digitalstudies was born.

Since then I have come across @chrisleach78'sexcellent work on his version of a new curriculum which uses similar strands and have also made contact with @teachesict who has started producing some fantastic mind maps on topics for the subject. Chris has also launched the #rethinkingict conference which I think has reached its limits in terms of numbers. More details can be found here.

So after Michael Gove's announcements last week on the 11th of January I was very chuffed to see that not only does much of #digitalstudies match what Gove is suggesting I think the subject we are working on will not only include all of what Gove wants to see but also goes further in providing a broad, exciting and balanced curriculum.

We are already in a sense 'open source', we will be including the heavy programming the government wants to see but will also be including topics and challenges which are relevant to pupils. What is also very important is the following point which I will make in its own paragraph as I think it is vital for ensuring this project gets taken seriously.

Digital Studies must be seen not as a collection of fun and cool teaching ideas but as a consistent, challenging, engaging and academically rigorous subject which is above and beyond what any other country has to offer.

I am setting a high benchmark for two reasons. Firstly it gives us something to aim for and the higher we aim the further we reach and secondly because I think there is a collective skill set amongst ICT teachers in the UK (and obviously further afield as well) which can help produce this.

So what needs to happen next? I was hoping to get to teachmeet BETT last Friday but for personal reasons was unable to do so. Fortunately I have very kindly been offered a slot by @chilledteaching to moderate a discussion on Thursday night on #digitalstudies. The conference which Chris is organising is a next logical step and I think will prove immensely valuable in giving some serious direction to the next stages for ICT whether it will be #digitalstudies or something else. Further action points:

1. For those attending the #rethinkingICT conference start preparing for it. For those not attending get as much contributions as you can to those who are attending.

2. Attend the #ukedchat session on twitter Thursday 19th January at 8:00pm.

3. From today http://digitalstudieswiki.pbworks.com is now open to start compiling ideas and developing content. It currently has very little and I will try and give it some structure during today. Request access and begin editing.

4. If you are buying into this then get exposure for #digitalstudies in your school, home, LA office, company, government department, newspaper office, blog posts, tweets etc. I like what Gove had to say but I think we can be better then he probably thinks we are.

Cheers
Brian

Ps: need a logo - get tired of searching through flickrcc for decent images

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My response to #Gove's announcement on #ictcurric (#digitalstudies #schoolstech)

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 08:22:55 -0800

Image: 'Naturfagtime ved Kalvskindet skole / Science class+at+Kalvskindet+school+(ca.+1900)'

Yesterday was a fairly momentous day for ICT teachers in the UK after Michael Gove's set piece speech on the future of ICT teaching in schools. There has been an avalanche of news stories, tweets and blogs about it so I thought it may be a good idea to let the dust settle before adding my two cents. A lot of the comment has been quite in depth about some of the issues so for me I will be trying to slightly 'summarise' the main points. A post on #digitalstudies should hopefully follow soon

The problems people have been having with the speech

Some commentary including some incensed tweets from someone at NASUWT have focussed on Gove's comments that ICT teaching is boring and dull. Ofsted did pick up on it and I largely tend to agree with Gove. In those schools where leadership has not invested properly in staff to teach the subject I can very well imagine teachers who are trying to do a really good job but are struggling due to not probably being their main specialism.

The curriculum itself I don't think was 'boring' as such. There was a lot of good quality and challenging points within it but again I think it suffered through schools not paying it too much attention. Trying to take a step back I would say that the curriculum for ICT was probably a great curriculum for most of the 2000's leading up to about 2007-8. This I would say is the point where social networks, apps on mobile phones and the like started to really take off beyond the level of enthusiasm which sites like myspace had achieved. The pace of technological change since then has meant that the ICT curriculum is now largely out of date (my textbooks are a joke) and change certainly is needed.

A further problem I have picked up on briefly is that some may think the government is wishing their hands of ICT and that by giving companies the opportunity to set the pace for future curricula this will lead to excessive commercialisation of ICT.

To answer that (and more in the opportunities presented by the speech)

Gove has committed to including Computer Science within the EBacc if it meets standards
ICT is already heavily commercialised with teachers having to pick their way through Microsoft, Apple, Adobe products etc etc

It may be a cynical view to adopt that they are washing their hands of it but given the alternative of taking ages to develop a centralised national curriculum for the subject I think Gove has given us the lesser of two evils. Although it may only be Computer Science in the Ebacc I think at GCSE level I don't see anything wrong in pupils choosing to focus on one strand of #digitalstudies. As for the commercialisation question I think most teachers are adept at finding their way through commercial products (If you have been to BETT that skill would be hardcoded in you by now!).

Opportunities presented by the speech

The biggest opportunity presented by Gove's speech is the mention of the words 'open source curriculum'. This does obviously allow corporates to produce their own curricula and I would certainly welcome that. However in my only real gripe he didn't acknowledge that teachers themselves could be responsible for developing an open source curriculum. This is something myself, @teachesict and @chrisleach28 are working on in different ways under the guise of #digitalstudies.

A new open source curriculum should be able to provide opportunities for bringin gin more coding but also keeping some of the value from the old ICT curriculum. I certainly don't want to restrict it to computer science right the way through the curriculum as this I feel would be too limiting.

Summary

Although my opportunities is shorter than the problems section I think the opportunity of a truly open sourced curriculum is fantastic and should give the scope and vitality to really take this subject forward. Although Gove based part of his speech on misconceptions the balance I think was largely positive and should ensure that ICT or whatever it will be called is not only safe for the future but provides a market leading educational experience for pupils.

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Structuring Resources through mindmapping for #digitalstudies

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 04:44:00 -0800

Since beginning this project on #digitalstudies someone who has really stepped up has been @teachesict who has been working far harder than me on some awesome mindmapping for the new subject.

I've copied the link in which I hope you will be able to at least view. https://www.mindmeister.com/127915705

Nic has structured the topics according to the four strands of #digitalstudies and has then included top level topics which have some sub level topics. EG:

Digital Citizenship (strand)
- Impact of online communications (top level topic)
  - Blogging (sub level topic)
  - Chatrooms (sub level topic)
  - E-Safety (sub level topic)
- Creative commons (top level topic)

I hope the above makes sense!

I am thinking as to how the resources and links could be gathered for each sub level topic. By applying a structure for each topic of:

News articles
Videos
Apps
Websites

This may help structure what is a giant task. It would also provide a benefit of being able to suck up lets say all videos and news articles across the whole mindmap to create master lists. It would also help in mapping these topics to different levels of school eg KS1 and up.

Lets see how this goes ...

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Mapping the way forward for #digitalstudies (cc @tesconnect @educationgovuk)

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 02:33:00 -0800

Road to Kabini by Sandflash

Recently I wrote about the idea of replacing ICT with a new subject #digitalstudies. Amongst a small but growing group of teachers on Twitter this idea has gone down extremely well. What I am very pleased to see is that people like @teachesict have already gone as far as proposing the strands and even the name of #digitalstudies to their head teacher and director of studies. I was hoping that as this took off others would be able to step in and start contributing towards the new subject. I certainly don't own this idea and I don't think anyone else can but whilst I can I certainly want to lead as much as possible.

So what I would like to suggest is a map or action plan for the way forward. As much as I enjoy seeing something grow organically just as much as one has to prune and direct a plant I feel we should take on board some structure and direction for this new subject. What follows is therefore a list of ideas, issues and plans which will need to be addressed in order for this subject to succeed. One of the ideas is for a wiki and once that is set up I will transfer this list to the wiki so that others can contribute. If anyone wants to take a lead on something send me your name and I will add you to this list.

I know that over Christmas people tend to understandably quiet down for a bit. I think these ideas may therefore be a good way to help light a lamp under us for the start of the new year.

General ideas
1. Set up a wiki for storing and compiling all info for new subject (long term plan is full website with social network integration for sharing ideas)
2. Present #digitalstudies to teachmeet BETT in January next year
3. Get an article in TES (need to break out of the twitter box)
4. See if we can get anyone at DfE to sit down with us and listen

Subject ideas:
1. Set up effective topic list which covers KS1 to KS3 (I will blog on why I am not including KS4 and 5 for now)
2. Begin developing assessment objectives for each topic
3. Begin developing units for each topic (my aim would be to have way more units then upload ever be taught thus encouraging flexibility and choice by the teacher) (and may be reliant on full website for subject being available)
4. Begin developing resources

I'm really excited about this

Brian

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How to assess a pupil blog post #digitalstudies #comments4kids

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 03:28:00 -0800

Image: 'Homage to Babsi'

This new curriculum idea of #digitalstudies seems to be gaining a small amount of momentum at the moment. In developing the definitions for the four strands I have been thinking about what is going to underpin all of these strands and allow pupils to bring together what they have been able to do.

The obvious answer to this is blogging. Blogging I see as a very effective personal analysis tool for reflecting on learning which is taking place. The obvious example is this very blogpost itself as I am using it to reflect on the work I have done.

The less obvious answer is how to assess what a pupil has written. Starting this year I asked pupils from year 8 upwards to create individual blogs for uploading their work. Every post which a pupil makes is commented on by me often in great detail. However I have been thinking that despite the detail I provide the pupils need to be shown a clear 'path' for how to improve their own blogs. I also about the same time I was considering this went on an exam board course for ICT (don't worry I wasn't shown any answers) during which we discussed the longer 'essay' questions at the end of the exam. I reckon looking at my pupils they do struggle to write these essay questions.

When I looked at the markscheme for the essay questions I saw that they also used a fairly familiar levelling system for identifying how well a pupil has written an essay question. I thought why not use similar levels for assessing how a pupil writes a blog. This would allow me to very quickly identify how well a pupil writes as well as give them a structure for how to improve as well.

The following Google Docs link will take you to my first version of a blog assessment rubric which I will be introducing at school soon. Feel free to add, edit and make a copy of this.

https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1A5aG4-92JHq2ZKZJAH_lmz72qIsuPd0TPJRx...

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A copy of the letter I sent to my department on the Future of ICT #digitalstudies

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 02:57:29 -0800

Below I have pasted a direct copy of the email I have sent to my department on the future of ICT which I feel would be a good idea to post here as well.

Dear All,

As some of you might know from the news the government is considering some massive changes to ICT and the way it will be taught (if it even stays in the national curriculum). It is certainly part of my role that I need to keep on top of these changes and ideas emanating from the DfE, parse them and come up with a strategy for the future which is suitable for our pupils and prepares them effectively for when they leave school.

I have been having a number of discussions with colleagues online about ways of responding to this and in doing so I have started to prepare some ideas for a way forward. I feel it is also important to bring you all in as teachers, IT professionals and educators into this discussion so that we can establish the best way forward.

As part of this I have begun a rather massive undertaking of essentially writing a new subject which will take the best of what ICT had to offer and incorporating the elements of programming and computer studies which I see the government as leaning towards. Even though being independent we have the ability to continue with what we are doing I see that as putting ourselves in the slow lane and no longer being able to compete with what many state schools are already offering.

I am therefore aiming to present to not only all ICT staff at Rye but any other interested parties in the new year on some of these ideas however I would really need some feedback and further ideas. I am therefore aiming to meet with you individually to discuss some of these points.

How you can also help is you are able to read some of the articles and links I have posted below. I would also encourage you to get active on Twitter where a number of discussions take place as well related to this.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/132JFS-DIqeBwVjrSXSDN2RpRxNrqMOq4DcoNPXMXv2M/edit

- A work in progress presentation outlining my ideas for a new subject

http://briansharland.com

- My personal blog where I am writing fairly extensively on issues to do with the new subject

A selection of news articles and blog posts related to these issues

http://edu.blogs.com/edublogs/2011/12/the-inspiring-maker-curriculum-in-darlington.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+edublogs+%28Ewan+McIntosh+%7C+Digital+Media+%26+Education%29

- Yip that is 7 year olds working with circuit boards. They may be destroying them for art purposes but I think we can bring in the philosophy of ‘making’ into our curriculum and extend beyond just making posters in publisher.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/dec/08/women-videogames-designing-writing

- A snapshot of how we could be inspiring girls into creative ICT industries. Why should it be boys who are stereotyped into doing these sorts of things?

http://ishouldbemarking.wordpress.com/2011/12/07/literacy-in-ict/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

- An excellent post on the meaning of literacy in our subject

The following 5 articles all focus on the drive to bring programming back into the classroom

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/dec/06/michael-gove-computer-science?CMP=twt_gu

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15923113

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15916677

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/dec/04/ict-national-curriculum-john-naughton?CMP=twt_iph

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2011/nov/30/games-government-and-education?CMP=twt_iph

And if you are feeling particularly brave I have attached the government response to Nesta’s Next Gen report referenced in one of the articles. However I must admit I have only got a few pages in. I do though find this point quite interesting and will perhaps conclude on this …

Government also recognises that the key themes of Next Gen resonate far beyond video games and VFX : many of the skills demanded by employers are equally desired in the much wider economy, from business software, telecoms and social media to financial services, fighting cyber-crime and designing the next advances in aviation. By ensuring the UK has a strong supply of the skills described in Next Gen we will be better able to realise the full potential of these industries.

OK I will finish on one other point … ‘Coding is the new Latin’

Carpe Diem

Brian

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Hello to all readers in France!

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 01:34:11 -0800

looking at my google analytics for my blog and I have a small but reasonable chunk coming from france - bonjour!
— Brian Sharland (@sharland) December9, 2011

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Why I want to rename ICT to #digital (#ictcurric)

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 02:59:00 -0800

Over the last few months I have been very slowly working on a new curriculum for ICT at my school. Following on from inspiration gleaned from a number of other people (@mwclarkson, @chrisleach28 and @jpgreenwood in particular) I have written four strands for a new curriculum.

1. Digital literacy
2. Digital creativity
3. Digital technology
4. Digital citizenship

Each strand looks at a different aspect of ICT and I think complement each other very nicely. However they suffer from a small problem. Although they incorporate much of what a modern up to date ICT teacher should be teaching it is still known as the 'ICT' curriculum and reading any number of current stories emanating from the government about the teaching of ICT one gets the impression the name of the subject has a tarnished reputation.

Under the circumstances I think what is called for is not just a renaming of the subject but a rebranding of ICT. To me when you rename something it simply carries on doing the same job as before but using a diffent title, much the same way as a sports stadium does after it gets named after a corporate sponsor.

A rebranding gives something not only a new name but also a new purpose and direction. Now much of this new purpose for ICT does seem to be developing through the push to include computer science and coding as key components to the curriculum. This is all well and good but the subject may very well still be called ICT which has its problems of connotations with simply learning clerical MS office skills. Of course ICT may simply be dropped and pupils start learning Computer Studies but even then that subject has I think it's negative connotations of being too geeky, insular and lacking the breadth to deal with topical issues in ICT which impact on society.

What I therefore propose is to ignore both names and create a rebranded subject known as #digital. It will include much of what was good about ICT and factor in the coding which will become a very necessary part of the future. It gives us as teachers of the subject the chance to throw off the negativity surrounding ICT and establish it as a strong and relevant subject for schools to teach.

But why choose the name #digital? For starters when I looked up the definition of digital again in google I got the response "Involving or relating to the use of computer technology: "the digital revolution"". I liked this immensely as this is very much about establishing a revolution in how computer technology is taught in schools. The other definition supplied by google related to digital signalling and this also makes the use of the term relevant as ultimately the subject #digital is about teaching pupils how to understand as much as possible about how simple digital technology works (even down to the signalling) and how it impacts the analogue world surrounding it.

#digital as a name is short, punchy and moves past the clunkiness of Information, Communication and Technology. It ties in nicely with the names of the strands and provides a useful framework for defining multiple elements of the subject. By incorporating the hashtag at the front it captures the 'zeitgeist' of the moment which is a world dominated fairly extensively by social networking.

I think taking a bold and daring approach like this could be a useful way to kickstart a new era of teaching the 'geek' stuff to a generation who themselves are coming into our lessons increasingly clued up on computers.

ADDENDUM: The majority of the above blog post was written yesterday morning before I had a further conversation on twitter last night with @largerama. Nick liked the idea of #digital but suggested Digital Studies instead (or #digitalstudies ...). I think this is a very useful suggestion as it makes it sound a lot better for practical reasons eg a pupil saying "I have digital studies in period 5" instead of "I have digital in period 5". I guess I was just trying to establish a single word name for the subject like Maths or English. I thought I would at least leave the blog post above unedited as it contains much of what will work for the name #digitalstudies just as much as it would work for #digital.

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