1. Don’t call it ICT
2. Pillars
3. Structure
4. Concerns

Don’t call it ICT.
I’d never heard of ICT before I became a teacher. I worked in IT in various capacities for 15 years before becoming a teacher and have an MSc in Computer Science. People work in IT. Please let’s call it that. Or pink elephants. Or anything that isn’t ICT

Pillars
A ‘these truths I hold dear’ of sorts. Any IT curriculum should:

• be agnostic. In terms of pedagogy, let’s specify goals not routes. In terms of tech, let’s do operating systems not Macs, spreadsheets not Excel, and principles not implementations. In terms of society, let’s be accessible to as many as humanly possible.
• be focused on learning. It should be designed in such a way that the teacher can learn with the students. Tech moves very quickly and I see no shame in being the most experienced learner rather than the font of all knowledge.
• be challenging. There is a fear that children know more than adults. Fine. But don’t teach them what is difficult for you if it is easy for them. Don’t do Dreamweaver till you’ve done HTML. See previous point!
• be varied. Not just computer science, not just playing around with media, not just anything.
• be relevant, to children and to industry.
• be a work in progress. Because to be relevant you have to be.

And by contrast, no IT curriculum should ever, ever be a slop-bucket for other subjects’ technical projects, “oh because, you know, it involves a computer and the internet”.

Structure
So what should the IT Curriculum contain? I’m jotting down notes here but I’d think the key strands could be something like:

1. Computational Thinking
   This is an academic discipline in itself and has plenty of cross-curricular “oomph” especially with maths and sciences. In Google’s words, it “involves a set of problem-solving skills and techniques that software engineers use to write programs that underlie the computer applications you use”. In an IT Curriculum it could mean learning how to apply concepts such as abstraction, divide and rule etc. using software like Scratch, or building a basic app. It also provides a way to understand the hardware behind the software. Because it is an academic discipline, this can be as resource heavy or as resource light as one wants. If the budget allows, then Mindstorms , if not, then paper.
2. Working Life
   This is essentially a pared down version of what the curriculum is now, i.e. training for the workplace. Topics might be email, search, browsers, databases, word processors, spreadsheets, project management tools, photo editors, movie editors, sound editors etc. The important point with all of these, I think, is to show the grammar behind the tools. File menus, windows … Again, build-in comparison. If you do Microsoft Word, do Google Docs too as a comparison. Be agnostic.
3. Digital World
   This is essentially how 1 and 2 affect our lives. Topics might be: cybersafety, web design, information and truth, Open Source vs paid, connectivity vs influence, wisdom of crowds etc.

It’s probably a little OTT but I think these almost map onto Shannon and Weaver’s 3 modes of communication.

Concerns from #ukedchat
I had a look through Brian’s #ukedchat session and the following seemed to be the key concerns.

• Funding. Many were understandably concerned about resources. I’m not sure industry would be “delighted” to help out and in a way I think focusing on large donations is a misuse of energies. Equally, there is a fount of free stuff “out there on the interweb”, from Operating Systems up. More interesting to me are projects like Computer Science in a Box and RaspberryPi
• Assessment. This seemed a secondary school concern but I think it’s relevant to every level. The Hackday assessments sound intriguing, though I’m not sure I understand how they would work. More prosaically, there are the QTS style IT literacy tests to show you know how to use a word processor or a spreadsheet. There are project-based outcomes, for e.g. media related parts. And for the computational thinking elements, that could easily be done as a paper-based test. That’s just for the summative. I see the need but I’m not sure I see the problem.
• Training staff. The concern here was how to get IT staff up to speed. It is astonishing how ossified people’s attitudes can be and I feel a bit stumped by this. Two points might mitigate it: first, by IT not simply being a glorified Microsoft Office training program they might take it more seriously; second, by making sure that an assessed part of the curriculum is ‘debugging’ in its broadest sense – how to know what to do when you don’t know how to do it (see e.g. this)

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The reverend started with Rob and they had a long chat. Then he moved on to Rob, and again had a long chat. When he reached the thirty-something, there was less chat and more “Are you in pain? Is there anything I can do?”.

Next up was me. He walked to the end of my bed, looked at me sans smile and then wandered off.

Don’t know what to make of it … half of me relieved, half of me put out.

Perhaps it was my superhero shoes.

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On September 7th of 1982, advertising legend David Ogilvy sent an internal memo to all employees of his advertising agency, Ogilvy & Mather. The memo was entitled “How to Write,” and consisted of the following list of advice.

The better you write, the higher you go in Ogilvy & Mather. People who think well, write well. Woolly minded people write woolly memos, woolly letters and woolly speeches. Good writing is not a natural gift. You have to learn to write well. Here are 10 hints:

1. Read the Roman-Raphaelson book on writing*. Read it three times.

2. Write the way you talk. Naturally.

3. Use short words, short sentences and short paragraphs.

4. Never use jargon words like reconceptualize, demassification, attitudinally, judgmentally. They are hallmarks of a pretentious ass.

5. Never write more than two pages on any subject.

6. Check your quotations.

7. Never send a letter or a memo on the day you write it. Read it aloud the next morning—and then edit it.

8. If it is something important, get a colleague to improve it.

9. Before you send your letter or your memo, make sure it is crystal clear what you want the recipient to do.

10. If you want ACTION, don’t write. Go and tell the guy what you want.

David

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The Problem for the School

Heads of Department, in fact private schools in general, draw a huge amount of succour from their results. If they are getting children in to strong, academic schools then that is seen to be indicative of strong, academic teaching (with the knowing wink that some children were so gifted they didn’t need any help).

Certainly in London, this is no longer the case. Tutoring is rife but this is not necessarily a problem. There are plenty of valuable reasons for tutoring, such as

• when a parent wants a more creative curriculum or a more bespoke curriculum on top of what is being offered at school,
• when a parent wants “out of hours” coaching for their children, such as an Easter before GCSEs or a winter before 11+ exams, or
• when a school is demonstrably failing a child for a specific topic (e.g. fractions) or for a specific time (e.g. through a character clash with the teacher).

What is more concerning it that tutoring is rife but there is very little open discussion about it.

There seem to be two types: school-advised and outside world.

School-advised tutoring is a bizarre creature. Much, if not most of the time, it is well-advised. For instance, if a child has to catch up after moving from another country, tutoring can work well.

What is bizarre, though, is when schools are simply happy with the fact that everyone gets tutored. If parents are paying good money for education, shouldn’t the expectation be that their child’s needs will be met? At the moment, in less kind moments, it can feel like RyanAir. OK, yes you paid for the flight but the lifejacket costs you £50 …

The sad thing is, with the stress of securing the best (or more healthily the right) school for their children, it seems parents too rarely demand to know exactly why my child’s needs were not being met in class.

When tutoring is advised by the outside world (friends at coffee parties, peer pressure, nervous grandparents or whoever) there are different problems. As a teacher, I only hear in passing which children in my class are being tutored and which aren’t. Often parents have asked the child not to say anything. [Note to self: must be more proactive and ask parents to tell me direct!] I can guess four possible reasons for this, there may well be more.

1. Parents are somehow embarrassed at having to get tutoring
2. Parents don’t see it as any of the school’s business or want to avoid getting into a discussion with the school at tutoring.
3. Teachers have highlighted that the child needs no tutoring but parents aren’t so sure.
4. Tutors have asked to keep home and school separate. Once, appallingly, a tutor told me he wanted no contact with the school because it “cramped his style”.

This communication breakdown, intentional or not, has three effects, neither of which benefit the child.

1. It leaves the tutor in a very strong position, whereas it should be the child who is the focus. Any success is the tutor’s, any failure is what was being coped with anyway. Parents have no way of how much they are getting for their money. For schools, there is the common refrain “but I did this with my tutor”. The direct result being that the teacher has either to cobble together a lesson on the side or ask the child to do it again or any number of other options which do not benefit the child.
2. The suspicion taints every child. If a teacher suspects a child of being heavily tutored, they are going to be less likely to recognise his or her talents if the child is succeeding on his own. The current atmosphere of ‘hiding who is being tutored’ aggravates this and again it is the child that suffers.
3. Schools and departments within them are increasingly at risk of living in cloud-cuckoo land. The old “what we do works, just look at our results” argument becomes a complete, and worrying, nonsense. If staff do not know which children are getting outside help, then they are going to have a very skewed view of the efficacy of their teaching. They cannot with any sense decide “what went well” or what would be “even better if”. It is almost reaching the point that parents can begin to treat any teacher who says “trust the system” with distrust in equal measure. This is a shame as there is much in the systems in private schools that do work, and can be seen to work based on solid evidence. This up, up and away benefits neither school, parent or child.

The Problem for Parents and Children

Here I am vastly less experienced but here, as a slightly pathetic attempt at completeness, are some possible problems:

• children lose time that could be spent being children (I agree with this woman)
• parents lost time that could be spent being with their children
• cash spent and no real understanding of whether or not it worked.

The problem for the tutor

A Simple Fix

Much of this comes down to schools, I think. There is nothing that anyone can do to stop someone getting their child tutored. Nor, arguably, should there be.

Impetus for tutoring	Solid Reasons	Less solid reasons
School	Brief tutor or agency and communicate regularly, share results from school/tutor with parents, assume short term	Just say no & advise parents against, run e.g. maths club in school for free
Outside World	Gauge from parents why being tutored, assess internally if this highlights an area of weakness in the school offering, ask for tutor/agency contact details and if possible present parents and child with joint, results-based plan	Gauge from parents why being tutored, assess internally if this highlights an area of weakness in the school offering, ask for tutor/agency contact details and if possible present parents and child with joint, results-based plan. If communication and co-planning not given, then advise parents strongly against.

All of this is predicate on a school audit of tutoring and one wants to get really OFSTED a policy in place for tutoring.

Basically, though, isn’t it all common sense?

Sorry …. turned into a monster …

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and this

together

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Micheal Dudok De Wit‘s rather beautiful The Monk and the Fish via OpenCulture.

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Character building 1.0 & The Welsh 3000s

Currently, character building is a euphemism for any experience that is uniformly dreadful and unrewarding. One example, from my childhood, was a challenge called the Welsh 3000s.

“It’s very rocky, and both uphill and downhill sections are demanding. Navigation can also be problematic without previous knowledge of this area of Snowdonia. For some, the walk involves camping/bivvying at the top of Snowdon the night before, adding to the weight of kit for the initial section. Additionally, one mountain, Crib Goch, is very exposed – several people have died on it.

This challenge is commonly underestimated – you need to be very fit to walk it in 24 hours.”

And no, it was not rewarding, nor enjoyable, nor could I see the point. Still, these challenges abound and are perhaps especially prevalent in the independent sector. Even the wide-eyed Wellington progressive Anthony Seldon says that “Hikes and gruelling expeditions should not be the domain just of the posh”.

Character Building 2.0

The difficulty with this is not that the hikes shouldn’t happen. Simply that they need to be given a context. Saying that they are simply good things for their own sake is not, I think, good enough. I like this from KIPP, Duckworth, Seligman et al.

ZEST
Actively participates
Shows enthusiasm
Invigorates others

SELF-CONTROL – SCHOOL WORK
Comes to class prepared
Pays attention and resists distractions
Remembers and follows directions
Gets to work right away rather than procrastinating

SELF-CONTROL – INTERPERSONAL
Remains calm even when criticized or otherwise provoked
Allows others to speak without interruption
Is polite to adults and peers
Keeps temper in check

GRATITUDE
Recognizes and shows appreciation for others
Recognizes and shows appreciation for his/her opportunities

CURIOSITY
Is eager to explore new things
Asks and answers questions to deepen understanding
Actively listens to others

OPTIMISM
Gets over frustrations and setbacks quickly
Believes that effort will improve his or her future

GRIT
Finishes whatever he or she begins
Tries very hard even after experiencing failure
Works independently with focus

SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE
Able to find solutions during conflicts with others
Demonstrates respect for feelings of others
Knows when and how to include others

With it, you can begin to give children a) some meaningful targets and b) some meaningful reasons. At least, then, at the end of a nightmarish hike across the Welsh mountains, one might feel a sense of achievement, not pointlessness.

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