allsorts

Today I found 2 different places to make glittery messages. They won’t go into this blog, but they look fine on my wiki and as a widget on my bebo page.

That’s the Alzheimer’s postponed for another few days.

Just listened to Go4it, a children’s programme on radio 4 all about…yes! children blogging! It featured a young (now 16-year old) author Rachael Wing, whose recently published book Starcrossed began life as a blog. After gaining over a thousand readers online, someone noticed it and Scholastic have now published it – it’s no longer virtual!

In the radio interview, she was modest about her success, but emphasized the importance to her of peer review and encouragement. She didn’t write it to get it published, and was encouraged to write further chapters because her friends and others read it and demanded more.

In fact when asked if she would write more, she appeared to say that she would not choose the publisher route, but would begin a new blog with a different username, and proceed in the same way as before to see what happened.

It was striking to me that she wanted to write in this way, and was evidently extremely motivated by the direct response of her online readers. I’m sure it would be inspiring to other young writers to hear about her. The programme also briefly touched on some kids who were podcasting at school. They too were enthusiastic, as you might expect.

I was excited to hear all this, but realised that proably most of Rachael’s blogging was done at home. I suppose we’re not alone in the difficulties we’ve had getting our rm managed system at school to even allow us to use the digiblue cameras and other hardware, and to allow some of my book group members to log onto the wikispace I set up. I keep reading about how this or that blogging mechanism is not allowed by school networks. It’s as if the people who have the enthusiasm (and that includes me by the way) are constantly having to battle with the gate-keepers to allow progress to be made. For heavens’ sake, it’s tiring enough doing it without obstacles like filters and network managers.

So it was good to hear about Rachael and her clear enthusiasm for her writing, and good to know that Scholastic have taken it the next step, which will be even more encouraging for other young writers.

Is this the place to get rid of my extreme frustrations about personal learning plans? Ours have a language page, a maths page, an overview page and a “what my teacher says” page for each 6-week block. On each of the first 2 pages are 4 targets and on the overview page are all the other things that we’ll be doing in the block. There’s no individual PSD target. The teacher page has 8 areas, such as “attitude to learning” and “effort” and I’m supposed to highlight excellent, good, room for improvement or cause for concern for each one, according to a protocol our management team had devised.

I am supposed to sit with each child, discuss how s/he feels his/her learning has progressed in each area. The child then decides if the target has been achieved or not, writes a comment about each area and agrees a set of targets for the forthcoming block.  All my questions about this have fallen on ears that are open only to words like “embrace” and “adopt”.

Targets. What are they for? Why is it not acknowledged that they can limit a child’s sense of achievement rather than raise it? And take a target like “I can use 3 similes in my description of a character” which a child can attain without managing to write a decent description. Or which can mean that a child’s use of language can be constrained instead of released. And when we come to assess whether the target has been attained? Do we say “Yes very good. You used 3 similes in your character descriptions” and the child happily colours in the “achieved” box. Unfortunately said child is still unable to remember to put a capital letter at the beginning of a sentence and a full stop at the end, but never mind, she has achieved something great, woopdedoo! But what if she hasn’t? Like she hasn’t actually achieved her previous targets which she’d had every year since P1 which said “I will remember to put a capital letter at the beginning and a full stop at the end of every sentence.” What’s the point? 

And what if a target hasn’t been achieved? “No, I thought I’d get better at my 7 times table, but I was off for 3 weeks and don’t actually care much anyway.” So we colour in “work still to do” on that one, the PLP goes home for the last time at the end of the year and in all probability lies around until someone needs some kindling. What was the point? 

How practical is it to get children to write their own targets? In my class there are 2 spelling groups and an individual, 3 grammar and comprehension groups, children working from pre A to working towards D and 5 reading groups, ranging from pre A to working towards E. Their PLPs have to relate to the level they are at; obviously there are some who are wt B in Writing and wt C, D or E in Reading; there are 8 different combinations in a class of 22 children. The administration of this is horrendous and does not advance Teaching and Learning one jot.

Why am I doing this? Because I am not trusted to have spoken to the children as they go through each block about what they are learning, how they are learning it, how they are evaluating their own progress, and where they think they need to go next with their learning. Clearly PLPs do not show this either, but it is being suggested to parents that that’s what PLPs are a record of.

Mostly I am doing it because an Education Minister delivered a sound-byte and then had to demand the poor fools at the front line back it up, regardless of the educational cost. 

What is the cost? This block is the beginning of the 3^rd one of 4.I spent over 2 hours with individuals evaluating their progress towards the targets for Block 2. That was giving them just over 5 minutes each. I spent 4 hours on my own, considering which strands to pursue with the class as a whole, which learning outcomes to address for each group within that, how I could link these to other areas of the curriculum (ACE) and typing them into an accessible form for the children.I spent 2 hours with the children in their different groups, getting them to identify from a short list, language targets that they would like to choose to work on.I spent 1 hour typing and printing the Maths targets sheets for them, because they said they did not want to write their own.I spent half an hour talking to the 3 groups and the individual about these targets.I will spend at least a further 1 hour thinking about, completing and printing the “What my teacher says” page.These are conservatively rounded times. Over 10 and a half hours of teaching time lost!

And 10 hours of learning time. What did they learn? That paperwork is more important than doing things? That although our conversation might have covered a wide range of aspects of learning, they can only write a short, very specific sentence about a part of it. That if they didn’t achieve the specific target, it means little because it will go away as they move onto the next block. It’s education, Jim but not as we know it.

Not so fast, Tempus…

By day, the sun’s rays draw them up.

They grow before my eyes.

I kiss each one asleep

and know,

though adulthood gains ground with every day,

at night, kind childhood steals some back.

LTS AifL Forum

Activity on this forum was brisk for a while and has reduced considerably. Why should this be? Ewan suggests that the way a forum is run has an effect, and I’m sure he’s right, though I’m not sure what he means by “run”. It would be interesting to observe discussions in other LTS forums, but I don’t have access to them. When I joined, I had to specify which were my areas of interest, and that cannot now be changed by me. (I did ask about this way back in June last year, as I wanted to see what other forums might be like, and someone said they’d look into it, but I’ve heard nothing since.)

From my point of view as a practising and thoughtful classroom teacher, I see great benefits in formative assessment, but a reluctance by those who benefit from its mass adoption (the entrepreneurs, not the children!) to admit to any weaknesses in it. Seeking clarification of the practical application of the principles is often met by implications that one is not wholly “on board” or simply not understanding sufficiently. I am open to that possibility, but don’t think it’s that complicated.

One unfortunate aspect of the AifL forum is that some of the “experts”  appear to have an interest in the success of their business…is that unfair of me? If I’m thinking it then others are too, I suppose. Their responses were at best helpful, often patronising and at worst impatient. The ethos of “expert” and “learner” did not encourage discussion.

Occasionally, I felt my point of view was grudgingly, sometimes even truculently accepted.

Here’s an example:

name removed                                                                            
Posted 17/1/2006 11:39 AM (#3610 - in reply to #3607)
Subject: RE: Learning Intentions                                                          
Location: CPD Plus Ltd 

Of course you were perfectly correct to take the approach you did.Stop worrying about “current thinking” and do what makes sense to you as a professional.

Not surprisingly, there were only 5 replies on this thread, but 225 views! (And they weren’t all me.) What does that tell you?

How would I have liked it to be run? I’d have liked more classroom teachers to have felt able to post their thoughts. I had private emails from several people who, for various reasons, did not post their views themselves. What were their reasons? Fear of being recognised, yes; lack of confidence with the medium, yes; not wanting to add just a “You’re right, I agree, keep it up” post was the main one - the very posts some bloggers find so annoying on forums, but without them, it could feel like one of those comedy scenes where everyone rushes to the back and it’s the idiot left at the front who gets questioned and then shot down. I wish the others had posted a small comment. I’m certain they would not have posted to a blog either.

I would have liked more of the responses of the “experts” to have given examples from real life (some did). This would have given their posts a bit more credibility and illustrated their points with more clarity. It’s not that people who have left the classroom have no right to tell the rest of us stuff they have discovered. It’s just that they ought to listen more carefully when we tell them what doesn’t work, instead of just insisting that it’s not working because we’re not doing it right. A forum would be the ideal place for this exchange to go on, but on the AifL forum it didn’t, so far as I could see.

Here is Ewan McIntosh’s comment prompted by the anonymity post on Andrew’s blog: I  think people will still love forums because they don’t have to invest anything of themselves in them - they are the easiest way to suck goodness out of the web with minimal investment. No site for each user to set up, no need to track conversations because the conversations are linear and wonderfully, boringly simple to understand, and, by being anonymous, you can defer all responsibility and go for the easy polemic/rant or follow the crowds in the ‘me-too’. You get the latter in blogs, too, but they tend not to last long as people give up reading them and the owners stop investing in them.

That’s the difference in the name for me.

Glow might change some habits but anonymity only changes the last part of that fateful equation. Forums alone are not the answer. Forums are only part of the mix for me.

This sums up all too well the attitude that probably limits the use of blogs by the people who flock to the “boringly simple” conversations. I mean I know he’s famous and is a guru and revered by bloggers generally, but he is also wrong here. In my opinion.

“they don’t have to invest anything of themselves in them “: Some do, some don’t. If you  know people personally who also contribute to forums, they may actually invest a great deal of themselves in some forums. It depends on the forum and the contributors. Thing is you can’t tell from the posts any more than you can with a blog.

“they are the easiest way to suck goodness out of the web with minimal investment” Outrageous! I know forums where people contribute simply in order to advance good practice and share ideas. “suck goodnes out of the web”? Offensive.

If blogs are to become more of a feature of teachers’ toolkits, the teachers will first have to feel that they are accessible to everyone. I remember Gilly Salmon talking about the social aspect of online communication being an important prerequisite for collaboration. That’s not going to happen with bloggers rubbishing the way other online contributors choose to work. As Ewan points out there are less good blogs and better ones, the same as there are less good forums and better ones. Maybe identifying what makes them better would be a more useful step. after reading that sort of comment on a blog I’d not be likely to want to get to know the person who wrote it better. Sorry Ewan’s Mum - your blog is friendly, interesting and normal!

On the other hand, I listened to all of Will’s podcast today and heard him say he was going to reduce the number of blogs in his RSS feed (did I get the terminology right there?) because there was too much navel-gazing going on and he needed to get out there in the “real” world to convert non-bloggers. But it’s probably still important for someone to identify what makes blogs useful or not.

Actually, if it wasn’t for Ewan’s Mum’s blog, I think I might give this up now.

Andrew said on his blog here “Being me, the thought didn’t cross my mind to consider being ‘anonymous’… in a world where litigation could be around a corner I suppose it could be quite sensible. That said, I’m quite happy to make my mistakes in public, and learn from them. I’m more than happy also to put my hand up when I’m wrong. Curious we ask our pupils to do this, but largely we don’t do this ourselves.”

 It’s OK to give your name when you are certain that no bad things will happen as a result. I’ve been an participant in a conversation on the  LTS Assessment is for Learning discussion forum, where one poster, who thought she was anonymous, was identified from her email, which she didn’t realise was public, by a member of the Management team in her own school. As a consequence she was confronted unpleasantly and publically with her stated views, which happened to be shared by many on the staff. The atmosphere at school was, I gather very strained and I think the promoted person has since moved to a different school.

Education is a small world, and having a point of view which is not in line with the current thinking being promoted can cause damage to promotion prospects and be detrimental to the opportunities offered to the person. (Not in my school obviously!)

At a time when there is a huge emphasis on singing from the same songsheet regarding things such as Learning Styles and Formative Assessment, it might be difficult to express a counter view. Tom on the ACE discussion forum has expressed exactly this view about his experience of difficulites before the current reversion to cross curricular links, after years of Primary teachers being forced into the Secondary model of discrete subjects and time allocations for them.

Litigation may well be a consideration for some, but Ithink the more immediate personal consequences may be a more pressing reason for people wanting to remain anonymous. If Glow does not allow anonymity, I doubt that the discussion there will be as full of honest opinion. Experience constantly reminds me of the axiom “Never tread on toes within boots you may one day be required to lick!”

I read Terry Dozier’s suggestion about this on the LTS ACE Discussion forum. Here it is to save going there:

Consider including some type of classroom observation as a criterion for chartered teacher status.  I was surprised to learn that chartered teachers don’t have to demonstrate their teaching skills. This could lead to excellent writers but weaker teachers earning this designation. If this becomes common, the chartered teacher programme could lose credibility. The US National Board Certification process requires teachers to submit at least one videotape of a lesson that meets the National Board standards. Teachers must include a written commentary that explains why they chose the lesson, analyses what happens in the lesson, and explains how they know it was effective. Because the National Board process is voluntary and American teachers select the videotape and lesson, teacher unions have raised no objections.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. I would hate to have been observed by one of my APEL Assessors, but I would have been delighted to have provided a video of a lesson to support my claim. The video files that I did submit were clearly an inconvenience to the Assessor, but if this was standard procedure, no doubt they would hone their skills to cope!

I think that the APEL process does run the risk of rewarding good writers above good teachers and this would go some way to prevent that. I know a video of a lesson is artificial, but so is any observed assessment. At least this would give an idea of what the teacher thinks is good, which could be compared with a more general picture. And I don’t think the commentary need be written either. Couldn’t it be a voice over to the video plus the teacher talking afterwards? You’d get so much more of an idea about someone’s style in this way, rather than just reading their words.

Ooh how exciting! The first comment on my blog! Thank you Andrew. I didn’t think I’d feel this pleased!

Now I have to find other blogs to link to.

It turns out that the html tags on the LTS site wasn’t my fault at all. The very nice Graham Wilson sorted itout for me. So all is good. I am back to being on the road to excellence again How reassuring.

I went in to school today to tidy up my classroom. didn’t get as much done as I’d hoped largely because of course it was freezing. Luckily one of the classrooms has had a major leaking roof so the janny phoned up the Region and got them to put the heating on to dry it out. How sensible to have heating in individual establishments controlled from a central point eh? At least it heated up a bit after they turned it on.

It was pleasant being in without the children. You can actually get stuff done, like things put up on walls and boxes put away in the right place. I got one corner tidied and the Vikings posters up for our next topic. I also looked through the topic box. It’s great - there’s stacks of stuff, including some really good arty-crafty  ideas which I always feel I’m weak on. The class will love making drinking vessels and long houses and Viking helmets etc. These are the things you remember from school aren’t they? Maybe I’m looking forward to them coming back after all…just a little bit!