Creative ICT News

SATS and Teacher Assessment

I have had a very personal reason to dislike SATS for the last two years as my two eldest have gone through them successively (good luck Eleanor!). It's not so much the tests that I object to per se, rather the total educational destruction of year 6 as it gradually descends into nothing more than a year of exam practice and revision. I've been in too many schools to believe ministers' bleating that it has minimal impact on the curriculum. Just added this link from BBC News (May 17th).The situation is so high-stakes for some schools that snap inspections, major LEA intervention programmes and head teachers' jobs are on the line if a school fails to perform according to expectation. No wonder schools feel pressure over these tests. I did a staff meeting in a Welsh school on Tuesday (no English school will talk to me this week) and the contrast in pressure could not have been more marked.

If the Welsh Department for Schools (don't know the real name) and Estyn (Welsh equivalent of Ofsted) feel they can trust teacher assessments, why can't the English? Which leads me on to the real purpose of this blog post which is to highlight an online teacher assessment recording system called Incerts. Incerts is a not-for-profit company that has developed a superb online teacher assessment system that accurately tracks pupil and group progress against National Curriculum objectives and Early Learning Goals; provides deep analytical data output in the form of Excel spreadsheets; and produces curriculum reports in a  Microsoft Word format. (Full disclosure: I provide training and consultancy for Incerts in the northwest of England). Many schools  using Incerts are now  feeling that the accuracy of the pupil tracking is such that they can successfully abandon the optional SATS in earlier keystage 2 years and at least reduce the level of testing in school that way, even if they can't abandon the SATS.

One of the effects of using Incerts in school is to raise the profile and trust that teachers and managers have in teacher assessments as opposed to test assessments. This can only be a good thing if we believe that the imposition of a high-stakes testing regime so early in a child's life has no beneficial effect on their education.

If you would like to set up a trial of Incerts in your school, or have a chat about its potential, either conact me, john@creativeict.co.uk (if you are northwest based) or Ian Billups, MD of Incerts Labs via his email: ian.billups@incerts.org

Who is responsible for the filter?

The vexed subject of web-filtering in schools has raised its ugly head in the educational blogosphere again. Two recent examples: Doug Dickinson and Ewan McIntosh. It's a subject which I have to be careful about lest I descend into my usual "They don't know what they're doing" rant. As someone who has been an ICT co-ordinator for ten years and as a trainer for various software companies I have seen the inflexibility of filter systems in action all too often:

• This week I was trying to teach web searching using the Olympics as an example. Nothing controversial about that until you realised that the school's filters blocked the string "pics";
• I've trained in a nameless NW LEA which purchased a hugely expensive online content system for its schools, then proceeded to block half the content, including all resources ending with the file extension .mp3. Podcasting is a challenge;
• I've been in far too many schools where teachers don't use the web much anymore: they can't be bothered to search for resources at home only to find them blocked in school;
• And here's the clincher: I ask them, "Why don't you get the resource unblocked?" And the response is all too predictable and will take one of two forms, "I don't know how," or, "It will take weeks, and I can't be bothered."

This is a depressing situation; but what could be done to improve it? First, at the risk of stating the obvious, those responsible for the filters should consider the wider government agenda of getting children to access the internet from home in order to use tools such as their school's learning platform. Do they imagine that these children will be using heavily filtered and monitored web services while they are doing this? Secondly, as we move to a 3G internet world in which children are accessing the web via mobile devices, do people consider that these will have a largely unfiltered view of the web? In such a world, web filters are rapidly becoming redundant.

The answer is surely not more filtering, but education. I consider the Acceptable Use Policy to be one of the cornerstone policies in a school, right up there with behaviour, anti-bullying and special needs policies. It should be reviewed annually by all staff; it should be actively promoted at school and to parents; and above all, it should be ACTIVE! By that, I mean that schools should be actively monitoring their web connections; they should be holding transgressors (staff and children) to account; and they should be educating everyone about internet safety and developing a responsible attitude towards the web.

In too many schools I have visited the attitude towards computer safety is utterly complacent (I don't use that phrase lightly), and it manifests itself in various ways:

• Children don't have individual logins to school computers (how is this going to help accountability? How is it going to help children understand the importance of keeping PIN numbers and logins private?);
• No monitoring of the internet;
• Everyone signs an AUP on entry, and it is never seen again;
• If web safety is taught, it's often a one off project.

I believe that making local authorities responsible for web filtering has engendered this attitude. Schools simply take the easy option and rely on the local authority to provide a "safe" web connection, ergo it's one less thing to worry about.

Monitoring your school's internet use need not be difficult or time consuming. Most modern cache boxes include monitoring tools and the ability for the user to block sites and users very quickly and simply. Many, if not most, schools have such technology, but often haven't been shown how to use it. This well established technology can be very effectively backed up by the use of keystroke monitoring software which records violations when banned strings of letters are entered by a user. In other words, if someone types an inappropriate term into a search engine, it will record it, regardless of whether the user actually hit the enter key! This software will give you a comprehensive idea of what is happening on your school's network at the expense of about 5 minutes a day. I used just such a system at Crumpsall Lane Primary School as ICT co-ordinator, and I can honestly say I wouldn't be without it. It meant our school's AUP was active, and our users knew it as active. The result was a fairly liberal internet filter which allowed teachers to teach and children to learn while at the same time developed a responsible attitude towards the web. For more info about this, read my comment on Ewan's blog post. Note that I can't find the software that was used at Crumpsall, but I believe this will achieve something similar.

So, what's the solution? Actually, it's quite simple, make schools responsible for their own web filter and not local authorities. That way schools can discuss what's acceptable and what's not with their own communities. Meaningful discussion will hopefully result, and an AUP that is a purposeful and active document.

Teachers, the social web and professional responsibility (part 2)

I blogged about this subject last November suggesting that Headteachers might do worse than talk to their staff about Facebook/MySpace profiles. The post obviously got lost in the blogosphere as no-one seemed to read it. I note today that the Washington Post ran an article on Monday in which it talks about teachers being removed from post due to inappropriate material on their Facebook/MySpace profiles. I'm not at all involved in teacher training, but I wonder how many colleges are talking to students about their online presence and what appears on their social networks? And most importantly, what happens if a student contacts them online? Can anyone enlighten me?

As a result of Danny Nicholson's follow up post on this subject, I just had to share the video he posted on his blog. Watch it at home as it's bound to be filtered at school - well worth it. Bet you think about your Facebook profile afterwards!

Do you really need whiteboard tools?

Yesterday I had the privilege of watching Doug Dickinson working with some teachers at Manor Road Primary School in Lancashire. It was a Textease CT training session, a product for which I am a trainer, and I hoped I was going to pick up some good tips on its use. I wasn't disappointed, it's always a pleasure to watch someone who is passionate about their subject and passionate about their product.

Afterwards Doug and I were chatting about Textease on a whiteboard and wondered why any schools using a product as powerful and flexible as Textease CT would be bothered to used the whiteboard tools supplied with their board. His argument was, "Why would you use software to teach and demonstrate, when that software is not available to the children on their pc?" And, to a large extent, I agree. If you have a Smartboard, your software licence allows you to install it on any pcs in your classroom, and I am certainly not alone in advocating that you install their excellent Smart Notebook software on every pc and laptop in your school. With a Promethean board this is much more problematic: a board only comes with five software licences so installing it on all your workstations will be a breach of your licence conditions. This amounts to a powerful reason not to buy their product, in my opinion.

The conversation got me thinking, "what would I miss in Smart Notebook" if I just used Textease on my whiteboard? Certainly Textease has some brilliantly simple tools  such as the spreadsheet tool and branching database tool which are a joy to use on a whiteboard and there is nothing comparable in Smart Notebook. I would miss the screenshade and spotlight tools in Smart Notebook, but the biggest loss for me would be the brilliant camera tools and screen recorder that Smart Notebook comes bundled with. In practice this is not a problem, as both of these utilities run independently of Smart Notebook, so it's quite straightforward to run these utilities while using the superb  Textease CT package as my  software of choice on my whiteboard - let's face it, if you've paid for a site licence for this product you want to extract maximum value!

Textease CT: Top Tips

Incidentally, if you haven't upgraded to Smart Notebook 10, then do so (get your Smartboard serial number noted before you go to the download site). There are some nice new features such as the new spotlight and magnifier tools.

Time to Update Your Browser

The vast majority of schools still use Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) despite this being a browser with well known security vulnerabilities and is essentially 7 year old technology. Worldwide, IE6 still commands a 29% share of the browser market, but the figure in education is likely to be much higher (anecdotally, more than 90%). This is largely down to schools not spending time and money on what is perceived to be a non-essential upgrade. Typically, schools will only move to Internet Explorer 7.0 (IE7) when they purchase new kit or undertake major network upgrades. Any computers in schools purchased before September 2006 are still likely to have IE6 on them.

It's high time that this changed and schools updated their browsers across their networks:

• Ian Billups, technical director of Incerts reckons that his development team spend a significant amount of time dealing with IE6 compatability issues everytime they update their system. "We could spend that time much more profitably in developing new features", commented Ian ruefully.

• Another web company has chosen to ignore IE6 completely. Quikmaps is a really excellent educational site (see here for ideas on its use) that won't work in IE6. And this is only going to become more common.

• Users that persist in ignoring recent browsers will also be suffering significant performance loss. Ian Billups again points out that in tests their software runs at least 50% faster in Firefox than in IE6, and in some functions can be a massive 400% slower! Interesingly, he also reports that IE7 is also significantly slower than both Firefox and Safari.

• Paypal have just announced that they will start to actively block service requests from users using old and highly insecure browsers. One can only surmise that others will follow suit.

So, it's time to do your favourite website providers a favour and give IE6 the old heave-ho and upgrade to a more modern browser. By sticking with IE6 your school systems are more vulnerable to attack and you are missing out on potentially large performance gains.

• Firefox download
• IE 7 download
• Safari download
• Opera download

 

Creative ICT Goes Mobile

This morning I spotted the Mofuse widget on Joe Dale's excellent MFL blog. I followed the link and within a few minutes I've created a mobile phone version of my blog. Mofuse gives creates a .mobi compliant URL for you; all you have to do is enter the feed from your blog and it formats the whole thing. You can add a logo, define colours and create multiple pages if you are running multiple blogs. Very Cool.

Here's the url of my mobile site: http://creativeict.mofuse.mobi

Apparently, on some blogs you can provide some code in the blog header which will automatically detect if the reader is reading via a mobile phone and will direct them to the mobile blog instead. Sounds a tad geeky to implement, so haven't tried it yet, but will do soon.

What should we do about secret recording?

This morning Ewan McIntosh posted an article about children secretly recording teachers on their mobile phones and wondering whether it was possible to put a positive spin on this. The short answer is "only in an ideal world". This type of material is bound to be taken out of context, hyped for media purposes and used for political ends. However, I don't think this should be used for justification of the banning of mobile phones in the classroom. Anybody with a remote interest in technology will know how quickly phones and computers are converging. Is my XDA Orbit a phone or a computer? Skype can now be run on Playstation portables. It won't be long before such devices are indistinguishable - where do we draw the line? So, if we are committed to making the best use of such innovative technology in our classrooms (and I certainly am), then we need to make sure that acceptable use policies cover the activity of filming or recording anybody (adult or child) without their permission, and any such breach should be regarded as a serious disciplinary matter. Clearly, in the case of Angela Mason the General Teaching Council found her guilty of professional misconduct and suspended her for surreptitiously filming bad behaviour in secondary classrooms. Incidentally the comments added to this Times online article are worth reading in that it provides an illuminating public reaction to what this teacher did. For my part, her belief that somehow she had nothing to do with the bad behaviour as presented should be contested. One of the comments I most hated as a teacher was the staffroom cynic saying, "you can't do anything with these kids". Nevertheless, the GTC clearly found her conduct wanting, and so, I think, would any school governing body that had to deal with the exclusion of a child who had uploaded a secretly filmed video to Youtube.

Are children who film bad teaching acting as legitimate journalists exposing the inept (what would the reaction be to secret filming of incompetence in an NHS ward be?) or is all such material gathered for scurrilous reasons? Unfortunately, regardless of the motives of the original recorder, the material is likely to be misused.

Which leads me on to Ratemyteachers, a website whose point I've yet to fathom. Here is just one anonymous post about an identifiable teacher (whose identity I've chosen not to put on the image, obviously). Again, in an ideal world it would be great to think that children could use such a resource to provide illuminating feedback to teachers. Sadly it's usually not the case with this site.

If we keep digging, it all boils down to the kind of relationship that many children have with technology at the moment. Again, Ewan McIntosh recently reported on Becta's research into Web 2.0 which shows that the number of children actively and constructively engaged with Web 2.0 and content creation is still a tiny minority (and much more likely to be a primary school child than a secondary school one). Only through modelling behaviours, teaching skills and providing engaging opportunities to create will children learn that the web is a powerful tool for learning rather than just a means of instant communication, and having a (cruel) laugh at someone else's expense.

Products and Services Brochure (it's only taken 3 years!)

I'm starting my 4th year as an independent ICT consultant and felt that it was about time I pulled together everything I do into a brochure (well, a PowerPoint, actually). Please take a few moments to flick through the slides (there are only a dozen, or so) and don't hesitate to get in touch if you want to find out more...

| View | Upload your own

Using Pagecasts to Demonstrate RSS

In the past, when I've been talking to schools about blogging I've skated over the topic of RSS a bit. Newbies don't tend to get it and don't see it as a major selling point. For a long time now, Pageflakes has been my favourite web desktop. As well as all the engaging content you can drag on to your page, you can use it as a perfectly good feed reader. With this in mind, I set up a bunch of blogs for some teachers in Liverpool to try out and thought that rather than putting loads of links to each other's blogs in the sidebar I'd set up a public Pageflakes page (known as a Pagecast) that collected all the feeds together on a single page: http://www.pageflakes.com/john21/9409516 OK, so these schools haven't exactly been quick off the mark in trying their blogs, but you get the idea. Gold star to Booker Junior School for having a go! The point is that the page automatically updates whenever anyone writes a post via the magic of RSS - thus, hopefully demonstrating one of its simple uses.

What Message does this give out?

I was profoundly depressed by this article on the BBC Education website today. I wonder what thinking lay behind the notion that it would be a good idea to put photos of children on to the school website, and then blur their faces? I have always felt that a good school website should celebrate the achievements and successes of a school, and this should include pictures of children - after all that's what schools are about. Green Park Primary School in Maghull is an excellent example of a school that uses photographs extensively to celebrate the excellence that goes on within its walls. By all means discuss what's right for your school at a local level, but I would suggest that a sensible policy might include:

• no linking of names to images
• group photos only
• allow parents to opt out of having their child appear on the school's website
• consider whether "at risk" children should appear at all

Surely in the case of the Essex school above, a "no photos" policy would be better than the faceless and slightly uncomfortable message that rubbing out faces gives. I wonder what the children think about it? But I guess they weren't asked.