Creative ICT News

#twitterjoketrial How would a teacher react?

#twitterjoketrial has become an internet cause celebre for free speech on the internet. Briefly, back in January, Paul Chambers, out of frustration with delays in his journey, "threatened" to blow Doncaster's Robin Hood Airport sky high through the medium of a tweet to his followers. What has followed is a ghastly example of a lack of common sense among the various authorities involved and a total failure on the part of the judiciary to understand the nature of social media. Paul Chambers now has a criminal record and has lost his job for making a joke,albeit in bad taste. To be clear, I completely stand by Paul's right to tweet what he did without fear of prosecution in a free society, even if I think it was a clumsy and ill-considered attempt at humour (which he completely accepts).

So, for those involved in education, how would we react if a child made such a threat about school on a Facbook page? What should we do about it? Even if it was obvious that it was a joke, would that child face disciplinary action? How would parents expect us to react? How would the local media react?

I don't think I need to remind people about the awful events at Columbine and subsequent school shootings to imagine that most schools would not react to such a thing by standing by that child's right to free speech. I know that an awful lot of teachers agree that Paul Chambers' prosecution is a terrible example of the State using legislation in a way that was never intended, yet the case raises serious questions about how we deal with such issues in school. I see some material for some excellent 6th Form debates.

For much more on the Paul Chambers case, read Jack of Kent's superb coverage

#hashtags and the power of Twitter

The addition of a humble # sign at the beginning of a word  is an incredibly powerful tool for users of Twitter, as Amazon, the English legal system and an obscure educational company in Australia have found to ther cost this week. By adding a hash sign to a word, you are creating a tag that groups of Twitter users can use to tweet on subjects of common interest. This can be demonstrated most simply by referring to my previous blogpost on the group of teachers and children tweeting about the Gunpowder Plot. Every tweet about the Gunpowder Plot contained the hashtag #gtp2010 so that by using Twitter search you can aggregate all the tweets using that hashtag and thus seeing the full picture of the unfolding plot from the points of view of all the protagonists. Hashtags are used extensively at conferences where people will agree on a hashtag for the event so all tweets for that conference can be simple collected together for record.

This week we have seen 3 controversies that have had the spotlight of public opinion brought to bear upon them through the use of Twitter hashtags. One of these was international (#amazonfail), one British (#twitterjoketrial) and one purely educational (#edsoft).

Without going in to specifics (I don't want my blog blocked by any more education filters than it already is), #amazonfail is an unfolding social media car crash of epic proportions in which one of the most tech and social media savvy companies, Amazon, sought to defend its position on free speech by ignoring Twitter users who were demanding the removal of a particular book title from their catalogue. The ensuing use of the #amazonfail hashtag spread across Twitter rapidly with thousands of users threatening boycotts of the company, removal of advertising and flooding the company with complaints. Amazon eventually caved and removed the book, but to date there still has been no official response from a company that censored the views of 2,000 negative reviews of the book in question by removing them, yet failed to see that free speech didn't extend to distributing books that advocated the abuse of minors. It is perhaps the biggest example to date of the hubris of companies that think they are more important than their customers, and the power of social media to shine a bright light on to their actions.

#twitterjoketrial is purely an English concern as it relates to the English legal system's complete failure to come to terms with modern technology and social media in particular. Briefly, a trainee accountant was so frustrated by the delays to his journey that he threatened on Twitter to blow Leeds/Bradford airport sky high. Foolish, certainly; a major terrorist threat, most definitely not. To read the full background on this important case, I refer you to the excellent JackofKent's blog. Suffice to say, that Paul Chambers has a criminal record, has lost his job and has failed in his appeal to get the ridiculously illiberal court decision overturned. The decision by the CPS to prosecute him on anti-terror grounds is deeply worrying and completely blurs the boundaries as to what our "War on Terror" actually constitutes. I actually wondered, as I tweeted as @tombatesesq, whether my Tweets plotting to blow up the Houses of Parliament could be construed as a terror threat! Again, Twitter, though the #twitterjoketrial hashtag, throws a critical spotlight on the decisions of the judiciary.

Finally, #edsoft concerns the abuse of licensed material by an educational services company based in Australia of the same name. To understand the nature of this particular issue read Tom Barrett's post about how the company in question copied materials from his blog site, removed all attributions and then sought to pass them off at a conference as their own materials. What made this issue particularly reprehensible was the fact that the material was the work of lots of teachers who had freely given of their time and expertise to produce a set of resources for others to download and use without cost or restriction save that if reproduced, the proper attribution should be given to the authors and was not to be used for commercial gain. One of the delegates at the Australian seminar who was a member of Tom Barrett's Twitter network (Tom is based in Nottingham) alerted Tom to the use of our materials and a minor PR disaster for Edsoft has now unfolded. They completely failed to recognise the necessity for a formal public response to a person who has nearly 10,000 followers, the vast majority of whom are teachers.

(note: if you are not familiar with the "Interesting Ways" set of resources, they are truly excellent and can be found here.)

These 3 very different situations amply demonstrate the power of Twitter. Without the extensive international network of teachers on Twitter, it is extraordinarily unlikely that Edsoft would ever have been called to account for their actions. The trial of Paul Chambers clearly would never have happened in the first place without Twitter, but shows in extreme form how anti-terror legislation can be abused by authority to prosecute those who clearly and demonstrably never intended to harm a soul. While the Amazon debacle may not prove to be the "Gerald Ratner" moment for the company, it does show that no company can afford to be so arrogant as to ignore the legitimate questions and complaints of its customers. Without Twitter these 3 controversies would have taken radically different trajectories, Edsoft would have carried on ignoring licence obligations; the Paul Chambers case may have been a conversation point among lawyers; and the #amazonfail would have relied upon traditional media  to expose its apparently rotten moral core. 

Above all, these controversies demonstrate to those that still think Twitter consists of nothing but the vacuous utterings of minor celebrities, that their opinion is as lazy and wrong as those who deride Wikipedia. I am certain that very wise social commentators will look at these issues with much greater erudition and insight that I can manage, but I am equally certain that Twitter allows groups with a common interest (such as teachers) can easily and powerfully use the platform to communicate, collaborate and advocate in a democratic way, beyond the control of traditional media, or, in the case of teachers, outside the construct of authority based systems such as Learning Platforms.

I am @hgjohn on Twitter.

Breakfast with # browns: image under a Creative Commons licence by hugovk on Twitter

Gunpowder, Tweeting and Plot 2010 #gtp2010

Thomas Bates was a minor protagonist in the Gunpowder Plot and as such, has a small footnote in English History. You can, however keep up to date with his activities by following him on Twitter (he is @tombatesesq). Further more, by simply going to Twitter and entering the following search term, including the hash, you can discover what all the characters in the plot are up to: #gtp2010.

You have probably guessed that I am tweeting as Thomas Bates and various other teachers, classes and interested parties are adopting the names of the other players. The idea is that the individuals tweet significant events and developments in the plot in real time on the same date as the actual events over 400 years ago. In this way, children are encouraged to engage and learn about the plot as it develops rather than as a single "event" in history.

So, today, 1st November, we learn that in 1605, Earl Salisabury, after much prevarication, showed James I an anonymous letter warning of the plot. My Master, Robert Catesby, believes that Thomas Tresham is the author of the letter and will confront him about it. I believe that Sir Thomas will try to persuade Robert to abandon the plot? How should I advise my Master?

Chris Leach, a teacher from Northamptonshire set up this project a year ago and it has been hailed as a great example of how new technology can be used to enhance children's learning. Enjoy following the plot as the drama unfolds!

Ofsted calling - digital mapping resources

One of the reasons I went self-employed was to avoid being forced to do things in particular ways to suit somebody else's agenda. However, it was bound to happen that at some point a school that I did PPA in would get the call, and so it has transpired this week. I've been doing some digital mapping with year 6 at Chorlton Park with a view to creating a Google Map mashed up with images from Flickr and hyperlinks to popular tourist destinations some of which were suggested by my Twitter lesson last week. I've created a Google Doc with my lesson plan on from which you should be able to deduce what the prior learning was and where we're going next. As a plenary, I put up a blog post on the Y6 class blog and invited comments as to where we might take the project in future weeks. I'm pleased to say that my Twitter friends have risen to the challenge and given us much food for thought. More comments welcome on the Y6 blog.

View the lesson plan here

View the supporting slides here

View the plenary blog post here (and comment on it if you can)

Lake District flood near Lorton by Mike Smith 79 under a CC license from Flickr

Twitter at Chorlton Park

I've been an avid Twitter user for nearly 2 years and I've dabbled a bit with it in the classroom from time to time, often on a whim, getting an answer to a question that one of the children has asked. On another occasion I asked for ideas about inclusions on our Victorian timeline. One response I got was putting on the date of the first Test Match at Lords - something that would never have occurred to me. Today, however, was slightly different in that I knew that I would be having a load of visitors to my classroom as apart of a SSAT schools day on engagement that Chorlton Park was running.

We have been learning how to annotate maps using the excellent Umapper online tool in the context of a project on the Lake District. Since it is such a popular tourist destination I thought I'd ask my Twitter network about their favourite place in the Lake District. The children would use a search engine to try and find clues to the map location of the places mentioned. There is nothing new or radical about such a lesson but it has the major benefit of providing a fresh perspective in the classroom. Instead of having my filtered view of what's good in the Lake District (I can recommend an excellent selection of teashops) the children are getting ideas from across the globe. It's another little chip away at the notion of the teacher being the centre of everything.

The lesson went really well and thank you for all who contributed through their 140 characters of wisdom.