Over the hills and far away...

I am lucky enough to be able to say every day that I enjoy my job, however this week is pushing this to new heights! In the last year I have travelled far and wide across the north of England and into Scotland delivering training or teaching in a very wide range of venues, but this week I'm delivering Digital Cre8or training to a small group of teachers in the Auchtertyre Learning Centre. This is located on the shores of Loch Alsh, on the mainland not far from the Isle of Skye, it is an absolutely beautiful location and is surrounded by truly breathtaking views. The picture above shows a view looking across Loch Duich towards Ault A' Chruinn and further behind that Kintail B&B where I've been staying. This map shows the village with the little outcrop I took the photo from in the loch (under the 'nan' of Eilean nan Gall) and the B&B to the right of the Parking sign on the looped road to Morvich; whilst this stunning panoramic view shows what surrounds the area I am staying in.

The journey here was filled with 'wows,' particularly as I travelled across from Stirling where I had stopped for lunch after the first 200+ miles of my 400 mile trip. The area around Glencoe was astounding, whilst Fort William clung delicately to the shore of Loch Linnhe, with Ben Nevis (look at the web cam) looming above them both.

As I was driving through Glencoe there was a debate on Radio 5 about the merits of search engines; are they dumbing us down and stopping us thinking? Presenter Colin Murray was arguing that search engines mean that people enter queries into Google et al without thinking and that this means they don't tap into what they already know and almost 'sub-contract' their thinking to an external brain. Perhaps true at times but, as other guests argued, if use of the web is well taught and used by thoughtful, reflective learners with critical skills it is an astoundingly powerful tool.

The key is the effective teaching of the supporting skills. For years we have taught students to access texts in a library, to read, reflect and be critical of these texts before including them in their own work and adding the information to their own grey matter data base. Now we have an almost infinite library which still requires similar skills to make use of it intelligently and add to our learning. I would argue that learning can now go at an even greater pace and can be shared more effectively than ever before.

Whilst we were working today our group discussed mobile phone signals, broadband connectivity etc and its impact on life on this relatively remote location. It got me thinking about the effect that things like radio and TV signals had and further back in time the first widely available printed texts, the first Bibles in colloquial English not Latin etc etc. Were these examples of the dumbing down of the masses, or did they open up new forms of learning and give access to previously inaccessible material making it available in a more democratic way to 'learners' in the broadest sense?

When I arrived the first thing I did on setting up my laptop was to look up Glencoe; I knew of the 'massacre of the Macdonalds' but was not fully aware of the tragic horror of the story. Quickly I was able to bring up a series of entries which enabled me to consider different versions of the story and develop a deeper awareness of the issues surrounding this legendary event and to consider its powerful symbolic importance in relationships between the Scots and the English. Did I trust all the evidence? Not necessarily. Do I feel I understand this event more than I did? Of course. Did I think about it more than I would have done without search engines? Absolutely. Does this encourage me as a learner? Completely.

Rene Descartes said 'Cogito ergo sum' - 'I think therefore I am', perhaps we could now add 'Cogito ergo Googlum' - 'I think therefore I search.'

Digital Immigrants, Digital Natives.

I was working on some Espresso training with a colleague recently when we discovered we had both been to the same school at slightly different times (20+ years ago sadly!) It got us talking about teaching styles and the changing world of what makes a good teacher. The teacher we both instantly recalled was the 'A' level History teacher whose main contribution to our academic success was to roll up the blackboard and reveal notes for us to COPY, he would then depart the scene heading off to the staffroom to return to the comfort of his fags and coffee. Yes, 'A' level historians copying notes on the French Revolution, no source material, no documents, certainly no images, and as for video forget it. When we arrived for our studies we occasionally had to send a delegation to rouse our pedagogue from his lair, this sometimes prompted him to use the latest technology; he would use the BANDA machine to produce other copyable resources. (And we worry about students copying and pasting from Wikipedia!) Clearly he was a teaching dinosaur, and surely he would have had to change his ways in the modern classroom or would have been, quite rightly, drummed out of the profession.

That said, our amusing shared recollection does highlight an issue I discuss with colleagues a lot, the nature of communicating effectively with today's children; challenging them and encouraging them to become critical thinkers in a modern world. A colleague once said to me that teachers can potentially spend too much time teaching 'in their past not the children's future.' Certainly the world is now very different to that where a teacher was a bit flash if they had more than one colour on a BANDA sheet and dragged a TV into the classroom, drew the curtains and showed us a video.

Most of us currently involved in education are 'Digital Immigrants' not 'Digital Natives' and we can struggle at times to engage with that future world.(Marc Prensky the American educational writer and thinker is credited with bringing these phrases into wider use in his paper 'Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants.')

Speaking as an immigrant myself I constantly speak the language with a heavy accent, as with most people new to a language I am translating from my native tongue and not thinking in the new language. My children are natives and exist in the multi-media, web 2.0 world, I am merely an interested visitor. This new world for me is a land of opportunities and I love using the wealth of digital resources available to us now and certainly see how many of them have enhanced the way I can teach. They enable me to communicate in so many varied ways, encouraging children to make their own links in their learning.

I regularly use the analogy that Learning Objectives are like sticky buds, each hook on the bud is a possible way for children to understand the concept or skill we are trying to teach. We teachers throw these 'buds' at our students and hope they stick. When I started teaching my 'sticky buds' had one or two hooks on them, I would throw these at the class and some would stick first time. I would keep re-throwing these 'sticky buds' until most children had got the objective, this could be a frustrating process and could lead myself and colleagues to say 'THEY just don't get it.' Now, however, judiciously used multimedia and interactive classroom resources can help to produce 'sticky buds' covered in hooks and each child has a better chance of the concept 'sticking' and, importantly, each child may have the bud attached by a different hook.

At times I have to mention a 'health warning' when working with colleagues on their use of interactive and multi-media resources: often a teacher will say 'I can't wait to do this in class - they'll love it!' Sadly, I say, they will probably not even bat an eyelid as that is how they expect to be communicated to.

Our digital native children need us to try to speak the language the best we can, to strive to think not translate. After all when I travel abroad I generally find that my terrible attempts at pigeon home language are better received than the slow, loud English of the dreadful British tourist stereotype.

As I close this, my Digital Native son is about to kick me off this machine and continue editing a movie he and his friends are making, using an £80 digital camera, free video and audio editing software, home made special effects, adding soundtracks, titles and effects to enhance the finished product. At each stage he has used You Tube et al to search for tutorials online - after all why ask dad when there are millions of fellow natives out there waiting to help. (By the way Digital Cre8or is a fantastic new multi-media qualification, worth pursuing with students with similar enthusiasms and interests, see links on the blog)

As the title of one of Marc Prensky's books says:
"Don't bother me mom - I'm learning"