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1 November 2011

MirandaNet November Newsletter

MirandaNet November Newsletter

Contents

Miranda’s new ventures

In our first newsletter for this academic yearn the MirandaNet Fellowship is announcing some new ventures: a new think tank at Bedfordshire University; our partnership with the DfE funded programme, Achievement for All; our 2011/2012 MirandaMods programme.

Firstly, my professorship at The University of Bedfordshire gives Professor Leask, Dr John Cuthell and myself an opportunity to set up an Educational Innovation think tank for MirandaNet members, based on our iCatalyst programme in which learners set the agenda. Whether you have always meant to do your Masters or your Doctorate – or just wanted to catch up on some skills or leadership topics – do ask us how we can help. We aim to make professional learning challenging, collaborative and fun, at the same time as helping you to make a difference in your own practice. We have a team of Fellows who are there to support your learning and design a programme you will really enjoy. You can make an enquiry about your own learning, about your school or about a cluster of schools. Do ask our advice if you are wavering about whether to start this year. We can make allowances for your professional experience if you do not have the conventional qualifications for a Masters or a Doctorate. Our enrolment date is 30th January 2012 so you have time to ask questions. Some colleagues have already signed up.

Secondly, the newsletter also covers our new partnership with the UK Department for All-funded programme, Achievement for All. This programme offers MirandaNet members full-time jobs at £39,000 or part-time consultancies. You will have received some stop press information about this opportunity already via MirandaLink and you will be hearing more about this when the government publishes the pilot research findings from Manchester University. The results for raising the achievement of the 20% pupils who are not reaching their full potential are very convincing. Our first events on this subject are at BETT12 in London from January 11th-14th, where we will be running eight MirandaMods (see www.mirandanet.ac.uk/bett for more information). In addition, on November 30th and March 1st Chris Yapp invites members to contribute to MirandaMods on the themes of his book with the working title Pervasive Learning which is to be published by Routledge. All MirandaNet contributors will be acknowledged in the book. There will be news soon of more MirandaMods at the Education Show in Birmingham March 15th – 17th. Meanwhile some of us are meeting up at conferences in Barcelona in February, in Austin, Texas in March and in London in August - see you there?

The articles in this newsletter cover the lukewarm approach to ICT in schools by the UK Coalition and the contrast with other countries where digital technologies in schools are top of the agenda. I have also reported on the national netbook programme in Argentina where I was invited to talk about professional development programmes as well as making reference to Uruguay, Colombia and Thailand where similar projects are putting the technology straight into the hands of the pupils.

Good reading…keep in touch…

News

A new Educational Innovation Think Tank at Bedfordshire University

As a part-time Professor of Educational Innovation at Bedfordshire University I am creating an Educational Innovation Thinktank (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_tank) with Professor Marilyn Leask, who is the Dean. Many of you will know how much she has helped members to publish since the late 1990s. In this new venture MirandaNet members who join the think tank will be sharing ideas about how to improve teaching and learning for young people both in school and out of school. Our iCatalyst approach to professional development is at the core of the courses we will be offering: a wide range of skills courses as well as post-graduate courses working at Certificate, Diploma, Masters and PhD level. We can work within schools and in clusters of schools as well as running courses face to face at Bedfordshire and/or online. We aim to be as flexible as possible. Why not try us out by taking one of our short courses first? All courses, even the short ones, can count towards a Diploma or a Masters. They can also help to qualify you to do your Masters or Doctorate.

We offer a series of short courses that concentrate on immediate leadership and management issues and key skills. Contact Christina Preston if you want to join one course or organise a bespoke programme. The short course titles in Leadership and Management include: The use of digital technologies to underpin leadership and change management; To ban, or not to ban? Social networking; e-Safety; planning the strategy, minimising the risk; ICT and getting what you want; Doing research in the classroom: a means of learning enrichment; and Raising Attainment using Bloom’s Taxonomy.

Short courses in Computer Skills include: Using Video as a curriculum tool; Building 21st Century Skills into the classroom; Project Learning through ICT; The Autonomous Learner: building a personal learning network; Tools for multimodal assessment; Chocolate-coated broccoli: Educational Games; Skills for virtual environments: developing e-facilitation skills; Un-What? Making unconferences work for your organisation; and Web 2.0: 50 tools. 50 great ideas on how to use them.

We will also be running courses under the Achievement for All project that is explained in the next section.

You can learn more about the longer post graduate courses Fellows offer on our consultancy site www.mirandanet.ac.uk/consultancy/professional-development-programmes/. If you have a course you want to offer, you want to join a course or you want to set up a course for a school or a cluster let me know: Christina Preston

MirandaNet Fellowship in partnership with Achievement for All

The MirandaNet Fellowship is pleased to announce a partnership with the second stage of the Achievement for All programme funded by the UK Department for Education and run by the new charity, Achievement for All (3As). Achievement for All is a national, whole school improvement framework, delivered as a bespoke continuing development programme in partnership with schools which is designed to raise the attainment of the 20% of vulnerable, special educational needs and disabled learners. You will be hearing more about this project because the government will soon be publishing some persuasive research findings from the pilot that show how this framework can improve achievement.

The MirandaNet involvement in this programme is three fold:

  1. developing and supporting a community of practice with the whole Achievement for All community
  2. collecting, sharing and disseminating existing evidence of the role of digital technologies in this field
  3. methods of deploying digital technologies in school to raise achievement and beyond also involving parents, carers and families.

We would like to establish MirandaNet clusters in the UK and internationally where MirandaNet is active, as we think that the cross fertilisation of ideas and experience will be very productive. All schools are eligible; state schools and independent schools.

At BETT12 this year from January 11th - 14th in Olympia, the MirandaNet Fellowship will be running eight MirandaMods, called Live Workshops in the BETT12 programme. Many members from all over the world are planning to join in the debate in London. On Saturday members will be able to join in online.

Get in touch with me if you are interested in being involved in our Achievement for All project as there are some exciting part time consultancies and full time posts for MirandaNet members, both in the UK and abroad: Christina Preston

Celebrating Parliament Week over at Radiowaves

Radiowaves (www.radiowaves.co.uk) is an innovative network of free school websites where pupils broadcast video, radio, podcasts and blogs, harnessing safe social media within education. Over the course of Parliament Week they are providing a new interesting fact/stat about parliament from Parliament Education Service each day. The aim is for schools to invite others to become involved and make a valid contribution to Parliament Week. They will be featuring lots of content from the schools on the Radiowaves homepage over the next two weeks. This week students are being asked who inspires them and what they think makes a good leader. Do you have any pupils who would like to get involved and tell us their stories? Full info on this can be found here, there is a Parliament goodie bag up for grabs for the best contribution. They are also looking for stories of democracy which may be of interest.

All Parliament Week activity will be featured on the Radiowaves homepage, so is the ideal space for you to find out how schools are contributing to Parliament Week.

Articles

UK ICT ministers undecided about ICT

On 8th September MirandaNet and ITTE joined a Naace initiative to talk to UK politicians at the Policy Exchange, Westminster: the ‘think tank’ set up by education secretary Michael Gove MP. Naace, a professional organisation for educators engaged in using ICT for teaching and learning, put together an august gathering of colleagues from universities, schools, professional organisations and companies. Sadly ministers of the three political parties were not represented to hear what was said by the experts although Lord Lucas, Conservative, and Jim Knight, Labour, represented from the Lords. The debate was focused on a comment by The Rt Hon Francis Maude MP, Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General in the Government ICT Strategy March 2011: “ICT is a fundamental tool that every modern state needs, but is it being used to maximum effect to raise standards in our schools - and in view of the significant transformational effect it can have, is there enough policy direction attributed to it? Read more….

Digital Initiatives in UK education since the election of the Coalition

The Policy Exchange meeting was disappointing in the attendance from ministers and made me think about how much difference the Coalition has made to the confidence of the UK ICT community and our funding opportunities. We seem to have been waiting a long time for the Coalition to find the time to think about the value of digital technologies in education.

Yet the ICT community have a history worth relating: MirandaNet was set up in 1992, but in the UK, innovative national projects in the use of computers in teaching and learning have been taking place since the late 1980s. These projects have moved in incremental stages from teacher training, to deploying educational software in classrooms and to introducing the Internet. The new Coalition government are in a process of reassessing the impact of these national programmes and deciding what needs to be done next. So far the main pronouncement has been from David Willetts, UK Minister for Universities and Science, who wants to bring computer science back into the National Curriculum as a subject under the heading: BCS welcomes move by David Willetts to transform broken ICT school curriculum. The project called Behind the Screen, was welcomed by Jim Norton, President of British Computer Society on the basis that this will provide pupils with the skills UK plc needs for the future.

I am not opposed to drawing a distinction between digital multiliteracy and the academic discipline of computer science. MirandaNet Fellows have seen impressive presentations by young Czechs and Bulgarians in these two countries where computer science is still a school subject. But the challenge for the profession is that this initiative does depend on the constant updating of computer science teachers in schools if these skills are to be truly valuable in the jobs market. Is there the money or the will to do this well? Read more….

(http://www.mirandanet.ac.uk/consultancy/articles/digital-initiative-in-education-waiting-for-the-coalition/)

Distributing netbooks to learners in Argentina, Thailand, Uruguay and the USA

Members have been telling me about initiatives all over the world: a growing number of nations are putting netbooks in the hand of the learners: these mobile devices are believed to improve motivation and raise achievement. I have just returned from speaking in Argentina where I was impressed by the energetic effort to improve education. Here, connecting all young Argentinians to the Internet has also become a national priority: over the last year one million netbooks have been distributed. The goal by the end of 2012 is to distribute two million more.

But Argentinian teachers have not had programmes in using the Netbooks with students. My keynote in Buenos Aires, therefore, was about the global models for professional development that support the integration of digital technologies into the system, particularly an emphasis on engaging the whole school staff in the change process through action research. I explained how, in the MirandaNet professional development programme, iCatalyst, we support teachers in discovering how digital media can enhance some forms of learning, especially capacity in multiliteracy: new perspectives on knowledge and communication that extend beyond language. MirandaNet research and practice with teachers is also producing evidence that collaboration in learning can be enriched by the use of knowledge storage techniques like remotely authored concept maps. In dissemination of new knowledge like this we hope teachers can have more influence on policy through web publication of evidence by publishing evidence like doctors and lawyers - in MirandaNet we call this process Braided Learning.

For more about what is happening in Uruguay, Colombia, Thailand and the USA read here:

Events

The Future of Learning: Shift 2

MirandaMods 2011-2012
Twitter Tag #MMShift2

Many advocates of e-learning express frustration with politicians and public servants who “don’t get” the potential of digital technologies to transform educational opportunities through professional innovation. This comes despite a growing body of evidence from many projects over many years. Now it is time for MirandaNet members to publish what they think.

Dr. Chris Yapp, one of the original authors of Shift Happens (see www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljbI-363A2Q and shifthappens.wikispaces.com) invites MirandaNet members to collaborate on a ‘book’ called, provisionally, Pervasive Learning: Facing the Challenges of the 21st Century, to be published by Routledge. Contributors and readers will be able to continue sharing ideas in a MirandaNet forum.

All contributors to the debate will be acknowledged in the book for sharing their thinking about the future of learning that we cannot predict with accuracy. Various kinds of accreditation can also be for more substantive contributions to the forum.

All contributors will be acknowledged in the book and receive a certificate or a Fellowship; ask me for more details. Christina Preston

 

BETT12: Achievement for All MirandaMods

These are the themes of our eight MirandaMods at BETT12. Members are welcome to join us as named speakers (www.mirandanet.ac.uk/bett).

Wednesday 11th January 1200 - 1430

The classroom is not the only place for learning.
Exploiting mobile learning techniques to support at risk learners in school and in everyday life (Part One).

Wednesday 11th January 1530 - 1800

Classroom practice in improving opportunities for at-risk learners
Exploiting mobile learning techniques to support vulnerable learners (Part Two).

Thursday 12th January 1200 - 1430

Tools for improving effective learning for vulnerable learners
Improving access to achievement using digital technologies (Part One)

Thursday 12th January 1530 - 1800

Parents, carers and the wider community supporting vulnerable learners
Improving access to achievement using digital technologies (Part Two)

Friday 13th January 1200 - 1430

Empowering students to harness the power of social networking for learning
Using the social media to enhance learning communities for teachers and students

Friday 13th January 1530 - 1730

World wide digital learning strategies for senior managers
Drawing on global experience in raising the achievement of pupils who are not reaching their full learning potential

Saturday January 14th 1130 - 1330

Teachers taking charge of their own professional learning
Designing effective continuing professional development programme in digital technologies that promote real change

Saturday 14th January 1400 - 1600

One world
Developing global publishing opportunities for teachers and their pupils in curriculum exchange projects

If you need an invitation to speak in London let me know. We will be pleased to support you: Christina Preston

Meeting members around the world

MirandaNet members will be at these conferences as speakers

Barcelona February 1st - 3rd 2012

All the details about the European Conference can be accessed in the following web site:

TIES2012 http://ties2012.eu/en/index.html (English - with links to Spanish, Catalan and Portuguese versions)

Austin, Texas Theme:

Teaching in Exponential Times!

Celebrating over 20 Years of Leadership in Technology and Teacher Education!

http://site.aace.org/conf/

Birmingham UK, Education Show, March 15-17

Six MirandaMods led by teachers…..

http://www.education-show.com/education/website/Home.aspx?refer=1&id=mainLnk1

London August 2012

Early notice of 6th International Conference on Multimodality (6-ICOM)

Venue: Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, London

22 August – 24 August 2012

For further information email: a.waring@ioe.ac.uk

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