Professor Stephen Heppell has been looking into the horizon with his feet on the ground for many years, and his inspirational keynote speech about where Scotland stands to gain educationally in its horizons is now live on the SLF website. There’s also a great video interview with him which takes you deeper into some of his thoughts.

One of the highlights of this year’s Festival has been Stephen Heppell’s contribution, not only in terms of his keynote address, but in the work he will be continuing to do in Scotland with Learning and Teaching Scotland and Scottish schools. What was it that Scottish bloggers got out of his talk?

Will learning ever be mobile enough?
The one thing Stephen has been thumping on about, and quite rightly so, is the importance of making learning smaller, more mobile. Recently writing in The Guardian about his early mobile phone/block of cement experiences, and rediscovering this cumbersome tool, reminds us that the tiny devices now carried by students (often ‘illegitimately’ in their school) are more powerful than the same computers we spend what relatively little money we have for ICT in education (it will always be too little for this blogger). They’re also insanely popular with the kids: they make being brainy cool. If the power really is in their pockets, why do we see rare examples of mobiles being exploited in the classroom, such as those that were so well received at Sharon Tonner’s session on mobile learning at The High School of Dundee? Perhaps we also need to talk more about how we lay the way for this to happen, preparing teachers, parents and students alike with a new set of literacy skills.

David Muir carries a great summary of the main keynote, including the first (big) question on identity online and off. The point only begins to make more sense when you take into account the sense of identity the national intranet Glow hopes to bring to online participants. Importantly, though, identity doesn’t just come with the product. It’s something that has to be developed from the bottom up, from the users who will enter this online community and, if they feel at home, will stay in it. Peter has more detail from the Glow Mentors’ breakfast talk that helps fill in some of the practical ideas that might help this happen in Glow. The most important takeaway, though, comes from the Clacks crowd: no matter what toys and devices are in Glow, it’s the ‘glue’ Glow provides for bringing people and ideas together that will help this identity-finding occur.

The great unknown (isn’t it fun?)
There is one point where tradition, rigour and the exciting pace of change in today’s connected classroom seem to be at odds. Gordon McKinlay reports Stephen’s views on our passing from an age of 20th Century government guidelines and policy to “just getting on with it”. Gordon also argues the point many teachers in Scottish classrooms will feel when they have tried to “just get on with it” - this might not be true. Between filters, blocks, well-meaning directives and the rest, innovating with small, portable and often pupil-owned equipment has, some might argue, never been more difficult.

The way out, says Heppell, is action research, and lots of it. Up to a third of school teachers carrying out action research, gathering and publishing data - themselves, on their own blogs - until it’s time for the next third to do the same. It’s the kind of thing we’re beginning to see (uncertified, perhaps, but rich nonetheless) in East Lothian, where that critical one third of teachers currently blog their practice and seek new ways forward on the edubuzz.org blog engine.

Sharing also needs to happen more often by more people for more teachers. Heppell particularly enjoyed TeachMeet07, an ‘unconference’ put together by the people who came along, all 150 or so of them, at the Glasgow Science Centre on the first evening of the conference. Katie reckons he thought it was the best CPD method he had seen; his mobile blog might concur just a bit of that.

Keeping it small
Ollie Bray, in his new post as a DHT in Musselburgh Grammar School, is perhaps understandibly thinking that smaller schools would be better - and certainly easier for DHTs to know all the names. But smaller schools would also help the kids. Smallness is something Heppell is also keen on; just taking a look at the pre-SLF BBC Breakfast appearance he made confirms this. Transition between primary and secondary looses too many of our kids on the way, as they go from intimate and engaging to expansive and fighting for attention. It makes me think of the MET Schools I visited this past summer in Providence, USA, where the cap on numbers is around 130. Small schools work for children who just wouldn’t or haven’t survived in the mainstream.
The messages seem simple: keep it small, keep it engaging, keep it fun. Share, share, share. Find others you can work with collaboratively, and help your kids to do the same. Find out what skills you need to do that yourself, and then help your students find them for themselves.

If only it were that easy… Would you say it was?
Photo: from Neil Winton

Categories: Building Schools, Curriculum design, Digital Literacy, Mobile, ScotLearnFest07, Social Media