Introduction: Happy New Year!
by John Cuthell
What might have been
As the old year rolled away in a more-than-usual pyrotechnic display I reflected on the project I’d just finished. I still had an introduction to write. Nothing too optimistic — simply a signpost to the future. I eventually found the words.
“For almost than thirty years successive British governments have proclaimed the importance of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for education and made significant investment in schools. Initiatives such as visual learning technologies, online learning, curriculum resources for both teachers and students and Life Long Learning have all had an impact on education. School communities — students, their parents and their teachers — have struggled to manage technological change when resources, particularly those of time, have been stretched by the curricular and administrative changes they have had to implement.
The impact of ICT in the classroom transforms management, organisation and conventional pedagogical approaches. Many teachers still struggle with integrating ICT into teaching and learning, even though the ICT training programme provided by the New Opportunities Fund (NOF) aimed to provide the skills and theoretical framework within which educational praxis can absorb these changes. ICT is seen as an integral part of each strand of the National Curriculum, and the performance of teachers is to be judged on their ability to integrate ICT within their teaching and their students’ learning.
Over the past 15 years, however, a significant number of students have access to computer facilities of one kind or another at home. The ways in which they have learned to use these devices, and the uses to which they are put, are shaped more by personal experience and input from their peers than by their schools. The programs they use, the ways in which they learn and the work they create mean that the education system struggles to meet the demands and expectations of these young people. What follows, of course, is that those who do not have this technology at home are doubly disadvantaged if their schools and teachers cannot compensate.
From 1995 to 2000 these issues were investigated by the author, and this book is based on several years’ research into patterns of computer ownership and use among young people. A six-year longitudinal study by John Cuthell of some 1800 students at a comprehensive school in West Yorkshire provided the data from which the results were drawn. Student work was examined during this period, and students themselves commented on the ways in which computers had changed their work. Teacher use and teacher attitudes were also examined. The results clearly demonstrate the disparity between student computer ownership and use and that of their teachers. Further studies have only confirmed this.
The citizens of the twenty first century are being taught in classrooms of the twentieth century whose praxis is shaped by the 1870 Education Act.
Digital technologies present students with powerful tools for learning. Young people who use them have been set free from conventional expectations of learning. This raises profound issues for the educational system of the new century.”
A signpost to the future? Not even a fingerpost.
And now we’re twenty percent into the New Century, slouching, like Yeats’ rough beast, towards the next.
What happened?
Ms. Chips and the Cyborgs
“In the book ‘Goodbye, Mr. Chips’ by James Hilton, a shy British teacher (Mr. Chipping — hence ‘Chips’) devotes his life to teaching after the death of his beautiful American wife. The film (1939) of the book features Robert Donat as Mr. Chips, who looks back on his long career and the people in it. And there you have it: the quintessential image of the devoted teacher, interacting with pupils and students, enabling them to excel and achieve their goals. The reality, of course, is often slightly different. Teachers are caught between the Scylla of an increasingly prescriptive curriculum and the Charybdis of public accountability; schools are expected to pick up the shortfall of parenting and social responsibility, abandoned as parents rush out to work increasingly long hours to service mortgage and consumer debt.”
You can read more here. Not much has changed.
MirandaNet as a community of practice.
I’ve been a MirandaNet associate for twenty five years, and in that time have had the privilege of working with colleagues on projects that sought to incorporate the affordances and possibilities of new technologies to learning and teaching. The first of these was the Laptop Project, that pioneered online learning as a tool for professional development. At the time it was a revolutionary approach to continuous professional development (CPD). Now most of the population carries a much more powerful computing device with them, but there has been no corresponding increase in CPD — apart, that is, from people in MirandaNet and similar Communities of Practice.
A Community of Practice (CoP) brings together a diverse group who nevertheless share similar interests, in this case the use of new technologies and education. This diversity covers educational sectors, national boundaries and different cultural and political approaches to education, and yet the community enhances and augments what one can do over a period of time. The opportunity to share successes, failures and problems with a group of critical friends provides a supportive and non-judgemental environment to counterbalance the isolation of the classroom (and staff room).
One of the most powerful ways of changing our thinking about how we teach and learn is to experience for ourselves the power of collaborative experiential learning. Few teachers have had the opportunity to learn in this way, and this creates barriers for those who want to change their pedagogy. By collaborating with their peers and other professionals, teachers are able to model the projects, environment and learning experiences they want for their classes through a blended learning experience. This model of continuing professional development can have a significant impact on schools, pedagogies and professional philosophies.
You can read more about Communities of Practice here:
http://www.virtuallearning.org.uk/?page_id=26
The MirandaNet website contains an archive of papers and reports that illustrate the range and impact of our Community of Practice.
MirandaNet Publications
Education, Innovation and Research
https://mirandanet.ac.uk/mirandanet-publications/
Visual Learning and MirandaNet
The first UK evaluation of the use of interactive whiteboards was published on the MirandaNet site in 2000 by Anna Smith: Interactive Whiteboard Evaluation : https://www.mirandanet.org.uk/casestudies/124
During the first part of the twenty-first century governments and education departments across the world invested significant sums of money in a range of whole-class visual display technologies such as data projectors, interactive whiteboards and visualisers (Cuthell, 2005a; 2008).
There have been many reasons for their adoption: the technologies have been seen as a way of meeting government targets for ICT implementation, for providing access to the latest educational resources or as a way of transforming and modernising the outcomes of educational systems (Cuthell, 2005a). The high capital cost of these technologies has meant that individual teachers and schools have rarely been able to specify or select the tools for themselves. One result of this has been that the technologies, and the changes that they produce, are often seen by teachers to be externally imposed on them and their classrooms (Cuthell, 2006). Staff development is often limited to a brief instructional session that focuses on basic ‘mastery of the controls’, rather than an exploration of how the tools can be integrated into teaching and learning (Moss et al, 2007).
However, expectations of these technologies are artificially high, and researchers are often pressured to produce findings that justify the high capital investment. Assumptions that the introduction of a new technology will per se achieve pedagogical change and an improvement in learning outcomes are difficult to substantiate through research, and research findings are often lost by politicians and misrepresented in the media (Kennewell, 2006). Many surveys produce results that are limited by respondents being given neither enough information, intellectual space nor time to make a useful judgement or evaluation of visual display technologies and visual learning (Smith et al, 2007).
MirandaNet collaborated with many stakeholders on a range of projects focussed on visual learning, from manufacturers, national and international educational organisations, schools and individual teachers to university departments. Teachers published action research reports on the impact of visual learning in their classrooms, and these can be accessed on both the MirandaNet and Visual Learning sites.
Many of these resources are based on a project at The Centre for Excellence in Work-Based Learning for Education Professionals (WLE Centre) at the Institute of Education, University of London. This project with MirandaNet provided the opportunity to draw together a number of studies and assign a developmental typology of visual learning implementation and approaches to provide a unique resource to support further research and professional pedagogical development.
The Centre for Excellence in Work-Based Learning for Education Professionals (WLE Centre) at the Institute of Education, University of London, was an initiative to encourage excellence and innovation in Higher Education. The WLE Centre aimed to develop new approaches in work-based learning through facilitating innovations in learning at work and through professional practice; teaching and assessment modes for work-related and work-located learning; uses of e-learning and digital technologies and developing new conceptual and theoretical approaches to work-based learning.
Literature in the use of technologies that support visual learning tended to focus on the evaluation of government-supported initiatives to embed visual display technology in classrooms and their impact on pedagogy. Averis, Glover and Miller (2005) examined IWB technology within the mathematics classroom; Cuthell (2005; 2006; 2008) examined IWB and visualiser use and their impact on teaching and learning, both in a UK and international context. Kennewell (2006) drew together research and examined the impact of the technologies on pedagogy. Smith et al (2007) and Moss et al (2007) conducted detailed studies nationally (Smith) and across London (Moss). Whilst some of these studies focus on the pedagogies and perspectives of the teachers there are no case studies accompanied by practitioner commentary that provide exemplars of practice of material for analysis. It is the aim of this project to provide just such materials.
The 2008/9 WLE project ‘Seeing the Meaning’ combined a metastudy of existing literature on the technologies of Visual Learning, an evaluation of effective models of pedagogical and curriculum development through professional learning and case studies, some of which were streamed video. A particular focus was on the ways in which work-based learning can support curriculum and institutional change.
The online multi-modal resource related to the policy, theory and practice of all aspects of Visual Learning and brought together academic studies from international research; policy and best practice disseminated through Becta and other government agencies; case studies focused on classroom best practice and innovative technologies from industry. This was a freely available online and formed a growing knowledge base for academics, students, schools and teachers. The project also provided video evidence that linked to other work-based learning projects.
The 2009/10 project built on ‘Seeing the Meaning’ with a range of downloadable video resources. These examined the ways in which practitioners and their pupils used a range of innovative visual learning technologies and techniques in the classroom and focused on the ways in which they could support learners in a range of activities and outcomes. Video interviews explored the pedagogical and organisation strategies embedded in practice, and the ways in which these could support curriculum change both with and across institutions.
The case studies focus on classroom best practice and the integration of innovative technologies from industry. An important element is the ways in which teachers used the technologies and affordances of their personal learning networks — wikis, FlashMeeting, Twitter, MirandaMods and unConferences — both to advance their techniques and strategies and obtain feedback from critical friends.
‘Seeing the Meaning’ is a freely available online knowledge base for academics, students, schools and teachers. The project links to other work-based learning projects, and identifies:
• a range of pedagogical strategies to support and reinforce Visual Learning;
• the ways in which it can be integrated across age-related curricula;
• models for deployment across institutions;
• the integration of Visual Learning into assessment practice;
• the role of work-based learning to support the integration of visual learning technologies into existing and developing pedagogical practice;
• learner perceptions of the impact of visual learning on personal learning and progress;
• the use of personal learning networks as a forum for development and dissemination.
Key issues of visual learning, its technologies and its pedagogies are illustrated, both in the video case studies and the practitioner commentaries. They explore and develop the relationship between technology, theory, pedagogy and learning; the relationship between work, learning and professional practice and the relationship between pedagogy, assessment and visual learning.
This project enhances the existing investment by the WLE Centre in ‘Seeing the Meaning’ and provides a resource for all those wishing to use findings and information on the subject of visual learning and its technologies to further their own professional development, or to implement it in the workplace. This project links to, and supports, the WLE aims of identifying and exploring:
• the relationship between work, learning and professional practice with a particular focus on work-based pedagogies, assessment and self-evaluation strategies;
• the relationship between pedagogy, assessment and learning with innovative technologies;
• the role and use of new technologies (especially those of learners) across a range of curriculum areas;
• conceptualising and theorising the workplace as a site for learning, and the relationship with industry
• collaboration, partnership and innovation within and across institutions through personal learning networks.
Concept Mapping
Maps of ideas
During 2006–7 the MirandaNet Fellowship explored the ways in which multimodal mapping and ICT could enhance teaching and learning. Visual thinking and learning tools such as Mind Mapping and Concept Mapping have long been used in classrooms. They support (and in many cases underpin) visual learning. Findings from all of the projects indicate that the use of such tools has a significant impact on the learning environment, on pupil perceptions of learning, and on attainment. Visual learning describes an approach to teaching in which diagrams such as concept maps, mind maps, tree diagrams, organisation charts and spider diagrams are used to help students of all ages think and learn more effectively. They are all used for storing, processing, organising and presenting information graphically. These techniques can be used across the curriculum and through all phases of education, from K — 12. The most popular elements of visual learning are Concept Mapping and Mind Mapping.
Online collaborative concept maps have now been integrated with a number of other collaborative digital technologies to enhance Continuous Personal Professional Development.
Collaborative Knowledge Construction and Concept Maps
This paper describes the development of methodologies for using multidimensional concept mapping as a data collection method, and as a medium to stimulate the creation and dissemination of collaborative knowledge. These concept maps were collected during an initial series of iGatherings organised by MirandaNet Fellows . in the context of work-based learning for education professionals. The first stage of this programme was designed on the MirandaMod model , an informal, loosely structured unconference of like-minded educators to share ideas about the use of technology to inspire others.
This first stage of the research project aimed to
• develop a scoring system for collaborative multimodal concept maps relating to an analysis of the potential effectiveness for identifying concept development and the formation of praxis .
• post preliminary resources on the web as an example of the knowledge creation planned for Stage Two from September to March 2010.
The web-based program MindMeister and Inspiration were compared as the vehicle for this study for the creation and dissemination of knowledge, rather than simply for data collection.
Existing tools that have been used to analyse concept maps have either focused on a map’s content in order to identify the level of a student’s understanding of a particular area of knowledge (Ruiz-Primo, 2000; Park & Calvo, 2008), or have examined the complexity of the map itself (Mavers, Somekh et al., 2002, Harrison et al, 2002). Whilst these tools provided data about the complexity of the maps that had been created, they failed to provide data that related to the process of knowledge construction. They also concentrate on the learning of individuals rather than on collaborative learning.
Collaborative Concept Maps
This paper outlines an eighteen-month project undertaken by the MirandaNet Fellowship from 2006–7 to explore the ways in which multimodal concept mapping and ICT could enhance teaching and learning. Visual thinking and learning tools such as Mind Mapping and Concept Mapping have long been used in classrooms. They support (and in many cases underpin) visual learning. Findings from all of the projects indicate that the use of such tools has a significant impact on the learning environment, on pupil perceptions of learning, and on attainment. Visual learning describes an approach to teaching in which diagrams such as concept maps, mind maps, tree diagrams, organisation charts and spider diagrams are used to help students of all ages think and learn more effectively. They are all used for storing, processing, organising and presenting information graphically. These techniques can be used across the curriculum and through all phases of education, from K — 12. The most popular elements of visual learning are Concept Mapping and Mind Mapping.
Read more here:
The Use of Concept Maps for Collaborative Knowledge Construction
Collaborative Concept Maps and Knowledge Construction
Online learning and multi-modal online CPD: From practice to praxis
Christina Preston’s seminal work on visual learning, concept mapping — Maps of Ideas — was integrated into work undertaken by MirandaNet to explore the possibilities of teacher continuing professional development (CPD) in a time of increased workload, budget constraints and the need for professional change. The importance of work-based learning, and the emerging informal processes by which theory can be transformed into practice by education practitioners themselves, (‘praxis’: Freire, 1970) has become more important as teachers respond to the twin drivers of personalised learning and technology integration. Traditional CPD offerings are not positioned to respond to such demands: one-day general courses struggle to provide the transformational elements that today’s education professionals need. (Daly, Pachler & Pelletier, 2009a; 2009b; Pachler, Preston, Cuthell, Allen, 2010)
The Becta-funded 2009–10 project explored mobile learning from a range of perspectives in eight MirandaMods . These involved simultaneous virtual and face-to-face debates between professional educators in a global context. Resources were then made available to the wider community through reports, video recordings and interactive concept maps. Multidimensional concept mapping was developed as the data collection method because this medium stimulates the creation and dissemination of collaborative knowledge within the profession (Preston 2009a, 2009b).
The 2009–10 project collected research data about the relationship between work-based learning and praxis; developed new knowledge and practice on concept mapping methodology; disseminated professional work-based practice in mobile learning to an emerging global community; provided online resources for practitioners; developed strategies for practitioners to implement change and built an online support community. The project was informed by the work of Pachler and Cook (2009), whose approach moved professional development from the model referred to as ‘from theory to practice’ to one in which different forms of knowledge are “… contextualised and ‘recontextualised’ as people move between different sites of learning in colleges and workplaces. (It) … encapsulates the ways in which learners mediate between these contexts and as a result personalise their learning, and develop a professional and/or vocational identity.” (Pachler & Cook, 2009)
This project explored such mediation between the contexts of a face-to-face seminar together with the virtual collaborative affordances of FlashMeeting, an interactive collaborative concept map, a broadcast video stream through TwitCam and blip.tv and Twitter streams. The project developed the ways in which communities of practice create knowledge collaboratively and, more importantly, looked at the ways in which such knowledge can be applied both within, and between, classrooms — snd its implementation in teaching and learning.
The project further developed the liminal spaces where collaborative knowledge creation is now taking place. Its findings are intended to facilitate bridging the gap between the creation of professional theory and its implementation in teaching and learning — the development of “a professional and/or vocational identity.” (Pachler & Cook)
The term “liminal space” is a term drawn from anthropology that describes a rite of passage, in which a person moves from one state to another. Turner (1982) appropriates the concept to apply to drama, whereas Meyer and Land (2005) see it in terms of individuals’ ICT use. The anthropological view sees the liminal state as involving a period of time in which an individual may oscillate between old and new states, involve a range of emotions including anticipation, difficulty and anxiety, and at times require the mimicry of the new state until it becomes ‘natural’. ICT users are transformed in the liminal space by acquiring new knowledge, a new status and a new identity in the community.
This is of critical importance if ICT CPD is to be successful.
Further reports on CPD can be accessed here:
One of the most powerful ways of changing our thinking about how we teach and learn is to experience for ourselves the power of collaborative experiential learning. Few teachers have had the opportunity to learn in this way, and this creates barriers for those who want to change their pedagogy. By collaborating with their peers and other professionals, teachers are able to model the projects, environment and learning experiences they want for their classes through a blended learning experience. This model of continuing professional development can have a significant impact on schools, pedagogies and professional philosophies.
The drive for e-learning as a cost-effective and flexible channel for distance and life-long learning has focused on the benefits of a just-in-time delivery of content to the learner. The assumption is that knowledge is inseparable from, and follows, content. An obvious and important aspect of e-learning has been the need for online tutors to deploy a range of Soft Skills to support learners. E-learning relies on e-tutoring: the concept of e-tutoring embodies mentoring, coaching and facilitating techniques. In an online environment in which student discussion forums constitute one of the tools for knowledge construction the role of the facilitator assumes greater importance that of mentor, moderator or coach. The ability to facilitate a discussion or a debate becomes central to the construction of new knowledge for the participants (Holmes et al, 2001) In spring and early summer 2004 a group of teachers from diverse backgrounds engaged in an intensive course in e-facilitation techniques. This paper describes how they learned and were taught, and evaluates the ways in which an online collaborative environment enabled the development of the basic skills required for e-facilitation. The paper then assesses the effectiveness of individuals as both contributors and e-facilitators in a range of online educational forums. It examines the contribution seach made, and details the e-facilitation techniques deployed in various forums. Outcomes are measured against the input that individuals made. The ways in which the participants were able to construct new knowledge in the online communal context are detailed. These are compared with some other models of learning in an online environment: Cuthell (2001); (Salmon (2002). Finally, the paper evaluates the ways in which e-facilitation enables individuals to construct new knowledge, both with and for others. An interesting consequence of participating in a course of this nature is that perceptions of teaching, learning and knowledge change. Do these perceptions follow through into the daily praxis of the teachers? The implications for teaching and learning in a range of educational environments are identified.
This ICT CPD Landscape study reports on Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Continuing Professional Development (CPD) programmes available to teachers in England in 2010. Data collection took place in the Autumn of 2009. Although the project findings are based on some desk-based research, the findings are mainly derived from primary data collection through traditional interviews, questionnaires and focus groups.
One outcome of the project, derived on the basis of an experimental methodology, a remotely authored digital domain map, loosely represents the prevailing ICT CPD Landscape. This mapping method was used to ascertain the value of mapping to conceptualise complex domains such as ICT CPD. The map was intended to capture and aggregate perceptions of the landscape held by representatives of the following groups: researchers and providers of, experts and teachers in and leaders receiving ICT CPD. As such the map is invariably subjective.
The map has three branches: Climate focusing on socio-cultural and technological as well as policy factors at local, national and international levels that impact on ICT CPD Provision; Supply plotting providers; and Demand mapping stakeholders, influential groups of professionals, both formally and informally constituted. It has to be noted, though, that these sub-domains are increasingly overlapping.
On the Demand side, this study investigated the opinions of 60 practitioners, 20% of whom were reluctant to use digital technologies in classrooms. 40 informants were ICT CPD leaders in schools. 30 providers were chosen to represent all the key categories identified in the domain map on the Supply side.
In terms of methodology, the project used largely qualitative data collection methods: 90 questionnaire responses were supplemented with in-depth individual and some focus group interviews. Given the small sample size of 130 the findings need to be treated with caution and should be viewed as emerging trends.
The findings are discussed in relation to five categories: providers, leaders, practitioners, field forces and some general observations about the market.
ICT delusions: Plus Ça Change?
The regular overhaul of the United Kingdom education system brings to the surface many of the tensions of society itself. The conflation of international school rankings, economic decline and the prospect of dominance by what used to be described as the emerging economies has spurred Government in 2012 to declare the need for schools to teach Computing, rather than the previously-prescribed lowly ICT. The assumption seems to be that the teaching workforce is full of eager Computing specialists who are all too ready to ditch the low-level Office skills they were required to teach and adapt to new examination syllabuses.
Is teaching a technology, or is it more than that?
In this fair land there has long been a stratified interpretation of the purpose of education: which layer of the strata provides your perspective is unlikely to change, and it screens out the possibility that that there are other ways of viewing and interpreting the “how things should be”. The schools and the classes that we imagine are framed by our class, so to speak.
So, is the role of teachers to know stuff, and pass it on? To be able to do stuff, and implement it? Can we provide access to cultural capital when that itself is a site of conflict? Here is a view from someone who prepares the troops.
Linking CPD, learning and technology: David Weston, Chief Executive Teacher Development Trust
The informal dynamic knowledge creation in collaborative contexts occurs as participants move from textual debate in a conventional mailing list to video conferencing, micro blogging contributions and collaborative concept maps. This collaborative technology can be seen as creating a liminal space — a passage, in which a person moves from one state of being to another. Participants in this liminal space are transformed by acquiring new knowledge, a new status and a new identity in the community. This change is of critical importance if learning is to be successful. Whilst remote and informal learning is largely is what has been understood about mobile learning, the concept can now be extended to include these informal spaces in which learning takes place — the liminal spaces that those who push the boundaries of digital possibilities now inhabit intellectually (Cuthell, Preston, Kuechel and Cych, 2009).
This paper aims to extend understanding of liminal spaces and their contribution to the learning process. Evidence from participants from the United Kingdom, Europe, West Africa, the United States and Australasia is used to estimate the value of such informal learning for professionals. The qualitative and quantitative research tools that record both the numbers involved in the different activities, levels of participation and the extent of the professional knowledge created are identified. The processes can be described as Bricolage (Levi Strauss, 1962), in which people build new knowledge from what is at hand. Some consideration will be given to the long-term impact of building professional knowledge in a range of media that are not subject to conventional peer review. Finally the advantages and disadvantages of informal learning against formal learning will be summarised.
A MirandaMod. A group of people come together in a room. They are joined by others: not present other than as words writing themselves on a screen; as a low-resolution images and voices echoing across continents; as symbols on a growing map of concepts and ideas. Some will have made their mark earlier, leaving traces from which others will build, After the group has left, gone away from wherever to wherever, the words, images, voices, symbols and ideas will remain, to be re-purposed by the passing strangers who will bind themselves into this community of liminal space, wandering scholars through a virtual digital world.
What is happening? How is it happening? Who is it happening to? To whom will it happen? Who — where — are the agents; the actors; the participants? Where are the boundaries? In a state of flux, where can permanence be found? The answer could be everywhere, and nowhere.
Online forums as resources for teacher professional development
How can e-learning be integrated into a range of settings for both teachers and pupils? Here we have a number of small-scale studies covering a range of projects: those based in classrooms; home-school environments; after-school activities; school-based continuous professional development (CPD); subject-based CPD in national contexts and post-graduate accreditation. The work of primary and secondary school pupils and adult learners is considered.
The Role of Web-based Communities in Teacher Professional Development
This chapter investigates four threads in the role of online communities in teacher development.
The first thread examines the ways in which the learning community can be seen as a form of distributed cognition. The second deals with factors contributing to teacher participation, the ways in which the online learning community itself requires, and develops, new skills and concepts. The third thread deals with the re-conceptualisation of learning, whilst the final aspect focuses on the co-construction of knowledge in an online environment.
This chapter was originally published in the International Journal of Web Based Communities as: Cuthell, J. P. (2008) The Role of a Web-based Community in Teacher Professional Development. International Journal of Web Based Communities, Vol. 2, №8 2008, pp. 115–139. Geneva, Inderscience
And, in the end …
The technology has changed. It is cheaper, more ubiquitous and in the pockets of most learners,
Most schools are, at best, ambivalent as to how these devices should be allowed in, or utilised by, learners in the classroom.
Some ban them completely.
At the end of the last century I wrote
“Digital technologies present students with powerful tools for learning. Young people who use them have been set free from conventional expectations of learning. This raises profound issues for the educational system of the new century.”
I could write the same today.
