At last! OFSTED really don't insist on intricate lesson plans and institution-approved forms.

After all the years of running around getting approved paperwork together just to show Inspectors, it is nice to see OFSTED pointedly remarking that they do not expect to see Lesson Plans in their guide.

There are several other sensible changes to the regime that staff may wish to bring managers' attention to - in case they are still insisting on this and that because that's what OFSTED want.

More about this here and, of course, make good use of some web tools!

The OFSTED site itself is pretty helpful too.

Ross Morrison McGill's blog also makes the point that there will now be a whole new range of CPD for staff in December! This, he suggests, would be a suitable cover illustration for the notes.

I am glad to have retired but may even consider doing some part-time work again now, which I definitely would not have down a year ago. And part-timers always miss CPD and training sessions anyway so I should escape them too. 

Of course, if anyone would like some sessions delivered by someone slightly less Grim Reaper-ish just ask. I am available December too and even earlier if you'd like to catch staff while they're enthusiastic.

New web tools site - lots of new links and notes

Web

I have just updated and completely revised the webtools site for teachers, students and, well, anyone really.

Lots of new additions and I have included some notes and suggested use decsriptions for a range of tools which will also be featured on the LSIS Excellence Gateway soon. (I have provided content - but not the design - for a Third Sector toolkit that will be hosted there).

If anyone has any more ideas just let me know. I'm sure I've missed plenty and, of course, new ones are appearing every week now which I'll try and keep up with.

Apps²

A colleague has just shared this infographic that she found. My first thought was OK, that's interesting, a bit out of date but nice to see someone promoting use of some of these tools which, of course, is what I spend an inordinate amount of my time doing.

Click to enlarge

Source (full size)

Then I had second and third and fourth thoughts. 

2. It's really a bit of a mess. 

I'll simply have to do something about that and redo it in rather smarter fashion, maybe adding some much needed links too. 

3. There are some quite important tools missing. 

OK, it may be old so I can remove some and add some. 

4. There are quite a few instances where lines need to go in more than one direction, tools that can be good for several elements. 

That can be included in the reworked version.

It was the fifth thought that really stuck, though: 

5. Wouldn't it be great if we could start in one application and stay in that application with everything we might need being something like an app within that application. 

Sort of app².

Ideas, drafts etc. go in and out of this central application. Some you discard. Some go straight in. Some need a bit of editing first and then get embedded. The whole end product, or 'content' as this graphic calls it, is a combination of various elements: text, images, data, media and any other dimension that I've missed out that can be shared, linked to, embedded, displayed or even printed in part.

I don't quite know where I'm going with this but thanks to Shri for getting me off on yet another journey in this e-learning world!

Too Many Apples For The Teacher

There is a scene near the end of The Prisoner in which Number 6 starts to speak. "I.." he begins. "I...I...I..." echo all the faceless ones in his audience. He tries to continue. "I..." only to be interrupted by yet louder and more forceful "I... I.... I..." and so it goes on... This seems quite appropriate to what seems to be happening now in many teaching advice articles, even to the extent of how to impress OFSTED (whose representatives surely would have made brilliant Number 2s had they been around at the time).

With all the free promotion from mostly intelligent and ostensibly fair-minded people like teachers and e-learning experts, Apple must be laughing all the way to the bank and can probably now afford to sack all but a few in their Marketing Department.

Everywhere I turn these days there's some eminent authority on education technology telling us, or a grant being offered by supposedly commercially independent quangos for institutions to report on, how wonderful iPads and iPhones can be and how to utilise Apple apps in teaching-and-learning.

I'm not saying that these are not good products. I'm not saying that they cannot contribute immensely to what we're all trying to do in education. What is so wrong is that these guys only talk about or write about or demonstrate Apple products.

There are alternatives. There are good alternatives. Some might argue that there are better alternatives. (I'll try and avoid that part of the argument!) But one thing's for sure - there are cheaper alternatives.

It's a bit like the days when colleagues would give presentations and tell everyone in the room to use PowerPoint or Word to do something that could just as easily be done in software that didn't need a Microsoft Office installation. I lost count of the number of references to Microsoft Office products I had to re-word in piles of course materials designed to assess teachers' and trainers' Information and Learning Technology skills in the earlier part of this Century proposed for publication by erudite bodies running on government money. Whilst they frowned on any logo or brand mark being featured in dissemination reports to the point where I was unable to get a payment authorised for something otherwise excellent with a picture of Homer Simpson somewhere in it, references to specific Microsoft or adobe products were conveniently ignored,

I have no objection to guidance notes and examples of how to do something featuring software or hardware that you need to pay for but when I read the more general recommendations or suggestions that teachers or institutions should adopt I really do think it is time for some balance.

There are loads of really good smartphones around now and soon there will be a real choice between Android and Windows 8 as well as the Apple operating system.

There are less numerous, but still excellent, Android and, coming soon, Windows 8, tablets or pads as well as the iPad. 

Generally Apple's products seem to be much more expensive than their Android competitors and the apps that I see recommended are often ones that have to be bought by staff or students on Apple systems where the Android alternatives are free. I have yet to read a set of suggestions where it would not have been easy to have written them with reference to the alternative products or by using generic terminology instead of specific tools which make the whole article deserving of a brown padded envelope floating through the writer's letterbox containing some suitable sign of appreciation from Apple. Something beginning with i, perhaps?

So can we please stop this ubiquitous use of Apple's very, very cleverly designed brand names. Let's talk about phones, not iPhones (or, worse, iphones!). Let's talk about pads or tablets or anything except iPads. Save those Apple Marketing people's jobs! They've worked hard to get you all on their side - it doesn't seem fair that you should be doing their work for them now does it?

More experiments with web tools: Animoto

Make your own photo slideshow at Animoto.

The interface makes it dead easy to grab a folder of images from Picasa (or other on-line collections). Limited selection of music tracks in the free version but this one kinda worked. My son'll like it anyway and will probably have tagged himself in it already.

One idea I must try is to make images that fit a particular learning object - maybe illustrate a process in a fun way. The key thing about this, though, is that this took longer to process than to make. It can only have been 2 or 3 minutes to log in, select an album, a template and a track. Animoto do the rest.

Just checking out some tools: GoAnimate

The toolbox 1 by AndrewHill on GoAnimate

Video Maker - Powered by GoAnimate.

Think I need something with better expressions! And they sound pretty boring too! Still, it's so quick and easy that it shouldn't take too long to make another. First I shall look at some alternatives, though. 

Free web tools past and present

 

Ooo, Schoology!

Some time ago I signed in to Schoology, thought it looked interesting but then must have been distracted by something and forgot to go back and review the site. It's great - well set out and, so far, seems free and uncluttered with no adverts trying to sell us this or that.

I am still trying to figure out exactly what I can do with an area called The Studyzone which I presume is the name I gave to one particular area but the key feature that I should draw your attention to is the shared resources section. Here teachers from all over the place have added their own materials and links. These can be searched and sorted - by most highly rated or most recently added, for example (although none of those I added appeared in the most recently added search so my guess is that there must be some delay between publishing and their actual availability for reasons I have yet to understand. With luck, it will be a check on suitability, copyright and if someone is filtering out potentially offensive material then that would be a good reason.

Yes, it's mostly US-based and the references are to their curriculum but whether you say maths or math, organise or organize shouldn't detract too much from their value. I suppose the English materials could get a bit annoying with dialing instead of dialling (although just who does dial any more?) but, again, it may well be that the basic ideas being shared could be easily adapted for use on whichever side of The Pond you are.

I like the link to Google Documents which would enable very quick sharing or publication of files stored on-line but haven't yet put that to the test.

There's a blog section but, really, you might best be advised just to throw in a single post linking to your existing blogs and continue to utilise Blogger, Wordpress, Tumblr or whatever which have rather more useful RSS feeds that can be picked up and deposited elsewhere, like VLEs if you still use one. The still was deliberate as, and this will have to be a separate article, I think we are coming to the end of VLE Days as we know them. But that is another story. Back to Schoology.

In amongst a section called Apps I found a few new bits and piecesI had not encountered before that look worth a closer look and will be added to the Webtools site soon. these are 101, a simple way to text students, parents etc with updates, advice, requirements etc. Another is BrainNook. In BrainNook, children travel through virtual worlds while playing math and language games, complete assignments to win badges, and compete with their classmates to reach the top of their class scoreboard. BrainNook games are mapped to the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics and Language Arts.

Then there's Scootpad. ScootPad is a way to engage students in mastering Common Core Standards and Concepts in maths and reading with personalised, self-paced and stimulating practice. It is claimed that their data and research show that students practice on average 5 times more problems on ScootPad than the traditional worksheets/paper.

Teachers get real-time classroom performance dashboards and reports that enable in-depth progress tracking and proficiency insights. Teachers can assign and review homework (Maths Practice, Reading Practice, Spelling Practice, Reading Log etc.) and students can complete and manage their homework all online on ScootPad.

Lastly, there's Concept Bank. Now that's not a name that is likely to fire the imagination but this is what they say it does: "Common Core Standards drive a major shift in both instruction and assessment. We've made it easy for educators to access/navigate the standards, drill down to the supporting concepts and review sample questions to better understand the instructional shifts and practice rigor needed to ensure that all students are on track to college and career readiness." It looks a lot simpler and that's why I'm including it here. They might need to hire someone to write better reviews or descriptions.

Now it may be that I've missed some huge charge for some of these apps or that they are totally impossible for anyone in the UK to utilise but maybe someone will take a closer look before I get a chance and advise. Certainly if you're reading this in the States then these could be useful straight out of the box. Wherever you're based, though, I would encourage you to take a look at Schoology.

Thinglink - make your images interactive

Love this new free tool from Thinglink. It makes it easy to add hotspots to your images which display as small dots which, when moused over, display video, text or almost anything by way of web content.



Always a big fan of using images in materials and resources for students and just making whatever you create look more interesting, this adds yet another dimension to them.

E-fair 2012 Review: 'Could Do Better.'

The 12th E-learning Fair organised by JISC RSC Eastern took place in Watford, Hertfordshire yesterday. As with all these events, a shiny new Further Education College building was the venue - in this instance the recently opened West Herts College. Practitioners and interested individuals came from all over the Eastern Region and beyond and there were also representatives of a number of organisations showing off their wares and services for the teaching and learning community.

The communication from the College had those dire warnings about parking 'being very limited' at the campus, with what are becoming increasingly frequent admonishments from educational institutions and agencies about driving cars anywhere. Fortunately, I arrived to find a huge car park with bags of space so I don't quite understand what all that was about. Much as though their offer to support me with a cycle loan was appreciated, the journey from Northamptonshire to Watford was slightly beyond what I reckoned my legs could manage. Having said that, the number of traffic jams I encountered during my unfortunately-timed trips may not have resulted in the car being that much faster!

It was a pleasant enough building and not as ugly as some of the new ones and certainly an improvement on what was crumbling on the site before. A strangely inconspicuous entrance made you feel that the place was, at least, not one of those extrovert buildings that shout at you, almost appearing to watch you as you approach vast glazed entrance portals that somehow manage not to show your own reflection. Once inside there is this massive reception area where the lovely RSC Eastern staff looked like little Lego models in the immense space. There were also rows of those ticket machine things like you have to pass through to get in or out of a tube station. That would fool a great many students at some colleges I know and would definitely cause an enormous rise in greenhouse gases as they bus or taxi home again to get their ID cards. Presumably Watford students have better memories or have them glued on to their bodies somehow.

Normally at events like this you're handed a card bearing your name and who you represent housed in plastic of varying degrees of quality which then has to be appended somehow to your clothes or, more popular these days, a brightly coloured bit of material allows you to dangle said ID around your neck. Here we had the bright lanyard but to that was attached a mini booklet with one's details on the first page and inside the agenda for the day. It would no doubt have sounded a great idea at the planning meeting but I have a feeling that absolutely no-one actually ever consulted said booklet which tended to open upside down and there was always someone around to ask what was happening and where anyway.

In fact, my urgent need after a 2½ journey was a loo and I didn't just get waved in a vague direction but a delightful young student took me to the appropriate door and even asked whether I'd be able to find my own way back again. That was something that did impress me throughout the day - the students (well, I am presuming they were students) were extraordinarily polite, smart-looking and helpful. Later in the day I was asked to go and get myself filmed giving views on the day and, again, it was a team from the College that ran that. Three really nice young people, professional and, whilst I have yet to find out how good their filming and editorial skills are, they did serve their College well. I have always found similar behaviour at my children's school when parents are dragged in for some talk or another but seldom have Further Education college students come across that well.

The purpose of these events has always been to inspire people to use new technology, new techniques in their teaching or in supporting learning. We get people from other colleges to show what they're doing, to talk about what they find works and some agencies or commercial organisations have stands promoting their services or wares. Once there might have been a string of these government agencies and quangos but now there's just LSIS. One commercial firm, whose name escaped me (which says something about their marketing prowess) was getting lots of attention by dropping iPads from a great height. Wrapped in some ghastly-looking rubber blob, the devices seemed to survive. Well, they would. But would I really want to go around with some huge, rather ugly-looking black rubbery blobby tyre wrapped around the thing? Hardly. It reminded me of the great big bumpers they sued to put on Volvos for a period in the 1970s. I am sure that, assuming Apple doesn't require future buyers to sign a form declaring that they'll never put one of these things on their products in public and kill the market immediately, this will be one of those products we giggle about in a few years' time. The same firm also had sheets of that unbendable but light plastic stuff with slits in that somehow would enable you to create an individual or group workspace or something. Yes. I moved on.

To get a coffee you queued at a table, spooned some instant granules into a cup and then had the challenge of working out how to extract water from one of several silver tube-like affairs with black plastic lids and a sort of spout. These things may look nice but there is never, ever, a clue as to what you're supposed to do. Or what may come out if you do manage to figure out the process. Luckily I was accompanied by someone familiar with the things and eventually managed to press the black part in the right way to get hot water.

Probably the best part of these events is the chance to chat with colleagues and find out what they're doing, meet new people with the same problems as you in making something work and perhaps hope that one of two of the people you meet might give you a chance to do some work for them or give a talk at a staff development session or even another conference.

Whilst I do get nervous prior to giving talks, it is something I always enjoy and get lots of appreciation for afterwards and I'd love to do more of that sort of thing. Our guest speaker this year was Lilian Soon, an intelligent and lively young lady who is particularly good at knowing what to do with mobile devices and getting people to share views using one or another set of web tools. I share a lot of her views and was delighted when she came out with a Google Presentation instead of PowerPoint and referred to VLEs with some disdain. Now that's something I haven't heard anyone else saying. She was a bit uncomplimentary about xtranormal, a nice site where you can make mini cartoon animations which I quite like and I never did find out why but, that minor point aside, she talked a great amount of sense. That is highly unusual for guest speakers at other events but we do seem to get good people at our e-Fairs.

A few minutes in, though, and despite her laudable intent, I did find myself itching to get up and take over. We were sitting in some theatre environment, shades of very dark grey everywhere, remnants of tape on the floor and with odd lights here and there shining directly at three or four of us in the audience and on the floor around her. She was standing on a tatty stage, quite a small area and you could sense that she wanted to wander around but couldn't easily. One leg kept flicking up in an endearing way as if she were about to start running somewhere but didn't. What she said was good but what she demonstrated didn't really work. There was a video of how Google Presentation could be used to create a supposedly stunning animation. I have seen something similar (and a lot better, actually) and this one was not very good. It really needed the background track which I believe contained music and some explanation of what the hell was going on. As it was, you could sense the audience wondering how they were supposed to make a presentation with the stated 450 slides, not to mention why. If anything, that would have put someone off Google Presentations for life.

Lilian then tried to get people to respond to a question by texting their responses which would then appear on the screen behind her. I suppose if she had gone off for a while we might have done something but fiddling around in that light with phones that may or may not have had a connection there wasn't a particularly popular activity and most of us were too busy listening to her anyway. There was also a most distracting animated swirly affair on another screen which repeatedly showed tweets to the e-Fair's hashtag. With a total about about six different messages that got quite annoying. Maybe if the software didn't whirl them around so much it would have been better. We've had these displays before and they been fine but not that one. So only three or four responses appeared and you got the sense that she was struggling a bit. It's all very well showing off these things but they do need to work and the audience needs to be given some ideas as to how they could actually be useful (and work) in a classroom, assuming classrooms are where students will be, of course, in future.

That topic she did touch on and I was pleased to see reference to a range of good on-line courses and materials like The Khan Academy and some American universities. In a similar talk I gave a while ago, though, I had illustrated what they did and what the interface looked like, as well as getting quite a wow moment when people saw the extraordinary list of topics that could be addressed. Lilian really missed those sort of opportunities, running along to the next item without actually making that much of an impression at the time. She was also really having difficulty with connections that simply didn't work with the dreaded NOT RESPONDING message appearing rather more often that any presenter wants to happen. This all serves to worry people who are there to see what they might perhaps try with technology. In a way, you can get away with these glitches and troubles with a highly technically aware audience but not with people who are nervous about what they can do. If she can't work it then what chance do I have? was a theme running around the section of the theatre I was in and I suspect it was wider too.

So, whilst our guest speaker certainly had all the right ideas and such good intent, and did make several great points along the way, it was nothing like as good as she could have been. Luckily, all her items are available on-line and many will go and see some of them as they should have appeared so all need not be lost.

Most of the day would have been spent by people going around the Show And Tell area where nice people from places from Norwich to Bedford, stopping off at Chelmsford and Cambridge on the way, had pcs displaying whatever they'd been working on at their own institutions. Bedford had a student progress tool that could be plugged in to moodle. It looked remarkably similar to the Google Spreadsheet I have been using for years. It was pretty and I am sure there is something about it that would make all the effort put into its development worthwhile but, in terms of simply showing students or managers the progress through units there wasn't much I could see. I guess the automation of its updating when students upload assignments would be a plus but how difficult is it to add a tick to a spreadsheet box? I also wonder how many of my old colleagues would have wanted their students' progress shown as nil (because they hadn't actually handed stuff in) when they were, in fact, doing well, working on them - which was why my sheet had that element of 'seen to be working well' or something like that in a different shade so that anyone observing my or their progress needn't panic. If the sheet picks up all the criteria from some database of BTEC modules, though, now that could be useful - but will they share it? Now there's the rub. For a price, no doubt, knowing Roy Currie!

Lilian had mentioned one excellent point that I've just remembered: here we all are looking at wonderful bits of software and doing this or that with it but what does it actually achieve? Sometimes all it does is show things differently but doesn't really help them learn any better. It can take longer to put something on a VLE than to put it on a blog or your own web site. Do students really appreciate VLEs any more? There are other ways to do things. In fact, I gave that speech way, way back in 2005 at exactly the same College!

One of the best bits of technology on display was from Norwich, where Phil Ackroyd had a dozen mice which people could use at the same time and have their individual marks or whatever displayed on one screen. He told us about Microsoft's free add-in called Multiple Mouse. I hadn't heard of that before and, whilst it did look a bit chaotic at times, I can well imagine how teachers could use this in a class with wireless mice and something like a voting form or marking areas on a drawing. Very simple and that went down really well.

JISC TechDis were on display as well with their well-researched and respected assistive technology. So too was an Apple TV something or other that I'm afraid I didn't get a chance to investigate as thoroughly as I should. Someone was also doing wonderful things with QR codes but the last upgrade on my phone had wiped out a whole pile of apps and QR Reader was one of them. That was several months ago which rather brings it home as to how useful these blurry squares really are in day-to-day life. Yes, I can see the value of a quick way to give people links to material but until some reader is embedded in devices rather than having to be installed and activated it's not for me. Just give me a simple web address. The guy with the codes I remember seeing at another E-learning Forum event some time ago. There he had shown us Google Goggles too and created a brilliant show based on that and QR codes. Today he was at a small desk covered, literally covered, in gadgets but none of them were the sort of thing you wanted to pick up and play with. They may well have been wonderful things and he is definitely someone who knows what he's talking about but maybe needs a little better promotion and organisation next time.

Rod Paley from Xtensis had some cool web templates under construction which looked like an interesting mix of social network and resource sharing for educators. I could see that the structure his colleagues had developed could be a winner in all sorts of fields so that should be worth following. These guys often come up with attractive designs and clever animations and present piles of data well but never quite hit the big time. I may well be working with them for some project I have on the go at the moment. More about that somewhere else. Whoever does the designs had a marble theme this time which was fun and the one and only freebie this year was a bag of XtLearn.net marbles. I managed to get the very last one going. That'll please the kids. Now there's promotion that works - that is, I think, the first link I've put in this article. (I may well go back and ad a few more later.)

Finally, it's the end and Gerard Harper, the RSC Eastern team manager, does his thanks for coming bit and we all clap quite a lot. He wasn't on his best form this year, possibly the harsh-looking cuts to his budget next year were on his mind and leaving him a little lacklustre this time. He's an amiable and well-informed and well-connected chap and, with his team, work very hard to put these events together and in running several varieties of forum throughout the year. These events were once led by the Eastern Region E-learning Forum itself, Gerard's being the agency that supported them and helped make them happen. LSDA, Becta, NLN, Ferl and goodness knows who else would have their logos on the programmes (which I used to design too!) but only LSDA ever put any money into the kitty and even that wasn't much. I did like the fact that the Forum was independent, though, and I have to pay due respect for Gerard's outfit not totally taking them over and allowing anyone, within reason, who wants to show or have a stand use the opportunity. The events are all RSC branded now and they do everything. I just turn up nowadays and didn't even get to pick the prize-winners this time. I was thinking of resigning as Chairman of this E-learning Forum, thinking that there might not be that much more we could do and having little influence on anything at meetings but, after seeing just how little most practitioners and institutions have moved over the years, I can see there is a massive amount still that can be done, needs to be done and, perhaps, it is time to shout a little louder.

Despite all their best efforts, none of the agencies has really had the impact I would have expected after all these years at the classroom interface. Smartboards, VLEs, on-line materials and all the peripheral uses for devices would have happened anyway. On-line courses and the exciting possibilities offered by 'flipping the classroom' or variations of these themes are happening anyway. Universities are slowly waking up and doing things their own way, especially in the States and with Google and other major players. We seem to have lost that connection with the Giants. We need them, whether people, consortia or big companies. The Forum most definitely has a purpose to its existence and the chance to discuss with colleagues what is happening and to share all the super knowledge that exists in out community remains and I want to see that flourish and draw in more people from sectors we haven't yet reached. The Fair, as an annual event we look forward to, should continue and I'm happy for JISC RSC to take care of the organisation of it all but I want the Giants there not just mentioned in passing.

I do blame myself to some extent. I haven't been active enough. Since the last reorganisation at my college I have been tied to a timetable and simply unable to get to meetings or sessions for several years and have had to turn down invitations of give excuses. I even managed get the date wrong last year and miss the Fair completely! I'm free of all that now. So it's time to get my act together, get the Forum back on the road as it once was, get inspirational colleagues back on board and starting doing what we should be doing - demonstrating excellent practice ourselves which, regrettably, didn't really happen this year as well as it might. Few will have noticed, and I am confident that JISC RSC will, once again, get glowing reports on their feedback sheets but I should have added a line to mine: "They worked hard but could do better."

Dunstable Departure

I finally have a date when I shall be free from the chains of Further Education college employment. From 30 June 2012 the daily trudge through traffic on the A5 south of Milton Keynes ends and I need no longer fear retribution for not including references to Equality Act strands in my lesson plans.

I shall continue with my role at Middlesex University but to have so much flexibility as to when I can meet current clients and potential new ones will be marvellous. In many ways, I wish I had retired from what was then Dunstable College several years ago as everything worthwhile that I have achieved recently has been completed in my own time - late evenings, weekends and stolen days here and there. Once, I felt that I could make a difference at College, when, as their ILT/E-learning Co-ordinator and seconded to the Learning & Skills Development Agency and its successors for a proportion of that time too, my days were spent helping staff not just at Dunstable but across the country. Those were great days and, especially through LSDA's Q Projects, where I was in a position to fund small projects for using technology in teaching, and with chances to speak to audiences at various agency gatherings, personally rewarding.

With a bit of luck I shall be able to pick up some of that type of work again although, with most funding sources drying up now, I guess it will have to be from persuading budget holders that spending a few hundred on yours truly will be beneficial.

There are many ideas that I'd like to launch but I know I can't do them all! Here's a flavour of where I may concentrate my initial efforts.

Staff ICT Skills Audit

Already being trialled by institutions here as well as in the States, I shall be working with colleagues to promote this simple way to discover who your ICT stars are and who needs a bit of extra help in this vital field.

On-line Surveys

Combining my skills in design and data analysis, I look forward to offering a complete service to those wanting to ask questions and get results - all on-line.

Web Tools

Staff development sessions on new and free tools and applications that can make a difference in course management and the learning experience.

Web Design

Sites that look good and do what people want them to do. Simply.

Images

With huge picture files still causing trouble all over the place - from e-mail attachments and use on-line to those that are in desperate need of a bit of editing - some staff development sessions to explain everything ought to be fun and worthwhile for a wide range of people, and not just in education either, I suppose.

VLEs

What's wrong with today's virtual learning environments (or MLEs as they may be termed in the States) is worthy of a separate article so I'll be brief here! Here, the UK Government gave institutions a pot of money years ago and they all rushed out and got WebCT, Blackboard, moodle or something similar. So what's happened since? Not a lot. Yes, most courses now have some material and links to resources on-line. Yes, management can now tick some boxes about using technology, show statistics about student usage. But, with a few exceptions, most provision of this sort has become stale, clunky and I have even heard students moaning about moodle, preferring tutors' individual sites and portals to materials. That global solution that the corporate VLE brought has limited value now as a student-programme interface. It's time for a change and I will simply love moving forward the thinking of anyone prepared to listen.

On-line courses

This could well be The Big Thing this decade. It's early days now and, for many institutions, the thought that they may not actually have students wandering around their wonderfully glamorous, glassy and smart premises that have cost taxpayers billions in a few years' time isn't one that does much for a Principal's ego, never mind career. I warn them all now, though: change is coming. Given the choice, at least a third of your students on full-time National Diploma-style programmes would prefer now to study at home in their own time and just attend a centre for tutorials, guidance and specific topic days on a few days a term. Once the others start to see the quality and range of qualifications that can be delivered on-line instead of in class then that proportion can only rise. They're only still enrolling because no-one has told them that there might be an alternative. That's because there isn't yet but I shall be doing my best to design and create one, or, more probably, promote what someone is bound to have ready first!

I may think of some other things to do but these ought to keep me occupied quite happily for a while after 1 July. I would, of course, also be delighted to hear from anyone who can make use of my time and skills!

FREE. FE Divided By These Things†.

Remarkable things are happening in the world of learning these days. Over a decade ago I put my first exercises, notes and tests on The Studyzone, really just with the idea of making my life easier - instead of taking piles of paper around with me I could access whatever I needed in the classroom. Then I realised that students who either missed a session or wanted to move forward more quickly could do so from home or work and, in a wonderfully new-sounding course at the time, IT2000 had 12 units at levels from beginner to advanced validated by the Open College Network which could be taken on-line with as much or as little communication from me as participants wanted. I also slowly added more and more of the materials and links to official assessment criteria and the like I needed for whatever I happened to be teaching and, as the years progressed, a good range of units built up.

My main purpose, however, remained the provision of easy access to guidance, information and tasks for students rather than expecting anyone to do the whole thing without coming into the classroom at the College where they'd enrolled.

Then, a few years ago, I heard about some interesting developments by the people at Edufire where complete chunks of courses in a whole range of things could be done totally on-line. Just as well, I suppose, as most of the tutors lived miles, if not several thousand miles away! Broadband speeds and technology had begun to permit video to be streamed at a rate that meant stuttering and freezing was becoming less of a problem. People did need to pay for many of these, though, and to join an on-line 'class' at set times. This may have suited quite a few but both aspects would be inclined to limit take-up so, whilst this still is an excellent development, and one where I'm happy to be a tutor too, it's more of a step in the evolution of learning that takes us a little further along the road I'm observing.

Shortly afterwards I was appointed an Associate Lecturer at Middlesex University's Institute of Work Based Learning where all the students were distant learners. The technology involved was pretty basic but the whole of the undergraduate or postgraduate courses were studied and supported on-line, including the viva element of a Masters programme, where, traditionally colleagues would interview the student and discuss various aspects of his or her project over a glass or two of fine wine but now didn't need to share the wine, this not being an obvious facility that Skype offered.

Along came The Khan Academy. well, it had probably been there for ages so I should say 'along came my noticing The Khan Academy!' This blew me away. I thought it was just a few videos of someone chatting while scribbling on a blackboard but I soon saw the extent to which this has grown and now my two sons use the Maths section regularly and are rapidly progressing through the stages and learning lots as they go. Which, of course, is the whole point of all this.

Then some really good universities began to offer courses that could be studied and assessed on-line and, most significantly, students would gain a certificate accrediting their success from that institution or, at least, a department within that institution which was almost as good as the real thing. I have recently published the amazing introductory course being offered by two wonderfully renowned professors operating through Udacity and now find that there is already a massive list of great courses being offered by prominent and well-respected institutions. All free and many with some form of accreditation and certification. There may be better but The Open Culture site, apart from the annoying ads at the top which I plead with you to ignore, seems to have a comprehensive and well-researched list.

The massively impressive Massachusetts Institute of Technology now launch MITx with their free on-line learning offer. They make a point of emphasising that their on-line courses are the same as those delivered in classes in terms of range and scope and that the same assessment standards will apply, making these totally free, totally on-line courses opportunities for students anywhere in the world to achieve an MIT qualification. Well, an MITx qualification. As I said, there have to be some issues to resolve when it comes to assessment still. There are many examples of students' attempts to fool tutors in class as it is through various combinations of Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V, using others to complete assignments or just getting a lot more help than they should had they really known what they were talking about. Wise, especially streetwise, tutors can spot these cheats on most occasions but even Turnitin or similar software isn't going to be up to the job of detecting whether someone you don't know did the work or was it someone else you don't know?

I suggested to my class of about 30 students earlier this year that they might be an alternative option to coming in to College and over 50% were interested in the idea of studying at their own pace on-line if they could still achieve a decent qualification at the end of the day. That was when I said there'd have to be a fee which might not be fully covered by grants. Make it free and that percentage can only rise.

This is all happening much more quickly than I'd expected. I had had thoughts just a few months ago of finding a suitable institution and setting up an on-line 'university' where programmes could be delivered at Foundation Degree level and with the idea of competing with FE BTEC-type Level 3 Diploma courses. Now I am beginning to think that there will soon be a range of alternatives at reputable institutions already out there for them. And they'll be free. Once employers start to recognise such programmes and accept them as equal alternatives to the traditional form then whatever troubles FE Colleges think they face now will seem tiny if they don't make substantial changes to how they provide teaching and learning.

E-learning certainly rules. Free could be the beginning of the end of FE as we know it. I think I my just take that offer of Voluntary Redundancy after all.

†For those who didn't do Latin at school, re can mean by these things.

Eight Out Of Ten Cats...

I first had this idea about a year ago. Now I'm beginning to see others saying similar things and, although I haven't quite got my head around exactly what I want to do, here's the gist of it. I see college students at various places where I work every day and must have about 100 at the moment that I'm teaching at some point or other through the week. (My remarks are a general summary of what I find overall and do not necessarily all relate to any one institution). Some students are bright, some have trouble understanding their timetable, never mind assignment instructions. Some arrive on time for their 9 o'clock session, most don't. Some actually do some useful work during the session. Most don't.

Now you're probably already shaking your fist at the screen or shouting at me something to the effect that this shows a good number have no respect for the college rules, me or that they should be disciplined, thrown off the course and that it's all my fault. If I were a better tutor or course manager then everything in the garden would be lovely...

I have, therefore, asked them for some honest reasons as to why they either arrive late and my colleagues for similarly honest reasons as to why the ones that struggle are on the course in the first place. I knew the answers already but it was good to get confirmation. All many students really want to do is stay on a course for as long as they can or until they get a job. They want to go to university next and that will allow a further extension before they really will have to start working full-time. Few have any real hope of getting a decent full-time job when they leave school so they come to college. Those that might have done well at job interviews are probably the ones who also got good grades at school and so could either go straight to university instead or are the few bright sparks who I've got, with grades that were just not quite good enough so they're doing A level equivalent courses at college and then hoping to go to university.

By far the majority didn't do very well at school, maybe scraped through a few GCSEs and now are scraping through another batch of subjects at college. Several at one place had wanted to do something other than what they're enrolled on but the department managers in that area had got their act together and insisted on decent GSCEs and references before taking students on. So the students tried a department where tutors were instructed to take almost anyone because the numbers enrolled had to meet some target. Not meeting the target would mean fewer teaching hours and so fewer tutors. Someone also said that the college has a pastoral role, care in the community and all that. If they didn't take them they'd be roaming the streets so they were doing the local community a service. Some students had some pretty dodgy behaviour history too and, if their parents weren't going to show them some good practice then that was the college's role too. So we finish up with a class comprising a few who genuinely want to study that subject and have the right attitude and a load that don't really and haven't.

Because their parents get quite considerable tax breaks or income support for them remaining in full-time education, and some do still get an Educational Maintenance Allowance or similar weekly payment for attending too, there is massive pressure at home for them to be a college student. Some I've spoken to would, in fact, be content doing some part-time work and gaining some experience in the real world, even tedious jobs, but their parents insist that they stay at college. So stay they do. They've worked out that it is almost impossible to remove them from a course unless they behave absolutely ridiculously badly and, although some can be a pain, they know how to play the game and don't cause trouble on the premises. They've also worked out that they don't need to attend many classes to pass the course. They just need to do a pile of assignments. There are a lot of assignments but no exams so, as long as they hand something in sometime before June that is good enough to get past the basic criteria then that's all that's needed and, remarkably sometimes, they do finally come in with what's required although quite where they've got it from is often a question not easily answered.

Of course, passing, say a level 2 course means that they can move on next year to a level 3 course. That lasts another two years so colleges have got them for three years at least. That's money in the bank for the college, for their parents and a qualification to boot that can probably then get them into one of the less concerned universities where they'll have another three years not having to worry about getting a job and support continuing to trickle into the home too.

Commands from on high about attendance targets and success rates pervade all that tutors do. If someone has them missing attendance ticks from the register then they get hauled before panels and get planted on some action plan form or another that is supposed to correct things. So now tutors don't bother. As long as they see them at some point in the day and know they're alive then they're there and their attendance figures look exemplary. They may not get the maintenance grants (as no-one will sign those unless they turn up) but there are rather fewer of those now and the sums are less significant too.

For success rates, with everyone staying the course and handing in bare pass material then job done, 100% thank you very much. Well, there's always one or two who do drop out, move home, get arrested or something so it's nearer 80-90% but that's OK. The college can publish reasonable figures and everyone's happy.

Except they're not. The bright sparks who want to study and learn more in lessons don't get a chance to when the others are around. Either there's too much noise, not enough pcs or the tutor is constantly having to ask some to stop playing games, turn off the phone, demand explanations of why they are they late etc. Some actually quite like it when the others are really late or don't turn up at all. For example, I can get on really well and move some of the students way forward and discuss progress properly with them. Not all my colleagues, understandably however, allow the others that flexibility and the good ones suffer as a result.

So the others are not so happy either. I may ignore the passenger students and basically let them play the game but they have a rough time with colleagues who don't. So those colleagues don't have the best of days when they're teaching that group either where many just reluctantly sit in the sessions waiting for break time.

All in all, this is a disaster. Something has to change and this is what I'd like to do. Sweep away the classrooms, the timetables and even some of the courses too. Enrol everyone on a new type of programme that provides the skills that employers demand nowadays, in fact have been demanding for years but we don't seem to do a great deal about it. In their first year they do the basics, Maths, English, communication skills and the like plus some other useful modules that may be pertinent to their general career direction. Then they move on to the specific modules related to what they want to achieve. More often than not these would be shaped by employers because they would be helping to fund the education and offering to take some of them on at the end. So, where this applied, the students would be learning what the employers needed them to learn as a priority.

This programme could be a variation of a foundation degree in the UK for many of the existing level 3 candidates currently doing BTEC National Diploma type programmes which seem to be the bedrock for so many Further Education institutions. Attendance ceases to be an issue because the vast majority of learning can take place on-line, at home or wherever. When they want to learn, where they want to learn at a pace they want to learn at. I would suggest that regular 'workshops' are arranged whereby the tutors do meet the students face-to-face and can assist them individually with their progress or specific queries. This is the Work Based learning model that I have seen used effectively at Middlesex University and could be adapted with a little imagination and effort.

Existing institutions could run this type of programme with rooms cleared of pcs and clutter, furnished as pleasant enviornments where tutors and students can chat as well as work, using laptops, tablets, wireless networks etc. as well as a few pcs or macs. Only those institutions that could prove that they can work in the community with local employers to deliver what was required, though, would get the business so I guess many might close. This opens the door to other types of organisation to offer them instead and I don't see any big problem with that, provided that they can set up the appropriate quality controls over assessment and employ the staff to run things.

That brings me to the other matter - that of quality. Once the ridiculous, and, honestly they are laughable, targets and benchmarks for Further Education are binned then we can start to see both honest assessment and students passing because they genuinely have done what they should have done and all the nonsense about attendance and shouting at students who don't turn up at 9am or can't concentrate at 10:15am for some reason virtually disappears. Those who want to learn and get on will do, some quickly, some not so quickly - it's up to them to a large extent. With some guidance they manage their own learning. The quality of such figures as are produced will also be sound as there should be fewer reasons to want to fiddle them. Local competing institutions might even decide to work together. Good grief, that would be different!

Lastly, students on this type of programme would be free to work as and when they wished. As well as providing some much-needed income for themselves and, I suppose, their parents, they could be learning so much more about what work is actually like and, who knows, even get that thing about getting to places on time, behaving responsibly and even getting certain tasks completed on time! Just like they are constantly being asked to do at a college but which few actually ever seem to manage to achieve willingly. Employment is the answer to a lot of things. Employers can sack them. Tutors can't. Employers can offer real incentives that they recognise. Tutors can't. Employers can offer a tangible, realistic prospect of a future. Tutors can't.

So I would like to ask anyone out there who thinks they could support a Universal Foundation Degree programme along these lines to get in touch and, especially, to see whether there are any commercial organisations who might represent potential financial backers at the outset as setting this up takes time and money. I have a few expert e-learning colleagues who are interested in joining me with possible designs for modules that could be validated by a university to deliver some of the foundation modules referred to. Naturally, there will be a mass of other modules required to meet a wide range of future progression needs but, to a large extent, these ought to be available through tweaking of existing course units, modules or whatever.

After briefly outlining the idea to a group of 40 or so students some time ago, at least half of them said that they would have preferred to study that way if they had had the choice. Of the rest, they were evenly divided between those who liked the discipline and organisation of college as it stood and wanted to remain in a school-like environment. The others said they didn't mind, provided that they weren't worse off and could still get a qualification (and I'm not sure they were paying that much attention to what I was saying!) So my guess is that about 8 out of 10 of eligible students would, in fact, go for it - if the funding or grants were there. There does exist funding for part-time Foundation Degree programmes through Finance England but that is related to family income so its not ideal but I suspect there are other sources that those in the know might be able to tap to make such a venture feasible.

As I said, it's time for a change, and hopefully one where I can help make a difference!

If you need Learning Technology advice or expertise...

With LSN now in administration this may be a good time to remind anyone out there looking for Learning Technology skills or advice that I am available! Backed by some colleagues with many years' experience in industry, FE and HE (and with the JISC RSC Eastern Region E-learning Forum to consult if you have something really difficult for us!), you may find it reassuring that we don't pay ourselves the £160,000 a year that LSN paid John Stone.

The new E-people Consortium web site was something I was going to put together over the next month or so. I think I'd better do that this week now!

We can advise on anything LSN could do. So, if you've been let down or were thinking of asking them for help, contact me instead: design@andrewx.com

An alternative alphabet

Augmented banality

By the end of today I need to have some initial materials for nine new units or modules ready for students. You guys teaching Maths or History don't know how lucky you are that, for a large extent, the content is pretty constant. I've got to cover some at Level 2, some Level 3 and for a new HNC programme a couple of modules at Level 4 in things like web development or the impact of IT on business where, even if the technology hadn't changed much (which it has!) there are brand new sets of criteria that students have to meet this year so even if I had done it last year my stuff would need changing and, for the ones I have taken over, the last chap wasn't exactly hot on publishing material.

"It all has to be on moodle," announce managers. That seems to be the Holy Grail nowadays. "Stick it on moodle and we'll be able to tick the E-learning box for OFSTED." But have you tried making a reasonably attractive job of displaying materials on moodle? It's not easy. First it can take an age to upload every image that you want to work with and rearrange things on page and then you're faced with making moodle web pages look reasonable, which requires more than a little skill and some diving into the html code, and often finish up doing what every else does which is to make a list of Office documents and presentations. I understand that moodle 2.0 makes life much easier but we haven't got that.

I can see how it is a good idea to have a central one-stop shop for students. They log in and can get what they need. But that does depend on us all putting what they need there in the first place. And doing so in a way that is a bit more interesting and appealing than the contents page to a textbook with links to text documents that not only take an age to open but, when they do eventually appear, don't actually say much more than the textbook or an Edexcel web page says already. I have seen super examples of moodle being used well but invariably there's either a web design team or expert geek supporting them or even doing the display work.

Even then there are examples of nonsense. Well-designed, but still nonsense. As in the school that e-mails parents about some important announcement with a link in the body of the e-mail. You click the link and arrive at a beautifully laid out and themed moodle page. There is another link to click for the important announcement. PDF time. Long PDF time. Hurray! It's opened, and it's a size I can read without moving back six steps with a pair of binoculars the wrong way round. Two paragraphs. Important, yes. Glad I got the message but ... why on earth didn't they simply stick the text in the e-mail?!

Then I hear that some tutors in institutions get told to put their schemes of work somewhere completely different as well (or instead, I haven't figured out which yet). Not only is that place some drive on the staff server where they probably haven't visited since the 1990s but it's not somewhere they can access from home, and home is the only place they can actually get any work done in peace and with some reasonable software and equipment. As I said, I'm teaching web design, presenting information using IT and other modern, design-led modules like that where how I provide materials should be an example of the very same good practice I am trying to teach them!

My only solution is to produce all my stuff as I had planned, using all sorts of new ideas and applications that present it nicely and publish that on various blogs and web sites as before, and just putting links to it on the moodle pages for now. I can probably make the moodle pages, assuming someone has remembered to give me editing rights to them, and, indeed, has actually created the new ones I'll need, look a bit smarter with some images and design text for links rather than the odd default fonts and sizes with incorrect line spacing settings that display headings in larger fonts incorrectly when they require two lines. But the actual material will be somewhere else where I find much simpler to work with it all.

Of course that will land me in more trouble as I am apparently breaking some E-safety rule by using my own web spaces. If I remove any reference to a non-institution e-mail or non-course-related sections of my site then I may escape the men with the black bin liners. For a while, at least.

And there I was, getting quite excited about augmented reality after a super session at the Eastern Region E-learning Forum. I can probably mange to keep my students happy and well-provided for and stay in a job. But some colleagues I was speaking with really are still struggling, despite all the wonders of the new things happening around us. It really is time that someone has the courage to tell managers who reckon that adding Microsoft Office documents or PDFs and presentations to moodle and shared network drives is good E-learning practice in 2011 that they're wrong. It's just augmented banality.

Staff ICT Skills Audit Tool

Following yesterday's Eastern Region E-learning Forum I have had lots of requests to use this tool in institutions of all shapes and sizes. That's great and I shall be doing my best over the next few weeks. However, there's some help I need. Maybe someone at Google Docs can help or is there anyone out there with a bright idea?

The form collects data wonderfully and stores it all in a nice spreadsheet. So far so good. I can analyse this data using some formulae but it takes a while and sometimes I do like to watch tv or even teach students or mark their work. So what I really want is a tool or an application which will gather up whatever the user fills in and do the analysis for me then display it for them to see. I guess they'd need to click a Show Me My Results button or something to activate the extra feature and it needs some kind of health warning that, as I haven't seen the results myself and had a chance to spot some errors, they shouldn't get either over-excited or unduly depressed should the results appear impossibly good or embarrassingly bad.

The form is available here if you want to take a look.

A colleague at the Forum did mention something that I wrote down as 'flambaroo' but a search for that or variations of the name came up with nothing relevant. Now I know that someone who loves playing with PHP code and SQL could probably knock me up something and I have two possible sources of help for that but it's still a big job and, as I can imagine that different organisations will want slight tweaks made to things like the titles or department names and possibly even the question bank too and how it is compared to a benchmark, I would be forever bothering them with what sounds like a simple change but which actually takes them away from sleeping for several days in order to revise all their code.

If I can tweak things myself and get some magic application to do the night shift work instead of an ex-student who deserves some chance to get a life or a real job then I can survey the whole damn country and see if I can get Michael Gove to appoint me as an E-learning Tzar or something with a nice title and a bit of useful income. Or just gets some E-learning, ILT or ICT training work.

Answers on a postcard to design@andrewx.com or however you prefer!

Me-learning

At last, a chance to get out and talk to people about e-learning again! A nice day at The MØLLER Centre in Cambridge. I couldn't find the ALT code for a small version that character, sorry. The Eastern Region E-learning Forum, merged with the VLE and Technical Forums and probably the Staff Development Managers' one as well, and we all gathered in this lovely environment where we were well looked after by JISC Regional Support Centre colleagues.

Both speakers in the morning session had a similar theme - things you can do with a smartphone. It was such a relief that not once did I hear what is becoming an annoyingly generic term iPhone either. QR codes. I had inwardly groaned a bit when seeing this on the menu but the actual title 'Augmented Reality' was intriguing enough to make me pay some attention and I genuinely learned something. Dale from Exeter University explained nicely. QR codes are those strange square icons that are appearing everywhere nowadays. they contain some large box-like graphics in some corners and a load of dots in such a way that one would presume that there'll be quite a few combinations before they need QR2 with either smaller dots or larger icons. Each graphic represents a link to something. You can make your own and anyone with a smartphone with some QR code-reading app installed can then simply point the phone at the graphic and up will appear a bundle of information, usually a web site, about whatever it is the person who created the code wants to show.

Yes, there's danger there but never mind! While the chap was showing us some variations on the theme I downloaded a reader and tried it out. My first QR reading. I was quite pleased with myself and wondered why I hadn't done so ages ago. I think it's something about the graphic which I have to say I find quite annoying, almost offensive to look at. Why i should think that I don't know. perhaps my brain already has some software installed that simply sees the arrangement of black and white pixels and gets grumpy. I now know quite a bit about bats, for that was the material involved in this marvellous bit of research work done by Exeter University to enable students to wander around their campus with various devices and get told all about what creatures lurked there.

Prior to that I'd been dragged on stage to do a brief impression of a magician, sweeping away a cloak to reveal my Vice Chairman's innards being displayed on a huge screen by the QR code slapped on his shirtW we were both quite relieved that he hadn't worn it a little lower. thatw as a more advanced version which even moved as he did so as he jumped so too did his organs jiggle. Not the sort of thing you expect at an E-learning Forum at all.

We also got to see how Google Goggles identifies whatever you happen to point your phone at and comes up with a load of gen about that too. I knew about this but hadn't seen it in action. Great. I shall get that too. In fact, that could be even more useful and may be what can rid us of the nasty looking QR invasion as and when Goggles can do what the codes do and can maybe interpret individually designed items which don't have to be boxes of pixels.

A great time was had by all and I do hope that everyone responds really favourably to the surveys about how useful they find the RSCs as the Government seek to get them to justify their existence. Just get shot of LSIS and give the money to JISC RSCs, especially the Eastern people. That's what I say. Maybe I should make a QR code to link to a large message saying just that and then stick the codes all over the MPs' drinking areas, loos and wherever else they make decisions.

That's the odd thing about these QR things. You see one but may not necessarily know what it's going to tell you about. Could be fun.

Outside The Moller Centre, Cambridge is a fountain with worryingly straw coloured water

The World's Simplest On-line Safety Policy (well... America's, at least...)

This is an excellent article on the subject of child protection and how managers scared of their institution being sued ban access and stifle communication.

Someone should now write in a similar vein with adjustments to reflect UK legislation instead of America's. I'll have a go myself if nothing appears soon. I am tired of hearing about decent and good colleagues being threatened with dismissal because they share information over social network sites, their own web sites, wikis or whatever or dare to use their own e-mail rather than the institution's to communicate with a student.

And if you're reading this and can only think of one reason why any teacher might want to do so then I sincerely hope that my 14-year-old daughter and 9 and 12-year-old sons are not being taught by you or staff under your control.

It is time for good, innovative and decent teaching staff to stand up and be trusted.

"Please Sir, I'm bored." "OK. Go home and watch a movie."

As a colleague commented, "if everyone watched Salman Khan's talk at TED this year it would change the world." So find yourself a spare 20 mins and watch it - show it in class and see what the students think. Show it at the next staff development meeting in place of that tedious item on the agenda that no-one really has any enthusiasm for.

Although this talks mostly about learning maths there's a whole lot more out there. What really fires me up to write this on a sunny Saturday is how eloquently Salman Khan voices what I've been trying to get across for ages - and how much clear support he gets from the audience compared to the curious blank faces I get in some quarters when I challenge the value of the figures my traditional teaching is supposed to generate.

I am far more useful to students when they want me to tell them something, explain something or just help - not when I want them to be there. With exceptions, I guess, for a lecture or activity that is obviously something that they're all actually asking for where a session to do that makes sense, I really don't care who comes in when. In fact I would prefer that only those who want to learn something, discuss something or get help from me or colleagues do turn up. If the others that aren't ready to learn for some reason drag themselves in and sit morosely playing games or texting friends then they're nothing but a distraction and a pain as I do feel obliged to make some effort to get them at lest appearing to be active in case the Principal walks in again. But that is the only reason.

The vast range of abilities and enthusiasm for various modules that I encounter each year has forced me to look afresh at what I do every year.

So the first term I do the pretty traditional stuff and do tend to follow the rules. After that, though, it's over to them. They look at what I publish or check out ideas with friends outside the lesson and come in to share my time and attention on what they need individually. Looking at what Salman illustrates it could be that I could try that approach from the very start. That would need a bit of courage. The world of education is changing, though. I like to think I'm changing too. I just wish I didn't have to pretend that I'm not because lesson plans that all say 'Start | Wander around being helpful | Finish' don't exactly match the minute-by-minute script I am expected to produce and registers don't have a code for 'This guy is getting on really well in his own time and doesn't need to attend this session' or 'Worked with a group late yesterday and did more than he'd ever have done at 9am on a Monday'