Shedding some light on Approaches to Primary Computing

Just finished reading a 'Guest Post' by Miles Berry about how to think through implementing Primary Computing.

You can find the post here - http://www.qaeducation.co.uk/guest-blog-planning-teaching-assessing-computing/ - and I'm guessing Miles was given a fairly strict word limit or had limited time because whilst it does provide a useful thought-piece to inform staff who are thinking about implementing Computing at the Primary level it leads to many more questions than answers.

I really like Miles linking the development of programming skills to 'projects' in other subjects and his mention of the work carried out by Seymour Papert in developing the LOGO programming language. I think many schools should look again at LOGO and not necessarily be bewitched by 'cool' systems such as Scratch. LOGO, used correctly and as Miles suggests with a pupil-centred approach, has a lot to offer both in terms of programming AND as an aid to other curriculum subjects. It's particularly important to regard programming as a way of solving problems or 'scratching an itch' as that is the motivation so often quoted by creative and effective 'hackers'.

Another key point that Miles identified is the collaborative nature of programming. I have been involved in developing software over some 35 years in education and in ALL of the projects I have been party to the development has involved teams of individuals working collaboratively to create a final product. This applies at both Primary and Secondary phases and, especially in the secondary phase, opens up the opportunity to involve those students who are not 'turned on' by coding but can offer effective input in other areas of the project.

On assessment, I also agree with Miles that removing the straight jacket of levels was a largely positive thing. Whilst levels gave certain people some 'comfort' and uniformity I rarely saw the same teacher assign the same level as a colleague from another school and as a tool for learner empowerment they were worse than useless. Miles goes someway towards the direction I would go but I would like to see assessment take a much more enlightened, albeit more difficult, approach and really embrace the kind of assessment for  learning espoused by Professors Dylan Wiliam and Paul Black in their "Inside the Black Box" work (http://weaeducation.typepad.co.uk/files/blackbox-1.pdf). Although initially more difficult for the teacher to implement, as staff, pupils and parents become attuned to this way of working the approach becomes much more joyous and involves much more interaction with learners than filling in forms and this is what many teachers say they crave.

So thanks Miles, a great post and I look forward to reading more from you.

Creating .... Creating Havoc Again

As I stated in my "In the beginning ..." post, I wanted this to be as anonymous as possible so that you, the reader, could focus on the ideas, examples, etc. rather than the person. I will, of course need to provide some details about me in order for you to take me seriously BUT I hope that my content will say more than my history.....

In order to do this, and to be as 'chaotic' as possible I needed to have a 'presence' on the Internet and I had seen someone post as "creating havoc again" on some educational technology forum many moons ago. At the time it had struck me as a great 'handle' so I checked if that was available in GMail and 'lo!' it was. The decision was made and I went out to try ad get as many 'creatinghavocagain' accounts as I could.

GMail and Google+
Creating a GMail account was easy but building my Google+ account seemed to be such a pain, especially as Google+ seemed to have real problems working across my 3G conection! It took ages to build my profile as the page seemed to time out a lot. However, it was much easier and quicker when I managed to find a super-fast broadband connection in a local library!! However, this is one to watch in the future... is Google+ a dog on a mobile connection? I hope not, since I would like to make it the hub of much of my discussion and content.

Facebook and Twitter
These two were, like GMail, equally easy and allowed me to set up accounts in minutes. I had chosen a nom de plume designed to be accepted by the Google+ and Facebook real names systems and so setting up accounts went well.

I also set up other accounts, most noticeably an About.me account which I a oping to use as a "front end" .... but we will see ..... some of the about.me set up is REALLY EASY, other parts seem a little contorted and weird! More on this as I progress.

Friends+Me
Now I've been down the rabbit hole of multiple social media accounts before and although you can work with them individually it just becomes a pain after a time. So I wanted a way to synchronise my social media life around one social network and, after some consideration, I chose Google+. There is a perception out there that Google+ is a bit of a 'Ghost Town' but in the area of education and education technology this is certainly not the case plus Google+ provides a great deal of control over the way that you and those who follow you interact. There were other reasons, and perhaps I will write about them, but for now just acept I wanted to use Google+

Hunting around some more I found a number of posts by +MikeElgan talking about the Friends+Me service that enables users to post on Google+ and have those posts routed to other social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

Setting up Friends+Me could not have been easier and now I am set up to create content in Google+ and have it delivered to both Facebook and Twitter .... we'll see how it works???

In the beginning ....

My fascination with digital technologies, especially the ways in which they support improved learning, started many, many years ago when I witnessed seemingly 'disruptive' students developing strategies, exploring higher order concepts and engaging in peer-learning around games consoles in pubs and clubs.

It just didn't seem right then, and even more so now, that education should 'write off' these young people who were clearly capable of taking part in very complex learning activities simply because the learning environment that they were being presented did not support their learning needs.

So that's when the seeds of my intrigue with digital tools was set.....

Over the years I have used IT to disrupt a variety of different learning and teaching organisations, often creating havoc, out of which an improved understanding of learning, and the ways in which IT can support learning, emerged to the benefit of students, staff and parents.

Many, many years and even more technologies later I am still frustrated by educations inability to make EFFECTIVE use of these tools and so I determined to start 'Creating Havoc Again' from a largely anonymous base.

I want to use 'Creating Havoc Again' to challenge the status quo, offer constructive, and practical, ways forward and explore different ideas, good and otherwise, that are proffered up by 'experts' and academics.

Whilst I remain anonymous I am sure that many who read these thoughts, and know me, will soon work out who I am. However, for everyone else I want my ideas, conversations and content to inform your opinion of whether it is of any value joining me on my journey.

I look forward to engaging with you in the future.