More than 1,100 people, most of them teachers, packed into the Clyde Auditorium in Glasgow to hear Canadian education reform expert Michael Fullan talk about "Turnaround Schools, Turnaround Systems" at the opening of the two-day Scottish Learning Festival at Glasgow's SECC. Treating such a significant sample of the Scottish teaching profession to high-level, inspirational thinkers, including Professor Stephen Heppell and the QCA's Mick Waters (above), along with a comprehensive 150-seminar programme, a 150-stand exhibition of leading school suppliers and even a fringe festival, sets a new benchmark for teacher support and developments in the UK.
What started as a show focused extensively on the challenges presented by new technology and media has matured into a world-class learning festival, where advanced education policy and practice sets the stage for key speakers and seminars, and some impressive implementations of ICT in schools. While Scotland's new national network, GLOW, naturally took centre stage, there was real innovation and stimulation at the Fringe, where Channel 4's In the Wild debates, and Scottish teachers' ground-breaking TeachMeet07 set of presentations by teachers for teachers showed what can be built on to the success of purposeful, strategically planned events like the SLF. And the very good news is that TeachMeet07's organiser and presenter, the engaging and charismatic Ewan Macintosh, will probably be exporting the event to the BETT 2008 show in London in January.
The satisfying aspect of the SLF for anyone interested in new technologies and media in schools is that Scotland has managed to position teaching and learning firmly in the driving seat, with ICT in is proper place, supporting and extending the learning in ways that cannot be done any other way. It's a message that is stamped throughout, so that when Islay High School headteacher Dr Elizabeth Cunningham and her principal ICT teacher Ian Stuart presented on their progress in Scotland's Schools of Ambition programme - their transformation started even earlier, five years ago - there could be no doubt about the role of the ICT.
Islay High is probably the first school in Europe to achieve a 1:1 ration of computers to students, so there could be a temptation by outsiders to view it as a technology story. But that is not the view on the island, just off Scotland's west coast. "The ICT came from opening up learning, and experiencing as many courses as possible," said Ian Stuart. "We identified what we wanted to do in the learning and teaching. And then we decided not to use predominantly interactive whiteboard technology, but to use wireless projectors and interactive tablets [Samsung Q1 ultra-mobile PCs] which actually worked out cheaper. Then we could have really big screens with sound systems and our teachers could be out with the children, working and supporting them.
The Q1 was chosen because it most suited the style of teaching and learning they envisaged, and they waited a year before buying them to be convinced that battery life had sufficiently improved. They had been tipped off about UMPC technology by Microsoft, who had provided valuable open-ended advice on personalisation, free of any commercial pressures, said Ian Stuart. "It [ICT] is not the be all and end all," added Dr Cunningham. "It's another tool in the tool kit."
Channel 4's In the Wild brings TeachMeet to centre stage
While all the expected conference and exhibition facilities at the SLF were first rate (and there was free wifi this year - very welcome, BETT please take note), the birth of the fringe was an extremely healthy and welcome development. Channel 4 sponsorship, with its "In the Wild" afternoon sessions of presentations and debates, set the stage for the TeachMeet07 evening where presenters were given seven minutes each to present on the ICT for learning that most interested them.
Stuart Cosgrove, Channel 4's head of programmes with overall responsibility for the channel's programmes and creative development strategy outside London, chaired the "Wild" sessions. Working through a rather constructed opposition between Carol Green (did she really think that personalised learning "down south" would lead to an increase in narcissism and resultant depression and mental illness in children?) and musician and "digital utopian" Pat Kane led to some sparks and intermittent insights. The event took off with Ewan Macintosh, on digital snacking through the ages - "meat and two veg or pop tarts?"" and Channel 4's commissioning editor education Matt Locke outlining the challenges facing Channel 4's ambitious switch to "cross-platform broadcasting" (see "Channel 4's cross-platform education revolution" elsewhere on this site), The presentations brought out the difficulties of one generation second-guessing ways of engaging with an emerging one on its own terms.
Teachers finally got their "own" space with TeachMeet 2007. Organised via Facebook and a wiki that registered the presenters, the enthusiastic lurkers and the "diners" (sponsor Softease subsidised the after-event Mongolian banquet at nearby Kubla Khan restaurant), it was truly an event for and by teachers. And it offers interesting new models for teacher CPD with higher levels of engagement, insight and enjoyment (yes, fun).
There were far more presenters than could take to the stage, even at seven minutes a time, so Ewan McIntosh's on-screen fruit machine had to pull the names out at random. They ranged from John Johnson urging more teachers to use Edublogs and get blogging, through Shropshire's Steve Beard exploring Second Life for the new diplomas, handheld challenges from Becta's Andy Black, Iain Stanger on using Dartfish for sport and lot more, Ollie Bray on using Google Maps in class and Google "mash-ups", David Gilmore on edubuzz.org, Terry Freedman on his free book for teachers and its next edition (more on this shortly), through to Stephen Reid, from do-be on developing skills using low-cost MP4 recorders and podcasting.
Both events exploited social networking tools in their very organisation through Facebook (with photos posted on Flickr). And Policy Unplugged's Steve Moore, who organised the In the Wild event, showed the astonishing reach of Facebook - his extensive list of Facebook friends give him further access, through their contacts, to about a million contacts, raising the danger of oversubscribed events through over-enthusiastic canvassing.
The fringe is an area ripe for development, and the achievements so far are replicable for use elsewhere. It will be interesting to see whether BETT shows the flexibility necessary to start adopting some of the ideas.
For those who could not get to Glasgow, there's good news too. You can catch up on blogs and podcasts at the Connected Live section of the Learning and Teaching Scotland website.
More information
www.ltscotland.org.uk/connected/
www.ltscotland.org.uk
www.scottishlearningfestival.org.uk
Michael Fullan
www.michaelfullan.ca/
TeachMeet pics tagged as TeachMeet07 at:
Steve Moore
www.policyunplugged.net/steve_moore
Pat Kane
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/pat_kane/
Steve Beard blog on Second Life
http://tarannau.ethink.org.uk/2007/06/20/secondlife-in-shropshire/
Andy Black
http://andysblackhole.blogspot.com/
do be - be it
www.do-be.co.uk/index.html
