A creed for digital decision making

Image source: http://ccsindo.com/services.html

In today's ICT Steering Group meeting - the first I have chaired - we had a go at devising a creed. The idea being that this would provide direction and purpose to the group when buffeted by inevitable competing demands for changes to our systems. 

I gave members of the committee two minutes to write on post-it notes things that they considered to be immutable principles, whilst following these rules:

• Stick to ICT and systems
• Do not mention products or brand names
• Think about immutable principles/lines in the sand - future proof, independent of space and time...
• At least two; no more than four

Once they had done this we stuck the notes to a board and discussed them briefly. After the meeting I knocked together their responses into this creed:

We believe in working openly and collegiately. For us, technology is a servant not a master.

We believe in consensus built around evidence. We hold dear thorough, consistent and on-going training. We want everyone in our community empowered to wring every ounce of value from our systems. Unless excellence is constrained, we believe that simplicity trumps complexity, that less is usually more.

We believe in the power of technology to enhance collaboration and to make our community stronger. Teaching and learning lies at the heart of all our decisions about ICT. We reject the notion that digital systems are merely a substitute for analogue ones. We aspire to use ICT to transform – even redefine – the work that we do in our school. We aspire to use technology in ways that let the human spirit soar.

These beliefs define all that we do with technology in our school; they define us. We hold them to be immutable – transcending time, place and technology.

Amen.

Not a bad starting point, I reckon, for beginning to tackle ICT systems in any school.

Read More

Blogs I follow...

Someone asked me today for advice on what blogs to follow in the education world. I subscribe to blogs through Feedly, which presents a convenient way of keeping abreast of things in one place, and at my own leisure. Here are the ones I go to most frequently filed under things I consider to be 'work': Education and Productivity:

Education

Mr Kemp NZ - a fellow expat teacher, who shares some useful stuff around teaching and technology

@LeadingLearner - a great blog for leaders and those interested in the issues affecting schools in the UK, particularly. Some very thoughtful stuff here.

Becky Allen - a recent find for me, with some very thoughtful posts around CPD and data/tracking

David Didau - I seldom read a post of David's without feeling validated. I know it's bad to live in a filter bubble, but hey...!

Filling the Pail - superb for puncturing the group-think that sometimes infects staff rooms and PGCE courses

HMC blog - posts are sporadic, but there are occasionally some guest-post gems

Scenes from the battleground - overly strident at times, and gets a lot of flak for it, but talks sense

Nick Dennis - incredibly thoughtful and nuanced - a deep thinker

TeacherToolkit - a bit of a machine now, but nice that I knew Ross when it was all a lot smaller. He remains personally responsive on social media. Incredible.

Wellington Learning Centre - research and opinion from one of the UK's most famous schools

Tom Sherrington - quite simply a force of nature. Came to Bangkok recently and is as convincing in person as he is through the written word

SchoolsWeek - worth a look for the latest (UK-focused) goings=-on in education

John Tomsett - wrote the most honest and practical book on school leadership I have read. Always has sensible things to say.

Productivity

Cal Newport - put that mobile phone away!

Doug Belshaw - I learn from this guy every single time I either listen to his podcast or read his blog. One of life's beacons. Unbelievably productive

Seth Godin - one of those guys who trots out quotable aphorisms as though they were going out of fashion

I have hundreds of other blogs I follow in Feedly - too many really. But these are ones I'll tend to read when a new post appears.

Read More

From Postach.io to Blogger

I've taken the leap after nearly 5 years from Postach.io to Blogger. My blogging has been sporadic, and I resented having to pay $50/year for a service that I was rarely using. Also, I was getting frustrated by the formatting issues that seemed always to arise in the translation between Evernote and Postach.io. Lastly, as I think I will soon move away from Evernote this seemed like an obvious first step.

I plan to move as much of my digital existence as possible to Google. I know there are privacy issues with this, and there's the risk of having all my eggs in one basket - but Google's stuff is free and, for me, this is significant. The analytics are more intuitive on Blogger. Also, Grammarly now works across the Google suite of products and so I should be spared some blushes :-)

It's going to be a mammoth task transferring material across, and I may lose my Disqus comments (I've yet to investigate that problem) but if I tackle a post a day it should be manageable.

TJJ

14/4/2019

Read More

I don't belong to anybody; nor do you

Here's a little bugbear of mine: Headteachers who talk about staff as if they were personal possessions. 

In the past, when I've been introduced as 'my head of geography' or 'my deputy' I've always felt my toes curl. The rank and file work in service of the school, just as Headteachers do. Referring to staff as if they were indentured labourers toiling in the service of a magnanimous overlord gets my goat. 

Heads, please, if you must introduce staff by their title use: 'the head of geography', 'the director or IT'. To do otherwise is to elevate yourself to a status that is not yours. 

Have the humility to accept that, just like the rest of us, you are a salaried employee, whose tenure will end, working in the service of an institution that will likely long outlast you. 

Read More