Jul

14

Programming for Androids with App Inventor

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Originally published on Open Source Schools.

It’s interesting how open source approaches are gradually tipping the balance in favour of open platforms when it comes to developing for smart phones. Whilst Apple’s highly locked down iOS4 platform continues to command a large slice of market share, things are gradually tipping the other way, with the news that for Q1 2010 in the US at least phones using Google’s open source Android platform (such as my shiny new HTC Desire :-) ) actually outsold Apple’s handsets. Although the iPad and iPhone 4 will have given Apple sales a boost, the connectivity problems with the iPhone when it’s held the wrong way, the continued absence of Flash support and the restrictive terms imposed on iOS developers are unlikely to do Apple many long term favours. Witness, for example, the removal from the App Store of the Scratch ‘player’.

At the moment, Apple continue to command a lead in the sheer number of apps available in their App Store when compared to the Android Marketplace. However, all this may now be set to change, with Google now inviting applications to access a beta of its App Inventor suite of applications, which takes the building block approach to programming familiar to users of Scratch via the Open Blocks Java Library to make it possible for pretty much anyone to make a start on creating their own mobile phone application, making use of all of Android’s core functionality like its accelerometer, GPS and text to speech, as well as interfacing with public APIs for services such as Google Apps and Twitter.
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Jul

8

On saving money…

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Oringinally posted at MerlinJohnOnline, but comments welcome below…

So far, things have not gone particularly well for ICT in schools under the new government. We’ve seen Becta’s funding withdrawn, the Rose curriculum thrown away, £100 Million removed from the ‘low priority’ Harnessing Technology grants and now BSF ‘frozen’. Mike Baker’s piece for the BBC on Saturday provided a good summary of the story so far. The worst, I fear, is yet to come with 25% cuts overall in public sector spending. The need to save money wherever possible suggests that open source may be the solution that had been waiting for this particular problem. I’ve remarked elsewhere on the fit between open source principles and coalition policy/rhetoric, but I suspect it’s the massive cost savings which open source could offer that will perhaps lead many to start exploring open source even if it doesn’t fit perfectly with their vision.

Becta’s 2005 survey of the total cost of ownership savings from open source is well worth another look, claiming savings of 24%-44%, but I think, with a little imagination and perhaps a little more courage, significantly greater savings would be possible. I offer below a few thoughts on how to do this, in part inspired by Ray Fleming’s list of ten money saving tips on his Microsoft UK Schools Blog, which include good, platform independent ideas like using virtualisation, switching on power management, and stopping photocopying and printing, although I don’t think Ray goes nearly far enough in terms of how much schools can save by doing things for free and for themselves. As with Ray’s list, some of the following aren’t specific to particular software solutions, but I think the freedom, community and empowerment that are at the heart of the open source movement characterise those suggestions which aren’t directly about open source software. Read more

Jul

2

Technology and the Rights of the Child

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My piece from today’s Naace newsletter.

My move from teaching to teacher training has brought many interesting opportunities and experiences: the freedoms to write our own courses and set our own exams are great, as is access to the university library’s online journal subscriptions, but so is the chance to attend events such as the seminar which one of Roehampton’s research centres ran to mark the 21st anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Let me give you a couple of general examples from the Convention, before looking at children’s rights in relation to ICT. Read more

May

28

Primary curriculum reform

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We live in interesting times.
I have no privileged information, but have been following the primary curriculum developments with some interest. My (personal) reading is that we’ll see something close to the Lib Dem manifesto commitment to ‘CurriculumLite’, ie a minimum core entitlement, with a degree of autonomy devolved to all schools in terms of how this is taught and, perhaps, on how it might be supplemented. The Secretary of State certainly seemed to be indicating this on the Today programme on Wednesday (http://goo.gl/D2Ut).
Gove maintained that the National Curriculum is “”too crowded and cluttered and too prescriptive”, whilst the first two may be the case, I think he may be confusing the statutory curriculum with the plethora of non-statutory ‘guidance’, such as QCDA schemes of work and numeracy and literacy frameworks in regard to the latter.
As to what the core contains, Gove indicated an entitlement to English, maths, with  British history and MFL being ‘encouraged’, although the latter may be restricted to Swedish ;-) There was, unsurprisingly, no reference to ICT.
My reading of the Academies Bill (http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2010-11/academieshl.html) is that the new primary academies and won’t be required to follow the National Curriculum, merely to provide a ‘broad and balanced’ curriculum as with registered independent schools. I would expect the same provisions to apply to the new Free Schools.
There’s are perceived contradictions over such things as his views on systematic synthetic phonics and the promised freedoms over how to teach, but from what he’s said elsewhere, my guess is that advice will be offered, but that schools who do well in SATs and impress Ofsted won’t be required to conform.
The announcement yesterday (http://education.gov.uk/news/letters/gove-qcda-270510) that QCDA is to be wound down rather confirms this – is that the SATs are here to stay but that Gove wants QCDA ‘to withdraw as soon and as far as is practicable’ from the curriculum.
Where then does this leave us?
I think we’ll see some specification of a minimum core curriculum for LA schools, and a requirement for ‘breadth and balance’ for other (ie academies, free and independent) schools. How this is taught and supplemented will be down to governing bodies and headteachers, although I’d expect to see a number of organisations (including local authorities, publishers and other groups) developing their own curricula, covering the common core but providing their own particular approaches and extensions to this: the Rose recommendations might be one such approach, as might the Alexander model (http://www.primaryreview.org.uk/), IBO Primary Years Programme (http://www.ibo.org/pyp/), a primary version of Futurelab’s Enquiring Minds approach (http://www.enquiringminds.org.uk/), materials developed through the RSA’s Whole Education project (http://www.wholeeducation.org/), or the commercial Dore creative curriculum (http://www.doretolearning.co.uk/).
The maintenance of core entitlement and robust accountability measures would, I think, open up many interesting possibilities, and indeed the responsibility, for schools to offer distinctive, challenging and relevant curricula reflecting their unique character. I don’t doubt that many schools will be eager to ensure that their curriculum makes the best possible use of technology to enhance learning and teaching.

We live in interesting times.

I have no privileged information, but have been following the primary curriculum developments with some interest. My (personal) reading is that the Education and Children bill promised for the autumn will have something close to the Lib Dem manifesto commitment to ‘CurriculumLite’, ie a minimum core entitlement, with a degree of autonomy devolved to all schools in terms of how this is taught and, perhaps, on how it might be supplemented. The Secretary of State certainly seemed to be indicating this on the Today programme on Wednesday. Read more

May

24

On Becta’s closure

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Originally posted at Open Source Schools. Declaration of interest: the Open Source Schools project, for which I have the honour to act as community manager, is funded by Becta, although I’ve written the following in a purely personal capacity.

The Treasury announced this morning that Becta is to close as part of a package of some £670M education savings.

I, for one, would like to record my gratitude for all Becta have done to lead the adoption of technology in education over the last few years. Their interest in, and support for, open source software pre-dates my own: I have fond memories of attending an excellent ‘expert technology seminar’ chaired by Dr Malcolm Herbert, then one of the Becta team, now at RedHat, back in 2000 when I was head of maths and IT at a school in Oxford, just starting to experiment with Linux and setting up a Samba server. Despite others’ comments on Twitter and in response to Rory Cellan-Jones’ article, Becta have done much to encourage schools to explore open source, albeit in a way which maintained the level playing field that was part of Cabinet Office guidance, and subsequently the Conservative manifesto and the Coalition’s Programme for Government. Read more

Apr

8

Open Source Education

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My ‘provocation paper’ for the recent Open Source Schools think tank.

Open source or software freedom isn’t simply another way of procuring software, it’s more a state of mind, a particular attitude to technology. Of course, you can just treat it as a cheap way of getting high quality, robust code, and there’s certainly no requirement to grow a beard, wear sandals or drink real ale in order to install open source applications. However, the philosophies that lie at the core of open source as a movement are important, and, I think have much to offer to education more generally; furthermore, open source approaches to development can apply to things even more important than software, such as curriculum resources, school policies and even the curriculum itself. This brief paper seeks to explore some of these areas.

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Mar

8

Social Constructivism and Open Source

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Teachers TVLast November, I had the rather strage experience of having one of my lectures filmed, the resulting programme now having been broadcast on Teachers’ TV. Whilst the BBC haven’t yet been in touch about my taking over from Jonathan Ross, folks here might be interested in a 45′ peek into the day job, especially as the subject matter for that Friday’s lecture was ‘Social constructivism and open source software’.

MGB lecture

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Oct

20

A learning journey

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A personal reflection on my ‘learning journey’, written as an exercise for Roehampton’s PG Certificate in Learning and Teaching in HE.

Education is something I care passionately about.  I love to learn new things, I love to share the things I learn with others; I feel fortunate to follow a career which allows me to do something I love doing for my job!

A number of themes emerge from the way points I’ve selected from my personal learning journey – autonomy and independent learning, participation in a community of practice and a willingness to pursue excellence. These are factors which fit well with IT as my subject domain; computers and the net are great tools to facilitate independent, autonomous learning, the web has made it much easier to participate in distributed communities, both formal and informal, and the interactive, provisional nature of computer based work facilitates an iterative process of development. These shouldn’t detract from the idea that learning is fun. Right from early years up, discovering new things about ourselves and our world is, I’m sure, an intrinsically exciting, fulfilling thing. Enjoyment features highly too in my experience of technology, and my aspirations for IT education. Read more

Sep

27

Open Source Projects as Communities of Practice

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It was a great pleasure to attend last Tuesday’s Mirandamod to hear Etienne Wenger discussing communities of practice (CoP), with particular relation to education, both in schools and, particularly, in relation to teachers’ continuing professional development. I’m sure that the CoP approach to CPD is both more fulfilling for the individual and more effective for the profession than the traditional training model of courses and powerpoints that we see so much of: my own professional development has owed far more to colleagues in the various staff rooms, communities and networks with which I’ve been associated, not least MirandaNet, SchoolForge and Naace, than the training courses I’ve occasionally been sent on; I doubt my experience is that unusual.

Mirandamods are a particular style of unconference, bringing something of the reflection of an academic seminar to the participatory, micropresentation format of a teachmeet, and thus I took my turn presenting, taking the above title as my theme. Read more

Sep

20

Firefox is my PLE

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firefoxMoving between Windows computers in my new office and teaching rooms, my Ubuntu netbook and my MacBook Pro, I find myself relying more and more on web-based tools, particularly google mail, calendar and docs. I also find myself valuing ever more highly Mozilla Firefox’s rich armoury of extensions, which are rapidly transforming the humble web-browser into my portable desktop and, in effect, my personal learning environment. Below are a few of the extensions I’ve discovered, but I’d be very interested to hear about extensions you use yourself, and any you use with pupils. Read more

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