George Orwell was a smooth man like myself, so this is obviously what he was getting at when he uttered this utterance. Personally, I have nothing against beards, apart from not being able to grow one. So it’s a bit off when they are stylish all of a sudden in Hipster-ville. When will extra-tall be cool? And will it result in an immediate increase in the height of door-frames? Discrimination is an ugly business…
Author: Bryan Mathers
-
Changing your world view
This looks all wrong, doesn’t it? The thing is, it’s not at all easy to change your current world view. In fact, we actively look for things that will confirm our existing world view. This, I now know, is called confirmation bias, which always reminds me of the Simon & Garfunkel line “a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest, hmm hmm hmm…”. I find the world a much more complicated place to live in being open to different world views, for to be open to other ideas we must also be open to our position being a bit wrong too. Feelings of doubt, uncertainty, and not being clever enough…
However inconvenient, this humility surely forms an essential ingredient of learning?
-
Learning to Credential
It was my pleasure this week to give a talk at the Bett Show this week alongside Dr Doug Belshaw of Digital Literacies & Open Badges fame. One of Doug’s points was that in Education, we’d like to think that the starting point for learning is the learning itself. Not so. Due to the nature of the system, we start with the Credential and work backwards. Ah. This is further illustrated by this graphic, highlighting the massive difference between prescriptive and descriptive pathways.
This resonates with my wapisasa journey too. Having set out to chart our Rookies (young people) on a path to surefire digital greatness, we prescriptively created a bunch of badges. However, after 6 months we sat down with our first Rookies and reviewed what had been the most valuable learning – which became a very different set of descriptive badges…
-
Digital Skills Sandwich
Sandwich anyone? I do love a good sandwich. If potatoes are the king of carbs, then surely bread is its queen? As an Irishman, I am of course very biased. Anyway, I digress…
The Digital Skills Sandwich is an idea that’s been rumbling around in my head for a while now. It’s seed germinates from the fact that it can often take a number of years to craft a vocational qualification. Great. Now, when it comes to Digital Skills, this poses a massive problem as the digital domain is evolving much faster than the qualification can be created. Not great. However, by shifting our focus from long journeys (like qualifications) to small steps of achievement, we can think in terms of a fluid collection of small achievements that are mapped on to a fixed generic standard framework, which could be given a wrapper of “meaning” by a third party such as an Awarding body. The Open Badge standard makes this possible. It’s new endorsement feature would also allow the small steps to be created by anyone, and included as part of a dynamic Sandwich filling. Crazy? Maybe. Hungry? You bet… -
Swiss Cheese Knowledge Gaps
This nugget of cheesy thinkery came from hearing Sal Khan speak at the BETT show. He talked about kids having “Swiss Cheese gaps” in their knowledge, and needing a growth mindset to close them.
To understand education culture, talk to the kids who are subject to it and see what they see. My experience of school was one of establishing my position in a “smartness pecking order” for each subject. This smartness somehow seemed a pre-destined attribute. That’s what I (and I assume bijillions of other kids) assumed to be true. This is why I found this metaphor helpful, as it allows me to see my knowledge gap as within my control. With that in mind, there has never been a better time to acquire knowledge…
-
Wanted: Honest Frank Feedback
It’s easy to look at what you’ve created and see it as either good or bad. The more you create, the more you get to know your own eyes and what they’re trying to tell you, and you realise that no creation is either good or bad. But after a while in the middle of a creation, your eyes stop seeing it. When it comes to asking for visual feedback, people see very different things – it’s heavily influenced by a product of the subconscious meaning each person has attached to the colours, aesthetic, shapes, fonts, spacing, words, etc. So, who are those people who will give you honest feedback, and tell you what their eyes see, wrapped up in a little cotton wool? Those people are gold-dust.
-
Personal Learning Network (PLN)
Twitter. Its like this thing, yeah, that you tweet stuff, yeah, but like you’re only allowed like 140 characters yeah – so like its really interesting and stuff…
This is how someone introduced me to twitter.
Now that I’ve been experimenting inside it for a while, I can point to a number of things (knowledge, ideas, creative expressions) and two-way relationships that I’m fairly sure I wouldn’t have come across any other way. As a result, I have learned a lot from my Personal Learning Network.
-
Catalyst of change
I had a very enjoyable conversation with Giles Anderton before Christmas, and this thought appeared. I see myself as a catalyst for change. But if I’m being honest, I realise that in the past I’ve been as resistant to change as the next guy – and not even for reasons I can clearly articulate. I once heard a Franciscan monk talk about setting your default position to any person as “yes”, as opposed to “no”. Maybe a similar attitude to change is also required (from me)? To go on a journey, your starting position really matters…
-
The Binary Decision
I’m now in the habit of carrying around a sketchbook and scribbling down a thought as it jumps around in my brain. I’ve recently noticed that being creative requires a lot of noticing (notice what i did there?…) In this instance I was noticing how decisions are rarely binary, even thought its in our nature to reduce them to a binary state in order to be able to make a decision we’re happy with.
-
Creativity in Schools
I watched this video clip of Dylan Wiliam talking about how important creativity in schools is. I worry – and I know a lot of others do to – about the lack of importance placed on this in schools, and in particular, secondary schools. In the UK, we’re going backwards. A lot of the responsibility must be placed at the feet of politicians who continue to tinker with the system in order to mimic their own warped view of education. This in itself shows a HUGE lack of creativity…
-
The Four Elements of Studentship
I met John Webber from Sussex Downs College recently, and discovered a number of common interests, including Open Badges. He sent through this thinking on his understanding of studentship, which I’ve taken the liberty of attempting to bring life a little….
-
Ideation and thinkery…
Oh, the need for a creative process in order to ideate and innovate! In my experience, people have different strengths when it comes to thinking, and without a recognition of this (and a process), one person’s sideways idea is discounted as silly, or even worse, seen as a threat. Tom Barrett’s blog entitled “The ebb and flow between divergent and convergent thinking” caught my eye, and before long I found myself pruning trees…