Learning, Teaching and ICT

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote the first entry of a ‘two part’ post about a great weekend of CPD activities and I’ve finally managed to get around to writing part two (how time flies!).

The second CPD opportunity came about after I read that the Association of Chartered Teachers Scotland (ACTS) were having a buffet lunch in Aberdeen. I took advantage of some bargain rail fares and an even better accommodation bargain and set off early on the Friday afternoon (JV had left in the morning to do some sightseeing). Although I’m a member of ACTS, I’m not on the committee, but everyone who attended the lunch was invited to stay on for the open meeting. The committee members are to be commended for the hard work they do to help the association thrive. Dorothy and David - and a whole host of others regularly give up their free time to attend these meetings so that the ACTS vision can be realised.

I’ve copied the Vision and Aims statement from the ACTS blog:

VISION
To facilitate and encourage communication and collaboration within a community of Chartered Teachers

AIMS
· To support the community of Chartered Teachers in all its forms
· to encourage communication and collaboration between Chartered Teachers
· to encourage the provision of appropriate level CPD opportunities for Chartered Teachers
· to develop awareness of the professional identity of Chartered Teachers
· to make representation on issues affecting those in the Association of Chartered Teachers.

I’m proud of my Chartered Teacher status, and I explained my reason for embarking on the C T journey in a previous post. But what can I do, as a fully qualified Chartered Teacher  to realise these aims? Well – a few of us CTs in Falkirk got together and we’ve come up with some ideas:

• A CPD Session for Chartered Teachers or those who are close to achieving Chartered Teacher status

This CPD oppportunity is being organised/run by a few of us who have achieved the status.

We’re all going to tell of our experiences since gaining full Chartered Teacher status - and all have very different stories to tell! It won’t be a passive experience for those attending, though, and we’ve planned to make the event as collaborative as possible in the short time available.

• A CPD Session for those thinking about embarking on the Chartered Teacher Journey

This CPD opportunity is for those teachers who are contemplating the journey.

Again, all the presenters have very individual stories to tell. I think that’s the message we want to give – it’s a very personal journey and there’s no ‘one size fits all’ element – so lots of discussion during that event as well

• An Opportunity to Attend a TeachMeet Event

Beginning on Monday 27th September, Falkirk is holding a week long ‘Learning to Achieve’ festival.

Various events will be held all over the Falkirk area to celebrate learning and Teaching, and on the Thursday of that week there will be a TeachMeet in Carronshore primary School from 4-6pm. The group of Chartered teachers who organised the above CPD activities thought it would be a great idea to hold a Chartered TeachMeet in the same venue between 6.30 and 8pm. I should add that the requests to hold both the TeachMeets came from Falkirk staff who have never actually attended one, but had heard of the concept through the grapevine and thought it sounded like a great idea.

David Noble has agreed to chair the event, and Dorothy Coe has already signed up to give a 7 minute presentation (I’ll add my name soon – and will try my best to persuade some others here to do the same!)

• Finally…….

Writing this blog post has helped me realise that I’m going to be busy when I return to class teaching in August!

I’m not sure how I managed it, but I inadvertently left out one of my ‘Alumni Presentation’ slides from my last post. It must have been fate, though, because since then I helped to organise a very successful Safe and Responsible Use of the Internet workshop for teachers here in Falkirk. I know it was a success because of the comments on the evaluation sheets at the end of the workshop.

For example:

• “A very interesting and informative session. I now have lots of ideas to take forward and I’m looking forward to getting started with our cluster pilot”
• “What a great, helpful – even if scary – day. It certainly has made me even more aware of internet issues”
• “Very useful and a great opportunity to talk to other professionals. ALL presenters were very knowledgeable and inspirational”

The presenters mentioned in the last quote included Alan Hamilton and Ollie Bray. There was also input from Bill Sharp who voluntarily presents at Parent internet safety information evening here.

The day began with Ollie giving this great presentation:

• The fact that I’ll be more aware that children are not the same as they used to be! Ollie reminded us that today’s children have access to unlimited knowledge via the internet. Adults are no longer the ‘gatekeepers of knowledge’ – and some children are just not emotionally ready for some of the experiences. For example, ’real life tragedies’ can be viewed online via places like YouTube. It’s important to be aware that young people may not know who to talk to about something they’ve found very disturbing.
•  Wikipedia contains a massive amount of up to date information on heaps of topics – but it can also be used to illustrate the fact that not everything on the internet is accurate or even true. Ollie showed us some examples of Wikipedia acknowledging that something written there might not be correct.

Phrases like:

‘The factual accuracy is disputed’
‘This article contradicts another article’
‘This article contradicts itself’
‘This article reads like an advertisement’
‘This article needs additional citation for verification’

appear throughout the pages. I’ll be reading up on this post on Ollie’s blog to help me get some important messages across to students next session.

• ‘Digital Footprints’ were mentioned a lot in the presentation. This is something that I think might make young people think twice about the importance of having an appropriate online presence.
• Educating  students about Targeted Advertising is something I’d never have thought of before now. I have seen it happening when I order goods from online stores such as Amazon, but Ollie made me aware of how easy it is to make young people aware that it’s happening on their social network sites as well.
• Facebook privacy settings need to be taught and this is something I hope to do by requesting that the site be unblocked for staff and pupils – even for a very short time – to allow this to happen.

There were loads more ideas I noted down from Ollie’s presentation, but the short list above will certainly help me to spread the message in August – to staff as well as children?

After coffee,  Alan Hamilton  talked about the importance of sharing resources and why internet safety education is the responsibility of everyone. It’s not ok to keep on doing our own thing – we  need to share what we’re doing.  Sharing within local authorities is a start, but being able to share resources and ideas nationally is the ideal way forward (this is my interpretation of what he said, anyway!)

Just as an aside … I love the way Alan took the time to embed our Learning to Achieve logo into his powerpoint slides

He introduced us to the new Internet Safety and Responsible Use Glow group where we’ll be able to access ‘the latest resources, ideas and partner websites’

 Three steps are involved in the sharing mechanism:

• Step One entails identifying good online resources, etc - then evaluating these by trialling them in class. Searching in Google tends to be unhelpful for teachers because of the overwhelming number of returns (I’ve been there!)

Step Two is to do with teachers then tagging the best resources.  They might be suited to a particular stage – and within that stage, might cover distinct topics such as digital footprints, digital literacy, emotional literacy, etc.

Step Three  means that teachers can easily find suitable resources that have been ‘tried, tested and appropriately tagged’ by classroom practitioners.

And that was only the morning session!

 The following day I travelled to Aberdeen and met Dorothy Coe  and David Noble and learned more about the great work they (and others) do for the Association of Chartered Teachers Scotland

‘Day Two’ post to follow soon … 

Recently on twitter I noticed a comment by Fearghal Kelly . He wrote:

“As you can probably tell this has irked me. Ive been paying thousands for my MEd/CT I don’t want to be told what I can do with it”

I tried to trace the conversation that led up to him becoming so irritated and I discovered an exchange of views about the role of Chartered Teachers in Scottish education. it was apparent that there was a difference of opinion as to what this role should be. I’ve copied some of the comments from the twitter conversation here (I’ve left out the names of the contributors because some of them have chosen to protect their twitter updates).

• Do we encourage our best teachers to become CTs, to do research to apply for promoted posts or do we not want to lose them?
• is it not all about promoting cpd/learning however teachers want to do it? Then you end up with a great workforce.
• Is it not recognition for the process & learning which you have undertaken – in the past. That doesn’t go away when you leave!!
• So if they move into something else, what harm will that do? You now have a masters level educator out there you might not have
• Why? If you’ve paid yourself through a Masters why on earth should that close doors? Couldn’t disagree more!
• What are you going to do about CT’s who stay in the classroom but don’t do much to warrant the status/cash?
• I think financial rewards via promotion are readily available. CT status, for me, is a recognition rather than a promotion!
• Seems, again, just as with Senior Teacher, Chartered T is being used as a stepping stone away from the classroom.
• I thought the entire point of CT was to reward those that stayed in the classroom, without forcing them into promoted posts?

But it was the following statement that caused much of the controversy:

• I think any teacher leaving the classroom within 5 years of gaining CT status should have it rescinded!!!!

As a result of the ‘debate’,  Andrew Brown wrote this post.

I’ve copied just a small section of his post here:

“ …….To me, the entire point of CT was to reward and recognise someone’s dedication to classroom teaching. I have no objection to people taking up secondments and spending some time out of the classroom – in fact, I think many educators would benefit from doing so. But if someone is out for more that 5 years, are they dedicated to classroom practice? Should they go back in at the same level? I think that rescind is too strong a word, but I would call into question someone’s commitment to classroom teaching if they haven’t been doing it for more than five years.”

 I’ve tried to view the debate objectively, but this has been difficult because every individual has their own personal reasons for deciding to embark on the Chartered Teacher journey – different incentives. The reason for this blog post is to help me clarify what motivated me to spend almost 6 years (and a lot of money!) to gain full Chartered Teacher status. So here’s my story ….

• I’ve now been teaching for 15 years – and I distinctly remember graduating as a mature student swearing that I was finished with studying and writing essays/assignments. I’d spent 4 years at Moray House and had sacrificed a lot of time and effort getting that honours degree whilst bringing up three young children (thanks to JV’s contribution!)
• 7 or 8 years on, I was aware that the initial ‘buzz’ I’d felt at the start of my career had begun to dwindle.  Things were beginning to feel a little repetitive. Around that time, the Chartered Teacher initiative was launched and (after a LOT of soul searching) I was ready to ‘go for it’
• I learned loads during the first 8 modules (2 a year for 4 years) but it was a great deal of hard work …. Christmas and Easter holidays were always spent writing up essays explaining what I’d learned from the various action research projects I’d been involved in.
• I decided to combine the last 4 modules (2 years worth) into one large dissertation. It took me a while to collect the evidence (and a lot of blood, sweat and tears) so that I could write up the case study, but I’m enormously proud of it
• After graduating as a Chartered Teacher, I applied for a secondment post as an ICT Curriculum Support Officer. It’s a two year secondment, and I’ve spent my time sharing all the great things I learned from my C.T.  journey about how the use of free online tools can improve learning and teaching.

The twitter debate has led me to ask  questions about my right to retain C.T. status if I was  given the opportunity to continue to share what I’ve learned after my two year secondment was completed. I suppose the two questions in my mind are:

• Would my time be better spent back in the classroom using what I’ve learned to improve (hopefully) the education of my own primary school class? 
•  Would my time be better spent trying to spread what I’ve learned to colleagues who can then use this, in turn,  to (hopefully) improve the education of their pupils?

No matter what the answer is – I believe that I’ve earned the title of ‘Chartered Teacher’ and, as long as I’m continuing to try to make a difference to learning and teaching, why should it be rescinded?  Or maybe it’s the financial aspect that’s upsetting people???

Anyway, I’ve copied a bit from a post I wrote a while ago on here after attending the launch of The Association of Chartered Teachers in the Scottish Parliament building:

“…….I felt very proud to be part of the Association. The speeches were uplifting (as was the music!) and I’ll ‘bullet point’ just a few of the messages I heard on the day:

• It has to be a group decision as to what our role now is – it’s important not to sit passively and be told the way forward
• We are now in a unique position to take things forward…….”