Yesterday was the explanation. Today the event is the end of sports pages. Not that I read them very often but it also means that there is less space for the Education bit, also now without a section. There is a selection of reader Tweets and a guest space for the Digital Champion. But I can't find any sort of considered view on Gove at BETT that helps me.
Long ago there would have been a computer supplement on the Thursday during BETT and lots of space on the Tuesday after. Maybe there is more online but I'm responding to the printed product.
I don't think this will last for long. The circulation is about to drop quite sharply I would guess. I used to subscribe, now I buy it on certain days. Could the front cover on a Monday and Tuesday clearly state how many pages of media or education are inside? Otherwise it is a lottery.
I still think citizen journalism is the future of news, but probably with completely new structures.
Guardian in print is not that definitive about Gove at BETT (see next post) but I still think it is a news event. They republish tweets from ICT teachers who are upset by the criticism of current teaching. Probably any claim that school is boring would get some public support. But I think the Gove speech is worth looking at in detail and probably marks aq point in time after which tech is more central in UK schools. He is also right to claim that so far not much has changed in the model of teacher upfront at the blackboard.
I think universities face more change as they are largely based on a print culture around journals. Although these are now almost all digital there is still a print model. Defined dates for definitive publication. Exclusivity very important. I was recently shown as background what seemed to be a "proofready" journal article but not allowed to quote it presumably as it was waiting on publication. And this was for a show I think related to social media. BETT has more space for radio, podcasts, video and mashup. So if Gove mentions the wiki as an approved format, why not try it out?
There probably is a more recent post from Jeff Jarvis but my Google search found this frorm Buzzmachine
I think of the diagram a bit differently as the "story" in the middle can be repeated a few weeks later. Some of the rest stays the same. At the moment it is not at all clear what will happen in September. Some ICT continues. More computer science of some sort. But what is "digital literacy"? Will the schools appear as coherent with social media? I may find a better way to phrase this question some time later.
So this blog has enough links to return to from recent posts and this one
I have found the timetable from 2001 and a scan has worked ok.
Management Theory at Work 1<script type="text/javascript">(function() { var scribd = document.createElement("script"); scribd.type = "text/javascript"; scribd.async = true; scribd. src="http://www.scribd.com/javascripts/embed_code/inject.js" ; var s = document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(scribd, s); })();</script>
The LinkedIn version of Management Theory at Work 3 starts with a text from John Burgoyne that can be seen as an update on the original keynote. Search groups for "mtw3"
In today's print version we learn that more changes follow during the week. Sports section fitted into the main pages. Friday film and music maybe a bit smaller.
20p on a £ is more than most inflation. The people who subscribed after this hike may not have known about the reduced product.
Is there any alternative? Apparently there is no other business model for a newspaper.
But OhmyNews has a model for a news organisation. Mostly online with a printed weekly given away to promote it. The investment is in editing and training for citizen reporters. I wrote for the English language version while it lasted. The income for Korean electronics is reduced so I guess the income is no longer enough to run the English version as well.
I think OhmyNews was only reported twice, both in the Computer pages on a Thursday.
Why not send Alan Rusbridger to Korea for a week or so on a study tour? Trust the readership as an experiment.
Guardian Unlimited Talk was dumped and trashed. No warning, no backup, hundreds of developing stories as junk.
Meanwhile social media continues and there is a news sharing aspect. The Guardian print audience may continue handing over more money for less product for some time to come but eventually the online model for news will turn out to be different in several ways.
There may not be much time in the case of the Guardian.
I am still trying to work out what to make of Michae' Gove's announcements at BETT. I don't often find that I agree with what he says but on this occasion at least technology is getting some attention. There was not much apparent engagement with BETT from the Department for Education in 2011. So there is some change that can be explored.
There are a couple of blogs found so far that balance my enthusiasm.
Richard Hall sees the new policies as part of more general policies-
Government is closing down all public discourse that threatens or questions private profit maximisation or the extraction of value by corporations from our previously accrued social goods. Progress is to be realised by the privatisation and marketisation of public assets, and education is a pivotal terrain for making concrete and securing this neoliberal agenda.
But much later there is a statement on possible benefits from the situation
The crack in this revealed assault on education as a public good is Gove’s final statements connecting “an open-source curriculum” and “Disapplying [sic.] the ICT programme of study”. Gove talks here about freedom, and enabling teachers “to cover truly innovative, specialist and challenging topics.” This might be seen as an attempt by capital or corporations to enter, control and enclose what has previously been seen as open source or as the terrain previously set-out and negotiated by hacktivists. However, it does open up a space for educational technologists working with programmers and educationalists to challenge the dominant logic of how we construct and re-produce our educational worlds as commonly-defined, social goods.
It is this space that is interesting. I have found that Gove's speech is on YouTube with a Creative Commons licence and a link to the remix options. I have tried this out and it works ok. The edit might be improved with a download but at least there is the chance of adding comments in a way that will get public attention and is not often available with a speech.
Tech Czech is concerned at the commercial nature of BETT and the low visibility of open source options. It costs a lot to fill Olympia and the lack of volunteer stands is not really surprising.
There are links to one stand and a meeting. The Open Source village has not come back but I think the case is fairly well known and exists in the cloud.
The radio is presenting the Cloud as consumer electronics but I don't see why this prevents it from being public space. Newfield claims that "the future emerges in erratic bursts from the secret development operations at companies like Google" but the Cloud discussion may continue some other ideas that have a wider basis.
There is a debate about what the Gove announcements will mean as in what is possible in schools. I think it is worth studying this and checking out the wiki options.
Very interesting about how companies change or do not.
Also this may explain something about the Zi8 and other similar cameras. Kodak gave me one at IPEX as a blogger / press registered person. It is excellent. But I can't find them in the Exeter UK shops. I don't actually need another one but try to follow what is happening. There are other brands that seem to have better distribution.
This article seems to suggest that the cameras in phones will just get better. But I find that taking a card back to a desktop works fine. The file sizes are too large for phones at the moment.
He will say: "Imagine the dramatic change which could be possible in just a few years, once we remove the roadblock of the existing ICT curriculum. Instead of children bored out of their minds being taught how to use Word and Excel by bored teachers, we could have 11-year-olds able to write simple 2D computer animations using an MIT tool called Scratch.
I am still puzzled by "High Performance Jurisdictions". Who chooses the list? Why Massachusetts and not California?
But trying to find out more today reveals that my blog yesterday is a leading result on Google blogsearch. It started with Heppell at BETT 2011. By the end of the week there should be more info on a more coherent picture of just what these high performing jurisdictions are like.
I still think bandwidth will come into it.
Search YouTube on "Heppell, BETT" , recent video should turn up.
Google are supporting the Guardian on this one and also have quite a big stand. They may supply some of the central buzz that the BBC used to generate. BETT becomes globalised as UK institutions get weaker, just my impression.
Do people at BIS have a theory about "high performance jurisdictions" ? I'm sure bandwidth comes into it somewhere.
Guardian on computer science in schools tomorrow in print. Will they link to BBC? Previously they campaigned for BBC to drop any products that would turn up at BETT.
I have just managed to edit video from last year ahead of BETT in a couple of days time.
Stephen Heppeel may once again mention the unexpected. It is worth repeating as how we prepare for it remains a bit of an issue.
Last year I asked him why there has not been a transformation of schools and other education to adopt the web etc. Having done the edit I realise that he did answer the question. Pressures from technology and user expectations continue. The schools that block this out will find that things happen somewhere else. Later he suggests that new forms of learning will start in a few places before becoming general.
Maybe this relates to the "high performance jurisdictions" that the Department for Education is studying. I wonder which universities in the high performance areas have studied this. There is some overlap in technology and web access for all levels of education in various jurisdictions.
Not sure how much of my previous rave has been here and/or also in "Wifi Exeter". The year will include some cross posting and retro rewrites.
Anyway the story so far is that I am contributing to the Wild Show on Phonic FM in Exeter. I have played quite a lot of Aretha nd also Joss Stone. I was encouraged that despite the low stock/ display HMV sold out over Xmas.
But now I find that both name tags have been removed. Presumably these are national decisions. Joss Stone performs in Exeter on occasion and for some reason the UK in general is not as interested as the USA or Continental Europe. But this is the sort of thing that might sell if it was available.
A record store without Aretha has just completely lost it.
lots of headphones and mobile devices, so suggest start search with Aretha on Wikipedia.
There are still CDs in the computer exchange shop in the Guildhall shopping centre. Prices may be lower than marked but not high enough to be worth updating.
Ahead of BETT I am reminded of what I have failed to do since the last one. I find that recording video is much easier than finding time to edit and load to YouTube. Now I am allowed longer than 15 minutes it is even more complicated. I have some faster broadband but the render times seem to be getting longer. So there is still much stuff left over. And it makes me think that nothing happens all that quickly. Some of it is still current.
For example I did a short record of the dentist chair on the HapTEL stand or rather the TEL research project with the dentist chair as main feature. Fortunately they now have their own video on YouTube with reasonable lighting so all I have to do is copy the embed code.
hapTEL is shortlisted for a BETT award so there is still a connection even though there is no TEL stand.
(By the way I still think "Technology Enhanced Learning" started with print or even clay tablets. Mervyn Bragg this week on radio4 has suggested that voice story telling has been replaced. Maybe YouTube will bring it back. He could do some more programmes with extracts from BETT Radio)
There is also a video on Education Innovation, part of a discussion with BIS, the department for business and innovation that used to be the DTI.
Not sure if BIS will be there. Michael Gove will make a speech. Maybe he will comment on the National Curriculum, ICT skills and Computer Science.
The review appears to reclassify ICT with a lower priority and it is not clear how computer scince will be developed as a subject.
Information and communication technology is reclassified as part of the Basic Curriculum and requirements should be established so that it permeates all National Curriculum subjects. We have also noted the arguments, made by some respondents to the Call for Evidence,59 that there should be more widespread teaching of computer science in secondary schools. We recommend that this proposition is properly considered.
...that starts with schools The industries suffer from an education system that doesn’t understand their needs. This is reinforced by a school curriculum that focuses in ICT on office skills rather than the more rigorous computer science and programming skills which high-tech industries like video games and visual effects need. As the curriculum is overhauled and syllabuses are brought into line with the most challenging in the developed world, we need to look to places like Singapore and Finland so that the computing and artistic skills that are vital to high-tech, creative industries are given the impetus they need.
Maybe somewhere at BETT it will become clear how this will work out. My impression based on rumours about the London College of Communication for example is that the creative industries are still seen as humanities from a funding point of view so the budgets cover some text books, not much technology as such.
Things could always change. According to the Guardian
The Sunday Times reports that Gove is "particularly impressed by the sophisticated subjects pupils in Asia tackle in primary school". Apparently they learn "how machines work" and "how plastic is made".
The reports refer to "high performing jurisdictions" and include Japan, Korea, Canada and Singapore. One theory could be that they often have an active government policy on broadband. But enough to point out that the starting point seems to be that the UK is some way behind, maybe in the second quartile and slipping down.
As mentioned previously, the Media Development Authority of Singapore is on stand D101
