1st Class

Second thoughts. Look, anyone who has read my recent Option Three article will be aware that I really don't want to do this. And if you haven't read that you'll know now anyway. Nevertheless, I went through the Saturday induction (which took up most of my one free day that week) and turned up in A206 at 3:30pm for the first class.

I'm doing my very best to approach this with an open mind. I'm a lousy student and can only really express any interest in something I want to learn and the theories of teaching just don't seem to fit into that category. I do like helping others to understand things, though, especially in the field of utilising technology so maybe I'll enjoy that bit if I get a chance. I also enjoy challenging Government 'initiatives' and the way education is currently administered to satisfy Government agency requirements and many accepted things in how we're supposed to deliver courses so maybe I'll get a chance to add my views to what I expect to be pretty traditional ones placed before other students and maybe at least get others thinking a little more and, no doubt, getting some of own ideas shot down in flames where I haven't thought them through as well as I should.

This last aspect could be useful as I am one of a small team training staff at all levels across the country in using technology to enhance teaching. The emphasis is on getting people to think more about how they teach and how students learn and where technology can help rather than just training people how to work the equipment and hoping that they'll figure out how to use it effectively on their own. In this work I am forever coming up against ingrained opinions, DfES policy, managers' needs to deliver results in line with their funding stream at one extreme and those brilliant minds to whom modern equipment and software is as easy to use as a pencil but who can't understand why everybody else struggles to keep up at the other. If I'm going to make some severely wrong assumptions, or miss vital points, then I'd rather be embarrassed amongst a few nice people in a small room in Dunstable than a hall full of Academic Directors in London!

My incentive for getting through this is the good chance that I could get a really good job at the end of it. My reason for not wanting to do this is the sheer waste of time that I feel 3:30pm to 8pm every Monday for two years is going to be and how frustrated and exhausted I am going to become as I try to do this as well as all the other things that others expect me to do in work and at home. I just hope and pray that I can find a way to pick up the skills or knowledge I need and a way to demonstrate that I have them that meets the needs of the course leaders without the Monday afternoon and evening pain.

So I didn't go in grumpy. I tried to feel positive and hopeful. At the induction in Bedford there had been some indication that, with the concept of my being able to negotiate with the tutor how I would meet the requirements, rather than essay writing to set titles and formal style, I might be able to do this through tutorials and homework.

Monday came and went. Pretty quickly. Nothing of note really happened. Luckily it all ground to a sort of agreed halt at about 5:30pm. Pat ran through the same sort of stuff that we'd had at induction and had attempted to translate some of the 'requirements' but I got the feeling that it was more so that she could understand them than anything else, and I didn't agree with all of the translations, finding the main handbook reasonably explanatory already. Her efforts were probably helpful to others, though, but that is very much what I fear could be a major problem for me. One or two people in the class really do find it difficult to figure out what is required, or seem to forget things they were told a couple of days ago. Pat has to help them and that results in some non-productive times.

I was itching to redo the inevitable Powerpoint slides so thinking about how to change the colour scheme so that things that looked amateur could be more impressive kept me occupied when the content didn't. Mercifully we were spared that dreadful 'Now, let's all tell each other what we do and who we are' business that tutors seem duty-bound to do in first lessons. There was also no ice-breaker - such a relief! If I wanted to play games or get to know people I could go to the casino or one of the splendid forums in the region.

Eventually the 'group activity' came up on the menu. In twos and threes we looked at some articles on learning styles and then gathered together to tell Pat what to write on a flip chart. My goodness, has nothing changed since I used that technique back in 1996? Pat finished up with a huge piece of white A1 paper and some people copied it all down. Now, bearing in mind that it was agreed at a pretty early stage that there has yet to be produced any evidence whatsoever that any of the questionnaires do actually accurately identify a 'learning style', that there is no evidence that any tutor has achieved better results through recognising them, and most significantly, that no-one I know will admit privately to making the slightest change to their lesson plans as a result of seeing what the 'tests' produce, what was the point of all this?

Even leaving aside the fact that we only consider learning styles because some idiot at a meeting one day with some people in the Department of Education said everyone should do so, and no-one has had the courage to challenge them since, a chance to use some good ILT was missed big time. The articles were all available on-line. The questionnaires are available on-line too. What we should have done is look at them, and maybe check out some of the authors' backgrounds or reasoning, as well as see where they first originated in eduspeak, while we're on the net and in the right general area.

Storing items for future reference would then have been easy, using some tags in a nice application like wink or del.icio.us and the collaborative group conclusions could have been thrashed out and stored in a wiki.

OK, I know Pat's a bit worried about making a fool of herself with technology but I do hope she does at least try and accept that it could make a big difference to the pace and interest of some sessions. Those who like pieces of paper and writing things down can, of course still do so.

Then the idea of us keeping a diary came up. Now, if you're going to need to record how things went, snippets of useful information and do some critical review of your own progress, we're certainly talking typing rather than writing as presumably someone else will need to read it. It's also the case that something we can refer back to, or organise later to focus on certain topics, keywords or themes, could be valuable. The fact that text processing software can also convert the overlong ramblings such as mine into a manageable number of words closer to those required at the click of a few buttons is also a crucial advantage of utilising technology. So we should all be using a web log for this. It needn't be fancy or hi-tech but a blog's the answer. Only two or three there probably know how to set up a web log so most are just going to start typing and it's such a shame that we couldn't have had a quick session on the basics so that everyone could have had something set up for them and be shown how to get at it and add to or edit it.

That would have been a useful bit of teaching advice they could then use in their classes too, not just for their own CPD.

I shall return once more to A206 at 3:30pm, probably knackered after teaching from 9am through to 30 minutes before then. I see a bit of trouble brewing as 'homework' was to bring in an 'ice-breaker' that we use in our classes. As I said earlier, I don't use one but may invent something on the day if I feel the blunt 'don't use 'em' will disturb the peace.

My actual 'homework' since that first class has included:

• draft presentation for e-advisers on how to inspire the 'board and the bored'
• draft presentation explaining what the LSN Framework for CPD is all about and key features of the March 2006 FE White Paper
• 2-day residential in Birmingham with representatives of government LSN, JISC and ACL agencies to plan a series of training sessions across the country
• rewriting members' drafts to meet a consistent style and get the information across more effectively
• adding images to documents for the above
• making copies of information leaflets and tasks for trainees available in quick-loading and software-independent web format
• discussing with a new member of staff how learning support material could be better utilised via a web site
• drafting tasks and expected outcomes for a new assistant

I reckon that was enough for one week. I reckon this is enough for the first class too.

Why bother?

You're doing a National Diploma course in computing and this unit is all about using software applications. Well, I reckon that as well as covering the Microsoft stuff like Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Access etc., we ought to get ourselves as up-to-date as possible and web logs are fast becoming one of the major ways in which people are recording their progress with things or keeping friends and colleagues informed.

Set up your own Blog and each week add a few lines to it to note things that you have to do or record how well you're doing.