How the internet tried to kill me

I'm not a dyed-in-the-wool anti-digital prophet of doom (though anytime I try to put awkward questions about, say, Facebook and privacy to my son that's what he accuses me of) - anything but - so I'm sorry, I couldn't resist this: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/opinion/13rubin.html?_r=1

Maybe Mr Rubin failed (see my photo post recently).

More on the Wolf Report

I was recently at two seminars on the Wolf Report on 14-19 Vocational Education (see earlier post), one led by Ann Hodgson at the IoE, given as part of the 'Teach In' organised by the Students' Union on the day of the UCU strike, and the other led by Alison Wolf herself, also at the IoE.

Ann's in-depth analysis of what is a very long and detailed report concluded that it doesn't address any of the fundamental problems of our education and training system, but does propose some tweaks aimed at making the present mess work a little better.  She pointed out that the very narrow brief of the enquiry effectively precluded proposals for systemic change, as the whole system is so closely interconnected: changes in one part would require changes in other parts too - not part of the brief.  Her view is that most of her recommendations would actually help

Alison Wolf gave a highly fluent and at times entertaining account of her work 10 days or so ago.  She also noted the narrowness of the brief, and pointed out the very short timescale for dealing with such a complex set of issues (6 months), and that the enquiry team consisted of little more than herself and a couple of civil servants - not exactly a vast team, although they were able to commission some specific research for the review.

She started by stating the key research findings she based her review on, which included:

• low average returns to NVQ
• high returns to apprenticeships, English and Maths, and employment. 
• young people change jobs, occupations and sectors very frequently
• there are relatively few genuine NEETs - most young people move in and out of education and employment continuously
• practical and vocational courses are not inherently more motivating for low-achieving students: what motivates students is good courses and good teaching
• what courses are offered by schools and colleges is determined largely by funding pressures and by league tables, rather than by what is good for students.

She stated that her basic assumptions (open to disagreement) were these:

• Early specialiation is undesirable: all 14-16s should follow a broad and largely common curriculum
• Increasingly important for employment and their future lives that all students should achieve A-C Maths and English
• Speeches about 'parity of esteem' make no difference to the respect in which different qualifications are held
• Good courses, ie those which teach difficult and valued skills to a high level, whether academic or vocational, lead to desirable future opportunities
• Local employers are the best source of quality control of vocational programmes
• Vocational programmes need to be taught by genuine experts
• Competition between institutions can be helpful provided the focus is on what is good for students
• Most students use information in a sophisticated manner

These preliminaries lead to the three main focusses of her recommendations:

1.   Conceptualising 14-19 education

• Qualifications on offer should be decided on at a local level
• Larger general education component in vocational education: say 80%-20%
• Bottom-up development of coherent programmes rather than random accumulation of qualifications

2.   Funding and institutional arrangements

• Address shortfalls in provision, especially apprenticeships and genuine work placements
• Improve quality of vocational instruction, by increasing teacher mobility and institutional collaboration
• Improving information

3.   Regulatory framework

• Rethink OFQUAL
• Rethink QA
• Rethink incentives built into accountability and league table measures

So far, apart from the acceptance of 4 of her recommendations at the launch of the report, there has been no response from the Coalition Govt to it.  Alison Wolf said she would be surprised if all of them were accepted and implemented, because it is such a complicated undertaking to make changes of more than a superficial nature to the education system - it is interlayered and interconnectd and so changes in one place require changes in others.  This can be done, but not within the lifetime of one government, and so these types of change will only happen with either very confident, or very radical governments.  I guess she was referring to her recommendations about the accountability system.  She was highly critical of the way the achievement of qualifications is used to accredit students and at the same time for funding purposes and for league table places: this leads to unintended outcomes, because institutions' success depends on these measures rather than on what is good for learners.  I was pleased to hear her say this so unequivocally, as I argued that funding and accountability should be detached from qualifications gained within Skills for Life a long time ago, in 'Testing, Testing, 1,2,3'  published by NIACE in 2004.  However, I guess she is right that we shouldn't hold our breath that this will be implemented during the present government's term of office, even if some of the less fundamental recommendations are. 

Most of these recommendations, accepting that they are not proposing fundamental change, seem to me to be broadly positive, and behind them is a strong call for the importance of 'really good teachers'.  Maybe one of the Wolf Report's legacies will be a debate about what makes a 'really good teacher', how these can be supported and developed, and what institutional and system factors make it harder for 'really good teachers' to practice their craft.  That would be a very positive outcome in my view.

Another key point she is making is against centralisation - identical standardised qualifications to be taken by everyone whatever their circumstances, the mass-production approach.  She asserted that 'the current centralised regime is expensive and sclerotic'.  Consistent with this, her assumption that local employers are the best source of quality assurance for vocational qualifications is controversial, but only in the context of the UK.  In Germany, planning for vocational provision is jointly carried out by employers, unions and local government in what is known as the 'social partnership', a concept more or less alien to the British way of doing things.  But at the same time, the German system has been held up for years as a model: if the Coalition really want to copy successful models from abroad, why not this one?

Gapminder: amazing resources for teaching

I have become a big fan of Hans Rosling recently after seeing some of his programmes about statistics on TV.  Today I discovered Gapminder, a brilliant site full of dynamic graphs and diagrams illustrating inequality between countries over time.  They use the power of statistics and of the internet to demonstrate how overall global prosperity has risen over the past 200 years, and how different countries' prosperity has risen, fallen, and risen again during wars, famine, industrial growth, political change, etc.  Rosling argues, unfashionably, that inequality is in many ways being reduced overall....and there are similar dynamic charts on HIV and on health.  This is the best site I have seen for a long time.      

Ingenuity in hard times, a new pamphlet from the RSA

http://www.thersa.org/projects/design/ingenuity

Is google changing the way we think?

This post was triggered by two separate stimuli: first, seeing a demonstration of one of google's development projects on machine translation, and secondly, reading Is Google making us stupid?, an article by Nicholas Carr published in the Atlantic a couple of years ago.

The notion that google seems close to being able to provide simultaneous translation between dozens of different languages is impressive enough, but the thouht that this is achieved entirely through processing power and straightforward statistical analysis of the way words occur in different language texts available to google search engines, is really stunning, at least to me. It was demonstrated on Hans Rosling's programme for the BBC on the importance of statistical data in the modern world. He texted deliberately obscure messages in Swedish to the google researcher in California, who produced more or less simultaneous translations (as far as we could see), that were largely accurate. Rosling tried to confuse the programme by using phrases such as 'bisexual bishop', but the programme was not fooled.

Carr's article is one of dozens of publications over the past few years pointing out what seems to me obvious: we are being changed by digital technology. In fact this type of article is implying two main questions: is digital technology changing us in any way, and if it is, is this a good or a bad thing? These articles argue, with more or less evidence and analysis, that we are being changed, but the vast majority I have seen, while strongly implying that this is a bad thing, don't provide evidence for this assertion.

It seems to me that the use of any tool over a long period will have the effect of changing the user, both physically and mentally. When I played tennis from morning till night as a teenager, my right forearm became much larger than my left. When I more or less gave up playing, in my thirties, they gradually returned to being the same size. Furthermore I think it is clear from all sorts of scientific research, as well as from common sense, that our brains get 'patterned' to a greater or lesser extent, by our activities - craft workers develop tacit skills and knowledge through using a small selection of tools over and over again on the same materials. If large numbers of people use particular tools this will quite naturally also begin to have an effect on the culture and organisation of the society they inhabit. The introduction of the printing press had an incalculably complex effect on the social and political history of Europe in the C15th, starting with its effect on individuals and local groups. Similarly, though perhaps much more quickly, we must expect the same process to operate with digital technology.

We need to remind ourselves that these processes are not evolutionary ones, in the technical sense of Darwin's theory, as far as we are able to see; this is because the time scales involved are too small for genetic mutations which might confer advantage in a digital world, to be observed as having done so. That would require thousands of years for the human species as I understand the theory of evolution.

So, technological changes and the use of new tools do bring about physical and cognitive changes in individuals and groups. If widespread enough, these can bring about observable changes in society and culture. But change is not necessarily a bad thing: few would now suggest that the printing press and books had negative effects on people and societies (though some people certainly warned about them at the time - they were afraid that people's capacity to memorise would be lost if everything was written down - this sounds uncannily similar to the kind of worry Carr has about the digital world). The question of whether such changes are positive or not is not a scientific one for the most part, it is a moral and political one. The question Carr needs to ask explicitly, and the one such articles should really be aiming to answer, is whether a digital world is a better world, and why.

Instantaneous machine translation would be a morally useful tool in my view because it would allow for easy verbal communication between any people in the world without the elimination or reduction of the vast range and diversity of different languages, each of which, in my opinion, embodies a particular view of reality and of moral issues: this variety, just like biological diversity, is actually a survival mechanism - we need it to remain human.

Britain under the Coalition?

Beware: assessment can be bad for your health

Seen in Hackney

How washing machines promote reading - NB this is not an April Fool joke

The wonderful Hans Rosling using terrific statistical graphics to demonstrate how important washing machines are for education, and why we need more of them: http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing_machine.html

UCU Strike March 24th 2011

Dumbing down - a complaint from 1621

'Heretofore learning was graced by judicious scholars, but now noble sciences are vilified by base and illiterate scribblers that either write from vainglory, need, to get money, or as parasites to flatter and collogue with some great men.'
Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy

Nothing new there then...

Improvisation

'There are days when no one should rely unduly on his 'competence'. Strength lies in improvisation. All the decisive blows are struck left-handed.'
Walter Benjamin, in One Way Street.

The courage of one's convictions

'A very popular error - having the courage of one's convictions: rather, it is a matter of having the courage for an attack upon one's convictions.'
Nietzsche

Walter Benjamin on Praxis, Knowledge and Education

'The slogan 'work and education' under which the patriotic associations of Schulze-Delitzsch had conducted workers' education, was countered by Social Democracy with the slogan 'Knowledge is Power'. But the party failed to perceive its double meaning. It thought the same knowledge that secured the rule of the bourgeoisie over the proletariat would enable the proletariat to free itself from that rule. In reality, knowledge with no outlet in praxis, knowledge that could teach the proletariat nothing about its situation as a class, was no danger to its oppressors. This was especially true of knowledge relating to the humanities. It lagged far behind economics, remaining untouched by the revolution in economic theory. It sought only to stimulate, to offer variety, to arouse interest.'

Walter Benjamin, in "Edward Fuchs, Collector and Historian", in Walter Benjamin Selected Writings, Volume 3 1935-1938, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2002, p260-302.

Making and teaching

After giving a lecture last week which explored the idea of teaching as craft, I am working on an article based on this theme for Adults Learning, which will also be posted here. As often happens when I am excited about a bundle of linked ideas, I seem to stumble across relevant work by other people all the time, without trying, by accident. Today I was catching up on some music programmes using Iplayer and I noticed a radio 3 talk given last week by Edmund de Waal, the author of The Hare with Amber Eyes, which is about the history of his collection of netsuke (see above for an example), on his enthusiasm for The Wrench, a novel by Primo Levi, a wonderful book I've been re-reading as part of my work on craft. A version of this talk was published in the Financial Times last week, at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/8f50d924-4b63-11e0-89d8-00144feab49a.html#axzz1H9ksDxWZ

There is an interesting commentary on de Waal's discussion at Annjrippin's blog at http://annjrippin.wordpress.com/ Ann Rippin is a quilter, but clearly language and concepts, perhaps what she calls 'embodied knowing' are shared. She notes that 'He describes the experience of reflecting on something that you have created and the surprises it can bring, as ‘the epiphany where you see what you have made is different from what you had conceived.’ Very often artists experience this as disappointment or failure, Turner’s famous gap between what was in his imagination and what he was able to put on the canvas and the sense of frustration that can bring, but de Waal sees it in a much more positive light. It is an epiphany, which suggests new beginnings, possibly the receiving of a gift, certainly a happy apparition.'

This realism, the recognition that perfection is an illusion and a distraction rather than a goal, combined with what de Waal describes bluntly as a 'contempt for shoddiness' is what we need to foster in our teachers - and this cannot be done by focussing solely on what they do, because ultimately it is an issue of character, about the kind of person they are. The craft attitude is about trying to lead what Montaigne would call 'a good life', understood in the moral sense. Craft is about morality...

More to come on this very rich seam.....

What I learned today from wikipaedia - this is meant to cheer you up

Variants of "LOL"

lolz: Occasionally used in place of LOL.[citation needed]

lulz: Often used to denote laughter at someone who is the victim of a prank, or a reason for performing an action. Can be used as a noun — e.g. "do it for the lulz." This variation is often used on the Encyclopedia Dramatica wiki and 4chan image boards. According to a New York Times article about Internet trolling, "lulz means the joy of disrupting another's emotional equilibrium."[26]

lolwut: lol + wut, used to indicate bemused laughter, or confusion.[citation needed]

Lawl or Lal: Pseudo-pronunciation of LOL. Saying "lawl" is sometimes meant in mockery of those who use the term LOL, and usually not meant as serious usage.[citation needed]

LOLOLOLOL: For added emphasis, LOL can be appended with any number of additional iterations of "OL". In cases such as these, the abbreviation is not to be read literally (i.e., "Laughing out loud out loud out loud out loud"), but is meant to suggest several "LOL"s in a row.[citation needed]

LEL: A variant sometimes construed as an acronym for "Laughing Extremely Loud" or "Laughing Even Louder."[citation needed]

Lolocaust

laf (pronounced like "laugh")

Translations in widespread use:
Most of these variants are usually found in lowercase.

mdr: French version, from the initials of "mort de rire" which roughly translated means "died of laughter", although many French people now use LOL instead as it is the most widely used on the internet.[citation needed]

חחח/ההה: Hebrew version of LOL. The letter ח is pronounced 'kh' and ה is pronounced 'h'. Putting them together (usually three or more in a row) makes the word khakhakha or hahaha (since vowels in Hebrew are generally not written), which is in many languages regarded as the sound of laughter.

555: The Thai variation of LOL. "5" in Thai is pronounced "ha", three of them being "hahaha".[citation needed]

asg: Swedish abbreviation of the term Asgarv, meaning intense laughter.[citation needed]

g: Danish abbreviation of the word griner, which means "laughing" in Danish.[27]
rs: in Brazil "rs" (being an abbreviation of "risos", the plural of "laugh") is often used in text based communications in situations where in English lol would be used, repeating it ("rsrsrsrsrs") is often done to express longer laughter or laughing harder.[citation needed]

Also popular is "kkk" (which can also be repeated indefinitely), due to the pronunciation of the letter k in Portuguese sounding similar to the ca in card, and therefore representing the laugh "cacacacaca" (also similar to the Hebrew version above).[citation needed]

mkm: in Afghanistan "mkm" (being an abbreviation of the phrase "ma khanda mikonom"). This is a Dari phrase that means "I am laughing".[citation needed]

In Chinese, although 大笑 (da xiao; "big laugh") is used, a more widespread usage is "哈哈哈" (ha ha ha) or "呵呵呵" (he he he) on internet forums.[citation needed]
هاها: The Arabic هـــا makes the sound "ha," and is strung together to create the sound "haha".[citation needed]

In some languages with a non-Latin script, the abbreviation "LOL" itself is also often transliterated. See for example Arabic لــول and Russian лол.[citation needed]
In Japanese, traditionally the kanji for laugh in parenthesis was used in the same way as lol; （笑）. It can be read as wara and so just w has taken over as the abbreviation.[citation needed]

In Korean, ㅋㅋㅋ ("kkk") and ㅎㅎㅎ ("hhh") are usually used to indicate laughter. 'ㅋ', is a Korean Jamo consonant representing a "k" sound, and 'ㅎ' represents an "h" sound. Both "ㅋㅋㅋ" and "ㅎㅎㅎ" represent laughter which is not very loud. However, if a vowel symbol is written, louder laughter is implied: 하하 "haha" 호호, "hoho."[citation needed]

jajaja, as the letter "j" is pronounced "h" in Spanish.:[citation needed]
Pre-dating the internet and phone texting by a century, the way to express laughter in morse code is "hi hi". The sound of this in morse, 'di-di-di-dit di-dit, di-di-di-dit di-dit', is thought to represent chuckling.[28][29]

ha3: Malaysian variation of LOL. ha3 means pronouncing ha three times, "hahaha".

Other languages: Lol is a Dutch word (not an acronym) which, coincidentally, means "fun" ("lollig" means "funny").

In Welsh, lol means "nonsense" – e.g., if a person wanted to say "utter nonsense" in Welsh, they would say "rwtsh lol".[30]

I particularly like Spanish morse code chuckling, the fact that the Japanese have been using a ideogram for the equivalent of LOL for centuries, and the cool Afghan version 'I am laughing', which sounds pretty threatening it's so understated. It's also great that LOL is a real welsh word. I am still working out 'lulz': can anyone help?