Monthly Archives: February 2017

A Curriculum for a Socially Networked Society

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Mal Lee and Roger Broadie

 This hopefully will challenge the conventional thinking – that is still largely schooling children for the 1950s.

All schools should in their teaching today be guided by a curriculum for digital and socially networked society, where the young are in essence being schooled 24/7/365.

All ideally need a curriculum that is current, appropriate to the school’s situation, which readily accommodates continual rapid, uncertain change and school differences, apposite for socially networked learning, that increasingly integrates the in and out of school teaching and which readies each child to thrive in a seemingly chaotic, ever evolving digital and socially networked world. That said the curriculum should also continue to address the core learning, of the type fleshed by Pellegrino and Hilton in their Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century (2012) and the values and human rights of contemporary society.

Crucially they’ll want a curriculum where the teaching and learning can happen anywhere, anytime, in context in the socially networked world, and not as now that is fixated on learning within a physical site, within a restricted time frame and which disregards the learning and teaching occurring outside the school walls. Why shouldn’t all manner of upper secondary students build upon their out of school learning and be able to receive part of their teaching outside the classroom, in context, collaborating with the likes of start-ups, international aid agencies, tertiary faculties, theatre companies, digital marketers, hospitality, fashion houses or automotive electricians?

Allied is the necessity of providing guidance for all the teachers of the young, as they work evermore collaboratively in the 24/7/365 development of the children’s cognitive, inter and intrapersonal competencies (Pellegrino and Hilton, 2012). While the focus of the curriculum should rightly be on the professional teacher and the critical intensive teaching that occurs within the school walls the curriculum should also guide all assisting educate the young, be they the children themselves, the parents, carers, grandparents or the community mentors, or local businesses and service groups. The teaching and the curriculum should be intertwined, with the student’s needs guiding all. As the schools distribute the control of the teaching and learning, and work to enhance the contribution of the volunteers so the latter teachers will need instructional guidance. Some might argue to leave to the ‘out of school’ teaching completely laissez faire, but the authors’ suggest the vast majority of parents would benefit from schools providing somewhat more curriculum direction and support than now.

In looking to provide that curriculum it is vital schools and government understand that schools will need to:

  1. be genuinely committed to collaboration with their homes and communities, with other schools, and professional associations to be a successful networked school community
  2. develop and enact a digital, networked mindset
  3. have a supportive digital ecosystem and culture
  4. have the agency and agility to design, implement and assess curriculum that is relevant and meaningful for their context, by responding to and shaping societal and technological changes
  5. recognise that in an evolving socially networked society where the young learn more than ever 24/7/365 much of that learning – and teaching – will be seemingly chaotic, non-linear, synergistic, naturally yielding often unintended benefits
  6. address equity issues regarding access to, participation, and outcomes of its students in relation to technologies and learning.

All are vital preconditions.

In brief the schools need to be ready to successfully teach to a curriculum for a socially networked society.

Critically that curriculum should be delivered by a school that is digitally based, socially networked and which has an ecosystem and culture that naturally promotes and supports in everything it does a 24/7/365 mode of schooling. It is near impossible to teach to a curriculum that seeks to empower the young, promote risk taking, creativity, innovation, critical thinking, reflection, agility, social networking, team work and collaboration in a school that is risk adverse, site fixated, micro managed, tightly controlled and where the curriculum is dated and the students are disempowered. Even the greatest of teachers will struggle to provide a 24/7/365 education in the latter environment.

Michio Kaku rightly observed at the 2016 ISTE conference that most schools, by their very nature are still geared to educating the young for the 1950s (Nagel, 2016).

It is impossible – despite the government and bureaucratic spin – for the traditional, centrally developed national and provincial curricula to provide schools a current and appropriate curriculum for a rapidly evolving, socially networked world. Their development invariably takes years of committee work, and as such they are dated well before implementation and antiquated by their next revision. They are a product of a world of constancy, continuity and government desire for control.

They are designed on the dated belief that all schools are the same, and will remain so for years to come. Schools at significantly different evolutionary stages (Lee and Broadie, 2016, 12), offering appreciably different modes of schooling, are expected to gain guidance and direction from the one document. Schools that have normalised the whole school use of the digital and which are building upon the digital competencies their students bring to every classroom are expected to follow the same Technology curriculum as those paper based schools where the children are obliged to ‘learn’ how to use computers in the lab.

Globally education authorities continue to ready the curriculum for their particular bailiwick, their own patch of the world, very often strongly swayed by the government of the day. Little or no thought is given to the reality of the socially networked world or ever evolving complex adaptive systems that geographic boundaries matter little as both the schools and their instructional programs naturally evolve in a remarkably common manner globally. The young are learning and being taught, whether the authorities like it or not, in a boundary less socially networked world over which governments have limited control.

Little is the wonder that the early adopter digital schools globally have chosen to largely disregard the ‘official’ curriculum and work with like-minded schools worldwide in the design their own.

At first glance it could be argued that the various education authorities could in time, particularly if they adopted a digital mindset, produce a curriculum for 24/7/365 schooling. Leaving aside the inherent inability of bureaucracies to accommodate rapid change there is also the telling reality that schools can’t hope to successfully use a 24/7/365 curriculum until the school has readied a supportive higher order digitally based ecosystem and culture, where all within the school’s community are ready to collaborate in advancing that mode of teaching.

All can see the folly of governments trying to impose a 24/7/365 socially networked curriculum on insular inward looking schools unwilling to genuinely collaborate with their communities, to distribute the control of the teaching and learning, to network and which are lacking the digital infrastructure and processes critical for ready collaboration.

In brief a sizeable proportion of the schools would be unwilling or unable to work with such a curriculum.

The key is to recognise that schools, even within the one authority, are at different evolutionary stages (Lee and Broadie, 2016, 43), to understand that those differences are on trend to grow at pace and to endorse the lead of the pathfinder schools and formally support school based curriculum design.

By all means provide if desired system and national guides for the various areas of learning, and matrices suggesting which of the teachers of the young might best teach what attributes, but understand in the curriculum design that schools will never be the same again, each is unique and should shape its own curriculum. Of note is that globally many professional associations already provide these guides.

While some might recoil at the mere idea of school based curriculum and student assessment remember that there are globally education authorities that have been successfully using school based curriculum, and indeed school based student assessment, for generations. The empowering of the professionals and expecting them to provide instructional leadership is not new.

Helbing in discussing the impact of the Digital Revolution (Helbing, 2014) made the telling observation that the accelerating pace of organisational evolution and transformation, and the inability of bureaucracies to handle that change obliges the societal adoption of self-regulating units that have the agility to thrive with the on-going change, seeming chaos and uncertainty.

The pathfinder schools have adapted to that reality.

Conclusion

In writing this piece we don’t expect most education authorities or governments to relinquish their control over the curriculum at any time in the near future. We most assuredly don’t expect most to cede their control of student assessment and adopt procedures consonant with a school-based curriculum.

What they could do is to revisit the warning John Dewey, one of the world’s great educators, who a century ago offered in Democracy and Education:

As formal teaching and training grow in extent, there is the danger of creating an undesirable split between the experience gained in more direct associations and what is acquired in school, This danger was never greater than at the present time, on account of the rapid growth in the last few centuries of knowledge and technical modes of skill (Dewey, 1966. p11).

One hundred years on his concerns about society disregarding the ‘more direct associations’; the informal learning; the 80% plus of learning time available to the young outside the school walls are that much more critical.

Largely unwittingly schooling has in its formalising of the curriculum in the twentieth century created highly insular, dated learning institutions, largely removed from the real world.

It is time to heed Dewey’s advice, to re-establish the connection and to create schools and provide a curriculum appropriate for a rapidly evolving, socially networked society.

Acknowledgements.

The authors would like to acknowledge the support and advice given by Professor Glenn Finger (Griffith University) and Greg Whitby (Executive Director Catholic Education Diocese of Parramatta) in the preparation of this piece.

  • Lee, M and Broadie, R (2016, 12) A Taxonomy of School Evolutionary Stages. 2nd Edition Armidale Douglas and Brown – http://douglasandbrown.com/publications/ =
  • Lee, M and Broadie, R (2016, 43) ‘School Difference as the New Norm’, Digital Evolution of Schooling at www.digitalevolutionofschooling .net
  • Nagel, D (2016) ‘Education in the ‘Fourth Wave’ of Science driven Economic Advancement’. T.H.E. Journal June 2016
  • Pellegrino, J.W and Hilton, M.L., (eds) (2012) Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century, Committee on Defining Deeper Learning and 21st Century Skills; Center for Education; Division on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education; National Research Council

 

Staff Development in the Mature Digital School

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Mal Lee and Roger Broadie

In venturing into staff development in the digital school the authors do so with some trepidation in that we have not experienced in our research as clear a global picture as was found in the other areas of school evolution.

It might well be that the order has yet to appear out of the chaos but not withstanding there a number of developments and trends that have transpired globally that bear noting.

With staff development we are particularly mindful that the practices of astutely led digital schools could in some regards be different in the later adopter schools. It is an issue to bear in mind in shaping your school’s digital evolution and staff development.

That said there are a number of significant developments that we can comment upon with certainty.

  • Focus on the ecosystem, not the parts

The first and foremost with the mature digital schools is that staff development is addressed in the main as an integral part of the everyday workings and growth of the school’s ecosystem.

As with the other facets of digital evolution it is critical with the staff development to see it as one of the many vital parts needed to create the desired totality, not as done traditionally to address it by providing a suite of disparate, often seemingly ‘bolt on’ programs.

Traditionally much school staff development was coordinated by a member of the executive encouraging interested staff to undertake training programs, externally or in house and/or pursue post graduate study, hoping those loosely connected programs would improve the teaching and the effectiveness of the school.

The contrast of the traditional with the digitally mature schools is pronounced.

The focus in those schools is on seamlessly integrating most of the staff development into the everyday workings of the school, in a culture of change where all staff are daily striving to strengthen the totality and to better realise the school’s shaping vision. The staff development – the personal growth, the enhancement of the particular expertise and the heightened understanding of the school’s macro workings – all are addressed in the daily operations, in the teaching, discussions, everyday interactions, collaboration and reflection. Be it lesson design with colleagues, conversations with the principal, student’s suggesting new apps, the technology coach demonstrating a new approach or simply working within a transformative culture the staff learning is naturally integrated into everyday operations. The approach not only saves time but also is also significantly more targeted, effective and efficient, with the staff learning when pertinent.

It is often near impossible to decouple the staff development from the daily efforts to grow the organisation’s ecosystem.

  • Creation of transformative culture

Allied has been the conscious creation by the leadership of a culture of change, of shaping a start up like culture where anything is possible, that encourages and supports on-going staff growth, risk taking and the continued quest by all staff to take full advantage of the opportunities opened by the digital.

In many respects much of the staff development happens naturally and unwittingly. Key attributes like confidence, a digital mindset, the belief that anything is possible educationally, the willingness to embrace on going change, to collaborate, to distribute the control of the teaching and learning and to respect, trust and empower all the teachers of the young are all naturally – and best – developed naturally in context, in a supportive culture.

An important part of the quest has been the principal’s setting of high expectations for the school and its professionals, daily encouraging the staff to take the schooling to a higher plane.

Of note is that in creating the culture of change while some staff have found the going too challenging to stay the same culture has attracted other highly committed professionals to the school, unwittingly assisting further grow the other staff, the school’s culture and its ecosystem.

In many respects it is the transformative culture of the school that assists grow the students, the school’s community and the staff.

  • Think Digital

This is particularly apparent in the development of the vital digital mindset (Lee and Broadie, 2016, 28), and the willingness to socially network.

The digital mindset grows gradually, largely naturally and unwittingly and in context, with it becoming ever stronger as the school evolves digitally.

Indeed at this point in time the authors find it, as indicated, difficult to envision growing the digital mindset other than in context, in a culture that daily strengthens that way of thinking.

In seeking to professionally develop the staff it is now clear it is important to ‘think digitally’ and to employ strategies appropriate for a socially networked school community.

  • Macro understanding

Unquestionably one of the greater challenges in schools going digital is to get all staff to better understand the macro workings of the school and for them in turn to provide leadership at all levels.

That evolution in the digital schools has come in large from empowering the professional staff, the setting of high expectations, developing the staff’s macro understanding of the workings of the school, having them play a lead role and by daily involving the professionals in the decision making and providing them when apt the opportunity to reflect and discuss the continued growth and evolution of the school. Of note is that the MIT Sloan (2016) study of mature digital organisations found a similar concern to grow the macro understanding, with the leaders when asked about the most important skills for leaders in a digital environment

only 18% of respondents listed technological skills as most important. Instead, they highlighted managerial attributes such as having a transformative vision (22%), being a forward thinker (20%), having a change- oriented mindset (18%), or other leadership and collaborative skills (22%) (Kane, et.al, 2016, p2).

  • Readying for the unknown

The schools that have normalised the use of the digital have entered the evolutionary position where everyday they will be entering unexplored territory, requiring of the leadership and staff a mindset, a suite of skills and an organisational structure and culture that that allows them to continually thrive and deliver as they work with the many unknowns.

The pathfinders in schooling, like those in industry will forever on work without charts in determining the best way to continually realise the shaping vision. There is no best practise research or experience to call upon.

In ‘Teaching in the Digital School’ we identified the kind of attributes the staff will need in that kind of environment. In all likelihood other attributes will emerge the further the school travels into the unknown and transforms it’s operations.

Each of those key attributes will need to be nurtured, and vitally developed in context as the school ecosystem continues to evolve.

To what extent the later adopter schools will learn from the efforts of the pathfinders has yet to be evidenced.

  • Critical importance of staff development

What we do know is that every school studied regarded ongoing staff development as central to the school’s continued growth. All were very conscious the staff was the school’s greatest resource and that it had to continually have the desired wherewithal, individually and collectively, if the school was to evolve in the desired manner.

Tellingly the 2016 MIT Sloan Review noted:

Digitally maturing organizations invest in their own talent: More than 75% of digitally maturing organizations surveyed provide their employees with resources and opportunities to develop their digital acumen, compared to only 14% of early-stage companies. Success appears to breed success — 71% of digitally maturing companies say they are able to attract new talent based on their use of digital, while only 10% of their early-stage peers can do so (Kane, et.al, 2016).

Significantly all the schools studied similarly provide all their staff – and not just the teachers – the digital tools and resources required.

Do you?

  • All staff

A notable development, that is applicable to the digital evolution of all schools, has been the move to involve all the staff – teaching and professional support – in the staff development and view all of them as professionals.

It has been recognised that in evermore tightly integrated school ecosystems where all need have a macro understanding of the school’s operations it is vital the total group is continually grown, both collectively and individually, in context and through specific programs.

This is a key development.

Do you still view the academic only as ‘the staff’ or are you addressing the apt growth of all the professional staff, and naturally involving every one in ‘staff’ meetings?

  • Primarily in-house

In light of the moves to grow the staff in context it will come as no surprise that the vast majority of the staff development has been done in house.

Indeed one notes that in their digital evolutionary journey (Lee and Broadie, 2016) the mature digital schools have opted to increasingly rely on the in-house development and to complement that work with the occasional specific program.

Ironically that shift to the in house away from the traditional central offerings could well have been assisted by the moves by governments, particularly since the GFC, to cut the funding of authority run professional development programs and post graduate study.

The other reality is that the schools have been in their rapid evolution and movement into unchartered terrain found few from outside the school that understand their situation and which can assist the school.

Later adopter schools should be able to benefit from the work of the pathfinders, both in schooling and industry.

  • Limited funding

Allied has been the reality that few of the early adopter schools, particularly over the last decade have had the funds to purchase external expertise, even if it existed. As indicated in BYOT and The Digital Evolution of Schooling (Lee and Levins, 2016) staff development monies have normally to come from the highly competed for 10%-15% of recurrent funding not spent on staff salaries.

As a generalisation the vast majority of schools, particularly state schools, don’t have sufficient monies to purchase all the desired staff development.

While governments have acknowledged the critical importance of staff development politically none have appeared willing to wear the flack of allowing schools to take those funds from the staffing allocation.

Moreover many governments have also taken the view that they know what was best for ‘their’ schools and have dictated how what little monies were available for staff development should be spent.

The early adopters like most other schools have thus had to contend with those constraints and seek where they can alternative sources of staff development funding, as likely will you.

That said in opting to use the in-house integrated staff development the schools have not only saved monies but also provided a markedly more effective integrated model of staff development that is closely aligned to the continued enhancement of the school’s ecosystem and the school’s shaping vision.

  • Complementary programs

In addition to the integrated staff development most of the pathfinders have used a variety of complementary, purpose specific programs. Many were whole of staff or team specific exercises linked to the introduction of new or revised teaching program or policy while others were mini conferences convened to assist both the local schools and the school fund further staff development.

The value of mini-conferences as whole of staff, whole of school development exercises can be considerable.

  • Technology coaches

Tellingly all the schools studied had some type of staff technology coach or unit. While the title of the person or unit varied from school to school all had teaching staff whose task it was to assist other staff with the evolving digital technologies. The position/s were created by the astute allocation of the staffing budget. Most of the support was individualised and curriculum related but every so often, particularly with the release of breakthrough technologies like Google Applications For Education (GAFE) or a school app, whole of staff orientation sessions were conducted.

It is vital support we’d suggest you seriously consider.

  • Bureaucratic obligations

Of note the pathfinders – like all other schools – have had to undertake – often with little or no funds – staff development programs mandated by government, on issues the government of the day or its bureaucrats deem to be politically desirable. You know the kind.

It is a burden that most schools, state or independent, globally have to bear.

It is appreciated some of the programs are critical but others are mandated for political reasons or the whim of bureaucrats.

What we could well be seeing globally is the remnants of the traditional central course approach and the hand over of all staff development to the schools as self-regulating units.

  • Personal development

In addition to the school’s staff development of note were the various forms of professional development undertaken by the individual staff, using all manner of learning opportunities, both online and face-to-face.

It is as if the palpable excitement of working in highly energised school cultures is prompting the staff to further their personal growth. While still early days the impact of the school culture on the personal development of the staff bears further scrutiny.

  • Post graduate education study

It would appear, at least in Australia and the UK that teachers in the more mature digital schools are not pursuing post graduate study in education to anywhere near the extent of previous generations. While the increased cost of such programs could well be a factor so could the failure of many universities to offer programs relevant to those in rapidly evolving digitally based school ecosystems.

The authors have for example been unable to find any post-graduate programs in the UK or Australia specifically designed for leaders of digital schools.

Conclusion

What we are seeing – albeit at an early stage – with the staff development in digital schools is the same kind of paradigm shift we have witnessed in all other facets of digital evolution. There is the movement from a highly insular and segmented operation where the separate parts of the school operated largely autonomously to an increasingly integrated, socially networked approach focussed on ensuring all school operations are directed to the growth of the school ecosystem and the continued realisation of the shaping educational vision.

There is the growing recognition that each school is unique and is best placed to shape a staff development model that most effectively and efficiently enhances the school’s productivity and continued evolution, while at the same time growing the professionalism of all the staff.

It is important in tackling staff development in the evolving school to feel at ease in adopting a significantly different approach – in keeping with the above – and not feel obligated to retain that of the traditional paper based school.

You are readying your staff for a very different operational paradigm.

  • Kane, G.C, Palmer, D, Phillips, A.N, Kiron, D, Buckley, N (2016) Aligning the Organisation for its Digital Future. MIT Sloan Management Review, July 2016, Massachusetts MIT SMR/Deloitte University Press – http://sloanreview.mit.edu/projects/aligning-for-digital-future/
  • Lee, M and Broadie, R (2016) A Taxonomy of School Evolutionary Stages. 2nd Edition Armidale Douglas and Brown – http://douglasandbrown.com/publications/
  • Lee, M and Levins, M (2016) BYOT and the Digital Evolution of Schooling Armidale Douglas and Brown – http://douglasandbrown.com/publications/

 

Getting Your Staff to Fly

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Mal Lee and Roger Broadie

In empowering your professionals the ultimate desire should be to have those staff fly, and for them to use their professionalism and the trust and autonomy accorded to continually search for the best possible education in a continually evolving world.

Lipnack and Stamps (1994, p18) in identifying the underlying principles of a networked organisation twenty plus years ago wrote of the importance in rapidly evolving, socially networked, increasingly integrated organisations of

  • Unifying purpose
  • Independent members
  • Voluntary links
  • Multiple leaders
  • Integrated levels

In elaborating on the concept of ‘independent members’ Lipnack and Stamps presciently observed

Independence is a prerequisite for interdependence. Each member of the network, whether a person, company or country can stand on its own while benefitting from being parts of the whole (Lipnack and Stamps, 1994, p18).

That is vital, but oft forgotten.

Digitally based, socially networked and ever evolving organisations need professionals with the mindset, confidence, wherewithal, independence and support to take risks, to grasp the emerging opportunities, to try things out, to work alone, with others or in teams and who can astutely adjudge when to push forward or to take another course of action. They need team players who can think independently and question the organisation’s practises and long held assumptions as the organisation evolves and transforms its operations.

Schools need staff – teaching and professional support – at all levels, and within all areas of the school willing and able to take the lead in enhancing the school’s operations, who understand the school’s shaping vision – its unifying purpose – and who can do so astutely at pace.

They are professionals who can fly, who can continually explore new paths, question current practises and continually energise and grow the school. They, as mentioned earlier, go to make the pathfinder schools the exciting places of learning they are, assisting create schools with cultures more akin to the ‘start ups’ than that those found in most traditional schools. Critically those ‘flying’ and taking advantage of the opportunities being opened are invariably the everyday staff of old who the school has empowered and assisted to grow. They are most assuredly no some specially trained change agent.

They are also staff that in many instances will opt to fly into leadership roles, often in other schools, helping in time grow the staff in the new settings.

While the focus will naturally be on the teachers it is equally important the professional support staff have the independence to assist grow the school. Indeed within increasingly integrated school ecosystems it will be important not only to have ‘multiple leaders’ within all areas but also the ready facility for voluntary links with leaders from different operational areas.

It is appreciated the concept staff independence, the letting of all to fly and taking risks will be an anathema to most schools and the ‘teaching standards’ bodies but if schooling is to evolve at a pace that meets the rising digital expectations of society – and not lag as it now does – it needs embrace the change. Bureaucracies micro managing schools every move will see the schools lag ever further behind societal expectations, move into a state of equilibrium and the place the viability of many schools in question (Lee, 2015, 5).

In staff flying and the schools moving at pace into the unknown schooling will experience the same kind of evolutionary journey as all other digitally based and socially networked organisations, business or public sector. Mistakes will be made, and valuable lessons will be learned as these highly dynamic organisations pursue their shaping vision.

Peter Drucker at the end of his illustrious career astutely observed:

‘To try and make the future is highly risky. It is less risky, however, than not to try make it (Drucker, 2001, p93).

Schools need very much to get their staff to fly, and fly at pace if they are to shape that desired future.

  • Drucker, P (2001) Management Challenges for the 21st Century, NY Harper Business
  • Lee, M (2015, 5) ‘Schools have to go digital to remain viable’. Educational Technology Solutions August 2015
  • Lipnack, J & Stamps, J 1994, The age of the network: Organizing principles for the 21st century, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York

Empowering the School Community

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Mal Lee and Roger Broadie

Tellingly all the schools studied have gradually but very surely empowered their total school community – giving their teachers, professional support staff, students, families and the school’s wider community- a greater voice in the school’s teaching, learning, resourcing and direction setting – markedly expanding the school’s capability and improving its productivity.

Significantly the schools have

  • fully empowered their professional staff
  • accorded all in their community greater respect
  • recognised the part all can play in enhancing the 24/7/365 education provided by the school
  • collaborated with all in lifting their understanding of the macro workings of the school and the school’s shaping vision
  • in the process distributed the control of the teaching, learning and school resourcing.

Yes – in all the distribution of control, the collaboration and the empowerment has added to the load on the school leadership, but paradoxically it has simultaneously provided the school principal considerable untapped support and additional resources. All the principals commented on the time needed to genuinely collaborate and listen, the many frustrations and the seemingly inevitable rectification of well intentioned mistakes, but on the upside the empowerment has added appreciably to the teaching and learning capability of the school, its resourcing, and the support and social capital the principal can call upon in growing the school and its attractiveness.

Schools in the developed world historically are working with their nation’s most educated cohort of parents and grandparents who since their child’s/children’s birth have recognised the importance of a quality education for ‘their’ children and who in their home and hands have a suit of digital resources that markedly exceeds that in most classrooms. All moreover have in their community a sizeable and growing body of retirees with considerable expertise, time on their hand and a desire to be valued.

The above alone is a vast source of expertise and additional resourcing the pathfinder schools in their social networking and empowerment are only beginning to tap.

Within a matter of years the now digitally mature schools in their digital journey have moved culturally from the stage where most within the school’s community were disempowered and had little or no voice in the workings and growth of the school to the point where the total school community is naturally contributing to the daily operations of the school.

It is a historic shift that has been led by the principals – a move that has to be led by the principal.

The move has been graduated, often seeing two steps forward and one back, but inexorably reaching the stage where the empowered expect to be involved in the decision making, if only to be informed of a development that clearly improves the school’s quest to realise its shaping vision. In empowering the school’s community, and vitally by bringing the parents into the 24/7/365 teaching of their children, schooling as we have known it – where the professionals unilaterally controlled the teaching and learning – has likely irrevocably changed.

The digital interface with the school’s community that allows ‘time poor’ members to be consulted and informed about key developments has been – and likely will always be – critical.

That said the empowerment will not be without its moments, particularly as a previously disempowered staff and school community attune their antenna to the extent to which they will be able to express their thoughts and use their new found power. That situation will – as mentioned – be compounded by the ever changing student cohorts and the school leadership having to contend with those new to the school’s culture and ways.

Here again the astute leadership of the principal is critical as she/he works to harness the potential of the empowered while simultaneously maintaining the focus on realising the school’s shaping vision and providing each child an apt education.

It calls for some very skilful balancing but also remembering that in undertaking the digital journey all the adults – teachers and parents – will be experiencing a mode of schooling significantly different to that they knew in their youth.

 

The impact of personal mobile technologies on the 24/7/365 education of the world’s young, 1993 – 2017

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The digital leadership of the young and their homes

An invitation to reflect

Roger Broadie and Mal Lee are researching a monograph on ‘The impact of personal mobile technologies on the 24/7/365 education of the world’s young, 1993 – 2017’. We hope this will provide a foundation for further work on how government, schools and families can best support children’s learning in a connected world.

It will explore the impact of the evolving personal technologies since the release of Mosaic in 1993 on the young of the world, both in and outside the school walls, the changes in technology and technological practises that influenced usage, and the role played by the young, their families and the school.

Importantly it will address the evolving scene globally, and not simply that in the developed nations.

Moreover it will examine the nature of the digital education acquired in the 80% of annual learning time available to the young outside the school over the last twenty plus years, as well as that acquired within the classroom.

Twenty plus years since the advent of the WWW the world is watching the operation and impact of two distinct digital education modes – the out of school laissez faire mode that has successfully educated the young of the world in the use of the rapidly evolving technology at no cost to government and the formal, in school tightly controlled mode that annually costs governments billions of dollars – with questionable dividends.

We suggest it is time to pause, reflect and decide on the way forward.

Bear in mind around 3.4 billion people globally (ITU, 2016) daily successfully use the networked world, with few having being taught by teachers.

The research will explore these kind of big ideas, that

  • the nature of youth, and youth education changed historically with the advent of the Web and the facility accorded the young to access the information of the networked world directly and not through adult filters

 

  • the young and their families, operating in a laissez faire, seemingly chaotic world – and not formal schooling – have led the 24/7/365 digital education of the young for the past twenty plus years, and are track to play even greater leadership role

 

  • the digitally connected family became the norm in the developed world, around 2007 – 2008, with those families likely increasingly taking charge of their children’s 24/7/365 digital education.

 

  • most children in the developed, and evermore in the developing world will start school having normalised the use of the digital.

 

  • While cell/smartphones are integral to 24/7/365 lives and learning of the world’s teens scant or no use was made of that capability in most schools, with the few that are succeeding being largely ignored by governments in policy setting and the accountability measures for all schools.

To assist our efforts we are planning to interview a cross section of eminent educators globally who have observed, experienced, researched and/or commented upon the digital education of the young in and out of schools over the last two decades.

If you – or your colleagues – would like to reflect on the past twenty plus years with Roger or Mal we would love to hear from you.

Simply email Mal at mallee@mac.com and we’ll set up a Skype interview when convenient.