Anyone who sees Glow as beleaguered must be talking (or choosing only to talk) to the wrong people. As for a ‘vicious circle of de-skilling’, it’s a phrase that could be put to dangerous use by those seeking to denigrate the project.
Thank goodness there are so many good people out there just getting on with making Glow work in the classroom, and beyond. And thank goodness there are those who remember how many times we said that Glow would not get it right until its second iteration — and the right people are in there already well into the process of working out what that second iteration will look like.
Technorati Tags: glow, herald scotland
On yerself !
Only you are not we are all behind , among , amidst GLOW. It is a very significant work in progress.
It gets better week by week and all we really need are lots more teachers and learners to get stuck in and the community will start shaping it –in fact it has started already.
How do we make local authorites go faster with roll out ? Now that would make a fine piece of journalese
[…] a few years, and has had its fair share of loyalty and criticism. I’ve just been reading John Connel’s account of the recent newspaper coverage, and was surprised to see so much strong feeling expressed not […]
Like Andrew, I would not build Glow as it is now and like others I loathe some of the “interface”. However, It does not take much insight to see beyond these matters to the potential it offers.
Web 2.0, if such a thing exists, is fine for the minority who understand it and can use it. The overwhelming majority of educators would not be likely to find or implement the web 2.0 Glow equivalents in a timescale comparable to that of the Glow roll-out. Like it, loathe it, but make use of it and inform it’s evolution.
Och, I didn’t think the article was so bad. Using words like ‘beleaguered’, too me, is more to make things sound more exciting than they are.
I didn’t see the blog post (?) at the time when Ewan had described it as de-skilling though (as usual) the quote lacked context.
But for the most part, the article decribed many qualities of Glow and certainly the reader was left with a deservedly good picture of AB.
I’ve not used Glow and for one am really pleased that AB is leading it. The argument of it being designed between 2005–2007 is fair but could also be argued against — although it is a secure and stable system it must (in my opinion) like the rest of the web evolve fluidly in the future. A major update, or fix,or ‘second iteration’ every summer will only offer a patch. Or will it?
Personally I find the ‘one-stop-shop’ approach with both Glow and the NAR very appealling. So long as it keeps up to what happens outside ‘the walled garden’.
More power to your pen — Boss. You are correct there are those like AB who will continue to develop Glow and do it well ! No surprise to read that some continue to throw their toys out of the pram! Best regards
I only caught this the other day, unfortunately. There seems to be a new breed of journalism which involves picking out clauses from more rich explanations and making a story out of it.
My full explanation behind this snippet is here:
http://www.whereisab.co.uk/blog/?p=761 — in the comments.
It’s an explanation which no doubt merits some discussion, debate or disagreement, but it’s certainly not ‘crap’. It’s a professional judgement, and one I’d expect a fellow professional to challenge, take to task or build upon.
As for “speaking to the wrong people” about Glow, I wasn’t aware that having worked around and on the project for three years, mostly as a critical friend and developer of communities practice with MFLE and eduBuzz from which we learned so much, would exclude me, or any other parent and other interested party, from continuing to provide what is intended as constructive criticism.
I just can’t help wondering, Ewan, what kind of media expert is it who is shocked to find that journalists pick up on one or two negative comments, or old comments from earlier conversations, in order to make a story? Not just once, but twice.
As for the ‘vicious circle of de-skilling’, I’m afraid I still think it’s a pile of crap (as is comparing Glow to the ‘modern equivalent of the worksheet’ — so risible as to be almost comical), and so do most of those who see and are part of what is happening around Glow across the country.
The problem is, John, I have never said that “Glow is the modern equivalent of a worksheet”. This is what I actually said:
“There’s a lovely piece of recent research showing the effects on pedagogy. When educators use these systems they begin to see teaching as an administrative task to get through. It’s the modern equivalent of the worksheet.”
Here’s the research:
http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2530/2303
It has nothing to do with Glow, per se, it’s a research piece that shows the challenges of implementing successfully a VLE of any kind. It shows that pedagogy can be ‘skilled down’ as a result of implementing VLEs. But, I reiterate, I’ve never said this about Glow or any one brand of VLE.
So, yes, I get annoyed when constructive criticism on complex issues get turned into simplistic nonsense in publications that, for some reason, people in the profession still continue to read in their droves. And yes, I’m saddened that it seems impossible to discuss how Glow can be made better without “doing a disservice to the work of those using it” or somehow being seen as “anti-Glow”, and having one’s research and professional opinion cast off as ‘crap’.
I’d also add, I’ve never professed to being a media expert. Ever. The closest I got to journalism was reporting on the seniors football for the erstwhile Evening News Pink!
Unfortunately, Ewan, those who come back at you with “doing a disservice to the work of those using it” are not merely those who find the ‘debate’ exasperating, but also those who, in the past few weeks, have had to go before Education committees, Councils, Directors of Ed, etc to defend against the siren voices in the local authorities who, having read the ‘simplistic nonsense’ in the press, are starting to question whether support for Glow should continue.
A combination of careless journalism (in the latest case, not caused by the journalist himself, but caused rather by the newspaper’s inability to use the Web properly) — the kind of journalism, all too prevalent in Scotland at the moment, that starts with, “let’s ask for, or dig out, another quote from the one or two voices raising concerns about Glow” (whether those concerns have actually been raised or have been perceived to have been raised) — and the needs of some people to maintain their public profile (for whatever reason, good or bad) ends up provoking real concerns amongst those with their hands on the purse strings. Too often, these are exactly the people (in the LAs, for instance) who have taken little or no interest in the past in how ICT is deployed in Scottish education, so they need little excuse to decide to question, not the shape and progress of Glow, but its very existence!! As an aside, these are also the people who, usually by omission rather than commission, are guilty of permitting the nonsense of locked-down networks in our schools — on that at least we can agree. But these are the very people currently taking succour from the nonsense in the press. A touch ironic, don’t you think, given your own strong, and correct, stance on this over a number of years?
So, these are not theoretical debates with no abiding consequence other than a general agreement to agree or disagree with each other’s views on the future of ICT in teaching and learning. These stories bring potentially real and damaging consequences for a project that, for all its flaws and failings, is looked upon by just about every country I visit as the direction that they want to take for their education systems too. Far better then to work constructively (and that, whether we like it or not, means taking the realpolitik into account when we comment in public or to journalists) to re-shape Glow for the better, and to give our support to the work of those in LTS tasked with bringing the new, better, simpler, more radical, more innovative version of Glow to fruition, than to allow a lax media to take potshots based on simplistic interpretations of previous comments.
The anger raised by these silly-season stories of late is genuine since it undermines the real hard work by a small number of committed individuals to create a next generation Glow that maybe you might even be able to accept.
I’m angry, too, since I’ve seen the efforts going into redeveloping Glow and, on a personal note, the views given in the newspaper stories are not representative of what I believe now. I’ve not been interviewed specifically for either of the last two weeks’ worth of stories, so I can’t even argue I was trying to maintain a public profile — these stories have, for me, the opposite effect.
I’ve summed up what I’d have said had I been asked for my opinion last week here:
http://edu.blogs.com/edublogs/2010/03/clarifications-glow-vles-school-filtering.html
The web filtering story is the one we’re all missing, the fact that the Ofcom research into how best we can create robust web users by deferring more of the filtering choices to them has been ignored completely in the Scottish document outlining policy for years to come.
Fine, Ewan — I’m happy to let things lie at that.
I’m sure you appreciate the difference in kind betwen the anger one might feel as an individual when one’s words are misused, and another kind of anger that comes from the knowledge that months and years of work, and a sincere and genuine vision for radical change in Scottish education, really could go down the drain because of ignorant responses in central and local government to non-stories in the press and elsewhere. It was always going to be a 12 or 15 year push — to see it endangered before it has a chance to get it right would be a dreadful pity.
Open debate is fine in principle, but it’s actually not possible in the traditional media landscape. Sometimes we have to debate in code, so to speak. Interestingly, I believe the best way for that debate to take place is across a complex range of social media and web 2.0 applications — renders it difficult for the traditional media, whether TV, radio or the press, to follow it — and that is a good thing in my view.
Finally — a personal point from me — when you think ‘VLE in Glow’, think ‘Epeius, son of Panopeus’ and the horse he built.…..
PS — I’ve removed from the original post the phrase you thought questioned your professionalism.
It doesn’t do much to help me or you regain our weekend, but here’s Blane on his misquote of me:
http://bit.ly/bvvrCm
It does make me wonder, though, how good constructive debate and practical suggestions are ever going to be possible, online or even offline, if anything we say is going to be misappropriated to make a story.
It’s good of Douglas to shoulder his part of the blame — not many journalists would do that. Makes him an honourable man in my book, I guess.
I have a half-written blog post, which I might not finish now, having a go at the TESS for a ridiculous, out of date policy on what goes on the web and what doesn’t — they’re at least as much to blame as Douglas’s misquote here for posting just half of an article in the first place.
Quite — do you remember the discussions we had in 2006/7 about how LTS had to put more online in the form of video/audio/extra text than it could ever manage in its paper publications? If LTS can get it right, surely a profit-generating newspaper can do so?!
As for the media misappropriating comments for a story — that’s precisely why, over the years, there have been many times, and many issues, where I would have loved to have commented or responded (especially in the context of Glow), but have held back. Our ‘free’ press does not guarantee an open discussion on anything important — quite the opposite, in fact.
I can’t think of a single instance down through the years where an article in which I was quoted managed to get it right — not one!
I say, hell mend them, and lets keep the debate to those channels where we know we have control and where we know we are unikely to be misquoted.