Richard Olsen's Blog

Disclaimer: I have many friends who have previously worked on the Ultranet and some continue to do so. Having said that, I have never had any vested interest in the Ultranet.

In all of the talk about the auditors report into the Ultranet, in the newspaper and on twitter, I haven’t seen any discussion about the first recommendation:

“develop a comprehensive and evidence‑based strategy or plan of action for use of learning technologies to underpin and guide the significant investment in ICT for government schools”

The report evaluates the Victoria’s Digital Learning Statement, the document that should provide the basis for the Ultranet and all technology use in Victoria’s government schools, and determines that:

“The Statement does not provide a strategy, action plan or framework for investing in learning technologies.

This means that departmental staff and school leaders have little guidance on how learning technology initiatives can be appropriately planned and integrated to build upon past and present ICT investments.”

Of course, the auditor is right but its not just DEECD central office that doesn’t provide “a strategy, action plan or framework” for the use of technology in our schools, no one does.

No one does.

Schools, Principals, School Leaders, ICT Coordinators and ICT teams, technology vendors, subject associations, unions, teachers we’re all guilty of this charge and that’s why we don’t talk about it. That’s all why comments by those suggesting that the Ultranet could have and should have been replaced by existing online services are flawed. Without a purpose we can’t compare anything. We can say that for our school’s purposes this or that might have been better, but we can only say it for ourselves not for others. I know many will say they do have a plan and purpose but I’m talking about a plan as defined by the auditor. A plan that specifically justifies the expenditure and outlines the return on investment, that is how the use of modern technology leads to increased student learning outcomes and how we can accurately measure them.

The problem for us is now the auditor is asking DEECD to justify and identify the  return on investment for the  $2.6 billion that DEECD expects to invest on ICT for government schools over the next 10 years. This has been accepted (Appendix A of the audit document signed and dated 29/11/12) by Richard Bolt on behalf of DEECD to

“develop a comprehensive and evidence-based strategy or plan of action for use of learning technologies to underpin and guide the significant investment in ICT for government schools.”

See, I don’t particularly care about the review into the Ultranet, to me it is not the real challenge that we (those who believe that modern technology allows people to learn differently and better than without it) now face. I care about the review into technology in schools. I believe that we need to move beyond the scourge of low expectations that determine our use of ICT in schools if we’re to help DEECD formulate a strategy that justifies the expenditure of $2.6 billion over the next 10 years.

Because, maybe, just maybe, not having “a comprehensive and evidence‑based strategy or plan of action” was a shrewd move by DEECD up until now. Maybe, just maybe, rather than bemoaning the mistakes that were made, we should celebrate a system that has spent $1.6 billion (this figure excludes Commonwealth funding and school’s own funding) over the last nine years on technology in schools, on a belief that modern technology offers new possibilities. Maybe, just maybe, we should celebrate a system that plans to spend $2.6 billion over the next 10 years even with a detailed on maximising the “return on investment.” Because maybe, just maybe, if DEECD did have a plan, it would be like everyone else who has a plan, beset by low expectations and therefore we would never have seen the priority or the investment that we’ve seen during the last nine years.

Because maybe, just maybe, having no plan is sometimes better than having the wrong plan.

This is not to say that I believe we or  DEECD shouldn’t have ”a comprehensive and evidence‑based strategy or plan of action”. And we’re certainly in a better position now than we have previously because

1. we now have access to affordable proper laptops for every student

2. we have have access to broadband and modern web-based technologies and

3. we have insights into modern/21st century pedagogies.

But this has only happened in the last few years and certainly wasn’t the case nine years ago. Yet, what used to be good enough (not having a plan) probably isn’t anymore.

My hope is that a comprehensive vision is universally (DEECD, Principals, School Leaders, parents, students, School Councils, technology vendors, twitterati …) held for how modern technologies are adopted in schools is not a vision characterised by low expectations, but rather a vision and a strategy that recognises that our students now, because of modern technologies, learn differently and that there are enormous opportunities for our schools to increase all student learning outcomes. My hope is that the conversation will turn from the faults of the Ultranet and the mistakes of the past to how we articulate a vision for technology that will give schools guidance about where to spend their money, where to invest their energy, what their teaching practice and what higher student learning outcomes we should all expect.

Maybe, just maybe, we might even see the end of the scourge of low expectations that plague us all.

We say we believe it, but if don’t act on it, it is not because we can’t or because something or someone is preventing us, rather it is because we really don’t believe it. I’m not talking about being half in either, I’m talking about all or nothing, so do it or stop kidding yourself.

Last week John Biringham columnist/blogger for The Age newspaper wrote Why I’ll be kicking you off this blog bemoaning the quality of comment section of his posts (and the other Fairfax posts) as open sewers. And looking at the comments on posts of the major Australian newspapers, you’d be hard pressed to argue with him. Stooges from all political parties, unions and lobby groups, pushing their agendas, making outrageous claims and belittling others.  But it would be wrong to put this down to the commenters, they are just meeting the expectations of the newspapers. See Fairfax is just playing lip service to the new reality of the social web and user generated content. They don’t really believe there could be any scenario where commenters could add any value, so they neglect them.  They’ve designed the system to fail and reinforce what they already knew. They only have the comments there so they can shrug when the board and the shareholders ask why the share price is still plummeting. We’re hip they say, we have comments and a twitter account.

They say they believe the Internet has changed news but they really don’t.  They are the experts, they are the professionals, and the commenters are well, the commenters. Fairfax will let us play on their site, but only as John describes it, in the open sewer.

The fact that this post comes only a couple of months after  Eric Beecher detailed that he had outlined a “catastrophe scenario” to the Fairfax Board eight years ago. They thought Eric was cray, and pulped the report, turns out he under estimated the problem Fairfax now finds itself.

What does this have to do with education?

If Eric Beecher had written a report eight years ago about formal education no doubt he would have also warned of a “catastrophe scenario.”

Now is the time to be all in.  By all in I mean, reimagining everything we do in light of what modern technology makes possible. Looking carefully at all the compromises teachers make every day and assessing whether they still apply in today’s world.

And when we do this. No excuses. No excuses why we’ll have to wait until later. No excuses that our staff, parents and students aren’t ready. No excuses about copyright and cyber safety. No excuses about money and equity.

There aren’t any justifiable excuses, sorry. Excuses show that we’re just like Fairfax, we’ll pay lip-service, we might even convince ourselves that we believe it, but deep down we don’t.

We’re still the experts and professionals, we say to ourselves, and that will never change.  We’ll teach and the technology will integrate and engage.

Sorry not good enough, now is the time to be all in.

…the world changed.

I hadn’t really paid much attention to the Acara Technology paper, I had meant to but I hadn’t found the time.  Upon reading it (several times) I’m left feeling that it is a missed opportunity. Although I don’t really agree with the other papers published by professional bodies (ICTEV, ACEC, ACS & Creative Contengencies) either, but more on that later.

It seems to me to be a mishmash of 1. old and 2. older thinking.  The 1. old thinking that technology allow us to create digital products, and the 2. older thinking that technology (and programming) enables computational thinking (modelling, simulations, process, design). There is no co-construction, there is no mention of new learning relationships (feedback, intervention, remix and reuse). Computational thinking doesn’t hold a candle to online social, situated learning. Production doesn’t hold a candle to reuse and remixing.  I think (unforunately) it is written by people who don’t use the Internet to learn, and it shows.  They see technology as being used to create (new) preferred futures but fail to recognise that technology is already, irrevocably the future of the education. Now is not the time to be half-pregnant, now is the time to be all in.

I think the Australian Curriculum is in danger of suffering the same fate as the ultranet (Victorian reference). Regardlessly of the merit of the idea, they are working away oblivious to fact that a profound change has occurred. As a result upon launch their thinking will be obsolete.

What have they missed?  I think that we’re at a unique time, due to affordability and access, every student if they don’t already have their own laptop will have one soon, every student will have access to broadband Internet and the learning environment we have (also called the Internet) has totally changed how people learn.  Acara doesn’t recognise (nor do the other papers) that what we have through these things (ubiquity, access & the Internet) has changed the way people learn.  This scoping paper should be largely about that, while they recognise there will be a need for flexibility as new technologies are released – they don’t seek or want to understand what we now have. And they certainly don’t want to believe that what we have now is perfect and that there will be no next big thing. Its a real shame – would love to see an ICTEV paper (or paper from anyone) saying just that – how technology as we have it now – enables people to learn – and what schools need to do in response.

In summary:

1. I don’t agree with the strands as any of the papers have them – study about networks, parts and computers in society is not needed.

2. I do agree with ICTEV et al that every kid should learn to program, but for different reasons. As I said before I’m not that interested in the mythical computational thinking rather giving our students tools to create products that solve or investigate complex authentic problems. We compromise with instruction because project-based learning is too hard – not anymore not with the Internet to learn from and with others, and not with programming to create complex solutions.

3. I’m not really sure what the strands should be (I don’t know enough about this stuff) – If we need strands, make the first being about using technology to learn and the second a programming strand.

Yes, the world [of learning] has changed, lets not blow the opportunity by failing to realise this.