Teach Meet Tech 2: Popping Filter Bubbles

In 1961 Edward Lorenz made a tiny change to a weather simulation and forever changed the world .... or at least the way we understand it. Lorenz created one of the most evocative notions ever to leap from the lab into popular culture: “The Butterfly Effect".

Lorenz helped trigger one of the most significant conceptual shifts in science - from understanding based predominately on a "simple", atomic, independent, predictive and deterministic view of the world towards understanding based on a complex, networked, interdependent and adaptive view.

Much of the formal education system is a legacy of rational analytical reductionism and the  "simple", atomic, independent, predictive and deterministic view of the world. Most education events reflect this atomism and split into many separate (even conflicting) sectors and levels that rarely mix. Rarely does a network manager mix in an event with students, someone in the school sector mix with those in the university sector or for the topics of flipped learning be on the same agenda as network resilience or art.

The atomic view creates a form of educational fission that is good for the purposes of educational management and measurement but creates filter bubbles with all the conditions for memetic "in-breading" that reinforces the status quo.

The aim of Teach Meet Tech is to embrace and pioneer a more contemporary complex, networked, interdependent and adaptive view of the world and of education.

Teach Meet Tech seeks to pop the standard filter bubbles of education by networking as many of the different parts of education as possible - bringing together people from schools, community education, adult education, sixth form colleges, further education, higher education, non profits, enterprise - mixing students, teachers, IT people, education managers, the public and business people together.

Teach Meet Tech 2 gave us robots, rockstars, AI, apps, video apps, Google apps, CPD, future tech city, visual thinkery and education. It gave us technology tools, community connections, art and philosophy across all sectors of the education landscape.

Teach Meet Tech 2 was an inspireNshare education fusion event in association with Croydon Council, CCS Libraries, Toshiba and the LMN -  all of whome are involved in various ways with connecting people and connecting people with technology. Croydon Council and CCS Libraries are seeking to re-think and re-invent local public libraries for the future - exploring their role within society, the content and technologies they provide access to and the activities that take place within them. Toshiba have been supporting innovative education meetups for over a decade - including their education ambassadors and support for student eAmbassadors and over 120 teacher led TeachMeets with 10,000 teachers. The LMN will be familiar to most network managers in the education sector - they ran the London wide high-speed data backbone and connections which connected us to the Internet between 1997 and 2011. Today the LMN are networking people - providing training, professional development peer exchange programmes and promoting excellence in IT services for students and staff.

Teach Meet Tech 2 was held in Thornton Heath children's library - which is highly significant, symbolic and deliberate as public libraries are true life-long and community education spaces for everyone. A children's library is a space of learning enjoyment outside of school and the Thornton Heath children's library is stimulating, colourful, playful and flexible - a perfect venue for Teach Meet Tech.

Teach Meet Tech began with a welcome from Martin King who described education fission, the filter bubble problem and the importance of diversity for survival and evolution. He went on to explain "fusion" concept of the event and talked about the need for education in the 21st century to move from fission to fusion.

Martin Compton presented "30 Apps in 30 minutes" - a live Internet hands on whistle stop cornucopia of useful and easy to use tools for educators. There are so many free and ad supported tools available that match and outdo paid for tools - the key thing for Martin is that tools be capable of DIY and be very simple to use. Martin showed us tools for Presentation (eMaze, Google Slides, Blendspace), Instant Collaboration (Padlet, Piratepad, Pinterest), the huge collection of tools on Classtools.net (such as Randomiser, Timer and Fishbone), Mindmapping tools (Popplet, GoCongr, Instagrok), Quiz Tools (Zaption, Quizlet), Sli.do, Lyrics training, English Central, ESL Video), Digital storytelling tools (Youtube slideshow, Storybird, Makebeliefs, dFilm), Planning tools (Linoit, Start.me, Storyfy, Google Docs) and Audio tools (Vocaroo, Audioboom, Spreaker).

Nigel Dias talked about Croydon Tech City, Future Tech City and the need to connect young people with technology opportunities and technology startups. He spoke about future tech city education community projects that support adults and children with STEM skills, schools deliver tech curriculum, young adults explore tech careers, start-ups and scale-ups and to connect the technology business world with local students.

Bryan Mathers gave us “The bluffer’s guide to Visual Thinkery” where he talked about his businesses over the years and how in 2013 he started drawing and discovered "his element". Bryan presented a wonderfully refreshing collection of creative and artistic thoughts about education such as "why creativity is so important","teaching is not a delivery system it's an art form", "education is changing from centralised instruction to a broad network of creativity". Bryan spoke about "how dialogue liberates" in Paulo Freire's radical pedagogy. Bryan spoke about "capturing a visual thought" - starting with listening and asking questions, using visual metaphors, humour, contrast and just doing it.

Wendy Peskett presented "Innovating with Google apps" and spoke about migrating a large London College to Google. Ealing, Hammersmith & West London College started using Google Apps in 2007 and has pioneered many leading edge uses of the technology - using  Gdrive, Hangouts and Google plus extensively and officially switching all staff and students to Gmail in 2013. She described the college's continuing development of Google apps with curriculum areas, departments and projects. EHWLC has a group of six Google innovators to help develop and support collaboration, communities and innovation with Google apps. Wendy spoke about how useful Google features like G+ Communities and public calendars are in developing engagement, collaboration and sharing. 

Wendy spoke about the college's work with and the potential of Google Classroom. She described the use of Google Forms in flip teaching and tacking learning - especially now that forms can include videos. Wendy spoke about new projects such as Google Expeditions (Virtual field trips with Google cardboard VR) and increasing use of Google Chromebooks - with a planned very large scale (2,000 chromebook) implementation for the 2016 - 2017 academic year. Wendy finished with a selection of useful Google apps and Chrome extensions such as Videonot.es, read&write, Google Translate, Input Tools, Mightytext, and TubeBuddy.

James Kieft talked about "Assessment Through Use Of Video". James contrasted how  difficult it once was to record and show video in teaching with how easy it is today - everyone is carrying around little video recorders with their smartphones. James gave us a 

run through of his favourite sites and apps for using video for assessment and checking of learning today. He talked about Movenote - a Google Drive add on that lets you present documents (e.g. slides, PDFs, images etc) with audio or video - you can record a video showing documents with a cutout window of you talking. This can by the teacher giving feedback to students on their work by video (where the document is the students assignment). It can be used by the teacher to create flip learning content and can be used by the students to present assignments and develop their communications skills. James talked about Videonot.es - a Google Drive add which lets you upload a Youtube video link and add comments on a timeline - this is one of his favorite tools at the moment. Its a good way for a teacher to provide feedback to students who submit work as videos or by a teacher setting an assignment for students to make notes about key points in a video. James showed us Kaizena - a way to record audio comments on text documents - like an audio highlighter. Its a good way to give audio feedback to students on their written documents. He showed us Clipchoose a simple way to create polls with video - for example for students to choose which video shows the correct technique in a practical skill. James talked about Vialogues - where you can upload a video and have a text based discussion with questions and answers on the side. James notes that we don't have the time to create all the content we need and that there is a wealth of content already "out there" which we can curate, mix and re-provision existing content in interesting ways - tools like Zaption, Edpuzzle, Playposit that allow you to add interactive content to existing on-line videos. James finished by showing us Telegami - an iPad app that allows you to create an animated character that can speak with your voice or from text you enter. James finds this useful with language students - if they don't punctuate the text properly then what the animated character says can be difficult to understand.

Hannah Tyreman was unable to present on the day but recorded on the Free Education Project with me about "CPD Design For Learning". Hannah talked about the need to shift from systems thinking to design thinking in education, about the importance of social factors in teaching and learning and about the role of networking, connection, collaboration, reflection and technology. She talks about applying the same principles we use with student teaching and learning to staff development - collaborative work and projects with time and opportunities for purposeful practice, reflective learning and generally being more experimental. Hannah talks about the value of teach meets in bringing educators together to share ideas in person so that rather than it just being ideas alone people can collaborate, talk, reflect, network and have those valuable conversations that turn learning into something.

Miles Metcalf presented "Robots, Rockstars and a future for education” a thought provoking talk about political and big business interests in the education system. Miles talked the rise Massive On-line Open Courses (MOOCs) and what could be described as the monetisation, commodification and consumerisation of education where hand crafted lessons of local teachers has to compete with global business mass produced content. Miles also talked about what could be described as the Uberfication of education - where large businesses

platforms host and monetise content that local teacher supplied free content.

Martin King had the last presentation "Artificial Intelligence: The Graveyard Shift" - a talk about "Artificial Intelligence" in all its connotations and implications for education -  "Graveyard Shift" being symbolic as AI might be our final invention! Martin took us through some of the recent developments and uses of AI - from Eugene Goostman, Amelia and AlphaGo, through Toshiba's humanoid robots, driverless cars and automated installations like the Henn-na Hotel. He described the rapid advance of AI capability in recent years - in 2013 an AI system was tested with a standard IQ test and measured about the same as a four year old .... in 2015 an AI system passed a university entrance exam. He talked about the how the capabilities of AI together with labour cost savings put at least 5 million jobs at risk in the decades ahead. He spoke about how the education system is seemingly hypnotised by the education technology sector and walking "eyes wide shut" into an increasingly automated future of robot teachers and AI systems to give, as ALEKS puts it, "the advantages of one-on-one instruction, 24/7, from virtually any Web-based computer for a fraction of the cost of a human tutor."  He spoke about how the obsession with testing and measurement had caused the education system to focus on developing in our young people the very skills that are under threat from AI - "teaching future generations to be drivers in a driverless future." He finished "5 ways of understanding the Fourth Industrial Revolution" -  the warning and advice from the World Economic Forum to our education systems to "focus more on those qualities that make us uniquely human rather than machines - in particular traits such as empathy, inspiration, belonging, creativity and sensitivity. In this way we can reinforce and highlight essential sources of the value created by and within communities that is often completely overlooked in economic measurement – the act of caring for one another.” 

For more information about Teach Meet Tech London visit the event website at http:\\inspirenshare.com/tmtl2

For more information about inspireNshare visit http://inspirenshare.com

How To Change The Education System: Race With The Machines

The cost of IT in education is clear but its effect is far less so - students, computers and learning is controversial to say the least!

The nature of IT has changed significantly over the time I have worked in education. In the last decades of the 20th century IT was rare and the education system was one of those places where you could learn about and use computers. Since the turn of the 21st century IT has become pervasive in the lives of our staff and students. Our students have "grown up digital" - they are used to using computers, smartphones, the Internet, the Web, social networks, social media, messaging apps and a whole lot more everyday and all the time - IT is part of people's personal and public life.

While IT in society develops and progresses apace (even exponentially) IT in education hit a wall at the end of the 20th century, flatlined and entered an induced coma. Time has stopped for the education system and it still dreams of IT like its 1999 - the the world beyond the dreamer is but a whisper, anything that might cause waking is blocked out and everything is assimilated into a Web 1.0 push\broadcast content delivery and testing PC model.

When I started teaching educational IT and management IT were separate - educational IT was diverse, exciting and full of potential. Today educational IT has been unified and appropriated by and for management and the education industry - its standardised, mundane and used for the measurement, management and control of staff, students and institutions.

The education system has a crisis of relevance with zombie IT - a monster mash that is complex, expensive, rigid, and slow moving – increasingly beneficial to the corporate education industry but increasingly ridiculous and damaging to education and learning.

The students view ... "education is not utilising technology effectively" - they note that "technology plays an important role in their everyday life but not when they are in education". They notice that on-line assessment simply mimics traditional assignment practice and ask for social, community and discussion type assignments and assessments. They note that smartphones improve ease of sharing and information access but note that there use is in education and learning is usually banned . Students ask that they be allowed to use their smartphones as this will be helpful in making their learning more effective. Students are aware how social media is widely used and established in their lives but that that the education sector is only now starting to see its potential for learning - the students ask that education use social media as a platform for sharing and in so doing boost learning. Students note that today a number of technology options are available that can boost the learning experience and make it more flexible, easy, comfortable and effective for students but the education system is not utilising technology effectively.

Its time for the education system to wake up and interact with the real world - a world where machine assistants we carry around with us everywhere do things for us.

In a race without machines we are bound to fail - technology (or at least the right type of technology) always provides an advantage - from the use of the wheel, through the use of arrows in warfare and even in the humble pub quiz - if you have a smartphone .... you can simply search for the right answer. Education without technology is nonsensical and damaging.

In a race against machines we are bound to fail - people are not machines -  there is no way the average person can beat a calculator - leave mechanical tasks to the machines.

In a race with machines we have a chance to succeed ... future generations will have to live in a world full of machines - we owe it to our children to prepare them for this. Our education system should use its time, energy and resources developing us as humans - leave mechanical tasks to the machines - we need to use and collaborate with machines as appropriate.

We need 21st century pedagogy matched with 21st century technology!

Its time for education to take back IT from management, use appropriate technologies and race with the machines to develop people as humans.

How To Change The Education System: Change What is Measured And Reverse The Spell

Although the formal education system is obsessed with measurement I have lost count of the number of times I have heard education managers say things like "if it can't' be measured, it doesn't exist".

This obsession with behaviourist style objective testing and measurement makes education performance manageable, it makes education SMART (Specific , Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Time-related) but not necessarily relevant.

SMART Behaviourist testing and measurement reinforces and perpetuates the existence and conditions of those things that are tested and measured. Formal education examinations test people in isolation using memory, rational analysis, pen and paper to write answer questions posed to them. Once upon a time the examinations of formal education seemed "normal" but no one operates like this any more - the power of the formal education behaviourist system machine maintains these practices while all around things have changed. Much of the formal education system and its examinations have become an anachronism - the only place left where young people still write private pen letters.

Only the education system seems (self) satisfied - universities, employers and society in general want the education system to help prepare people for learning, work and life in the present and the future rather than for the tests of the education system and the past. "I only remember things I can't look up" (Einstein) - this has never been more true - through technology people are connected more than ever before the world, knowledge and how we access and use it are changing faster than ever before. In a faster changing and  connected world learning rather than knowing has never been more important - the society been for many years now been calling for the education system to develop active, transferable and life-long learning"soft skills" such as research, self-management, communication, collaboration, creativity, crap detection (critical thinking) and the use of technology.

The formal education system's spell "if it can't' be measured, it doesn't exist" can be reversed to bring into existence new desired things through measurement - a type of quantum existentialist spell that reads "It exists because I measure it" - subverting the machinery while maintaining the systems existential rational - "I measure therefore I am"

The OECD Pisa tests have long been heavily criticised by progressive educationalists  BUT ..... ironically may just be the method by which radical change in the education systems may be achieved since the OECD Pisa tests deeply influence educational practices in many countries. Andreas Schleicher predicts the new Pisa teamwork test will be game-changer. The new test has "computer-based tasks where students work through a “chat” function with computer-generated virtual collaborators to solve a problem ....  the measurement focuses primarily on the way a pupil engages with others, rather than solely on the correct solution".

The fact that OECD Pisa tests will measure teamwork, communication and collaborative problem solving will, like a quantum existentialist spell, quickly conjure these things into formal and significant existence in education systems.

The problem with collaborative problem solving is one of control ... The OECD PISA tests achieve the test control by using "chatbot" collaborators - the use of "chatbot" collaborators in education will be highly controversial and highly significant.

AI and robotics are developing exponentially and will play a major part in the future and many fear that our children are 'destined to lose out to robots' due to outdated exams system bringing chatbots into the exams will I think be like letting students use calculators. In the early phases in the "rise of the robots" we will race with the machines - collaborating with AI and robotics to get things done - we need to bring collaboration with people and technology firmly into the education system as soon as possible and develop these skills and techniques for the system and for our learners.

How To Change The Education System: Think Inside The Box

Formal education can be considered as a system (indeed it is called a system) - a bounded entity with specific inputs and outputs. From this perspective the education system can bee seen as if it were a Skinner box - a behaviourist's stimulus-response conditioning chamber.

Behaviourism focuses on observable phenomena - that which can be objectively tested and measured, internal states such as thought, feelings, passion, emotion, motivation etc are excluded. This explains a lot about the obsession of the education system with objective testing, measurement and data and the number of times I have heard managers sincerely say things like " If it can't' be measured, it doesn't exist", "if you can't measure it you can't manage it" and of course if you can’t measure something you can’t control it". It also explains a lot about why progressive education ideas that focus on people's internal states fail to gain significant focus and attention from "the system" (those in positions of power and authority) and have failed to make any significant impact on the system.

A system is a set of interacting or interdependent component parts forming a complex/intricate emergent whole with a set of rules that governs its structure and/or behaviour. A system is a bounded entity with specific inputs, outputs and feedback mechanisms that maintain homeostasis despite a changing external environment. This explains a lot about why the education system has proved so difficult to change - as a system it is designed to maintain the status quo and for self preservation.

A behaviourist system is simple but powerful descriptive model of formal education - it explains a lot about its operation and its resistance to change but also suggests a method through which it can change and change quite radically and quickly.

At a simple level the formal education system can be considered and manipulated as a behaviourist experiment controlled by three key independent variables: money, inspection and measurement with a single dependent variable - exam results. Its a pretty depressing point of view but seems to describe the way many operate within the system - focusing on money, inspection, measurement and exam results, excluding "extraneous" non objective variables such as happiness and focusing on performance management through data on objective key performance indicators.

A key factor in experimental design is operational definition - the definition of the terms and variables used. If we consider the formal education system as a behaviourist experiment then we might just be able to induce a change in behaviour not by changing the system but by manipulating and redefining the key inputs to the current system (money, inspection and measurement) while maintaining the exam results but to a different purpose!

How to Change The UK Education System: Introduction

One approach to education system change is ...... education system change ...... the type of revolutionary system redesign like that taking place in Finland where they have significantly reduced testing, broken down subject boundaries and connected teaching and learning to topics and activities in the real world. The Fins want to "build a system with little red tape and a high impact"

“We insist that education must not settle for adapting to change, but also act as a driver. To raise brave, compassionate citizens capable of independent thought and bearing the responsibility for themselves and for others; curious people, capable of finding things out for themselves and assessing the reliability of whatever information they come across. People with a tolerance of uncertainty, the courage to implement their ideas in practice and even break a few rules, if necessary.”

The Finish approach may be possible in Finnish society but revolutionary change is unlikely to be possible in the UK ... it is likely that any change in the UK education system will have to be more incremental and evolutionary - a systems approach through adjustments to the system interfaces and its transaction costs and "currencies" or the development of a parallel form.

A systems approach to UK formal education views it as a interconnected set of parts driven, bound and controlled by a number of key interfaces and transactions - adjust the interfaces and transactions and you can change the behaviour of the system.

My natural thinking about the UK education system sees its problems as systemic - in a series of blogs titled "How to Change The UK Education System" I will explore various ideas about the education - from systems approaches through to informal "anarchic" parallel forms.

Education: From Answers To Questions

Teach Meet Tech was a unique "education fusion" event bringing together 70 students, teachers, IT people & the public to talk about Education & technology.

These are my impressions

Information technology and its use has changed remarkably in the last decade - its now pervasive. Our students are used to communicating with and using information and communication technologies and systems that are cheaper, easier, more powerful and more personal than those generally made available for their use by the education system.

DIY Tech

Teach Meet Tech mixed contemporary technology ideas with leading edge innovative practice in education and the community - the ability to DIY what you want was a pervasive theme. We heard about DIY style tech startups; free DIY cloud based tools available to teachers; projects where students DIY their learning by teaching, how students wanted the education system to accommodate their DIY tech and why our networks should accommodate personal DIY tech.

From Answers To Questions

In the past access to information was limited -  the education system played an important role in delivering information to students and learning could be measured by their answers to questions about the specified content.

Today, access to information is unlimited but the education system is still focused on testing learners answers to questions about the content it delivers.

Teach Meet Tech was a fusion event rather than a fission event. Rather than reduce answers through experiments on a defined question it sought to synthesise questions through explorations of the undefined.

Teach Meet Tech raised more questions than answers .. this in itself suggests a different approach for education in an era of unlimited information.

Can we move to an education system where our learners ask the questions?

The students at Teach Meet Tech asked the questions .. can the education system give answers to these questions?

How can we better integrate technology in the curriculum?
How can we make better use of modern technology?
How can we make better use of learners personal technology and information environments?
How can we use social, community and discussion type assignments and assessments?

Education and Technology: The View From Students at Teach Meet Tech London

Teach Meet Tech was a unique "education fusion" event bringing together 70 students, teachers, IT people & the public to talk about Education & technology - there were presentations from teachers, technologists, business and most important of all ... students.

This is a summary of the student's presentation at Teach Meet Tech.



The students medium was their message to the education system - rather than use a Powerpoint slideshow from a file stored on a USB stick - their message was on-line from the cloud using eMaze - this alone was very refreshing.

"When modern lives are so immersed in digital technology, understanding the language of computers has become an essential form of literacy" 

The students began their message to the education system with the quote above from Apple's Craig Federighi (Apple turns stores into classrooms) then took us on a journey of student access to technology in the education system. They talked about “old school” one-to-many education with limited and restricted access to with school based systems standardised in computer labs and class sets of equipment.

Education is not utilising technology effectively.
The students talked about education today - how technology plays an important role in their everyday life but not when they are in education. 

The students asked for better use of virtual learning environments to not only to save money but also offer a convenient and supportive community learning environment.


“Instead of using virtual options like Moodle, there is a strong need to create virtual communities”


The students recognised the value of on-line assessment but recognise that these simply mimic traditional assignment practice - the students ask for social, community and discussion type assignments and assessments.

The students observed that interactive whiteboards are widely installed but rarely used.

The students talked about how smartphones improve ease of sharing and information access but note that there use is in education and learning is usually banned . The students ask that they be allowed to use their smartphones as this will be helpful in making their learning more effective. The students also ask for education institutions and subject areas to create their own smartphone applications.


The students talked about how social media is widely used and established in their lives but that that the education sector is only now starting to see its potential for learning - the students ask that education use social media as a platform for sharing and in so doing boost learning.

The students note that today a number of technology options are available that can boost the learning experience and make it more flexible, easy, comfortable and effective for students but the education system is not utilising technology effectively. 

The students concluded with the statement:


"Many pupils are engaged in technology in the 21st century so why not integrate it into the curriculum?"

Teach Meet Tech Education Fusion

Thursday the 10th December 2015 was a good day for fusion.

Germany just fired up a monster machine that could revolutionize the way we use energy. The Max Planck Institute in Germany achieved first plasma with their W7-X stellarator  - an alternative but much more promising nuclear fusion machine to the more widely known Tokamak.

Teach Meet Tech - achieved education fusion in London.



Much of current formal education is a legacy of 20th century fission - split into so many separate (even conflicting parts) and divided into levels that rarely mix. Most education events reflect this fission - focusing on specific sectors or areas only - creating separate and defined bubbles of experience - rarely would a network manager mix in an event with students; someone in the school sector mix with those in the university sector or for the topics of flipped learning be on the same agenda as network resilience.

The aim of Teach Meet Tech was to bring many of the different parts of education together and see what happens.

Teach Meet Tech was an inspireNshare education fusion event supported by Croydon Council, CCS Libraries, Toshiba, LMN and Vanix bringing together people from schools, community education, adult education, further education, higher education, non profits and enterprise. The event was attended by students, teachers, IT people, education managers and the public to talk about education & technology in a free un-conference style meetup opportunity

Teach Meet Tech was held in Thornton Heath children's library - this was highly significant, symbolic and deliberate. Public libraries are true life-long and community education spaces for everyone. A children's library is a space of learning enjoyment before school - the Thornton Heath children's library is stimulating, colourful, playful and flexible - a perfect venue to help stimulate and catalyse education fusion.

The involvement of all the supporters was significant as they are all involved in various ways with connecting people and connecting technology. Croydon Council and CCS Libraries are seeking to re-think and re-invent local public libraries for the future - exploring their role within society, the content and technologies they provide access to, the activities that take place within them. Toshiba have been supporting innovative education meetups for over a decade - including their education ambassadors and support for student eAmbassadors and over 120 teacher led TeachMeets with 10,000 teachers. The LMN will be familiar to most network managers in the education sector - they ran the London wide high-speed data backbone and connections which connected us to the Internet between 1997 and 2011. Today the LMN are networking people - providing training, professional development, peer exchange programmes and promoting excellence in IT services for students and staff. Vanix helps over 50 UK learning institutions to improve student experience with extensive first-hand sector knowledge and a broad portfolio of network, management, analytics and security and since 2007 have helped inspireNshare technically implement a "the network is our computer" philosophy.

Teach Meet Tech began with a welcome from Martin King who explained the "fusion" concept of the event and talked about the need for education in the 21st century to move from fission to fusion.

Nigel Dias talked about Croydon Tech City - a movement, community and not for profit
that champions and inspires tech skills, business and opportunity in South London. Croydon Tech City is now home to just over 1,000 digital, creative and technical startups.

Miles Metcalf talked about "ICT Zero: The Pop Up College" - the problems of conventional IT departments and the possibility of replacing them completely with DIY style cheap or free consumer hardware and systems.

Adam Stewart joined us via a Google Hangout video conference from the Google UK offices. He showed us the stimulating environment inside the Google offices, talked about and demonstrated the potential of Google hangouts in education - giving examples

James Kieft talked about "Flipping Free" - using free web based tools that teachers can use to curate and share flipped learning content. He talked about Edynco,  BlendSpace,  Lessonpaths,  Zooburst,  Quizizz, Piktochart, InstaGrok,  Plickers and Visuwords.

Martin King talked about "TERROR" (Technology Education Relevance Risk Or Reward). he talked about the challenge of education in an era of exponential change and how current standard models of education and technology are not relevant in the 21st century and how transformation is necessary for education to remain relevant. He gave examples of inspireNshare projects in education - peer learning work with teachers and eAmbassador and Thinglab - true flip learning projects where students teach each other and their teachers.

Andy Butcher talked about why we need to adapt our networks to meet student expectations. He talked the ETAG challenge to enable innovation with technology to empower teachers and learners and to deepen and accelerate learning.  He spoke about technology trends, the growth of data, network traffic and the strategic challenges for IT services in providing ubiquitous connectivity that meets student expectations.

Students from the College of North West London talked about education and technology. They felt that education system technology and use of technology was outdated and asked that curricula accommodate their own technology and use of technology - they talked about social media and said they would like to make use of their smartphones. They valued on-line resources and wanted to be able to study at home - giving the practical reason of the cost of travel. The students talked about the importance of community experience and valued the role of teachers as guides in their education. The students talked about how education was different for each student and that the preferred balance and blend of on-line\virtual education Vs physical education would be different for each student.

For more information about Teach Meet Tech London visit the event website at http:\\inspirenshare.com/tmtl

Education Fusion

Fission defined the 20th century.

Nuclear fission was a defining technology of the 20th century and "splitting the atom" - the rational analytical reductionism of split something into smaller manageable bits that can be conquered and easily measured  defined many of the operational principles and thought processes of the 20th century.

Fission defines current education.

Current formal education is a legacy of 20th century fission. In essence education is a simple thing - the process of facilitating learning but in practice has become complicated by institutional systemic fission - splitting education into so many separate and even conflicting parts and dividing it into levels that no longer mix together.


Educational fission is good for the purposes of measurement and management but creates a set filter bubbles with all the conditions for memetic "in-breading" that reinforces the status quo.

Exponential and combinatorial developments in information and communication technologies will present completely different social challenges to those presented by the industrial and engineering technologies of the 20th century. Technologies of the 21st century such as artificial intelligence and robotics excel at the easily measurable and testable rational analytical reductionist fission material that dominates current formal education. Technologies of the 21st century are set to displace the very skills taught and learned in our 20th century education system!

Fusion may come to define the 21st century.

Physicists are in a worldwide race to create stable fusion devices that could not only mimic the Sun but release abundant energy, without the volumes of toxic waste generated by nuclear fission - the splitting of the atom.

Fusion needs to define education in the 21st century

Diversity and interconnection are essential elements in evolution and innovation. To evolve, innovate and to thrive in the 21st century education needs to shift from fission to fusion - to shift from closed, disconnected and standardised practice to open, connected and diverse practice. Education needs embrace fusion and evolution through diverse connections, sharing and variation to catalyse innovation, creativity, change, adaptation, innovation and evolution.

Its time for education to use its imagination!

#Blimage - “Back to the future” The Network Is Out Of The Bottle Again

In the last few months I’ve had conversations with colleagues and reading about “the web we lost - how the potential of developments in the noughties for loosely coupled decentralised, distributed, personal, easily mashable and re-mixable open systems seems to be fading away.

“The web as an open platform for creative expression and unfettered communication is slowly being eroded and replaced by gilded cages. As the services we champion make it more difficult to move content into and out of, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to create connections between people and ideas in open online spaces” ~ @michael_rowe Without anyones permission: The open web and online learning

I remember how Connectivism and Connective Knowledge connected and aggregated participants own resources and  learning networks using RSS feeds and hashtags -  a cornucopia of “ any other service on the internet – Flickr, Second Life, Yahoo Groups, Facebook, YouTube, anything! use your existing accounts if you want or create a new one especially for this course. The choice is completely yours.”

I have concerns about the gravitational pull of tightly integrated managed learning systems and had been talking with colleagues about going “back to the future” with decentralised, distributed personal resources loosely connected with hashtags - the idea of a dMOOC had come to mind .. where the D stands for Deconstructed, Distributed, Decentralised and most of all DIY!

I co-founded inspireNshare and the Free Education Project to promote DIY, creative and personal approaches to education. At the heart of the inspireNshare philosophy is the quote from Einstein ““Creativity is contagious, pass it on” and the power of networks to connect people and ideas.

#Blimage is creative, simple, personal, decentralised and distributed and loosely coupled with a hashtag - a perfect topic for my first blog post for inspireNshare and hopefully #Blimage is the first sign of a new wave in education.

About #Blimage

#Blimage started on July 17th as a game between Amy Burval and Steve Wheeler

https://twitter.com/amyburvall/status/622375532320194561/photo/1

Steve Responded with the Blog Post “Off The Rails” and the hashtag #Blimage - from this point it spread and grew through the network.

Amy explains #Blimage in her Youtube Video #blimage while Steve aggregates the current status and information on #Blimage in his blog post The #blimage list where he writes “The challenge is this: Send an image to friends in your personal learning network and ask them to write a learning related blog post about it. They then challenge their friends with an image of their choice. All the posts are labelled with the hashtag #blimage (blog-image) so they can be easily discovered and aggregated”

In the spirit of #Blimage I pass on the image below to you to write your own learning related blog post about it!

(Image by Virginia King)

Martin King - Sunday 26th June 2015