Memorable Open Offline Coffee

Today’s mystery acronym is MOOCs, which know-it-all All Change Please! can proudly reveal stands for Massive Open On-line Courses. And when they say Massive, they really do mean Massive – the size of enrollment often ranges from 10,000 to 80,000 students.

Such things have been called into existence for two main reasons. The first is to enable access to learning to anyone, anywhere, anytime, which is of course a great idea. And the second is to enable Universities to market themselves as being at the forefront of the use of new technologies, and if they just happen to generate some extra funding to compensate for the reduction in full-time student numbers, then that’s all to the good too. Having said that, they do require a lot of initial up-front investment, except that seems to be increasingly being supplied by commercial publishing companies who are obviously going to prescribe their own online textbooks, and as a result the courses are somewhat likely to become more Closed than Open.

Meanwhile, clearly any A level student about to make a decision to apply to university needs to be well informed about the variety, type and quality of MOOCs being offered by different institutions and of the impact they are having on the more traditional lecture and tutorial content of the courses. It appears that there is not just one species of MOOC in existence, but a diverse range of the gargantuan creatures. Donald Clark – quite possibly the Darwin of MOOCs – has recently identified the following taxonomy of mutations and cross-species:

• transferMOOCs – the transfer of existing courses into an online format
• madeMOOCs – less formal, including software driven interactive experiences
• synchMOOCs – have fixed assignment delivery times, course start and end dates
• asynchMOOCs – have no fixed assignment delivery times, course start and end dates
• adaptiveMOOCs – uses algorithms and data analytics to provide personalised learning experiences
• groupMOOCs – small, collaborative groups of students that come together for short periods of time
• connectivistMOOCS – MOOCs that attempt to harvest and share knowledge, rather than teach pre-defined knowledge
• miniMOOCSs – short-term and intense courses in specific subjects, often commercially run

http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/moocs-taxonomy-of-8-types-of-mooc.html

http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/moocs-more-action-in-1-year-than-last.html

http://futurelearn.com/

http://theory.cribchronicles.com/2013/05/12/participate-or-perish/

Although currently the play-thing of Higher Education establishments, MOOCs are an approach that can’t at some point be ruled out for secondary education, because computer terminals are cheaper than teachers, especially as it’s administrators and accountants that make the decisions these days. And just as with any style of teaching and learning, on-line courses suit certain types of students, but by no means all types – indeed course-completion rates are apparently low, with many students complaining they found the courses ‘boring’. On-line learning is also clearly most appropriate for knowledge transfer, and not so good for practical, experimental and creative work. But do the administrators and accountants know that?

Now All Change Please! has nothing against MOOCs – apart perhaps from their rather silly name – providing that is they don’t end up being the be-all and end-all of education, in which the poor sit in front of a computer terminal all day and the wealthy get to be taught by real teachers. MOOCs have a positive contribution to make, but it’s only a contribution and not a substitution for the real thing. Indeed just the other day All Change Please! enjoyed its own disruptive variation in the form of a Memorable Open Offline Coffee in town with two former colleagues, both from different subject disciplines. Over the course of two hours current educational theories of learning, Lord of the Flies, Postmodern Design and Music, and Dark Matter were all rigorously discussed and debated. As we departed we all agreed we had each learned and understood more in the past two hours than any textbooks, day-long series of lectures or on-line courses could have provided.

While one day computer technology might facilitate such a rich and compelling dialogue, All Change Please! suspects it’s still some way off. There’s the possibility of video conferencing, but it somehow just isn’t the same as real-life interaction and cappuccino. But that’s how people really learn – not just by being ‘taught’ facts, or even doing practical work, but informally discussing and exchanging ideas and information with the opportunity to explore challenging questions with people they know personally.  Teaching and learning at its best is a two-way, almost mystical process of an exchange of brain waves that produces permanent change in each other’s minds.

It seems that Plato bloke really knew what he was talking about when he said:

‘The teacher must know his or her subject, but as a true philosopher he or she also knows that the limits of their knowledge. It is here that we see the power of dialogue – the joint exploration of a subject – ‘knowledge will not come from teaching but from questioning’.

Another Massive Mocha anyone?

Don’t say:

‘A Mini Mooc was a popular beach buggy made in the 1960s.’

‘Don’t Mooc now! is a terrific film made in the early 1970s’

‘It’s a mooc point, but…’

‘Have you ever watched the Moocs of Hazard?’

Image credit: All Change Please!

The Campaign For Real 21st Century Education

So what’s the problem? You can always buy the skills you need on Amazon…

Now one could be forgiven for thinking that schools across the country are busy putting away their toys and girding themselves up for a major onslaught of facts to throw at their poor unsuspecting students who, at least up to now, had found their education to have been of at least some interest and relevance. And while some schools are probably doing just that, there’s a growing underground resistance movement of teachers who are preparing themselves, or rather their students, for what are secretly known as ‘21st Century Skills‘ which are to be delivered using ‘21st Century Technology‘ through a mysterious process known as ‘21st Century Learning‘. And when Herr Gove finally surrenders and realises that he can’t win the war without any troops behind him, there’s a strong possibility that the resistance movement will emerge victorious and schools will start to move forward again.

But what exactly are these 21st Century Technologies, Skills and Learning of which they speak? A simple enough question indeed, but not so simple to answer. Well the first bit – 21st Century Technology – is relatively easy in that it’s widely taken to refer to the use of computers and the internet, even though it does not necessarily follow that the technology is being used to deliver appropriate 21st Century learning and skills – but we’ll save that discussion for a later post.  However what there definitely isn’t is a single, nicely defined, commonly agreed, all cleverly packaged-up in a box designed by Apple statement as to what what 21st Century Skills and Learning actually are. Here therefore is:

All Change Please!‘s Beginners’ Guide to a Real 21st Century Education

First, one of the most common classifications of 21st Century Skills builds on the 3Rs by adding the 4Cs:

• Critical thinking and problem solving
• Communication
• Collaboration
• Creativity and innovation

All Change Please! can’t help having a slight issue with the first of these however, in that critical thinking and problem-solving, while related, should be separated – problem-solving needs to be more closely linked to creativity. And then there’s the ‘I’ word – Innovation, which is often associated with creativity without any clear understanding of the difference between the two, and in reality has more to do with business practice.

Meanwhile abandoning the simplicity of the 4C’s, in this account here we see the welcome addition of Information Literacy and Responsible Citizenship to the list (Surely Citizenship is by definition responsible? Discuss.)  Hmm, with a bit of re-writing we could have a more memorable and marketable different set of 5Cs: Critical thinking, Communication and Information literacy, Collaboration, Creativity and problem-solving, Citizenship.

And here’s another approach:
Ways of thinking: Creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving, decision-making and learning
Ways of working: Communication and collaboration
Tools for working: Information and communications technology (ICT) and information literacy
Skills for living in the world: Citizenship, life and career, and personal and social responsibility

which has further evolved into:
Collaborative problem-solving. Working together to solve a common challenge, which involves the contribution and exchange of ideas, knowledge or resources to achieve the goal.
ICT literacy — learning in digital networks. Learning through digital means, such as social networking, ICT literacy, technological awareness and simulation. Each of these elements enables individuals to function in social networks and contribute to the development of social and intellectual capital.

And how about this account of 21st Century Learning?:

‘Equally important to 21st century learning is the application of learning science research and principles to learning methods and the design of learning activities, projects, assessments and environments. Principles of effective learning important to 21st century education practitioners include:

Authentic learning – learning from real world problems and questions
Mental model building – using physical and virtual models to refine understanding
Internal motivation – identifying and employing positive emotional connections in learning
Multimodal learning – applying multiple learning methods for diverse learning styles
Social learning – using the power of social interaction to improve learning impact
International learning – using the world around you to improve teaching and learning skills’.

All good stuff of course, and just a small sample of the wide range of indicators that 21st century learning is, or isn’t, taking place in a learning organisation. However, as All Change Please! has discussed before in 21st Century Schizoid Learning, most of these skills and approaches to learning were being explored back in the 1970s and 80s and so perhaps should more appropriately be called ‘End of the 20th Century‘ skills and learning – what schools should have been delivering from around 1975 to the turn of the millennium.

In the first decade of the 21st century a number of significant things have emerged. First, the advent of rapid change (predicted in Alvin Toffler’s FutureShock in 1973) is finally coming to pass: organisations and companies – and indeed educational establishments -  now need to be able to respond to changing needs and markets with new products and services potentially within around six months. For All Change Please! then, one of the essential things missing from so-called 21st Education is the notion of helping children learn how to deal with rapid, discontinuous and unpredictable change.

Secondly the impact of the internet has become a widespread disruptive force, changing the behaviours of the mass-population through social and commercial media. Although hinted at in some of of the accounts above, ‘media literacy’ (ie how digital content is produced, manipulated and distributed – and how to create it yourself) also needs to be a major priority.

And there does not appear to be any mention of the concept of Lifelong learning? At the same time there remains a need to completely redefine what might be considered as ‘basic’ knowledge, distinguishing between the grasp of essential underlying concepts and the facts that can now be easily found on the internet. And another thing – again something being anticipated back in the 1960s and 70s (and All Change Please! should know as it was there at the time) – are the 3Rs of Sustainability: Recycle, Re-use and Reduce. Ever read the Waste Makers?

So All Change Please!’s Campaign For Real 21st Century Education includes the need for:
• critical thinking
• creative, active, open-ended problem solving
• collaboration and competition
• flexibility in response to rapid, unpredictable change
• digital media / technological literacy
• initiating sustainable change
• 21st century knowledge
• learning how to learn for oneself

And finally something else that is still far from being a 21st Century solution is the process of the assessment and examination of learning which appears to be regressing into little more than a series of electronically generated and scored knowledge-based multiple-choice questions and answers. Only the e-scape project seems to offer a vision of completely new approaches to processes of assessment that utilise emerging technologies, rather than simply seeking to automate the old ones. Just as business now needs to rapidly respond to emerging fast-changing markets in an agile way, so does educational assessment. The model of developing a pre-specified, fixed course and final examination that takes five or so years to write, get approval for, publish, give schools adequate time to prepare for, and then commence delivering a two year course is no longer appropriate. A more flexible approach is now needed that is capable of responding much more quickly to learning emerging knowledge and skills, using computer technology to create new forms of examination or validation of what has been learnt, rather than what was specified to be learnt many years previously.

The sad fact is, despite having had more than 30 years to get ready for the challenges ahead, we’re still totally unprepared for the opportunities and threats of living in the 21st Century.

And finally, here are some people who for some strange reason don’t seem to agree with any of the above!

Michael Gove’s planned national curriculum is designed to renew teaching as a vocation
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/04/michael-goves-planned-national-curriculum-is-designed-to-renew-teaching-as-a-vocation/

The philistines have taken over the classroom | Frank Furedi | spiked

http://www.spiked-online.com/site/article/13497/

Can I see tea?

Over recent weeks All Change Please! has posted about the draft National Curriculum requirements for Design & Technology, Art & Design, and History. Now it’s time to look at the new-fangled Computer studies (or as a DfE press release recently called it, ‘Computing Studies’), and to help us we’re delighted to welcome back the wondeful spirit of Joyce Grenfell, who is leading today’s Key Stage 1 lesson.

“Ok class, let’s all gather round. Today we’re going to learn about computers. I expect you already know a lot more about them than I do, don’t you? Well at least I’m rather hoping you do. Now, first make sure your smart phones and tablets are all switched off please – you’re not really supposed to have them in school are you? No, I’m sorry Larry you’ll just have to finish working on your facebook hacking app later – which reminds me, you really must tell me what a hacking app is. Anyway just so long as it doesn’t involve shooting people with guns – we wouldn’t want anything nasty like that now would we?

What’s that Steve? You’ve got an apple for me? How thoughtful. Oh! It’s not that sort of apple. Still, never mind – Yes, Pierre, you’re right, I can always sell it on eBay.

No Sergey, you can’t be excused to go and do a google.

Right, let’s see what it says here. Ah yes. Now, who can tell me what an algorthim is? Ah, that’s good to see how many hands are up!

So, Jeff, what do you think it is?

A type of alligator you’d find in the Amazon? No I don’t think so Jeff.

What’s your answer Ada?

A special type of rhythm used in music? No, a very good guess dear, but not quite right I’m afraid.

No Bill, I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with Al Gore. And please stop looking out of the windows and try to concentrate.

Oh dear, I was afraid of that, none of you know what an algorthim is, which is a bit awkward really, because I don’t either. Let’s see what it says here. Hmm – it seems that it is basically a simple or complex process automated by a computer programme. Well that’s not very helpful is it children? Still never mind. I’ve got a better idea, let’s all learn how to spell it instead. Well would you believe it, they seem to have spelt it wrong here. I’m sure it must be algorhythm.

No Salman, you khan’t do that here. Wait until you get home this evening.

Well, nearly time for you to go out and play. Now, next week’s computer lesson looks more fun. Apparently we’re all going to make a tasty Raspberry Pi. Really, these computer geeks are not very good at spelling are they? I suppose that must be cleverly linked in with the new requirements to teach cookery – or Design and Technology or whatever it’s called now…

Ah, break-time at last. Can ICT out ready in the staff room?

Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely intentional.

Teaching and Learning in LA LA Land

No face, no name, just a number?

First All Change Please! would like to wish all its readers a very happy New Year.

Well, of course when All Change Please! writes ‘very happy’, it doesn’t mean it is full of optimism for education in 2013. In fact if anything, perhaps it should read: All Change Please! would like to warn all its readers of something to be afraid of in 2013. Very afraid of.

So what is this LA LA Land of which it speaks? La La Land is known as a state of semi-unconsciousness where everything is removed from the real world, and quite deranged. Most of us would probably agree that the ‘La’ in La La Land stands for the craziness of Los Angeles, or, if you work in government, Local Authority. But if you work in education, it seems like there’s something even more wild and wacky to worry about -  the wonderful world of Learning Analytics.

So what exactly are Learning Analytics? Apparently: ‘the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of data about learners and their contexts, for purposes of understanding and optimising learning and the environments in which it occurs’.

To explain Learning Analytics as simply as possible, each and every time a student visits a website, how long is spent there, which on-line tests are undertaken, the number of mistakes and attempts made, the time taken completing each online exercise, the time of day and day of the week, etc., the mouse click or keyboard command is electronically grabbed by a great database in the cloud and silently compared to trillions of other bits of data obtained from other learners. As a result it  becomes possible to make individual predictions about exactly where each learner is struggling and succeeding, what exact nugget of knowledge they need to review or acquire next, what digital resource they might find particularly helpful, and what courses – and careers – they are most likely to succeed at in later life.

It sounds almost too good to be true, doesn’t it? Indeed, just think about Amazon and the way it cleverly keeps a record of all the books and DVDs you’ve ever browsed and then sends you completely inappropriate recommendations for things you might like. And how those annoying animated web page ads keep trying to recommend something you once showed an interest in and purchased several months ago. Except Learning Analytics claims to be poised to go way beyond that…

It all sounds very convincing doesn’t it, especially if you are an administrator charged with reducing the monthly teacher wage bill? And in the current economic situation, anything that saves money is bound to be a big winner.

However, here’s what Tony Wheeler has to say:

At a time when we’re all anticipating and working towards an education appropriate for the 21st Century that utilises the freedom of the world wide web for learning how to learn for one’s self, it’s alarming to think that coming up fast on the rails is an educational control tool beyond all previous control mechanisms, subverting the notion of ‘personalised learning’ into its own quality-controlled, mass-produced, impersonal education system that perpetuates the myth that knowledge is King: ”I know something you don’t and I have analysed how to pass it on to you down to the smallest nanobyte and now technology lets me measure you in infinitely microscopic blinks so that if you deviate from the predetermined track even by a millionth of an electronic bit we can nudge you back and make sure you all come out exactly the same shape and size”.

And don’t think it stops at the learners – this technology can be used to track teachers, managers and indeed administrators. Anyway, not to worry, you can’t see this coming to a school near you soon? These teachers certainly don’t seem to be bothered about it at all:

Teacher predictions: what will 2013 bring for education? http://www.guardian.co.uk/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2012/dec/31/education-in-2013-teacher-predictions

Perhaps they had better think again: Pearson buys SchoolNet  http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/apr/26/pearson-buys-schoolnet

Indeed All Change Please! controversially suggests that in just five years’ time, there will only be half the number of teachers, and that children will spend half their time at school plugged into a Pearsonalised electronic learning analytic interfaces.

And entirely without the aid of sophisticated date-driven analytics All Change Please! confidently predicts that Learning Analytics is a subject it will be writing a lot more about in 2013.

I am not a number, I am a free learner.

Image credits. Top: Derrick Tyson http://www.flickr.com/photos/derricksphotos/2329246714  Bottom: Paul G http://www.flickr.com/photos/the-g-uk/5654023124

Getting IT Right – again

All Change Please! is still the tiniest bit concerned about what seems to be a distinct lack of debate concerning what schools should be teaching in terms of IT. The broad media message is that spreadsheets, databases and presentations are now Out, and that coding is In. The first question no-one seems to be asking is exactly what level of coding needs to be taught? Clearly some basic principles should be established during primary school, but flogging away at dead computer languages through secondary school is going to be about as relevant as learning Latin, and indeed probably even less interesting and fun. I first raised this in Rasberry Pi in the sky back in March. And indeed here is some evidence of what all pupils will be doing if we are not careful: 12 Things to do with Raspberry Pi. It’s not that there is anything particularly wrong with this Boys’ Own construction kit approach as such, providing it is just a small part of a much wider programme of IT-related learning.

Next question:  how essential is it actually going to be for everyone to be able to code as the 21st century progresses? Back in the late 1980s if you wanted to use a PC you needed to have some understanding of DOS – and then along came Windows. In the mid 1990s if you wanted to set up a website you had to learn html – and then along came a variety of iWebGoLiveDreamWeavery programs that more-or-less did all that for you. And just a couple of years ago if you wanted to create an electronic multimedia textbook you needed to be able to apply some fairly heavy-duty coding – now you can use iBook author. So I’m not entirely convinced that in the future everyone needs to be fluent in high-level programming languages. Though obviously at the same time we do urgently need to find ways to attract and encourage our more capable students – and especially girls – to consider working in the IT industry.

Meanwhile the flavour of the month appears to be ‘Create your own App in your bedroom and make a fortune‘, which I have to say I find a little dishonest, in that the average student probably has probably got as much chance of doing so as they have of winning the ‘X factor’ or ‘Britain’s got talent but I just hope this isn’t it’. Creating successful apps involves a great deal more than a good idea – thorough market research into user needs, wants and behaviours is required, along with some high-level coding expertise, an Apple developer account, a US tax reference number and a substantial marketing budget. If we really are to become a nation of enterprising app-builders we need to be teaching coding in the context of creativity, risk-taking, on-line collaboration, business management, venture capital and crowd-sourcing, along with user-interface design and information metrics.

We also need to be seriously questioning whether IT as such should be ‘taught’ as such in the current formal education system, particularly given that, by and large, the BBC Model B/Microsoft Office raised workforce in place to teach it often have little or no experience of the reality of the fast-moving, agile and highly competitive IT industry. The anticipation in the late 1990s was that IT would soon simply become embedded in the curriculum as a whole, with a properly coordinated scheme in place that ensured appropriate coverage and progression over the years – which of course never happened. Would it perhaps be more beneficial for schools to focus more widely on how to effectively use IT to learn independently, rather than how to create new content?

Meanwhile outside the school system, those who are sufficiently interested and motivated (aka ‘geeks’) should be offered guaranteed access to regular informal sessions to develop their expertise, alongside an online collaborative network of professional programmers and designers who recognise the need to themselves participate in the life-long learning community. Now that really would be 21st Century Learning.

These may not be all the questions that need asking (or indeed the right answers) but at least All Change Please! is asking them…

*Older readers might recall that Getting IT Right was the title of a series of KS3 ICT textbooks and support materials All Change Please! was the series editor for back in the late 1990s.

Now we are three…

Yes it’s the 28th October 2012 and All Change Please! is three years old today, and growing fast. No longer in its Terrible Twos, it’s learnt to stand firmly on its own two feet. More importantly it is starting to ask important questions such as who, what, where, and, most frequently, why on earth not? Socially, it enjoys making others laugh and being silly. As a result its proud parents are convinced it is highly gifted and have started saving to ensure it will gain a place at Oxbridge in the not too distant future, providing, of course, that it gets to go to e-ton first.

It just doesn’t seem like three years ago that out popped Going for Gold, its very first post, when it announced that the London 2012 Olympic Selection Committee had decided only to award gold medals for outstanding performance in the 100 meters for fear of dumbing down the games. In the end, of course, that didn’t happen. Well not in sport anyway, but it certainly has in education where it has become a case of winning an academic eBacc gold or facing the disgrace of going home empty-handed.

Meanwhile this year’s most widely clicked-on posts have been:

A brief history of dates
Flippin’ Tech
iAuthor: mind over machine
Living in the past

Which is a bit of a pity really, because  All Change Please‘s favourite posts have been:

Invisible learning
Are Janet and John now working at the DFES?
A return to O levels: what really happened
Carry On…Up The Conservatives
Froth always follows function at the Fab Lab cafe!

Whatever, as the late and somewhat off-beat broadcaster John Ebden used to sign off:

‘If you have been, thanks for listening.’

Photo credit:  Leo Reynolds

Your Country Needs You…

As anyone who indulges in any form of creative thought and action will tell you, great new ideas and insights often emerge at the very moment you stop trying and do something else instead, such as eating, surfing the web or taking a shower – as opposed to sitting isolated in the school hall writing a three hour essay restricted to the use of pen and paper,

In the current economic climate we urgently need as many people as possible working in creative, high-skill, business-savvy, income-producing employment. All Change Please! would therefore like to suggest that at present we simply cannot afford for so many students to pursue the luxury of an academic education that in many cases leads to nothing more than high rates of graduate unemployment. What’s needed is a real long-term commitment to a first-rate, gold-standard technical and vocational education programme instead of yet another sad failure of the 1944 Education Act.  Keeping calm and carrying on is just not an option anymore.

And the current provision of school buildings – closely matched to a curriculum structure that divides everything up into neat, tidy, non-practical academic subjects to prepare everyone for entry into a Russell Group University – is certainly not the way to prepare for the 21st century challenges that lie ahead. We’re still a long way off establishing where the best places to learn actually are – but they are certainly not to be found in the traditional school infrastructure.

Your Country Needs You – not to become an academic!

It’s not Khan, it’s Kids…

Don’t just flip the classroom, flip the video lens too

Regular readers will be aware that up to now All Change Please! has not been exactly one of The Khan Academy’s greatest fans. Until now that is. Yes, All Change Please! finally gets the Khan Academy! It’s been inspired by this article:

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/06/a-video-critique-khan-academy/

The suggestion is that teachers and tutors evaluate the content of  Khan academy videos, and then make better versions.

So let’s go a stage further and set up ‘The Kids Academy‘*, where today’s students, who are much more media-savvy than their teachers, are able to make and upload their own peer-to-peer educational videos that speak the language they speak?  Which is a brilliant idea, and so obvious – indeed, All Change Please! is left wondering why it didn’t think of it before!

It’s often said that the best way to understand and learn something is to try and teach it to someone else as it involves reinforcing and clarifying one’s own fundamental understanding of the content. At the same time questions such as ‘How could this be more clearly and memorably be presented? and ‘What are the most difficult and important things to have to grasp about this concept?’ need to be asked. And often provides the starting point for more personal exploration of one’s own.

We often ask students to analyse and evaluate prose, TV programmes and 3D products, so why not educational technology and resources?

The Kids Academy. For learners, by learners.

Funding, anyone?

Image credit: 123RF

* There appear to be a number of educational enterprises that already use the name ‘The Kids Academy’. However, they provide completely different services to the one suggested here, and are completely unconnected with this post.

Invisible Learning

Last week the media were gleefully reporting the forthcoming conceptual art show at the Hayward Gallery, entitled ‘Invisible: Art about the unseen 1957 – 2012‘. The exhibition features works that contain content that essentially does not exist, such as an invisible ink drawing, and a police report of a stolen work of invisible sculpture.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/may/18/hayward-gallery-invisible-show

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/blank-canvas-london-gallery-unveils-invisible-art-exhibition-7767057.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/9275545/Invisible-art-exhibition-to-set-imaginations-alight.html

So, what else could All Change Please! do but to proudly curate its own imaginary show mischievously entitled: ‘Invisible Learning: A nostalgic look at the current state of formal education and the unseen absence of learning 1950s to 2012′.

The first work that greets the visitor to Invisible Learning – a triptych – convincingly illustrates the concept of obliterated learning. It begins with a blackboard with the chalk erased with a blackboard duster, effectively turning it into a whiteboard. Adjacent is another piece in which an electronic whiteboard is completely covered in black marker pen, effectively turning it into a blackboard. This is followed by the iconoclastic ‘Essay obliterated by red ink‘.

On display at the Hayward is Tom Friedman’s ‘1000 hours of staring‘ – a blank piece of paper the artist stared at for five years. In response, Invisible Learning presents us with a blank OCR Multiple Choice Question answer sheet which a pupil has spent five years staring at. This is followed by a reference to Yoko Ono’s set of instructions telling viewers to imagine they are looking at a work of art, presented in the form of the current National Curriculum documents and exam specifications telling teachers what their students should imagine they are learning.

While the Hayward exhibition contains ‘Invisible sculpture‘ – a plinth that Andy Warhol once briefly stood on, the next section of Invisible Learning includes a series of items of educational technologies that were once used briefly by famous people while at school.

So here is Bill Gates’ actual BBC micro that he first learnt to program on, the slide projector used to show art-history film-strips to the young David Hockney, and a piece of chalk originally thrown at Richard Branson when he wasn’t paying attention in a lesson.

Meanwhile, instead of Jeppe Heine’s ‘Invisible Labyrinth‘ on show at the Hayward – an invisible maze though which visitors ‘negotiate their way through a maze wearing digital headphones activated by infra-red beams’,  Invisible Learning visitors will experience the ‘Labyrinth of Learning‘ in which they negotiate their way through a maze of irrelevant subjects and examinations activated by the current government.

Based on John Cage’s famous 4′ 33″ ‘silent music’ piece, the Invisible Learning exhibition continues with 35’00″ of ‘silent reading’, in which a bell is rung to denote the beginning and end of the piece.

Then, in contrast to Yves Klein’s 1961 ‘In the Void Room‘ which featured an immersive walk-in installation painted entirely white and lit by a series of neon lamps, Invisible Learning is proud to present a special immersive gallery in which visitors can wander through empty learning spaces and corridors.

In this disturbing space a single chair is provided for visitors to sit and recall the endless sense of isolation experienced day after day sitting in the classroom.

And in this special installation two lone teachers still drone on endlessly, even though their classes went home years ago.

The final work in this section contains another sculptural piece, provocatively entitled ‘Chairs on tables‘, ritualistically created in every learning space across the country at the end of every school day. One is forced to wonder in what aspects of later life this creative learning experience will prove invaluable.

The last gallery contains perhaps the most evocative work. At the Hayward, Teresa Margolles takes water that has been used to wash the bodies of murder victims in Mexico City’s morgue and uses it in a humidifier: ‘Visitors walk through a room just aware of this superfine mist and its relationship to people mainly killed by drug cartels…You feel it on your skin.”

In Invisible Learning, odours extracted from deserted school sports halls, cloakrooms, assembly halls and chemistry labs are similarly used in a series of humidifiers that create a superfine nauseous mist for visitors to walk through and become more intimately aware of the learning victims of formal educational institutions and teacher cartels.

Just as the Hayward exhibition prompts one to ask: ‘But is it Art?‘, so Invisible Learning forces us to question the current provision of formal schooling: `But is it Education?’

And while one-off entry to the Hayward Exhibition costs just £8, a season pass to the entire Invisible Learning experience costs up to £9,000 a year.

Meanwhile, to read an invisible article about Invisible Art, click on the invisible link below:

http:// www.                               .html

Photo credits: Flickr Commons: Pareeerica, Jeremy Gordon, Steve Berry, Stuart Pillbrow, Emily Bean, Naraoekim0801, gish700, Calm Drew, Shaylor, True British Metal.

Oh, Lordy Lord *

Yesterday I attended a seminar at the House of Lords, somewhere I’d never been before. In terms of the nation’s heritage, it’s grand and impressive inside, if somewhat reminiscent of a public school. It’s well worth a visit, especially as it gives one some important clues as to why politicians seem so stuck in the past rather than looking towards the future.

In many ways, the session I attended was little better. It was entitled ‘A New Vision for Design Education: is design learning at school fit for purpose?’, and organised by the ‘Associate Parliamentary Design & Innovation Group‘, whoever they are. It was a gathering of the great and the good in the field, all very eloquently expressing the purpose and benefits of design education. Here’s the question I asked the panel:

“All the values and aspirations expressed here today were initially identified and developed in the 1970s. It didn’t succeed then in scaling itself up and being embedded in the curriculum, so how and why should it now, particularly in the context of the current political ideology in which Schools Minister Nick Gibbs recently welcomed the decrease in the time that pupils studied subjects such as Art and Design, Design and Technology and Drama as ‘an encouraging trend’?”

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/education/timetable-boost-for-traditional-class-subjects-7678723.html

Sadly no-one really responded to this challenge, although one of the panel did say something about it being important not to be pessimistic, which I regret to say I still am. No-one really said anything that had not been said already during the past 35 years. It was all largely about preparing students for life in the last quarter of the 20th Century rather than the first quarter of the 21st Century, and as a means of recruiting new designers for the old profession. The potential impact on design education of the rapid shift towards on-line learning, and how the industry itself will need to respond to the changing circumstances of a population being able to design and make things for themselves at a local level using CAD and 3D printers, was not mentioned.  And I didn’t notice anyone in the audience with an iPad, and neither was I aware of anyone providing a live commentary via Twitter.

On the positive side it was good to hear everyone essentially in agreement about the importance of design education, and an emerging consensus that a lot of the problem was that the message was not being co-ordinated and driven by a single body, though there were no suggestions as to who this might be, let alone any volunteers. Strangely no-one mentioned the fact that design education provides an almost perfect fit with the wider specification for what are currently referred to as 21st Century Skills.

However I did learn one thing I didn’t know before. Apparently no current member of parliament has the faintest idea what design is all about (OK, well we have all already guessed that). Except for one, who owns a 15% stake in his family wallpaper and fabric design business. Any idea as to who it might be? No? OK, here’s a clue:

http://www.osborneandlittle.com/

* Lordy Lord – as in the expression used to “express frustration, exasperation, worry, or tiredness”. Pretty much sums up my response really.

 

Image credit: Oliver Quinlan