Friday 26 August 2011
Saturday 14 May 2011
Thursday 30 December 2010
Sunday 20 December 2009
Monday 20 April 2009
edonis project - research ethics (1 of 3)
The edonis project commenced in November 2008, during the taught phase of my professional doctorate (EdD) at the
- Encouraged to sign-up and engage with the research networking site (http://edonis.ning.com). Around three-quarters have done so
- asked to partly plan (and in 10 instances have already recorded and even published) a single interview to be carried out by me before late-2011
- sent Parts 1-6 of a ten-part block of online surveys which will draw to a close before November 2009.
Due to the methodology and timing of commencement of the research, and iterative developments to the research question and approaches to engagement with participants and data collections, I will be publishing updates every six months following meetings with my thesis supervisor (as yet unappointed) and engagement with edonis participants.
Having recently read SERA (2005), BERA (2004, 2008), and ESRC (2006) publications on research ethics for Professor Morwenna Griffiths' course on Qualitative Analysis on the EdD, it is fundamental (despite there being no present compulsion or threat of sanctions) for me to critically understand and where necessary respond to in terms of my future actions and attitudes within the edonis project, to ensure that, a) participants are generally happy to continue to take part, and b) I am upholding the professionalism of the educational researcher.
In additional to the outline, above, of the series of online surveys and the seventy or so research interviews, which span Years 1-3, Year 2 will comprise: a) a hypermedia ethnographical study and critical discourse analysis (CDA) of the content of blog posts by those edonis participants who have indicated that they blog within education and learning, and b) a literature review. The plan for Year 3 is to: interrogate contemporary concepts, theories and paradigms from my literature review by exposing them to the research participants; survey, to gather some late data on general changes in participants’ engagement (or not) with the social web; a focus group (on-, and off-line) to discuss the findings of the edonis project and possible implications.
Some relevant issues have been brought to attention through my reading and interpretation of these three prominent ethical guidelines. However, as no children or vulnerable adults are involved in my research, and the research is not medically-related, the edonis project should not require detailed, higher-level consideration with an ethics committee. However, I must exhibit and maintain research and ethics competence, and due to the iterative development of my methodology, I will need to regularly reflect on the nature of my research, the operation of the online network site, and my conduct.
I will need to maintain integrity through professional relationships and, or particular interest and consideration, my published thesis should make “a worthwhile contribution to the quality of education in our society.” (SERA, 2005: i) My expectations are that this work will a) benefit the individual learning professional by providing them with knowledge and experiences which will help them to make more efficient use of their online professional activities, and b) benefit those who are involved in the provision of traditional and new approaches to CPD.
Monday 23 March 2009
Glow and education policy (an EdD paper)
The Glow project, a non-mandated information and communications technology based development within Scottish public sector education, was conceived of at the start of the new millennium and by March 2009 is expected to have all thirty-two local authorities ‘on-board’ (Connell, 2009). Glow is a web portal managed by Learning and Teaching Scotland (LTS) and delivered by RM. It is a national education intranet with the potential to connect all people, organisations and networks within Scottish education and, by invite, those beyond our borders. It has seven components: a national directory of Glow users; Glow Groups (‘communities of interest’); Glow Meet, a web conference tool; Glow Mail; Glow Learn, a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE); Glow Chat; and Glow Messenger (Glow Scotland, 2009). This innovation is expected to change in design shortly following the tendering process for the next commercial contract. As part of the ongoing implementation of this policy, a familiar consultation process will also take place.
This paper assumes that as Glow is a ‘travelling’ policy (Alexiadou and Jones, 2001) within Scotland and internationally, it will remain a ‘going concern’ for some time. Alexiadou and Jones partly define ‘travelling’ policy in terms of common agendas. Due to international interest, the idea of Glow (as a national intranet) will travel. In contrast, within Scotland Glow is an embedded policy, as it is a national policy moving into local (authority) spaces, colliding with existing policy and practice. Therefore many people and numerous organisations will wish to see, and be involved in, the development of it. These include: The Scottish Government, Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (Cosla), LTS, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education (HMiE), Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) and the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland (ADES).
Through this paper, I will show the ways in which ‘street level bureaucrats’ (Lipsky, 1980) such as LTS staff and teachers are, or might be, conceived of in the processes and networks which implement the policy. Lipsky defines ‘street-level bureaucrats’ as those individuals working in:
"schools, police and welfare departments, lower courts, legal services offices, and other agencies … (who) have wide discretion over the dispensation of benefits or the allocation of public sanctions." (Lipsky, 1980:xi).
I include in this definition those staff at LTS who work daily with education service users, for example teachers and pupils, rather than engaging with civil servants and others within traditional policy networks. I work with this split throughout this paper, accepting that the division of LTS in this way is contestable. I will explore the capacity of teacher researchers to lead the research and dialogue around future versions of our national education intranet, based upon experiences of Glow users and non-users. This would offer alternatives to normative consultation processes deemed by the Scottish Government, LTS and other non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs) to be an acceptable, efficient method of informing and developing a policy and resource. This is important as Glow will be a tool for changing teaching and learning in classrooms, schools, virtual and others spaces; and for social justice and equality in all service provision, including in other areas of the public sector.
As a Chartered Teacher and emerging researcher who is passionate about exploring the potential, boundaries, limitations and futures of new technologies and means of communication, I am drawn to spaces and activities which are intended to foster networks beyond past restrictions of time, cost and distance (Berry et al, 2007). I am aware that there remain hierarchies within the management of Scottish education, all of which ‘look up’; that is they focus on relationships with the Scottish Government and the implementation of its education policies (Humes, 2008). Humes, while illustrating this point throughout, does at the same time develop an alternative perspective. This partially explains policy making through “policy communities”, with a broad membership, including implementers of policy such as Lipsky’s ‘street level bureaucrats’. I will argue that this conception of policy making needs to be better recognised by those managing Glow.
I use Glow to explore the ‘implementation gap’ in policy which exists across Scottish schooling and which threaten the expected benefits arising from a period of consensus across those bodies and organisations which, prior to the globalising effects of new communications, were key to policy development and implementation. Dale (1999:1) develops and compares eight mechanisms associated with “globalization effects on national policy”: “borrowing, learning, teaching, harmonization, dissemination, standardization, installing interdependence and imposition”; all of which will change the relationship of LTS staff to policy implementation and their relationship with other learning professionals. I now outline what presently pre-occupies the Scottish Government when formulating policy and ensuring openness and democracy.
Scotland has been autonomous since 1707 and Patterson (1997) shows how it has constructed itself, through for example its permanent public bodies, as an enlightened, rational, pragmatic, and homogenous nation and state. The state is pluralist and conveys values of egalitarianism, social justice and meritocracy in the interests of Scotland (Patterson, 1997:141). The technocratic, nation-centred networks which have traditionally governed reveal where the power lies in what has become a corporatist state, (Patterson, 1997:143) where democratic rights and processes are evident, though popular participation in directing the advancement of society is not. Patterson writes of a “silent nationalism” for which he sees little basis or reason to continue (Patterson, 1997:139). The national education project, which centres on the improvement of teaching and learning, has been guided by permanent public bodies such as: Scottish Education Board (SEB), Scottish Consultative Committee on the Curriculum (SCCC), and HMiE. Latterly, as Western nations moved from Government to governance (Rhodes, 1997) and Scotland chose to develop its own legislature, policies of elected administrations are implemented by ‘arms-length’ agencies; in Scotland often by NDPBs such as LTS. Rhodes writes about the relevance of policy networks and their relationship with the “core executive”. His work develops the metaphor of the “hollowed-out” state (Rhodes, 1997: 17) and of “differentiated polity” (Rhodes, 1997: 7). He states that the term “governance’ has too many meanings to be useful, though he himself attempts a definition:
"(G)overnance refers to self-organizing, interorganizational networks characterized by interdependence, resource exchange, rules of the game and significant autonomy from the state." (Rhodes, 1997: 15)
Adding to this conception of ‘policy community’ is Trowler’s shifting, multiple networks of individuals and organisations; informal and formal; from the civil service to the ‘street level’; which are embedded in ‘policy mess’ (Trowler, 2002). This helps by moving us away from the normative, non-existent ‘policy cycle’ referred to as a framework for policy formulation and implementation; claimed to be open and democratic and which draws upon devices such as public sector consultations and National Debates. Formal policy networks consist mainly of public sector organisations which are directly funded by the Scottish Government or have long become familiar, with members crossing between or being members of other network constituents (Humes, 2008). An administration will: attempt to act on their manifesto; be influenced by dominant ideologies within their party; set course based upon international comparators compiled by the Office for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and in education, the Timms and Pisa reports; and work with and towards the National Performance Framework (NPF), comprising national outcomes, indicators and targets. Within the present globalist trend and in particular with European integration, the principle of subsidiarity has helped to validate a conservative consensual polity which maintains the ‘Scottish interest’ (Humes, 1986). Wenger (2000:228) provides an interesting explanation of why the notion of ‘national interest’ may endure:
"(T)hinking of ourselves as a member of a community such as a nation requires an act of imagination because we cannot engage with all our fellow citizens. These images of the world are essential to our sense of self and to our interpretation of our participation in the social world."
LTS, funded directly by the Scottish Government and run by a proxy, the Advisory Board, are charged with implementing policies such as ‘A Curriculum for Excellence’ (CfE) and previously ‘Assessment is for Learning’ (AifL) (Roebuck, 2008:173). Humes (1986:71) suggests (predating LTS, of course) that senior officers in such organisations are part of the “’assumptive world’ of officialdom”, that is they have formalised relationships with other bodies close to the Scottish Government and who exist to improve Scottish education. LTS promote new curricula, technology and pedagogy, and in carrying out research, they, like other NDPBs, are pre-occupied with evidence-based policy and practice with some international comparison and future-gazing. Thomas and Pring (2004) criticise the idea that advancing one policy rather than another, based on this approach, will improve teaching and learning, and outcomes. They show that knowledge produced systematically and scientifically is more likely to count as knowledge than evidence from, say, a staff room. The challenge, they say, is how to synthesise personal, craft, and scientific knowledge, reflexively. This is a challenge which I will later argue can be tackled by teacher researchers.
I intend to draw upon forces which I will argue are strong enough to disrupt the dominant social construction of policy cycle within education. Possible futures will be interrogated, accepting the following assumptions: Scotland retains political control over education; LTS continues as the main body for implementing government policy on 3-18 teaching and learning; and that Scotland’s education intranet (presently Glow) continues to be operational. Central government, the civil service, and national bodies have tried to ensure that the principle of subsidiarity refers to Scotland rather than the UK in relation to European Union law and policy. However, Rhodes (1997) writes of post-bureaucratic governance in a centre-less society. The state retains the legitimate monopoly on coercive power over a performance framework based on outcomes. However there is a recent further shift in local governance. Across the NPF, local authorities have discretion over how to meet Scottish Government targets following the 2007 concordat between the Scottish Government and local government (Scottish Government, 2007). Less funding from the centre is ‘ring fenced’ and we may see thirty-two variations in timescales and approaches to the implementation of national education policies. It is possible that non-mandated policies such as Glow will not be seen as a priority by some within Cosla. LTS are presently going through a Public Sector Review, following which their relationships with local authorities may continue to refocus. Restrictions on their welfarist system of support, with blanket coverage, may lead to an increase in service agreements with individual authorities, disseminating evidence-based practice and supporting implementation of those aspects of policies which the local authority have decided will support the meeting of outcomes, and which are now set across departments and functions.
We need to study the contemporary and shifting conception of those within Scottish education, whom Lipsky would refer to as ‘street level bureaucrats’. This is necessary during the present period of perceived great change, with CfE and what I expect will be moves towards a requirement of teachers to use the Glow portal. The recent Consultation on the Revised Standard for Chartered Teacher; the professions new Code of Professionalism and Conduct; and HMiE’s How Good Is Our School? The Journey to Excellence: Part 3, each refer to significant national education policies, developments and initiatives in the main body of the document or exemplification within. I foresee that as Glow use becomes more prevalent and therefore necessary within the public sector, there will be moves to refer to Glow in such standards and performance management documents, alongside existing references to, for example CfE, formative assessment and citizenship. Discourse, language and codes may appear inauthentic (Rhodes, 1997) and a policy gap between the expectations and rhetoric of LTS and continuing school practices may open up.
There are many recent and seconded teachers working for LTS and on the Glow project. They work with teachers, pupils, Implementation Officers, Quality Improvement Officers (QiOs) and others, and like them, contribute to informal policy networks and therefore policy implementation. ‘Street level’ learning professionals, as individuals, are relatively free to deploy, distort, ignore or ameliorate government or workplace policy (Lipsky, 1980). Lipsky characterises such bureaucrats as retaining a public sector ideal though with limited time, information and resources. Their interest in initiatives like Glow will not, by coincidence, match those of management within LTS or other bodies with national power or interest, and as such these professionals “allocate social values but don’t define objectives” (Lipsky, 1980:81). They are not invited to engage with long-standing approaches to policy development and implementation therefore there is little incentive, at a time of budgetary freeze, to make clients’ needs primary or improve the product or service (which would result in an increase in workload (Lipsky, 1980:100)). Therefore, the service ideal is aspirational and we see the use of rhetorical language such as “Excellence” and a reliance on positive studies of implementation. Formal language around education policy is not neutral and is used for capturing discourse (Humes, 2008:74). Normative arguments appear on education websites and in print, and change is bounded by direction, imagined futures and possibilities (Clarke and Newman, 1997).
Taking Lipsky’s (1980) assertion that ‘street level bureaucrats’ possess only a local consciousness, learning professionals can be seen as individuals, each of whom has the power to make discretionary judgements. These may be based upon individuals’ notions of professionalism and professional action. This discretion is possible because of relatively little surveillance of action and that traditionally,
"Public sector bureaucracies are organised so that clients have little knowledge of others in the same position." (Lipsky, 1980:117)
One increasingly prevalent managerialist shift, which curtails the individual and collective power of the ‘street level bureaucrat’ and, prima facie, should ensure the internalising of policy, is that to a standards-based profession. Recently revised standards by the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS), now formally independent of the Scottish Government, are illustrated by acts of implementation of national education and wider social policy. This move exemplifies the place of, in particular, teachers in the constructed policy cycle. Teachers, whether as individuals or groups, are invited to respond to a formulated consultation process, with the same access to spaces and time as individuals or groups in wider society. The questions and stimuli, as well as the performativity which bounds everyday professional action, values and knowledge (Ozga, 2008), guide responses to present contours within routinised spaces (Lipsky, 1980). Teachers and ‘street level’ LTS staff will be privileged in, for example, the impending consultation of Glow version 2, insofar as they will be more likely to have access to codes, networks, language and histories than other stakeholders in, and users of, Glow. This advantage will shortly be lost. Global information and communication technologies which allow broadband access to the World Wide Web; the application and admission of significant numbers of public, private and voluntary organisations to Glow; and national and local government internal re-organisation which has integrated education with often two or more functions, means that traditional educators, challenged to improve teaching and learning, attainment, and ultimately comparative performance, will not be privileged or be allowed to formally develop policy. However, there is a significant concomitant shift in notions of teacher professionalism.
Significant numbers of teachers are engaged in post-registration study at Masters level and above, often as part of Standards–focused professional development (Scottish Executive 2002, 2006). I will develop how teachers might work with LTS, and how authentic collegiality and collaboration may become more prevalent, visible and influential. Teaching is publicly regarded and spoken of as a profession, and in Scotland all of our teachers are graduates. With A Teaching Profession for the 21st Century, the ‘McCrone Agreement’, teachers have committed themselves to continuing professional development (CPD) and this has invigorated, for example, provision of post-graduate and professional qualifications. If we assume that increasingly the profession will be engaging with theory and research, and will be writing about education and learning, then there is dynamism and a dynamic that could be more widely recognised and engaged with. Additionally, it is widely recognised that classroom practitioners have adopted many of the principles of AifL, possibly as the benefits to teachers and learners can be more intrinsic and meaningful than summative assessment (Hayward, 2007). Action research is a key component of AifL. Later, I will develop how this experience and expertise might be drawn upon.
LTS could reconceptualise the teaching profession and other ‘street level bureaucrats’ within education. A key reason for doing so would be to improve and extend policy which: raises attainment; is recognised as improving teaching and learning; supports LTS’s vision and international visibility as ‘change agents’ and their desire for legitimacy through a more ‘arms length’ relationship with the civil service and Scottish Government (Roebuck, 2008:182); and continues the move from rationist to incrementalist policy development, leading to ‘network policy making’. This will be shown to be attractive to LTS when considering the impact of the concordat.
Firstly here I will interrogate the idea of the teaching profession becoming central researchers on or for policy. At this stage, I will introduce my forecast of what may develop should the nature of discourse, and wider communication between the state and ‘street level’ remain unchanged. To begin, I look at what is known about Glow and how it has been implemented as we move towards version 2. Glow is a non-mandated national education policy initiative. The idea was conceived of early in the life of LTS and has developed through many formal and informal networks, including those involving key, charismatic LTS staff. The innovation stage overlapped with the forming relationship with commercial IT company, RM. Like AifL and CfE, Glow has not been born from national consultation, popular demand or from those in the education system, or from users. LTS are supporting those local authorities who have chosen to ‘roll out’ access to the portal and to support their employers, service users and others to use some or all of the learning environment. Through live and online events such as the Scottish Learning Festival, LTS are at the forefront of administrative implementation. Traditional policy networks have not engaged with Glow to the same extent as other policies coming direct from the Scottish Government. Therefore we have a time-lag in terms of its uptake by HMiE, SQA and the wider civil service, in addition to piecemeal implementation across local authorities. The programmatic approach to Glow can be seen through: it being the focus of this year’s Scottish Learning Festival; through consultation with users, agencies and RM on how the portal can better meet needs and wants; by the utilisation of some of the latest ICT; and the granting of permissions to, and facilitation of, Glow Groups. It is possible that it will become a public good with all public bodies providing direct access to each other and each user. Spaces may be granted which may lead to inter-agency discourse and services. Adults and children may enjoy personalised learning and service. However this packaged and managed proxy of the World Wide Web is being engineered into place, with an ongoing debate as to the uses and benefits of Glow. This is inevitable if we think in post-modern terms of multiple realities and divergent interpretations with respect to all public policy and how such a way of enabling potentially millions of connections might meet the needs of a heterogeneous schooling system.
In their support role, LTS staff need to be aware of how their activities and circumstances can affect the policy, however it will be difficult to establish methodologies for recognising and validating impact on attitudes, system, practices and outcomes. Unless part of the research ‘for’ or ‘on’ policy, they may not have a legitimate role or voice in assisting implementation. There exists the possibility of using or generating social data through Glow which could be aggregated; of recognising social exclusion and acting upon it; and of avoiding user costs (Lipsky, 1980) by providing continuous real-time support up and down hierarchies. However present LTS Glow activity matches the working conditions of LTS staff, many of whom have well established work patterns. Such ‘street level bureaucrats’ have some discretion over which individuals and organisations are provided with log-in and other administrator rights. There is an absence of advocacy on behalf of many children who are ‘look after and accommodated’, and their teachers and other key adults who are in publicly funded provision but who do not have access to Glow, despite this cohort being privileged within the NPF. That this anomaly was not spotted during contract negotiations and remains unaddressed deep into formal implementation and the establishment of multiple, varied networks around the policy, is deeply concerning. Equitable access to Glow is something to which I will return.
How might future policy processes involving LTS utilise Glow? Firstly, LTS have formed a number of Glow Groups along existing taxonomies. This mirrors the long-standing segregation and categorising of educators, and imitates existing power relations and networks. This may interfere with other policies and projects with objectives to remove traditional and unnecessary barriers. National Glow Groups, many of which are discipline-specific, have been set up by LTS staff, though it is doubtful that resources will exist to facilitate them to the extent that participants sustain the group, as successfully occurred with the well-resourced Heads Together online community. Next, I examine to what extent individuals within Glow Groups might make or advise policy. If LTS can attract a range of learning stakeholders and Glow users into Glow Groups, there will be seams of data to be harvested either directly by LTS staff as participant observers or as a result of asserting rights over data generated through discussions, surveys, or class work within the portal.
Globalisation leads to a collapse in time, space and distance (Giddens, 1994). We will see more ‘mode 2’ knowledge; that which is produced in everyday social interactions and practices, as opposed to ‘mode 1’ knowledge which is more formal, research-based knowledge, often set within a discipline. This move is necessary if we recognise that the policy cycle and linearity from policy to practice does not exist nowadays, and especially so several years after broadband internet access has became widely available to homes and education establishments, and the first 'social web' tools were developed. Learning professionals around the world are creating and consuming content and engaging in conversations, often with many peers at the same time. Spaces exist, or are created, for education issues, national policies, pedagogy, research, resources, ideas and tools. Wenger's 'communities of practice' exist in private and public online spaces; some facilitated by state education agencies, some by learning professionals who have identified an often micro focus. Gillies (2008:80) wrote of education being subject to debate and dispute. Traditional hierarchies, networks and policy processes are disrupted, along with notions of how policy 'travels'. One recent international focus of LTS, following from relative positions in the OECD's league tables, has been to examine what makes Finland's education system perform so well. A significant reason for this focus is that the main aim of national education systems and formal policy changes within, have always been and continue to be, an increase in comparative GDP. There is an incompatibility between a government's conception of teachers, pupils and others as a key component in economic performance, and the way that technologies enable those within an education system to subvert, be creative with, restrict, and act upon policy. Case studies about Finnish education on the LTS website and workshops at the Scottish Learning Festival enable the transfer of policy, though predominantly in one direction. However, a learning professional in Scotland who is inspired to implement aspects of the Finnish system are able to network, collaborate with, influence and construct with others; Finnish, Scottish and from elsewhere, through free technologies such as blogs, wikis, podcasts, web conferencing, discussion boards, and some of the communication tools within Glow such as Glow Meet and Glow Groups. Extending this, we can state that all citizens are now able to share views and discuss government policy in many more ways than government facilitated or informal face-to-face encounters.
What I have outlined above indicates that in public spaces there is unlikely to be consensus on what policy looks like, how it can be utilised, and where it is heading. Individuals, children and adults, will be discussing their experiences of Glow within the portal and in many other spaces. I will now detail how this environment provides an opportunity for LTS to show that they are innovative and promote innovation, ensuring their legitimacy among a burgeoning number and variety of users and stakeholders. LTS should consider one primary policy function to be the creation, ongoing facilitation, situation within, and promotion of spaces, time periods and networks. There needs to be an awareness that those within a formal education system live and communicate mostly outside of it. I am turning to a conception of individuals who, while often grounded in traditional organisations, shift at will from multiple temporary networks to others (Scheer and Nüttgens, 1999:14). These individuals are also actors, involved in negotiating spaces, language and other codes. The 'street level bureaucrats' within LTS should focus on developing tools and spaces which minimise the barriers to participation, and encourage discourse between individuals. Such a change in role could result in the creation of more negotiated knowledge, sharing of multiple realities, and accumulation of knowledge. Users of Glow would be better able to communicate with others when sharing or requiring knowledge, skills and help. There would always be someone 'on', at any time of the day or week. Therefore individuals' use of Glow would fit with the prevalent desire for 'anytime, anywhere' activity. This occurs beyond traditional work patterns in the public sector and personalises the potential teaching and learning benefits, moving away from the limits imposed by the 'street level bureaucrat's' tendency for routine and simplification. The costs to the user of seeking assistance are reduced, and there is less of a limit on time and information (Lipsky, 1980:29). There is a movement away from local knowledge and rhetoric will dissolve, replaced by new objectives and applications of the original, central vision; observable by LTS if they are present in the new spaces. For LTS, consultation changes to observation.
One earlier concern was the conventional use of data and technologies for political arithmetic and monitoring and control, such as highlighting the number of ‘hits’ on the Glow portal. Policy measures “tend to lag innovation” (Power, 2004:777) as measurement functions to “classify, represent and intervene in organisational activity” (Power, 2004:767). They don’t reveal things as they are. Opening the ‘black box’ of the portal and seeing the day-to-day innovation, learning new metaphors and even deprofessionalised language, and exposing themselves to tacit knowledge and judgements, could undoubtedly be transformative, however the qualitative data collected will be more difficult to aggregate.
This benefit leads me to expand upon my conception of teachers as a collection of individuals who are more likely to be committed to social justice and research, influenced by their earlier career choice and freely-chosen continuing professional and academic journey, in addition to professional standards and codes through which they are managed by their peers, employers and the state. What I have outlined so far has the potential to strengthen participative democracy, with Glow offering an approach for wider government. As I have shown, teachers cannot be privileged within traditional consultation. However, they could be vital to transforming LTS into a social learning system within a broader learning system (Wenger, 2000:226). I identify three changes which would enable competence and experience to converge (Wenger, 2000:233), fostering belonging, a deep sense of community, and joint enterprise where “perspectives meet and new opportunities arise” (Wenger, 2000:233). Firstly, it requires the civil service to recognise the research skills and capacities of teachers who have a Masters qualification. Secondly, that teachers are close to the ideology of social justice and equality, and that capacity can be built to ensure that citizens, including children are able to use new spaces and technologies, and that their knowledge and codes are visible. Finally, the constellation of ‘personal learning networks’ (Fisch, 2008) individually managed by significant numbers of Scottish-based learning professionals and which includes trustful relationships with peers across the world, should be recognised and connected with. In a post-concordat system we may find thirty-two diverging schooling systems. There will be pressure on LTS’s in-house research team to work across new boundaries, where there is a focus on national outcomes rather than programme evaluation. There is a code of conduct for social researchers, though as Glow is not presently a key Scottish Government policy there is an opportunity for Masters graduates to produce research which is timely, relevant, high quality, credible, and user-friendly. We are recognising the research capacity of teacher practitioners who have experience of carrying out small-scale research. Being trusted, motivated and objective, they could build relationships with Glow users and others. The focus would be negotiated between LTS and the teacher researcher. They might interpret evidence, undertake research, disseminate findings, and engage with experts. It would require such teachers: to be supervised and have their capacity further developed; receive further professional or academic credit; and to be conceived of as strategic participants in. Based on recent publications, I believe that HMiE and GTCS would welcome this, although teaching unions may feel that their influence is threatened. Returning to the lack of a code of conduct for such researchers, Griffiths argues that educational research must be primarily for social justice (Griffiths, 1998). There is a history of teachers and researchers in Scotland acting as agents for social justice, such as ensuring minimum guarantees to education, mobility and access. Presently, with LTS’s focus on programme implementation, there is yet to emerge a critique of Glow on social justice or equity grounds, other than in terms of until recently, perceived disadvantages faced by pupils and staff in local authorities which had not ‘signed-up’. As education and policy merge with other state provision and discourse, and Glow implementation timescales continue to vary, there will be issues around, for example, access to public resources to which Glow users or certain Glow Groups have more direct access compared to those who cannot or do not access the portal.
My final point relates to the place of new networks, partly facilitated by new online technologies. Ewan McIntosh, former National Adviser for Learning and Technology Futures, inspired hundreds of teachers to engage with colleagues beyond traditional boundaries. Many teachers are taking responsibility for their own professional development and some are creating and participating in online spaces and networks using free online tools and often without the support of national education organisations. LTS employees, sometimes in a work capacity, post on their own or others educators’ blogs, wikis and online documents, and participate in virtual or live discussions and events. There is exposure to international developments, presently often relating to education technology. Although there is great diversity in discipline, setting and stage of career of these educators, there are codes, tools, ways of learning, and histories which need to be revealed to someone wishing to join these associated communities, spaces and personal learning networks. There is open-source discourse (Van den Booman and Schafer, 2005) with no stated hierarchy and an emphasis on sharing, informality, innovation, technological advancement and support. Many non-Scottish educators know about and regularly interrogate Glow through these channels. There is an ethos of expertise and goodwill. The participants in these fluid, temporal spaces are comfortable with the nature of many educational technologies and the impact on pedagogy and professionalism. They want to see Glow succeed. With trust, truth, openness and reciprocity, LTS could ask of and support such people to build success criteria, compare similar portals around the world, and continue to roam at the outposts, “making connections, moving knowledge, bringing back news, and explaining” (Wenger, 2000:233).
"To deliver street-level policy through bureaucracy is a contradiction." (Lipsky, 1980: 71)
In education technology terms, Glow is unique and is internationally acclaimed as innovative. LTS and its staff have a window of opportunity to work with all of us involved in Scottish education to show how public policy implementation and development can be further democratised. How long this window remains open is primarily dependent upon the relevance, responsiveness and ownership of Glow to teachers.
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This paper assumes that as Glow is a ‘travelling’ policy (Alexiadou and Jones, 2001) within Scotland and internationally, it will remain a ‘going concern’ for some time. Alexiadou and Jones partly define ‘travelling’ policy in terms of common agendas. Due to international interest, the idea of Glow (as a national intranet) will travel. In contrast, within Scotland Glow is an embedded policy, as it is a national policy moving into local (authority) spaces, colliding with existing policy and practice. Therefore many people and numerous organisations will wish to see, and be involved in, the development of it. These include: The Scottish Government, Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (Cosla), LTS, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education (HMiE), Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) and the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland (ADES).
Through this paper, I will show the ways in which ‘street level bureaucrats’ (Lipsky, 1980) such as LTS staff and teachers are, or might be, conceived of in the processes and networks which implement the policy. Lipsky defines ‘street-level bureaucrats’ as those individuals working in:
"schools, police and welfare departments, lower courts, legal services offices, and other agencies … (who) have wide discretion over the dispensation of benefits or the allocation of public sanctions." (Lipsky, 1980:xi).
I include in this definition those staff at LTS who work daily with education service users, for example teachers and pupils, rather than engaging with civil servants and others within traditional policy networks. I work with this split throughout this paper, accepting that the division of LTS in this way is contestable. I will explore the capacity of teacher researchers to lead the research and dialogue around future versions of our national education intranet, based upon experiences of Glow users and non-users. This would offer alternatives to normative consultation processes deemed by the Scottish Government, LTS and other non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs) to be an acceptable, efficient method of informing and developing a policy and resource. This is important as Glow will be a tool for changing teaching and learning in classrooms, schools, virtual and others spaces; and for social justice and equality in all service provision, including in other areas of the public sector.
As a Chartered Teacher and emerging researcher who is passionate about exploring the potential, boundaries, limitations and futures of new technologies and means of communication, I am drawn to spaces and activities which are intended to foster networks beyond past restrictions of time, cost and distance (Berry et al, 2007). I am aware that there remain hierarchies within the management of Scottish education, all of which ‘look up’; that is they focus on relationships with the Scottish Government and the implementation of its education policies (Humes, 2008). Humes, while illustrating this point throughout, does at the same time develop an alternative perspective. This partially explains policy making through “policy communities”, with a broad membership, including implementers of policy such as Lipsky’s ‘street level bureaucrats’. I will argue that this conception of policy making needs to be better recognised by those managing Glow.
I use Glow to explore the ‘implementation gap’ in policy which exists across Scottish schooling and which threaten the expected benefits arising from a period of consensus across those bodies and organisations which, prior to the globalising effects of new communications, were key to policy development and implementation. Dale (1999:1) develops and compares eight mechanisms associated with “globalization effects on national policy”: “borrowing, learning, teaching, harmonization, dissemination, standardization, installing interdependence and imposition”; all of which will change the relationship of LTS staff to policy implementation and their relationship with other learning professionals. I now outline what presently pre-occupies the Scottish Government when formulating policy and ensuring openness and democracy.
Scotland has been autonomous since 1707 and Patterson (1997) shows how it has constructed itself, through for example its permanent public bodies, as an enlightened, rational, pragmatic, and homogenous nation and state. The state is pluralist and conveys values of egalitarianism, social justice and meritocracy in the interests of Scotland (Patterson, 1997:141). The technocratic, nation-centred networks which have traditionally governed reveal where the power lies in what has become a corporatist state, (Patterson, 1997:143) where democratic rights and processes are evident, though popular participation in directing the advancement of society is not. Patterson writes of a “silent nationalism” for which he sees little basis or reason to continue (Patterson, 1997:139). The national education project, which centres on the improvement of teaching and learning, has been guided by permanent public bodies such as: Scottish Education Board (SEB), Scottish Consultative Committee on the Curriculum (SCCC), and HMiE. Latterly, as Western nations moved from Government to governance (Rhodes, 1997) and Scotland chose to develop its own legislature, policies of elected administrations are implemented by ‘arms-length’ agencies; in Scotland often by NDPBs such as LTS. Rhodes writes about the relevance of policy networks and their relationship with the “core executive”. His work develops the metaphor of the “hollowed-out” state (Rhodes, 1997: 17) and of “differentiated polity” (Rhodes, 1997: 7). He states that the term “governance’ has too many meanings to be useful, though he himself attempts a definition:
"(G)overnance refers to self-organizing, interorganizational networks characterized by interdependence, resource exchange, rules of the game and significant autonomy from the state." (Rhodes, 1997: 15)
Adding to this conception of ‘policy community’ is Trowler’s shifting, multiple networks of individuals and organisations; informal and formal; from the civil service to the ‘street level’; which are embedded in ‘policy mess’ (Trowler, 2002). This helps by moving us away from the normative, non-existent ‘policy cycle’ referred to as a framework for policy formulation and implementation; claimed to be open and democratic and which draws upon devices such as public sector consultations and National Debates. Formal policy networks consist mainly of public sector organisations which are directly funded by the Scottish Government or have long become familiar, with members crossing between or being members of other network constituents (Humes, 2008). An administration will: attempt to act on their manifesto; be influenced by dominant ideologies within their party; set course based upon international comparators compiled by the Office for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and in education, the Timms and Pisa reports; and work with and towards the National Performance Framework (NPF), comprising national outcomes, indicators and targets. Within the present globalist trend and in particular with European integration, the principle of subsidiarity has helped to validate a conservative consensual polity which maintains the ‘Scottish interest’ (Humes, 1986). Wenger (2000:228) provides an interesting explanation of why the notion of ‘national interest’ may endure:
"(T)hinking of ourselves as a member of a community such as a nation requires an act of imagination because we cannot engage with all our fellow citizens. These images of the world are essential to our sense of self and to our interpretation of our participation in the social world."
LTS, funded directly by the Scottish Government and run by a proxy, the Advisory Board, are charged with implementing policies such as ‘A Curriculum for Excellence’ (CfE) and previously ‘Assessment is for Learning’ (AifL) (Roebuck, 2008:173). Humes (1986:71) suggests (predating LTS, of course) that senior officers in such organisations are part of the “’assumptive world’ of officialdom”, that is they have formalised relationships with other bodies close to the Scottish Government and who exist to improve Scottish education. LTS promote new curricula, technology and pedagogy, and in carrying out research, they, like other NDPBs, are pre-occupied with evidence-based policy and practice with some international comparison and future-gazing. Thomas and Pring (2004) criticise the idea that advancing one policy rather than another, based on this approach, will improve teaching and learning, and outcomes. They show that knowledge produced systematically and scientifically is more likely to count as knowledge than evidence from, say, a staff room. The challenge, they say, is how to synthesise personal, craft, and scientific knowledge, reflexively. This is a challenge which I will later argue can be tackled by teacher researchers.
I intend to draw upon forces which I will argue are strong enough to disrupt the dominant social construction of policy cycle within education. Possible futures will be interrogated, accepting the following assumptions: Scotland retains political control over education; LTS continues as the main body for implementing government policy on 3-18 teaching and learning; and that Scotland’s education intranet (presently Glow) continues to be operational. Central government, the civil service, and national bodies have tried to ensure that the principle of subsidiarity refers to Scotland rather than the UK in relation to European Union law and policy. However, Rhodes (1997) writes of post-bureaucratic governance in a centre-less society. The state retains the legitimate monopoly on coercive power over a performance framework based on outcomes. However there is a recent further shift in local governance. Across the NPF, local authorities have discretion over how to meet Scottish Government targets following the 2007 concordat between the Scottish Government and local government (Scottish Government, 2007). Less funding from the centre is ‘ring fenced’ and we may see thirty-two variations in timescales and approaches to the implementation of national education policies. It is possible that non-mandated policies such as Glow will not be seen as a priority by some within Cosla. LTS are presently going through a Public Sector Review, following which their relationships with local authorities may continue to refocus. Restrictions on their welfarist system of support, with blanket coverage, may lead to an increase in service agreements with individual authorities, disseminating evidence-based practice and supporting implementation of those aspects of policies which the local authority have decided will support the meeting of outcomes, and which are now set across departments and functions.
We need to study the contemporary and shifting conception of those within Scottish education, whom Lipsky would refer to as ‘street level bureaucrats’. This is necessary during the present period of perceived great change, with CfE and what I expect will be moves towards a requirement of teachers to use the Glow portal. The recent Consultation on the Revised Standard for Chartered Teacher; the professions new Code of Professionalism and Conduct; and HMiE’s How Good Is Our School? The Journey to Excellence: Part 3, each refer to significant national education policies, developments and initiatives in the main body of the document or exemplification within. I foresee that as Glow use becomes more prevalent and therefore necessary within the public sector, there will be moves to refer to Glow in such standards and performance management documents, alongside existing references to, for example CfE, formative assessment and citizenship. Discourse, language and codes may appear inauthentic (Rhodes, 1997) and a policy gap between the expectations and rhetoric of LTS and continuing school practices may open up.
There are many recent and seconded teachers working for LTS and on the Glow project. They work with teachers, pupils, Implementation Officers, Quality Improvement Officers (QiOs) and others, and like them, contribute to informal policy networks and therefore policy implementation. ‘Street level’ learning professionals, as individuals, are relatively free to deploy, distort, ignore or ameliorate government or workplace policy (Lipsky, 1980). Lipsky characterises such bureaucrats as retaining a public sector ideal though with limited time, information and resources. Their interest in initiatives like Glow will not, by coincidence, match those of management within LTS or other bodies with national power or interest, and as such these professionals “allocate social values but don’t define objectives” (Lipsky, 1980:81). They are not invited to engage with long-standing approaches to policy development and implementation therefore there is little incentive, at a time of budgetary freeze, to make clients’ needs primary or improve the product or service (which would result in an increase in workload (Lipsky, 1980:100)). Therefore, the service ideal is aspirational and we see the use of rhetorical language such as “Excellence” and a reliance on positive studies of implementation. Formal language around education policy is not neutral and is used for capturing discourse (Humes, 2008:74). Normative arguments appear on education websites and in print, and change is bounded by direction, imagined futures and possibilities (Clarke and Newman, 1997).
Taking Lipsky’s (1980) assertion that ‘street level bureaucrats’ possess only a local consciousness, learning professionals can be seen as individuals, each of whom has the power to make discretionary judgements. These may be based upon individuals’ notions of professionalism and professional action. This discretion is possible because of relatively little surveillance of action and that traditionally,
"Public sector bureaucracies are organised so that clients have little knowledge of others in the same position." (Lipsky, 1980:117)
One increasingly prevalent managerialist shift, which curtails the individual and collective power of the ‘street level bureaucrat’ and, prima facie, should ensure the internalising of policy, is that to a standards-based profession. Recently revised standards by the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS), now formally independent of the Scottish Government, are illustrated by acts of implementation of national education and wider social policy. This move exemplifies the place of, in particular, teachers in the constructed policy cycle. Teachers, whether as individuals or groups, are invited to respond to a formulated consultation process, with the same access to spaces and time as individuals or groups in wider society. The questions and stimuli, as well as the performativity which bounds everyday professional action, values and knowledge (Ozga, 2008), guide responses to present contours within routinised spaces (Lipsky, 1980). Teachers and ‘street level’ LTS staff will be privileged in, for example, the impending consultation of Glow version 2, insofar as they will be more likely to have access to codes, networks, language and histories than other stakeholders in, and users of, Glow. This advantage will shortly be lost. Global information and communication technologies which allow broadband access to the World Wide Web; the application and admission of significant numbers of public, private and voluntary organisations to Glow; and national and local government internal re-organisation which has integrated education with often two or more functions, means that traditional educators, challenged to improve teaching and learning, attainment, and ultimately comparative performance, will not be privileged or be allowed to formally develop policy. However, there is a significant concomitant shift in notions of teacher professionalism.
Significant numbers of teachers are engaged in post-registration study at Masters level and above, often as part of Standards–focused professional development (Scottish Executive 2002, 2006). I will develop how teachers might work with LTS, and how authentic collegiality and collaboration may become more prevalent, visible and influential. Teaching is publicly regarded and spoken of as a profession, and in Scotland all of our teachers are graduates. With A Teaching Profession for the 21st Century, the ‘McCrone Agreement’, teachers have committed themselves to continuing professional development (CPD) and this has invigorated, for example, provision of post-graduate and professional qualifications. If we assume that increasingly the profession will be engaging with theory and research, and will be writing about education and learning, then there is dynamism and a dynamic that could be more widely recognised and engaged with. Additionally, it is widely recognised that classroom practitioners have adopted many of the principles of AifL, possibly as the benefits to teachers and learners can be more intrinsic and meaningful than summative assessment (Hayward, 2007). Action research is a key component of AifL. Later, I will develop how this experience and expertise might be drawn upon.
LTS could reconceptualise the teaching profession and other ‘street level bureaucrats’ within education. A key reason for doing so would be to improve and extend policy which: raises attainment; is recognised as improving teaching and learning; supports LTS’s vision and international visibility as ‘change agents’ and their desire for legitimacy through a more ‘arms length’ relationship with the civil service and Scottish Government (Roebuck, 2008:182); and continues the move from rationist to incrementalist policy development, leading to ‘network policy making’. This will be shown to be attractive to LTS when considering the impact of the concordat.
Firstly here I will interrogate the idea of the teaching profession becoming central researchers on or for policy. At this stage, I will introduce my forecast of what may develop should the nature of discourse, and wider communication between the state and ‘street level’ remain unchanged. To begin, I look at what is known about Glow and how it has been implemented as we move towards version 2. Glow is a non-mandated national education policy initiative. The idea was conceived of early in the life of LTS and has developed through many formal and informal networks, including those involving key, charismatic LTS staff. The innovation stage overlapped with the forming relationship with commercial IT company, RM. Like AifL and CfE, Glow has not been born from national consultation, popular demand or from those in the education system, or from users. LTS are supporting those local authorities who have chosen to ‘roll out’ access to the portal and to support their employers, service users and others to use some or all of the learning environment. Through live and online events such as the Scottish Learning Festival, LTS are at the forefront of administrative implementation. Traditional policy networks have not engaged with Glow to the same extent as other policies coming direct from the Scottish Government. Therefore we have a time-lag in terms of its uptake by HMiE, SQA and the wider civil service, in addition to piecemeal implementation across local authorities. The programmatic approach to Glow can be seen through: it being the focus of this year’s Scottish Learning Festival; through consultation with users, agencies and RM on how the portal can better meet needs and wants; by the utilisation of some of the latest ICT; and the granting of permissions to, and facilitation of, Glow Groups. It is possible that it will become a public good with all public bodies providing direct access to each other and each user. Spaces may be granted which may lead to inter-agency discourse and services. Adults and children may enjoy personalised learning and service. However this packaged and managed proxy of the World Wide Web is being engineered into place, with an ongoing debate as to the uses and benefits of Glow. This is inevitable if we think in post-modern terms of multiple realities and divergent interpretations with respect to all public policy and how such a way of enabling potentially millions of connections might meet the needs of a heterogeneous schooling system.
In their support role, LTS staff need to be aware of how their activities and circumstances can affect the policy, however it will be difficult to establish methodologies for recognising and validating impact on attitudes, system, practices and outcomes. Unless part of the research ‘for’ or ‘on’ policy, they may not have a legitimate role or voice in assisting implementation. There exists the possibility of using or generating social data through Glow which could be aggregated; of recognising social exclusion and acting upon it; and of avoiding user costs (Lipsky, 1980) by providing continuous real-time support up and down hierarchies. However present LTS Glow activity matches the working conditions of LTS staff, many of whom have well established work patterns. Such ‘street level bureaucrats’ have some discretion over which individuals and organisations are provided with log-in and other administrator rights. There is an absence of advocacy on behalf of many children who are ‘look after and accommodated’, and their teachers and other key adults who are in publicly funded provision but who do not have access to Glow, despite this cohort being privileged within the NPF. That this anomaly was not spotted during contract negotiations and remains unaddressed deep into formal implementation and the establishment of multiple, varied networks around the policy, is deeply concerning. Equitable access to Glow is something to which I will return.
How might future policy processes involving LTS utilise Glow? Firstly, LTS have formed a number of Glow Groups along existing taxonomies. This mirrors the long-standing segregation and categorising of educators, and imitates existing power relations and networks. This may interfere with other policies and projects with objectives to remove traditional and unnecessary barriers. National Glow Groups, many of which are discipline-specific, have been set up by LTS staff, though it is doubtful that resources will exist to facilitate them to the extent that participants sustain the group, as successfully occurred with the well-resourced Heads Together online community. Next, I examine to what extent individuals within Glow Groups might make or advise policy. If LTS can attract a range of learning stakeholders and Glow users into Glow Groups, there will be seams of data to be harvested either directly by LTS staff as participant observers or as a result of asserting rights over data generated through discussions, surveys, or class work within the portal.
Globalisation leads to a collapse in time, space and distance (Giddens, 1994). We will see more ‘mode 2’ knowledge; that which is produced in everyday social interactions and practices, as opposed to ‘mode 1’ knowledge which is more formal, research-based knowledge, often set within a discipline. This move is necessary if we recognise that the policy cycle and linearity from policy to practice does not exist nowadays, and especially so several years after broadband internet access has became widely available to homes and education establishments, and the first 'social web' tools were developed. Learning professionals around the world are creating and consuming content and engaging in conversations, often with many peers at the same time. Spaces exist, or are created, for education issues, national policies, pedagogy, research, resources, ideas and tools. Wenger's 'communities of practice' exist in private and public online spaces; some facilitated by state education agencies, some by learning professionals who have identified an often micro focus. Gillies (2008:80) wrote of education being subject to debate and dispute. Traditional hierarchies, networks and policy processes are disrupted, along with notions of how policy 'travels'. One recent international focus of LTS, following from relative positions in the OECD's league tables, has been to examine what makes Finland's education system perform so well. A significant reason for this focus is that the main aim of national education systems and formal policy changes within, have always been and continue to be, an increase in comparative GDP. There is an incompatibility between a government's conception of teachers, pupils and others as a key component in economic performance, and the way that technologies enable those within an education system to subvert, be creative with, restrict, and act upon policy. Case studies about Finnish education on the LTS website and workshops at the Scottish Learning Festival enable the transfer of policy, though predominantly in one direction. However, a learning professional in Scotland who is inspired to implement aspects of the Finnish system are able to network, collaborate with, influence and construct with others; Finnish, Scottish and from elsewhere, through free technologies such as blogs, wikis, podcasts, web conferencing, discussion boards, and some of the communication tools within Glow such as Glow Meet and Glow Groups. Extending this, we can state that all citizens are now able to share views and discuss government policy in many more ways than government facilitated or informal face-to-face encounters.
What I have outlined above indicates that in public spaces there is unlikely to be consensus on what policy looks like, how it can be utilised, and where it is heading. Individuals, children and adults, will be discussing their experiences of Glow within the portal and in many other spaces. I will now detail how this environment provides an opportunity for LTS to show that they are innovative and promote innovation, ensuring their legitimacy among a burgeoning number and variety of users and stakeholders. LTS should consider one primary policy function to be the creation, ongoing facilitation, situation within, and promotion of spaces, time periods and networks. There needs to be an awareness that those within a formal education system live and communicate mostly outside of it. I am turning to a conception of individuals who, while often grounded in traditional organisations, shift at will from multiple temporary networks to others (Scheer and Nüttgens, 1999:14). These individuals are also actors, involved in negotiating spaces, language and other codes. The 'street level bureaucrats' within LTS should focus on developing tools and spaces which minimise the barriers to participation, and encourage discourse between individuals. Such a change in role could result in the creation of more negotiated knowledge, sharing of multiple realities, and accumulation of knowledge. Users of Glow would be better able to communicate with others when sharing or requiring knowledge, skills and help. There would always be someone 'on', at any time of the day or week. Therefore individuals' use of Glow would fit with the prevalent desire for 'anytime, anywhere' activity. This occurs beyond traditional work patterns in the public sector and personalises the potential teaching and learning benefits, moving away from the limits imposed by the 'street level bureaucrat's' tendency for routine and simplification. The costs to the user of seeking assistance are reduced, and there is less of a limit on time and information (Lipsky, 1980:29). There is a movement away from local knowledge and rhetoric will dissolve, replaced by new objectives and applications of the original, central vision; observable by LTS if they are present in the new spaces. For LTS, consultation changes to observation.
One earlier concern was the conventional use of data and technologies for political arithmetic and monitoring and control, such as highlighting the number of ‘hits’ on the Glow portal. Policy measures “tend to lag innovation” (Power, 2004:777) as measurement functions to “classify, represent and intervene in organisational activity” (Power, 2004:767). They don’t reveal things as they are. Opening the ‘black box’ of the portal and seeing the day-to-day innovation, learning new metaphors and even deprofessionalised language, and exposing themselves to tacit knowledge and judgements, could undoubtedly be transformative, however the qualitative data collected will be more difficult to aggregate.
This benefit leads me to expand upon my conception of teachers as a collection of individuals who are more likely to be committed to social justice and research, influenced by their earlier career choice and freely-chosen continuing professional and academic journey, in addition to professional standards and codes through which they are managed by their peers, employers and the state. What I have outlined so far has the potential to strengthen participative democracy, with Glow offering an approach for wider government. As I have shown, teachers cannot be privileged within traditional consultation. However, they could be vital to transforming LTS into a social learning system within a broader learning system (Wenger, 2000:226). I identify three changes which would enable competence and experience to converge (Wenger, 2000:233), fostering belonging, a deep sense of community, and joint enterprise where “perspectives meet and new opportunities arise” (Wenger, 2000:233). Firstly, it requires the civil service to recognise the research skills and capacities of teachers who have a Masters qualification. Secondly, that teachers are close to the ideology of social justice and equality, and that capacity can be built to ensure that citizens, including children are able to use new spaces and technologies, and that their knowledge and codes are visible. Finally, the constellation of ‘personal learning networks’ (Fisch, 2008) individually managed by significant numbers of Scottish-based learning professionals and which includes trustful relationships with peers across the world, should be recognised and connected with. In a post-concordat system we may find thirty-two diverging schooling systems. There will be pressure on LTS’s in-house research team to work across new boundaries, where there is a focus on national outcomes rather than programme evaluation. There is a code of conduct for social researchers, though as Glow is not presently a key Scottish Government policy there is an opportunity for Masters graduates to produce research which is timely, relevant, high quality, credible, and user-friendly. We are recognising the research capacity of teacher practitioners who have experience of carrying out small-scale research. Being trusted, motivated and objective, they could build relationships with Glow users and others. The focus would be negotiated between LTS and the teacher researcher. They might interpret evidence, undertake research, disseminate findings, and engage with experts. It would require such teachers: to be supervised and have their capacity further developed; receive further professional or academic credit; and to be conceived of as strategic participants in. Based on recent publications, I believe that HMiE and GTCS would welcome this, although teaching unions may feel that their influence is threatened. Returning to the lack of a code of conduct for such researchers, Griffiths argues that educational research must be primarily for social justice (Griffiths, 1998). There is a history of teachers and researchers in Scotland acting as agents for social justice, such as ensuring minimum guarantees to education, mobility and access. Presently, with LTS’s focus on programme implementation, there is yet to emerge a critique of Glow on social justice or equity grounds, other than in terms of until recently, perceived disadvantages faced by pupils and staff in local authorities which had not ‘signed-up’. As education and policy merge with other state provision and discourse, and Glow implementation timescales continue to vary, there will be issues around, for example, access to public resources to which Glow users or certain Glow Groups have more direct access compared to those who cannot or do not access the portal.
My final point relates to the place of new networks, partly facilitated by new online technologies. Ewan McIntosh, former National Adviser for Learning and Technology Futures, inspired hundreds of teachers to engage with colleagues beyond traditional boundaries. Many teachers are taking responsibility for their own professional development and some are creating and participating in online spaces and networks using free online tools and often without the support of national education organisations. LTS employees, sometimes in a work capacity, post on their own or others educators’ blogs, wikis and online documents, and participate in virtual or live discussions and events. There is exposure to international developments, presently often relating to education technology. Although there is great diversity in discipline, setting and stage of career of these educators, there are codes, tools, ways of learning, and histories which need to be revealed to someone wishing to join these associated communities, spaces and personal learning networks. There is open-source discourse (Van den Booman and Schafer, 2005) with no stated hierarchy and an emphasis on sharing, informality, innovation, technological advancement and support. Many non-Scottish educators know about and regularly interrogate Glow through these channels. There is an ethos of expertise and goodwill. The participants in these fluid, temporal spaces are comfortable with the nature of many educational technologies and the impact on pedagogy and professionalism. They want to see Glow succeed. With trust, truth, openness and reciprocity, LTS could ask of and support such people to build success criteria, compare similar portals around the world, and continue to roam at the outposts, “making connections, moving knowledge, bringing back news, and explaining” (Wenger, 2000:233).
"To deliver street-level policy through bureaucracy is a contradiction." (Lipsky, 1980: 71)
In education technology terms, Glow is unique and is internationally acclaimed as innovative. LTS and its staff have a window of opportunity to work with all of us involved in Scottish education to show how public policy implementation and development can be further democratised. How long this window remains open is primarily dependent upon the relevance, responsiveness and ownership of Glow to teachers.
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Monday 19 January 2009
Project idea for supporting academically-motivated 'looked after and accommodated children'
I work with children who are ‘looked after and accommodated’ away from home by the state (‘in care’). From a social justice perspective, I will show how web-based technologies can be used to support vulnerable pupils who may be motivated by academic qualifications not available within their present education setting. I can be contacted at dafc1885@hotmail.com.
In this article, I will show that, presently, new technologies are connecting learners with each other and their tutors beyond traditional physical spaces, and that some ideas of Clayton Christensen’s, in his book ‘Disrupting Class’, can be applied to the prevailing underachievement of children who are looked after away from home in residential education establishments.
Increasingly, learning establishments possess and make use of a broadband connection. They also have technology which is able to make use of the many browser-based communication tools in ‘the cloud’, making use of online instead of hard-drive space. The main technical restriction which many learning professionals are finding difficult to influence, is centralised management of web access (‘blocking’).
Despite this, significant numbers of educators are making use of web tools to communicate. Many do so within their workplace and other physical spaces such the home personal computer or mobile device. The use of 3G technology for ‘anytime, anywhere’ learning and communication can be seen with the popularity of the iPhone 3G and ‘dongles’ for laptops, amongst other products. Many educators have skills and experience in participating in online learning opportunities such as live webcasts, web conferences and streamed conferences; utilising audio, visual and web-based technology, all of which continues to fall in price.
Before outlining one way of drawing on these developments, I will provide some background on why educational use of such ‘web 2.0’ technologies should be made in pursuit of social justice for motivated ‘looked after and accommodated’ children.
Children who are 'looked after' in the
A child who is intrinsically motivated to study and to progress academically, but who has had to deal with prolonged crisis in their family life, is likely to have their needs unmet by the current system of care and education for children who are 'looked after'. Residential schools are at the heart of the Scottish Government’s commitment to ensure that vulnerable children and young people aspire and achieve. However current difficulties in the sector see reductions in education staff and wider deployment of generic teachers instead of subject specialists. Broadly, teachers are not encouraged to work directly with children who are ‘looked after and accommodated’.
Working with a geographically diverse group of 15-16 year old children who are close to leaving care, the project would help them to enhance their skills, qualifications and ability to make positive choices, and assist them in making a smoother transition into post-16 education, training and employment. Residential schools and units would work with 'children’s rights' organisations to encourage 15-16 year old children to become involved in the project. Initially, around sixteen children who are 'looked after' would be supported in their study for subjects which are not traditionally offered and are increasing in relevance; courses with currency which are rarely available in residential settings, for example advanced qualifications in Spanish, Mandarin, Digital Media, Care, and literacy and numeracy. Employability skills and mentoring could also be offered.
Tutors (practicing, subject specialist teachers, each with extensive web 2.0 experience) would be recruited to facilitate 3-4 one hour web conference sessions per week, and continue study support via, for example, Ning sites which can support tasks, multimedia resources, synchronous/asynchronous chat, and links. Two-three web conference slots would run each day or evening from Sunday to Thursday for almost two years. There would be 1-2 tutors per subject (not necessarily based in the same country as the tutees), with one acting as lead tutor. The project would need to be accredited by the examination board to deliver and assess each of these courses. Each participating school or unit would be provided with one laptop, with 3G web access if need be. Use and storage of this resource by the child and their place of residency would be strictly monitored following the signing of an acceptable-use contract. I have costed such a project and believe it would require initial 2-year funding of around $130,000. This compares favourably with the average salary of one Scottish teacher over the same period.
The project idea has been inspired by The School of Everything, which uses the web to connect those who have ‘something to teach’ with those who want to learn, along with Clayton Christensen’s argument that new technologies can effectively meet non-consumption within schooling/learning; that online learning can meet learners’ needs where there is no immediate, viable alternative in their physical learning space.
Such a project would break down barriers around content delivery, teacher location, and the use of online multimedia, to offer opportunities to those who are ready to push themselves academically, but who are currently away from home and mainstream education, often through no fault of their own. The use of commercial, publicly-funded Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) has not yet led to increased attainment. Smaller-scale, web-networked projects, which nonetheless keep the tutors and tutees in regular, direct contact, appear to offer more likelihood of tangible impact on attainment, with its established link to later opportunities and quality of life.
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