Open Source Schools (OSS), the organisation funded by government ICT agency Becta, had its first public airing this week with its “Unconference” at the National College for School Leadership in Nottingham. It was a fitting venue.
The healthy turnout of primary and secondary teachers, ICT advisers, and those working in capital projects and national agencies showed a wide range of interest and potential. It signalled readiness for some ramped-up national leadership backing to start exerting some real influence on behalf of schools. At a time when market analysts forecast at least a 4 per cent cut in education funding, open source obviously has a lot to offer - some carefully monitored pilots at the very least.
While the networking sessions showed the open source community’s readiness to get its hands dirty with the technical business to pursue its ends, the tone of the event was firmly set by learning and teaching. Opening keynote speaker Graham Attwell, of Pontydysgu (Welsh for “Bridge to Learning“) invoked Levi Strauss’ concept of ‘bricolage’ - using whatever tools are appropriate, irrespective of their original purpose - for a concept of taking original code and material to repurpose it in collaborative co-productions in the construction of learning.
An entertaining and witty waltz through theories of learning twirled back to practicalities of digital identity and a warning that regulation might be required for social networking sites to protect the aspects of the identities of their users.
OSS community manager Miles Berry demonstrated how programming - the interface between human minds and machines - has moved way beyond early activities with LOGO. His presentation of MIT’s free Scratch programming (more at MIT site) showed how its inspiration from hip-hop has created an engaging visual programming language that’s effective for engaging young learners.
Those who think that Second Life is for people in need of lives of their own would have been forced to a rethink by Leon Cych, whose fluency with open source 3D modelling worlds convincingly establishes their relevance for learning. Besides presenting, Leon Cych videoed many of the presentations as part of his vision to build a repository of video demonstrations of good practice par excellence. With support from Futurelab, Leon has been recording highlights from TeachMeets, the grass roots sharing events for teachers that have taken root widely following their development at the Scottish Learning Festival in Glasgow.
Open source's relevance for the classroom was also established by Drew Buddie with his presentation, "Moodle is my towel". Rather than a towel, it seemed more like a natural extension of his teaching and learning and his fingertips to his audience, and it showed why Moodle is so popular among teachers, many of whom find it easier to use than the paid-for "framework" VLEs they are being offered by their schools and VLEs. Also intriguing were the references to the improvements coming with the next version of Moodle due later this year (watch out for it at BETT 2010).
Building Schools for the Future ready for some open source pilots?
The variety of facets of open source on show at the NCSL inevitably led to impossible choices for sessions, but the glimpse of the technology’s importance for capital projects like Building Schools for the Future for learning, engagement, autonomy and total cost of ownership was compelling. The workshop led by Brian Lockwood, who leads on ICT at Egglescliffe School, Sockton-on-Tees, raised the issues facing schools wanting to develop innovative, open source visions for BSF when there is a general lack of support and understanding.
The discussion, lit by insights from the SSAT (Specialist schools and Academies Trust), consultants and the UK’s only major BSF open source initiative (in Bradford) highlighted the daunting challenges to school innovation presented by the well-intended push for managed services and “framework” learning platforms. Lewisham has paved the way with the "innovation bubble" it has developed with Partnerships for Schools, but there is clearly some way to go when it comes to open source, both in terms of weaving it into schools' visions for learning and strategies for change, and creating an awareness and capacity among consultants and contractors.
The discussion also suggested the need for some carefully nurtured and monitored pilots for open source if BSF is to help build capacity for creative, productive open source implementations before this massive school remodel and rebuild programme runs its course. Failure to do so will raise some serious questions when it will probably be too late to take action.
Face-toface networking was also a key feature of the OSS Unconference, with all kinds of national links being made. It was interesting to hear from South Nottingham CLC's e-learning consultant, Janet Simner (a stalwart of the prestigious national Newsday event for schools), about local primary learners happily using netbooks with open source programs for their learning.
And, of course, it was learners who demonstrated the arguments of the day through creative action. Six Year 7 and 8 girls from Hamble College, Southampton ("Digital leaders working @ the digital edge"), spent the day conducting video interviews with delegates. They made a 4am start to get to Nottingham but you never would have known it from their performance. Cool, calm and purposeful, and with only three weeks' experience shooting and editing video, Grace (Year 7) and Alysha (Year 8), for example, were a model of professionalism. And if you are under the impression that open source is some sort of second best, five of their videos were available on the school website (Moodle - they opted out of the LA's Studywiz service) by the end of the day. Like true pros.
More information
Open Source Schools
Leon Cych's Learn 4 Life website
Leon Cych's video coverage of North East London TeachMeet 2009, supported by Futurelab
Scratch
Janet Simner, South Nottingham CLC,
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Hamble College
Send a text to Hamble College on 07797 800968 and you get an automatic text response giving you the web address for the videos (it's here- just log in as a guest)
