Two decades ago I wrote a blog with this provocative title. I wasn't being a Luddite, rather I was playing devil's advocat and suggesting that for all that digital offered (in education) the fundamentals were the same: a teacher with knowledge passing it on to their students.

I need to revisit the topic with the same approach.

It is too easy to celebrate the headliners of digital education, not least at the Open Univerity with Open Learn and FutureLearn, and the myriad of learning management platforms and Apps, but when it comes to a student, especially in primary and secondary education, and in FE and vocational courses, how much is still, of necessity, knowledge and skills passed on by a subject matter expert? How can infectious enthusiasm be recreated in a digital experience? It can't? How do you develop loyalty and respect for a teacher and their subject through an App? 

I'm back at Mid-Sussex Marlins the Sussex swimming club I joined in June 2008 and from which I have had only a couple of breaks - a year at the Open University, Milton Keynes in 2011 and the last four months as the head coach at a much smaller club down the road.

This chart could have been drawn up by me. I like to reduce things to infographics like this. 

Today I was teaching four sessions: x3 30mins and x1 45 mins, our Grades 1, 2, & 3 and a Grade 7 group. I enjoyed slipping back into the routine: getting to know and remember the name of every child during the swim, having a teenage Level 1 assistant and working through a new assessment sheet for these 7 to 11 year olds.

I was impressed to see an Olympic Trials Qualifying Times notice on the wall.

I'll be coaching too - without the head coach responsibilities. 

Buried in Ancestry and the British Newspaper Archive for several days I am finally venturing out to a library because the photographs in the 1916 newspaper article I am interested in are too black to view. The text is fine.

My interest, for The Western Front Association, is on the 19 year old Pte William Gallard who died 27 January 1916. This is him posing for a studio photograph in Eastbourne with his father (sitting). 

William and Edward Gallard, son and father, 1915 before they went to war, William to the Western Front, his father to India.

Details HERE >  http://bit.ly/2FpaX9H

Some of the really cool things our students learn to do. They then go on to work on mega movies and West End Musicals.

•  Instagram MET Props 
•  Preparing Designers and Makers for the Entertainment Industry 
•  Student Encounters with Furniture
• 
  

What's your experience of a formal work appraisal? To what degree does setting objectivews for the next six months help or hinder? How much flexibility is there? And if the appraisal is sent up the chain what can someone say in summary who you rarely see and never work with say of value?

I've enjoyed the focus and hope to deliver on closer ties to creative industries, using platforms like Planet eStream and Thinglink, and even cracking on with Google Educator 1, 2 and Trainer certification - though  NOT through much use of Google's own online learning (videos, text and multiple choice tests) which I find forgetable and confusing. 

This morning I have gone through an older broadcast with Melvyn Bragg on the history of coffee.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000c4x1

These things I gather up serendipitously in the car then dig out on Planet eStream to make available on he college network. Also readily available on BBC Sounds.

A successful day in JV's world of TEL. 2 1/2 hours with a SEND student and his Support Assistant clicking through 360 tours of the GB MET sites. It was wonderful to share his enthusiasms and to look at ways to follow this up by involving him in creations and additions to these.

An easy win too with Planet eStream, changing a student schema to a staff and uploading 4 campus shot interviews as 'College Network' and 'Staff Only' and made readily viewable in one place with the ability to add to these any variety of links or further content.

All this and as I complete three months doing the Social Media for Lewes Green Party I put up a piece linking to 'More or Less' on the Election in which the money raised by different parties is measured in time to count out a stash of £10 notes. No guessing for which parties come out of top. I was surprised to find the Green Party were ahead of the Scottish National Party though.

Should politicians be able to buy our votes in this way?

Ruth Alexander, BBC 4, imagined how long it would take to count the cash received by each political party at the rate of £10 note every sec: 

1/4hr: SNP

4 hr 20 mns: Green

24 hrs: LibDems

3 days: Brexit party

5 days: Labour Donation

2 Wks: Conservatives 

https://bbc.in/2LLuaWm 

Despite being a 'Learning Technologist' I put myself on the creative and instructional design side of elearning rather than the IT side of things. I don't take well to learning new platforms - but have to. My greatest motivation and drive is where I have a project goal that requires the software.

Today I have added a plugin to Wordpress which allows me to add 360° images. 

Here are a few shots I took at Lewes Late Night Shopping last night. 

http://bit.ly/2YmxgoZ 

The win is to be able to say to 'Creative Industries' here at GB MET who use Wordpress to create portfolios of their work that they can now include in these 360°shots too. 

Cerating a series of 360 Tours for SEND students is one thing - providing the level of detail that will support their curiosity and interest is another. With reading, though not understanding, often the issues, wherever possible Immerserive Reader is used on text.

https://www.thinglink.com/video/1246837831456784385

I fear that being required and assessed for mastery is the go to position too often. It doesn't result in buy in, or useful application of skills to solving learning problems. 

Google Teacher Center

What's in a name? Twice the salary. A consultant rather than some kind of IT or Tech guy. 

Learning Technologist

Tech Coach

Instructional technology coach

elearning Consultant

Guru

Many schools are seeking out ways to support teachers with this shift in mindset. Popular support models include:

• Coaching model, where teachers work one on one with colleagues for lesson planning, technology skill building, and demo lessons. Large group workshops are held for entire school or district faculties.
• Trainer of trainers model, where selected teachers receive specialized training with the expectation they will train their fellow colleagues.
• Early adopters model, where early adopters of technology share best practices at any opportunity.

We have gone exclusively down the Trainer of trainers model - and not being hugely successful. As a Learning Technologist I am see as the early adopter. The regime and the way people are employed on a 'sessional basis' makes it difficult to bring teachers/tutors/profs in for training for the time it takes to get them up to speed and confident, let alone providing time to develop suitable materials. 

I'm moving on to take the Google Educator Level 2 certificate - because I have failed twice to pass Level 1. They are different things. Both cover very familiar ground, but for me there is something overly finickity about Google Educator Level 1 that I can never get. 

Of course, it isn't me who needs this knowledge, it is our eductors, our tutors and teachers. I cannot take it for them. I cannot create their coursework for them either. I can support them, but they have to come to the party ready to play.