Smart School

When I started Smart School it was was something different, it was the first of its kind and a pilot for Umbrella's successful big Pharma Academy chain across the UK. We came to call these schools "Farms" but at the time it was an obvious choice for my parents trying to do their best for me and I was lucky to get in - mostly because at the time it was experimental.

I remember my first day - everyone was nervous, it was like a blind date ... or rather an arranged marriage. I worried about what I had gotten into but kept telling myself that it was for the best and that I would be better off in the long run and that the experts really knew their stuff. We assembled in the school lecture theatre where Peter the resident Principle greeted us and introduced the staff, the school and its principles.

I remember Peter's induction address clearly - how he spoke so confidently and persuasively about success based on measured performance and how the Smart School process is the most efficient and effective way to guarantee results. He spoke about evolution and quoted someone or something called the Bullet Proof Executive saying “Going back a million years, humans had fire, One guy used it to stay warm, and the other said ‘That’s cheating.’ One of those is our ancestors, and one isn’t". He spoke about the coming robot revolution and the need for humans to "level the playing field" by enhancing their cognitive abilities to "race against the machines". He then almost put us to sleep (for we were not yet medicated) with data, data and yet more data about the numbers of people taking smart drugs in education and business and about the advantage it gives those who take them. He spoke about the dangers of underground BYOD or Bring your Own Drugs use and spoke about the ethics of using them - about the need to be honest and open about using smart drugs. It was during the bit about ethics that another student showed me her smartphone ... she had Google'd the principle and found out his middle name was Deon - we weren't sure what this meant but had to cough and sneeze to disguise our laughter. It also turns out he isn't actually a principle at all but something called a CEO or Chief Executive Officer - we joked that this should really be Chemical Enhancement Officer and had to cough and sneeze all over again.

The CEO introduced us to Eduard the eLearning manager ... this went without explanation but we took this to mean the Enhanced Learning manager. He took us through the schools regime saying that where other schools have an MLE, Smart School is a Medicatedl Learning Environment practicing Medicated Learning Enhancement. He went on to say that where some educationalists talk about a PLE, Smart School is a Pharmaceutical Learning Environment practicing Pharmaceutical Learning Enhancement. We then went for a tour around the school, it was nothing special, just like any other school really except the pharmacy. The pharmacy, we were told, is where our Smart School education will really take place. The eLearning manager was based in the pharmacy - he called it the PE room - a place where our brains get a work out. We also came to call the pharmacy the PE room but to stand for Pharmaceutical  Education". There wasn't really much in the PE room except shelves of "Smart Ass" (Umbrella Pharma's own brand nootropic) and there wasn't really much for the eLeaning manager to do in the PE room except prescribe and administer the daily dose of the "Smart Ass" suppository or "magic bullet" as we came to call it.

I remember my first time - the first time I took pill. Suddenly the "mist" cleared - I could see clearly - everything was easier - I could remember stuff, I could work stuff out, I could solve problems, I was a Smart Ass.

I remember how everyone absolutely aced their exams - we all excelled, everyone achieved, ofsted rated Smart School as outstanding and so began the Umberella Pharma chain of Academies and so began my problems.

I remember graduating from Smart School armed with a wad of top grade qualifications, Smart Ass pills and ready to race against the machines ... except the machines had already won. There were no smart jobs for me and where there were jobs I just couldn't compete against the machines - no matter how much of a Smart Ass I became.

No one likes a Smart Ass!

When I started Smart School it was was something different - now I had left Smart School it was time to try something different.

The Smartphone Achieved Escape Velocity - Can Education?

Image: Computerandyou.net   http://goo.gl/xXBP6m 

A typical smartphone has considerably more computer power than Deep Blue that beat world chess champion Garry Kasparov in 1997 - back then IBM's Deep Blue was the the 259th most powerful computer in the world with 11.38 GFLOPS...  the Samsung Galaxy S6 with its Exynos 7420 GPU measures 210 GFLOPS!

Not only has a smartphone got orders of magnitude more computer power than the computers that got us to the moon back in 1969 but a typical smartphone has a faster CPU and more memory than the average satellite today. Bristling with sensors and communications and benefiting from significant research and development efforts and economies of scale today's smartphones are extremely capable devices and cost effective devices that have caught the attention of NASA. PhoneSat is a NASA project that uses unmodified consumer-grade off-the-shelf smartphones and Arduino platform to build nanosatelites and launch them into Low Earth Orbit. 

2014 was the year in which the smartphone achieved "escape velocity" - breaking free and moving away forever from the gravitational attraction of the previous generation. 2014 was   “a tipping point for Internet” and when mobile users exceeded PC users for the first time. In 2015 Ofcom reported that smartphones are the UK’s most popular device for getting online and Google confirmed that there are now more searches on mobile than on desktop. 

The smartphone is a technology paradigm shift and herein lies the problem - many haven't recognised it yet and attempt to assimilate it into preconceived modes of use.

I remember the computing - telecommunications merger narratives of the early noughties. Back then - in one corner we had Pocket PC style devices mostly from the computer industry and in the other corner the mobile phone devices mostly from the telecommunications industry. And then, along came the iPhone - although it was from the computing corner Apple put all the pieces together and created something new and different. Charles Arthur describes the iPhone like a cold shower - a shock to pretty much everyone and something so dramatically different from what has gone before it upended our expectations. More than just a computer, more than just a telephone  - the smartphone is more than the sum of its parts - the smartphone is a new generation of technology.

Thomas Kuhn used the duck-rabbit optical illusion to demonstrate the way in which a paradigm shift could cause one to see the same information in an entirely different way. 

"The Phone that works like your PC" - Microsoft advertising for Lumia with Windows 10

Its clear that many still see the smartphone in old ways. During the 1980s Microsoft helped bring about the last paradigm change from mainframe computers to personal computers but appear stuck and incapable of going with the shift to see smartphones as a new generation of device. Microsoft still see the smartphone as a combination of phone and computer and present the new Microsoft Lumia as "The Phone that works like your PC".

The iPhone was released in 2007 - this blog post is almost a decade out of date but the issues with understanding the smartphone today are as pertinent for some today as they were in 2007. Perceptual blindness causes many to fail to see objects or stimuli that are unexpected and quite often salient and almost a decade on the ships are not unseen the smartphone is treated as if its a computer or a phone in the same old way or ignored completely.

Its clear that the education system has perceptual blindness when it comes to information technology and like Microsoft still sees the smartphone as a "phone that works like your PC" - seeing it as just another content delivery device or as John Traxler puts it in What killed the mobile learning dream? 

"we've ended up with mobile access to virtual learning environments that are being used as repositories. So, in practice, students reading their notes on the bus."

I suspect that the education system's perceptual blindness to the smartphone may be permanent rather than temporary and may in fact indicate a more serious and systemic problem in adapting to change.

While the smartphone may have achieved escape velocity - can the education system and what will it take for it to do so?

For the education system "What got you here won't get you there" - John Traxler sees this in What killed the mobile learning dream? 

"Mobile learning has stalled. It has spent quite some time barking up the wrong tree, looking backwards and inwards"

"The way in which institutions have traditionally provided desktops cannot simply be extended to laptops, mobiles and tablets"

John suggests the education system needs to open up and open out - enabling students to use their own equipment. However, if students bring and use their own technology this shifts and challenges traditional dynamic of control:

When students bring their own devices, they also bring their own services and connectivity, and whereas we used to make the rules by which they could use the desktops or by which they could access the network – because it was ours - in future it will be their network and their devices.

Suddenly, students are bringing all of their habits and expectations with them about who and how and what they learn – and that isn’t necessarily limited merely to accessing whatever stuff the lecturer puts on the VLE. That's quite challenging in terms of the lecturer identity.

Education technology has a crisis of relevance and needs to stop fearing our young learners and to connect with them in ways that are meaningful to them rather than the institution? 

The education system has to open the box and race with the machines if it is to have any chance of remaining relevant and achieving escape velocity.

But its not just about technology "We need 21st century pedagogy matched with 21st century technology!"

Smartwatch: The Education and Technology Arms Race

Image: "First Watch For Easy Studying" 24kupi.com 

I started teaching during the microcomputer revolution of the early 1980s. Before the revolution computers were large, expensive, inflexible, rare and centralised - they needed a room. After the revolution computers were small, cheap, flexible, common and personal - they needed a desk.

The microcomputer revolution gave the education system the personal computer and a paradox - on the one hand we have technology intended to be personal but on the other hand to be used in a setting intended to be shared and controlled - this "monster mash" created the education technology arms race that education has been locked into ever since.

I've experienced the education technology arms race first hand over 35 years from all angles - as an IT manager trying to "defend" educational systems and policies and as teacher and learner trying to use the software, systems and technologies I want.

"Don't press this button" ... as an It manager I'm familiar with the technology arms race - with students a restriction becomes a challenge! If you block or filter something students will find a way around it, if you lock something down students will find a way to unlock it.

Creativity through necessity precipitates learning of course but its debatable how interested the education system is in creativity or learning - its certainly interested in content delivery and testing in a managed learning environment and this type of student creativity detracts from that and increases the education system's arms budget as we have to spend more time and money securing and defending what is essentially personal technology but used for institutional purposes.

The education system appropriated the microcomputer revolution for management and turned personal computers into terminals for managed learning environments - the diversity of the revolution became standardised, monopolised and mundane.

I've watched each successive wave of personal computing be corrupted by the education system. The latest being tablets and the use of tablet management systems to lock down and provision devices for students - in many cases turning tablets into books for  content delivery and consumption.

Education technology is big business - just consider the amount of technology in all its forms that goes into the education system every year - computers, data projectors eBoards, software, network cabling, switches, firewalls, routers, servers, backup systems, UPS systems, licences, support, maintenance, consultancy etc etc etc. Technology is a major cost in education today and its been a nice little earner for the education technology industry.

Each wave of personal computing has provided the education technology industry with opportunities and they have responded to promote whatever is "the next big thing" and package it as "the next big solution" for the education system.

Personal computing has become more personal as it evolved through a continuum of forms from desktops through laptops, pockets (smartphones) and now wearables. Where once students main access to computers was at a college controlled desktop these days nearly every student is packing their own computer and bringing in their own laptop, tablet, smartphone or smartwatch (and any combination of all of these) - computing has become a whole lot more personal.

The personalisation of computing has created a crisis of relevance in education technology. On the one hand the education system is still offering educational IT as terminals to big, expensive, inflexible, complicated, centralised and controlled institutional systems while on the other hand students are using personal consumer technology that is small, cheap, flexible, easy and convenient.

The personalisation of computing has opened a new front in the education technology arms race ..... students are bypassing education controlled systems - students are arming themselves and bringing in and using their own devices, networks and resources.

The technology industry is arming both sides - on the one hand the large corporate suppliers and the others that you can find at the ever expanding BETT show who have been selling technology solutions for education to the education establishment for decades while on the other hand those such as 24kupi who have recently been selling technology solutions for education to students.

Wearable tech like the 24kupi smartwatch are the first ripples of a technology mediated tsunami of problems for the education system as it is today. On the one hand the smartwatch offers an excellent device for easy studying - It has 4 Gigabytes of integrated memory and can store text, pictures, video and audio for easy access on a zoomable display that can be set to scroll. What's more, the watch can record audio and has a wireless earpiece so you can set the watch to play back recorded or uploaded audio. With features like this I would have expected the education system to embrace personal computing like smartphones and smartwatches but this is not the case - far from embracing student personal computing the education system has from the outset sought to block and ban it - from the decade old calls to block Facebook to the current controversy  and calls to ban "cheating" smartwatches - the reason being that students can use them to look up facts and notes on theor writs rather than remember them in exams.

The education system knew that wearables were coming and the usual battle lines were being formed between "education technology evangelists" and "education technology conservatives" about using them in teaching and learning. The difference this time round is that the issue with smartphones is being taken up by students rather than the system - students are entering the education technology debate and rather than being talked about they are talking ... in fact rather than talking they are doing and it is the education system that is having to respond. Student personal computing is shifting the power dynamic in education - while the education system finds this challenging to say the least - I find this exiting.

Of course, the technology development continues and already the "cheating watch" has progressed. The 24upi watch has exam use enhancement so that the watch appears black unless you are using special glasses. As is the case with technology new generations of personal computing are only going to get cheaper, smaller, more powerful and more pervasive - new waves of personal technology are going to flood the education sector - images of Canute can't help coming to mind but rather than attempting to stop the tide smartwtaches show its time to examine the education system and for the education system to accommodate rather than assimilate student personal computing.

Smartwatch: Time To Examine The Education System

Image from Youtube video "How to pass any exam -24kupi Watch"  https://goo.gl/IO3isW

"Imagine a world where you can pass any exam without any problems"
 ... introducing the first watch that can store all your knowledge in one place. With 4Gb of memory you can add endless text and pictures. A clean and clear view of text will allow you to write down your answers fast and easy - you can set your scrolling speed as you desire - making you less suspicious by not touching your watch at all. In case the teachers get suspicious - don't worry the watch has an emergency button to switch the watch to clock mode and lock al the buttons so it appears as a normal watch - you can also erase all the files on the watch in the block of an eye. The watch supports connections with a wireless mini ear piece - this will allow you to write down your answers without looking at your watch at all.

Joe Sidders, deputy head at Monkton Combe Senior School in Bath, contacted the BBC to warn that the rise of small wearable devices risks becoming a "nightmare to administer" - He wants exam boards to take a tough line on this - and to challenge businesses making such devices available. He raises concerns that if such devices were in wide circulation it would call into question the validity of results. At his school Mr Sidders immediately raised the issue with school management and a decision was made to add watches to the list of electronic devices confiscated from pupils before they enter an exam room. Mr Sidders said "We already take away mobile phones and Apple watches and those sorts of things that are meant for communication outside of the exam hall, but this is literally a device sold as a cheating aid. "They're pretty indistinguishable from a normal watch."

The education system is like a game - a competitive platform game of levels, tests, rules, players and outcomes and like any game the education system has "cheat" modes. Education system cheat modes are available to all players - the system "games" statistics with creative massaging and packaging - focusing on those things that gain the most "points" and excluding or reclassifying the problematic reality of certain students, results, courses, funding etc so that sectors and institutions are reported in their best light ... gaining league table position etc. Educational management "game" the system by "pouring old wine into new bottles" - reusing and repackaging courses and content and with minority report style "pre-education" selection to maximise success rates. The rich and powerful game the system by using private schools and tutors and by taking up residence in the catchment areas of public sector schools who game the system best. Students game the system by sharing, collaborating, and copying and using memory aids in examinations. Its only when students game the system that the people talk about cheating.  Its only when students play the system that the other players in the game talk about cheating.

Students have "cheated" exams for as long as there have been exams that test facts, memory and correct answers. Students would write down facts and conceal them in creative ways in the things they are allowed to take into an examination room. Today, micro-electronics offers many more ways to conceal and access facts and information - just take a look at the WikiHow How to Cheat on a Test Using Electronics.

"I only remember things I can't look up" ~ Einstein

Wearable technology offers powerful new ways to discreetly access facts and large amounts of information - effectively technologising and outsourcing memory and in so doing presenting an existential threat to any education system that is predicated on content delivery and the examination of facts and memory - its no wonder the education system is up in arms about the threat of smart watches.

Is the logical conclusion that examination halls will have airport style security where students are scanned for electronic devices?

Is the logical conclusion that examination halls will have examination rooms where students are strip searched for any concealed aids?

And we haven't even touched on Nootropics - cognitive enhancers or so called "smart drugs" that anywhere between 10% and 20% of students might already be using to temporarily improve their "executive functions" of attention, alertness, focus, concentration and working memory during exams. The possibility of purchasing 'smartness in a bottle' is likely to have broad appeal to students - its no wonder that students turn to 'smart drugs' to boost grades.

Is the logical conclusion that examination halls will have medical rooms where students will be required to give urine samples and blood tests to see if they have been taking performance enhancing drugs?

Examination is the tail that wags the education system dog - its no wonder the dog barks when its tail is pulled. But rather than barking at everyone else its time for the education system to take a long hard look at itself and the role assessment and examination - as Steve Wheeler asks in The 'cheating watch scandal': Are we victims of our own devices?

"what if the exam system was reformed? What if, instead of asking students to repeat what they had learnt in class, the examination required them to solve problems, show initiative and criticality, ask questions that haven't been asked, create something new they hadn't been taught? What if exams were more focused on assessing how well a student could learn, rather than what they had memorised? Then, perhaps bringing 'cheating watches' into the exam room wouldn't be a problem at all."

"Liberating education consists in acts of cognition, not transferrals of information" ~ Paulo Freire

"Education - we need to move from knowledgeable to being knowledge able" ~  Mike Wesch

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

For an education system that tends to think inside the box the fact that OECD Pisa tests will measure teamwork, communication and collaborative problem solving are quite likely to precipitate these things into significant existence in education systems.

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

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


Martin King

Learning - Speak Like A child

Kids love to ask questions ... its a built in and natural way of learning ..... I sometimes wonder if there is baby somewhere whose first word was a question - why ... how what or who :)

A study by retailer Littlewoods shows parents are the most quizzed people in the UK, and on subjects far and wide:

The five toughest questions parents get asked:
1) Why is water wet? (35 per cent)
2) Where does the sky end? (34 per cent)
3) What are shadows made of? (33 per cent)
4) Why is the sky blue? (20 per cent)
5) How do fish breathe under water? (18 per cent)

The Littlewood study found the amount of questions asked by children differs with age and gender, four year old girls being the most inquisitive -  asking an incredible 390 questions per day!

However, if you chart what happens to kids questioning as they grow up you find it pretty much falls off a cliff as they grow up (A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas)   

Data from The Right Question Institute (http://rightquestion.org/)

This could be a problem - our increasingly connected world is changing faster than ever - being able to adapt will be more important than ever - being able to learn will be more important than knowing.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but rather the one most adaptable to change” ~ Darwin

"The important thing is not to stop questioning" ~ Albert Einstein 

"If anything, the ability to ask insightful questions will be even more critical tomorrow than it is today. As change continues to accelerate, tomorrow’s leaders—and the larger workforce—will have to keep learning, updating and adapting what they know, inventing and re-inventing their own jobs and careers through constant, ongoing inquiry" ~ Warren Berger (Why It’s Imperative to Teach Students How to Question as the Ultimate Survival Skill)

We trust our formal education systems to prepare future generations and so our formal education must also accommodate changing reality - education systems must be able to adapt and change. Formal education systems in particular will need to shift from a focus on answers and knowing to a focus on questions and learning.

“Knowledge is having the right answer. Intelligence is asking the right question.” 

Thinking is not driven by answers but by questions.


"Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers" ~ Voltair

“The scientist is not a person who gives the right answers, he's one who asks the right questions” ~  Claude Lévi-Strauss