Lessons in Confidence - Dreams & Going to "Fun" When You Grow Up

At the iste conference Steven Johnston's keynote recommend that we should be influenced by lots of different sources, I thought I would take his advice when writing a post about encouraging students to have the confidence to follow their dreams.

Q) what do Monster University, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Adam Bellow, a Dan and Chip Heath book, A twitter chat on youth employment, a recent UCU survey, The Alchemist, Andy Murray, an Oscar speech & Pixar have in common?

A) I draw on these examples on this post in support of Adam Bellow's invitation for educators to change the world... 

I saw Monster University earlier in the week with my kids, which has a great message for kids to follow their dreams, regardless of the obstacles they might face... it also highlighted that university is not the only route to fulfilling your dreams. But then again there seems to be little that can match the powerful combination of a vision and the right work ethic.

But dreams can be fragile things and need to be handled with care. A kind word of encouragement can breath life into the dream; equally some careless criticism can crush it. 

Monster University opens with Mike on a field trip to Monster Inc, during the field trip he accidentally walks past a safety line and is pulled back by a monster named Frank McCoy, who went to Monsters University. Because of this encounter Mike's life long dream is to work at Monsters Inc as a scarer to generate electricity for the monster world. 

Electrifying the Dream 

Henry Ford worked at the Edison Company and his line manager offered him a promotion on the condition that he would give up "wasting his time" on his gas engine.

After making his decision to focus on his car, Ford caught up with Thomas Edison at a conference. Ford told him what he was working on and asked if Edison thought there was a future for the internal combustion engine. He answered:

"Yes, there's a big future for any light engine that can develop a high horse power and be self-contained. No one kind of motive power is ever going to do all the work of the country. We do not know what electricity can do, but I take for granted that it cannot do everything. Keep on with your engine if you can get what you are  after, I can see a great future.” Henry Ford Autobiography - My Life & My Work

This encounter and these kind words were the start of a life-long friendship. I wonder what might have happened if Edison had echo'd Ford's manager's view and told Ford that he was wasting his time 

Common Cents

Adam Bellows' inspiring #iste13 closing keynote told the audience to make a difference... He showed how easy this can be using something as simple as common sense... Or was it "the common 1 cent"?

A kind word wouldn't even cost 1 cent, but giving your tuppence worth when commenting on a students aspirations could literally take the seed of an idea and plant an acre of diamonds. 

When people think of change in education the temptation may be to think of grand plans and sweeping reforms. Bellow told us to imagine differently.

EdReform Vs Formative Statements

This is also the central message of Dan & Chip Heaths book "Switch - Change when change is hard" Two examples which are extremely relevant to educators include; 

• How a troublesome student who was weeks away from exclusion because of his disruptive behaviour, but a brief solution focused intervention improved his behaviour by 80% within a few short weeks.

• How a high school basketball team helped to turn around the economic fortunes of a small town struggling with out of town shopping centres 

I would love to tell you more about how this was achieved in both cases, but I think this is such an important book for educators that you'll need to go out and buy it if you want to find out! 

Turning Small Change into Alchemy
A recent study by the University and College Union found that 25% of NEETs cited a lack of confidence as a barrier to blocking their path to study, I can't help wondering;

• Did these people lack confidence to explore their world when they were toddlers? They had enough confidence and curiosity to learn to walk and talk so can only assume that they were, so 
• At what point does their confidence diminish? What were the "mysterious forces" that adversely affected their confidence?     

Adam Bellow advocates turning some small change into a big idea. An important area that I think can make a big difference is to instill a sense of confidence that some students may not get at home, whether intentional or unintentional. In a chat on youth employment this subject came up;

You May Say I'm a Dreamer...
This got me thinking do we not know what we want to do when we are young? Or do we know but the bar get inadvertently lowered for us?

My favourite non-fiction books include Paulo Coelho's "The Alchemist" and Ayn Rands books. In The Alchemist the hero's guide, Melchizedek, advises that;

"Everyone, when they are young, knows what their destiny is. At that point in their lives, everything is clear and everything is possible. They are not afraid to dream, and to yearn for everything they would like to happen in their lives. But, as time passes, a mysterious force begins to convince them that it will be impossible for them to realise their destiny" 

...Or is this less of a mysterious force and more a case of getting the worst career advice in the world?

But I'm not the Only One...

Do we know what we want to do as children, but we are discouraged as our aspirations are too wistful? The Alchemist is a novel which some may see as too flighty to include as part of any basis for education and/or career advice, but maybe The Alchemist that is right. What would happen if the job title of teacher/educator was changed to that of "Dream-maker," would this change the way educators taught? 

Up until a certain age when the "mysterious force" takes hold, are kids inclined to think about their dreams more than any school work? 

In "Just Do it" the story of Nike Andre Agassis tells how he went out to parks and he would see the kids pretending they were him. Agassi recalls “They’d be ripping balls into the far fence, pounding the balls over the fence. And I’d think, ‘what have we [him and the Nike ads] done?’ 

Following this year's Wimbledon final I wonder how many "young Andy Murray's" have changed their back yard to Wimbledon's Centre Court with their young, vivid imaginations 

Ayn Rand points out that she decided to be a writer at 9 years old and everything that she did was integrated to that purpose. 

Parents as Con-Artists - The Confidence Trick

As a parent I see confidence as an important attribute that we can instill in our kids...

To have the confidence to try new things
To have the confidence to fail
To have the confidence to try again
To have the confidence to fall down...and to get up again
To have the confidence to dream

When we read about findings like the UCU survey, it is unfortunate to hear that confidence is not instilled in every child at home, but we know that inequalities exist and that this is another area where educators can make a difference.

Pixar Boy
I know of a boy who, at the age of 8 years old, said "Dad I want to work at Pixar when I'm older" 

Now this dad would regularly tell his kids that they can do anything they set their mind to and faviourite bedtime reading included "The Little Engine that Could" and "OH The Places You Go" so there were no comments like "Well my boy, you know most of Pixar's staff are in California and are fantastic at drawing... You are in the UK and I've seen some of your art work on the wall at school, maybe we should lower your expectations a little?"

This Dad said "Sure you can!" And then found ways to bring California and Pixar a little closer to him... finding story's from John Lassater's childhood that were similar to this young lads' experiences, enrolling him in art and drama classes, giving him "Pixar Boy" as one of his nicknames... anything that might help bring this dream to life in his young impressionable mind.

You would be forgiven if you were to think that this kid's name was Michael Giacchino's who got an Oscar in 2010 for the best music score for Up (I love Giacchino's acceptance speech... every educator should watch this - Michael Giacchino's Oscar acceptance speech)

No this particular 8 year old is only 10 years old today and happens to be one of my kids.

The chances of him actually working at Pixar? 900 members of staff Vs 7 Billion people = pretty big odds so may, in reality, be unlikely... 

Chances of working at Pixar? Unknown 
Permission to chase your dreams? Absolutely 100%!

He may well find that, like the intrepid young Mike Wazowski, he faces some insurmountable obstacles... but if all else fails then he knows he can follow Mike's lead and that, with a little vision and determination, there is always a way to keep a dream alive.

I'd give up my Kingdom to
work at Pixar's Mailroom

So far, through following his young dream, he's already had the chance to be the king of Scotland and work in Scotland's biggest panto among other things. 

By being involved in these shows we are hoping to instil a warped sense of the world of grown ups and work... as people in the arts seem to have a great time when they go to work.

This is a warped sense of work that we sincerely hope stays with him for the rest of his life;

Turning the Workhouse into a Funhouse

Our little Pixar Boy recently coined a fantastic phrase in our house. I came home from work one day and was met by a very excited young lad 

"Dad, Dad... I've just watched a behind the scenes program of Pixar and they have this and this and that..." Then he stopped and looked at me with an animated look on his face and said; 

"You know Dad, they don't go to work everyday... THEY GO TO FUN"

I replied excitedly "Boys that's it! When you grow up don't go to work... Make sure you go to FUN" 

"Pixar Boys" future colleagues working hard... at Fun?!

Rand is an advocate of epistemology (the study of knowledge and justified belief) and of all the biographies and success stories I have read, there seems to be one key commonality with people, who appear to have balanced, fulfilled lives and who excel in their chosen profession;

"They do what they love; and love what they do" 

They are so passionate about what they do that it hardly appears to be work at all. So giving people the permission and confidence to go dream chasing sure does seem like a good idea to me. 

To cite one example consider Edward Cureton's findings during his time as a military psychologist who helped train US pilots during World War II. Cureton designed a questionnaire to find out which recruits had "The Right Stuff" to be a pilot. One particular question predicted the success of pilots than the rest;

Did you ever build a model airplane that flew?"

The pilots who answered yes were more likely to succeed as pilots... the passion for planes, of people who had been doing it since they were young ended up being predictive - They would stick with the training no matter how many times they were sick in the plane during training.

As educators take a well earned break and reflect on another busy year, it may be a good time to remind yourself that anyone who is "living their dream" today will almost certainly be doing so because an educator brought the subject area they work in today to life - they will have inspired the young impressionable mind and given the student the confidence to chase the dream... until their body and mind was able to catch up with their run away imagination and are now living it.

I wonder how many educators teach today because someone brought learning to life for them.

                 

Regardless of the subject you teach, or the students' exam results or the obstacles in the way... remember to tell your kids "Sure you can!" Because the University and College Union survey and Edgar Guest warns us of the danger of that most insidious word - Can't... make sure we protect our kids from it by teaching them to Answer this demon with "I CAN!"

Kid friendly summary of this post
Dear Teacher, In the new school year I hope that you are not like Matilda's Head Teacher Miss Trunchbull or the Grand High Witch.

If I had magic powers like Matilda I would wish that you were like Miss Honey or like the BFG... someone who knows the importance of dreams and who can bottle up the whizz popping ones and keep them safe so they don't float away from me... or get forgotten... or, worst of all, smashed against the rocks of those two careless words - "'You Can't!' ...when with just a little encouragement and imagination 'I think I can, I think I can, I think I can'"

An Iste Bytsie Post... With Some Big Tweet Conference Data

In the 3 years that I have been on Twitter I have never seen anything as manic as last weeks #iste13 - The hashtag for the International Society for Technology in Education annual conference.

20,000 connected technology loving educators talked (and talked!) about technology in education... for 3 days solid! This produced over 40,000 Tweets.

Twitter seemed to be such a key part of the conference, so much so that it created an "unconference" hashtag #notatiste.  The crazy thing was that even this was a trending for a lot of the event! Only educators could have an "I'm not at the conference" hashtag trend?!

While there was a lot of envy from those not at the conference, the Twitterati did a great job at keeping everyone informed of the goings ons... and some even found ways to make their own fun - Tips for surviving Iste if you're not there... Love the latte prank!

Another aspect of the conference seemed to be that each slide of Adam Bellow's closing keynote presentation "You are invited to change the world" seemed to be Twitter friendly. This is something that I am noticing more often. I don't know if this was intentional but Scott Stratten from Unmarketing does actually structure his presentations to fit into 140 Tweetable characters. 

I would say that I am taking a cue from these presenters and making this one of my shortest posts ever... But the truth is, once you know the reason for the post, you will skip any text and go straight to the data... but before you do I have a suggestion.

The #iste Twitter challenge - "Unconnected" Educators
Send this post or the files below to any colleagues who are not on Twitter or any other Social Media channels and ask them to spend 5 minutes looking at the Tweets and challenge them NOT to learn something new and interesting.

While connected educators and Twitter are both great... Putting the 2 together in large numbers is a nightmare! The Tweets were just coming too quick and fast!

Connected Educators - Straw Poll

Now for a quick straw poll for all the connected educators who made all this noise and generated all this #iste13 content... Hands up if; 

• Your Twitter account is now bulging with Tweets and links that are marked as faviourites for you to check out? How many of these faviourites have you checked since the event?
• You felt that the Twitter stream was too frantic!While you saw lots of great suggestions and resources.... you know that you missed lots of great tips, links and discussions?
• You are likely to have the time to go through the #iste13 archives? 

I found myself giving the wrong answer to these questions so I thought I would download all the conference Tweets in a way that would allow me to look for key words quickly, as well as to organise any data or discussions that would allow me to identify some trends.

Therefore I have collated as many iste related tweets as possible and imported them onto some excel spreadsheets, these can be found on the following links:

Conference Tweets - 25 & 26 June
Conference Tweets - 23 & 24 June 
Post Conference Tweets
Not At Iste
All Iste13 Tweeters 

For people in the UK who follow my blog I have done the same for the recent  #Educationfest Conference:

Educationfest Tweets

I will be adding this to the data I have gathered from other #edchat sessions as I continue the search for some "slow hunch" eureka edu ideas... More details on this to follow 

In the mean time I hope you find this data set useful and that it helps to ensure that you don't miss any of the great EdTech resources that were discussed.

If this is the first time visiting my blog please feel free to check out some of the other posts or some of my other reports, which can be found here.

Iste delegates and followers may be particularly interested in Tech Story - What Education can Learn from Pixars Toy Story.

Diary of a Wimpy Blogger - Publish & be Damned!

This week my blog got to 10,000 page views, so I thought this would be a good time to reflect on yet another new social media experience for this digital immigrant.

By the way, if you are a digital immigrant does that mean you can get deported?

Blogging, Blagging or Bragging? 

Although, I have to admit, this milestone has ended up raising a few questions as much as anything...

1) Is 10,000 page views in 6 months a good result - I have had this blog since 2011 but rarely posted until Jan 2013.

2) Did all 10,000 people read the entire post? Some posts are quite long, but I know a number of people who did read them as they gave my ramblings some great feedback.

3) I have all the stats on the most viewed posts, how can I use these analytics to improve on future posts? For the record the most popular posts to date include;

• Start Up Education
• Social Media... And Better Job Prospects
• Culture in Education... A House Divided Against itself cannot Stand
• Education Inc
• Lesson in Adversity - Teaching Resilience

4) How many page views and posts do you need before you get to call yourself a blogger? If you call yourself a blogger too soon does this make you a blogger blagger/blaggart?

Why Blog 

My reasons for starting the blog was because I wanted to express an opinion outside of a work context and my first post was well received... Although it resembled more of a mini novel than a blog post!

I didn't do a great deal with this blog until January this year. The reason? Twitter... Again!

Sarah Simons, the moderator of #ukfechat, included a blog section on the chat webpage and this encouraged a core group of FE Chat regulars to began exploring the topics discussed via their blogs.

What to Write About
If you open a new communication channel its important to use it. If you open a new channel up and find that you don't have time to update the content, it might be advisable to shut the channel down.

So account open. Time to think about what to blog about? ...And where to find the time on more social media?
 

The subject matter of my blog does tend to be aligned in some way with either a forthcoming FE Chat (Thu 9pm) or Ed Tech Chat (Mon 1am) topic or on a recently discussed theme. This is usually; 

• To share the ideas and knowledge on the subject prior to the chat session to help facilitate the debate, or
• If I blog about a topic after the session this helps me internalise the discussion and share any ideas once I have considered the various points from the discussion
• To demonstrate to those who are not on Twitter the value of the social media channel

So one of the many advantages of being involved with EdChats on Twitter is that it helps provide plenty of material for Edu Bloggers.

Publish and be damned!

Being all too aware that what you put online can be "A digital tattoo" (ie permanent!) my first few posts probably took the best part of 2-3 days before I was happy to publish. Apart from the odd critical observation about useless or ill conceived government policy, I don't think I'm being in any way controversial.

Today producing new content for the blog only takes about 1-2 hours a week.

I think this is partly an issue of confidence and you do eventually get a mentality of "Publish and be damned." 

This is not to say that it is unplanned and I always try to consider whether the post will be relevant and useful to educators and their partners; and you will never see any corporate communications from me on any social media channel.

If I have written about a topical issue, with educators in mind and, hopefully, have included some new ideas or a different perspective then the post will get read and people may share it... If it's no so good or not too relevant then it won't get read, so no real harm done. 

Blogging or Bragging

As the perpetual "digital immigrant" I faced a new experience this week regarding my exploration with blogging.

This week there was the Festival of Education in the UK and the International Society for Technology in Education Conference (#iste13) in the US, and I found myself asking "Am I blogging or bragging here?"

The issue I had was that every other Tweet seemed to be along the lines of "Oh here's a link to one of my posts..."

Now the content of the post I highlighted did seem relevant to the discussion, and the posts had been well received by educators. 

But how do you know when you have crossed a line from sharing information... To becoming blatantly and shamelessly self promoting? 

I can only hope that I am blogging and Tweeting with the appropriate "Netiquette" and that I have enough critical friends in education who would have a quiet word in my ear... After all I don't pretend to be an expert with any of this social media stuff, but I do see the value in it and the impact that it can have. 

The Impact

So what has the impact of blogging been? It's been an extremely positive experience.

From a #ukfechat perspective there is a small but merry band of regular bloggers, many of whom are posting twice a week now, this includes;

Sarah Simons -     Tes Articles & curator of UK FE Chat  
Jayne Stigger -      FE Culture

Steven Keevil -      Teacher Learner

Carolyn Houlihan - I Can So I Will

Clare Fenwick -     Tech, Innovation & Learning

Nikki Gilbey -         FE Teaching Thoughts

Some of these bloggers have also submitted articles to TES and FE Week and, like the chat session itself, the number of regular FE bloggers looks set to grow.

It would also be great to hear about any other FE Bloggers, so please feel free to post a comment below with the details of your blog.

I think it is important that blogging does increase within FE as it is a useful form of CPD, it will also benefit students too. 

Content creation is becoming a key skill, but how can FE advise students on blogging if they are not doing it themselves?

And will this be an important skill in the future... It's difficult to see why it wouldn't be an advantage or to see how much content creation;

• Social Media Jobs Salary Guide
• How to give students a voice in their Education 

It also makes sense from an educators perspective too;

• Personal Branding for Teachers - Why it Matters 
• Why I'm starting a Teachers blog - and why you should

As for the impact blogging has had on me personally? I think a good example is when I was taking part in a US chat session and when people saw me join the discussion, they commented that they enjoyed reading my blog posts and reports... Which was so unexpected that I asked "Are you sure it was my blog?"

This was all the more of a surprise when I saw that one of the people was an education expert from a prestigious US Ivy League University.

So my advice would most definitely be "Publish and be Damned" whats the worst that could happen? 

One thing is for sure any educator will most certainly be in a better position than me to explore this medium - but I'm giving it a go and am getting a lot out of it - connecting, collaborating... and learning!

If you did want to experiment with blogging before opening and managing a blog you might be interested in;

1) Submiting posts to @MrsSarahSimons for publication at www.ukfechat.com 

2) Contact Steven Keevil or Carolyn Houlihan who are encouraging people in FE to blog about their week 

3) I am sure that any of the FE bloggers would be happy to discuss their experiences of blogging with anyone interested in finding out more about this platform. 

4) There are also a host of US educators who I am sure would be delighted to offer assistance to any aspiring "Connected Educators." Edu blogs, Teach 100 and Connected Principals have a list of popular blogs

If you already have an FE blog I'd be delighted to hear about it and subscribe to it.

Mining Data....Nuggets of Gold & Pearls of Wisdom

I have a geeky confession to make... I get way too excited about the potential findings from the spreadsheets with huge data sets that I pull together and analyse looking for ideas and insight. 

It has been 6 months since I became involved with #UKfechat and 2 months since #edtechchat was established. I get a lot out of these and am keen to highlight what a great resource this is to others.

Recently I spent a bit of time looking at the archives for both these chat sessions, and I noticed some interesting recurring themes that I thought were worth researching.

If you're interested in finding out what these themes are, I'm afraid you'll need to stay tuned as I am still collating and assessing the data... but all will be reveled very soon. Or as Dr River Song would might put it to The Doctor;

Anyway, exploring these themes has led to me spending a considerable amount of time collating tweets from over 170 chat sessions over a 2 month period. This has generated a data set consisting of thousands of rows in an excel spreadsheet, which I will be wading my way through to compile my findings... Thanks a lot #ukfechat & #edtechchat!

I needed to give my eyes and head a bit of a break from this never ending spreadsheet and thought I'd work on a blog post... But what to discuss?

Why bother spending weeks - maybe even months - looking at this huge data set?

There are a number of reasons for my motivation for working on these time consuming (not to mention mind numbing) projects. I thought it might be worth highlighting the rationale to demonstrate (or convince myself) that there is "method in the madness"

Scratch Your Own Itch

In his brilliant book "ReWork" Jason Fried, CEO of 37 Signals discusses his unconventional, but extremely effective, business strategies and philosophy. One of these practices includes how the company decides which products and software to develop; 

"The easiest, most straightforward way to create a great product or service is to make something you want to use. That let's you design what you know - and you'll figure out immediately whether or not what you're making is any good."

By the way, Fried also goes on to highlight what I believe to be one of the biggest challenges in EdTech today;

"At 37 Signals, we build products that we need to run our own business... If you're solving someone else's problem, you're constantly stabbing in the dark. When you solve you're own problem, the lights come on. You know exactly what the right answer is" 

It is for this precise reason that I think more educators need to be involved with the R&D process for education services, something that seems to be in a healthier state in the US than I can see in the UK.

Anyway I like 37 Signals advice and I work on projects and areas that are of interest to me and hope that, eventually, both myself and others will find the data useful, I'm delighted that this does tend to usually turn out to be the case... even if its for different reasons than the original hypothesis.

For example, in my Business Development Idea for FE report, I wanted to map all the FE College campuses to save time when planning college meetings, I had no idea that I would discover the number of commercial outlets that the FE Community had. 

Show your Friendship First

If the research is done well then this will provide some good, relevant and (hopefully) unique content.

Content is the core of inbound marketing but for me it is more than the prospect of having good content. I think that Dave Kerpen from Likeable Media puts an important point across very well in this post "Always show your friendship first" 

After all... as Steven Johnston highlights collaboration is a great source of good ideas! Where ideas come from.

The spirit of Kerpen's message also mirrors Napoleon Hill's advice.

Quality & Community Spirit

In 1937 Napoleon Hill was commissioned by Andrew Carnegie to research the philosophy of successful people. He makes some great observations about mindset, work ethic... and the importance of time;

Hill points observes "What else, apart from ideas, services and your time, can someone 'not possessed of property' have to give?" 

He goes on to suggest that you need to identify what advantages and benefits you can offer members of your group/community in return for their collaboration and cooperation. Regardless of the sector you work in or what advantages you might offer, Hill recommends following the "QQS Formula" - Quality, Quantity and Spirit.

• Quality of service - performing in the most efficient manner possible.
• Quantity of service - Giving all the service of which you are capable, at all times, with the purpose of increasing the amount of service as you develop greater skill through practice and experience.
• Spirit - The positive manner in which you deliver service.

Sounds a lot like community engagement and inbound marketing techniques, written in the 1930s.

Implicit Learning & Meta Data

I mentioned the potential impact of Implicit Learning in education in my Culture in Education report, which seems to be equally applicable in a work context. 

An good area to study the role of implicit learning at work is the stock market trading floor. Obviously traders are following data from the markets minute by minute, day after day. A study looked at the behaviour and actions of extremely successful traders compared with other traders. 

In the study it was clear that the high performing traders were utilising methods different from those used by others. They were less likely to rely on elaborate research for their decision-making and much more likely to cite "instinct" in buying and selling shares. Implicit knowledge played an important part of the most successful people in this industry. Other traders operated in a rule governed way.

The concept here is not dissimilar to the much touted 10,000 hour mentality.

Market traders can also use biological cues to assess when they might be making good and bad decisions, i.e. don't buy or sell when the readings get below some baseline levels... this could mean that frustration won't play a role in making any bad trades.

When they hooked themselves up to biofeedback units traders can measure blood flow in the pre-frontal cortex (part of the brain most responsible for focus, concentration and attention). Temperature readings rise when relaxed and "in the zone" and fall during periods of frustration and distraction.

Indeed some people have suggested that these biofeedback machines should be hooked up to traders PCs and cut out any time the traders are frustrated, distracted or not focused... they either find a way to relax and regain focus or they don't trade! Boy could we have done with a system like this a few years ago!

Anyway the point here for me is that immersing myself in this kind of data set might have a similar effect and I might, one day, intuitively know what a good Edu idea looks like. Who knows what kind of information my subconscious will pick up by reading thousands of educators tweets and links? 

Or maybe its just that my introverted nature means that I like to get away from it all for a while, and claiming to mine data from a massive spreadsheet is as good a reason as any... and is more professionally acceptable than if I were to put a sign up saying...

The Worst Fisherman Ever!

Thomas Edison, with 1,093 US patents, is one of the most successful scientists ever… but was also one of the worst fishermen ever!

Edison used to spend an hour almost everyday sitting at the end of a dock and fish. He always fished alone, but he never caught any fish. People wondered why Edison was obsessed with fishing when he is so bad at it? Late in life Edison admitted;

“I never caught any fish because I have never used any bait.”
 “Why in the world would you fish without bait?” Asked his audience
 “Because when you fish without bait, people don’t bother you and neither do the fish. It provides me my best time to think.”

In today's "always on" 24/7 lifestyle, some commentators question whether we are setting ourselves enough time aside to reflect and think? And highlights the power of these quiet times? Susan Cain suggests there is...

"We need much more privacy and much more freedom and much more autonomy at work. School, same thing. We need to be teaching kids to work together, for sure, but we also need to be teaching them how to work on their own. This is especially important for extroverted children too. They need to work on their own because that is where deep thought comes from in part.

We need to go to the wilderness. Be like Buddha, have your own revelations. I'm not saying that we all have to now go off and build our own cabins in the woods and never talk to each other again, but I am saying that we could all stand to unplug and get inside our own heads a little more often" Susan Cain, Author of Quiet and The Power of the Introverts Ted Talk

Maybe trawling through spreadsheets has nothing to do with meta data and more to do with the fact that analyzing big data sets gives me time to myself. 

Time

While I am more than happy to spend time on these projects... especially as the positive feedback I get from educators makes it all worthwhile! But, at the same time it is important that we value our time and deciding where and what to spend time on is not something that I take lightly! Especially when you consider what Hill's parting comment from his research;

"I would remind you that life is a draughts board, and the player opposite you is time. If you hesitate before moving, or neglect to move promptly, your draughts will be wiped off the board by time. You are playing against a partner who will not tolerate indecision!"

I know that I want to work in education, but I also realise that the sales processes are radically changing, so I need to find new methods of engaging with the various stakeholders that I want to work with.

When you know what you want, go toward it. Sometimes you go very fast, sometimes only an inch a year. It doesn't matter... as long as you move.

It is for all these reasons that I now return to the wilderness that is a huge spreadsheet to see if I can turn it into a magnificent garden... And maybe to come up smelling of roses within the education community.

Regardless I am more than happy to "show my friendship first" by spending my time on these projects to see what little gems of information and ideas the data uncovers... 

There's gold in that there data!

Crowdsourcing – Open Collaboration & Results

“No matter who you are, most of the smartest people work for someone else”

                                                                           Bill Joy, Co-founder Sun Micro Systems

A lot of my posts recently have been discussing issues around a culture of collaboration amongst the various stakeholders in education and considering some of the strategies that start ups employ.

This week I joined #YthEmpChat which is organized by @Charharagain and they were discussing this very issue and, given my interest in this area, I felt compelled to wade in.

Some of the discussion revolved around the idea of we know that organizations should be collaborating more but what can be done to encourage more collaboration. 

By coincidence San Francisco had their annual Start Up Edu Weekend where education leaders and EdTech start ups and VCs came together to see if they could "design the school of the future in 54 hours."

So I thought I would share some of the successful examples of collaboration I am aware of. Welcome to the world of possibilities that is... crowdsourcing.

What is Crowdsourcing?
Crowdsourcing isn’t a single strategy. It’s an umbrella term for a highly varied group of approaches that share one obvious attribute in common: they all depend on some contribution from the crowd. But the nature of the contributions can differ tremendously.

Why Crowdsourcing?
In 1945 the economist F A Hayek, economist wrote a paper called “The Use of Knowledge in Society, he observed that;

"Each member of society can have only a small fraction of the knowledge possessed by all, and each is therefore ignorant of most of the facts on which the working of society rests… civilization rests on the fact that we all benefit from knowledge which we do not possess. And one of the ways in which civilization helps us to overcome that limitation on the extent of individual knowledge is by conquering ignorance, not by the acquisition of more knowledge, but by the utilization of knowledge which is and which remains widely dispersed among individuals" 

Why Get Involved with Crowdsourcing?
One of the most successful crowdsourced initiatives is the open source Linux program (more on Linux below), where a community of coders self organized to improve and develop software. Something that I couldn’t understand when I first heard about crowdsourcing was the motivation with these community members?

Here is a group that would be working in IT all day, then clock off and go home and do some more coding… on someone else’s program… for reasons other than for financial remuneration… what’s going on here? 

Then I saw a comment which clarified this and makes perfect sense;

The knowledge economy and the internet enables the sharing of information and a diversely talented, highly skilled workforce. Add to this the fact that job satisfaction rates are at an all time low, this leaves people feeling over educated and under fulfilled. Is it any wonder people are seeking more meaningful work outside the confines of the workplace?

If techs are working on code that does not challenge them, then crowdsourcing makes perfect sense… as does the inspired idea behind any company that offers 20% time where people spend 1 day a week to explore challenges that could benefit the organization but, is of interest and that the individual, as they choose and leads on the project.

History
Open source software was born in Bell Labs in the 1960s along with Unix, “An operating system around which a fellowship could develop.” A culture of close collaboration and sharing of software enhancements emerged which went way beyond the fixing of bugs. Fellows were motivated more by the desire to do interesting work and to impress each other than any notion of business efficiency.

In 1991 Linus Torvalds was a graduate student in Helsinki and he released the source code for a program he called Linux on an internet news group and persuaded 100 like minded hackers to join him.

The result of this way of working is truly staggering. In 2008 the global Linux market reached $35.7 billion a year. None of this could have happened cost effectively within a single company’s, or even consortium’s, proprietary software development.

To compile the millions of lines of source code in Red Hat Linux (the first important Linux product) would have taken 8,000 man years of conventional development time at a cost of $1.08 billion a year.

Innovation Jam
This model has not gone unnoticed by the corporate world and they have enjoyed some fantastic results with this model. The crowds collective opinion can be terribly effective.

IBM
In 2006 IBM held an “innovation jam” which the company billed at “the largest brainstorming session ever,” more than 150,000 people from 104 countries posted more than 46,000 ideas. Later that year the company announced it would spend $100 million to create 10 new businesses based on ideas suggested during the Innovation Jam.

Proctor and Gamble
Proctor and Gamble have found that the pace of innovation has doubled in the last 5 years and its army of 7,500 researchers is no longer enough to sustain its lead. P&G’s CEO instructed business unit leaders to source 50% of their new product ideas from outside the company using platforms like Innocentive.

Co-Create with Customers
In 2005, Eric von Hippel, head of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Group at MIT Sloan School of Management, published Democratizing Innovation, which demonstrated how customers were taking the process of innovation into their own hands. “Users that innovate can develop exactly what they want, rather than relying on manufacturers to act as their (often very imperfect) agents.

The pace of change and demands of customers are such that companies can no longer depend on internal capabilities to meet external needs. Nor can they depend only on tightly coupled relationships with a handful of business partners to keep up with customer desires for speed and innovation.

Companies must engage and co-create in a dynamic fashion with everyone – partners, competitors, educators, government and – most importantly – customers. 

Some companies are embracing this change and enter into a creative relationship with their customers, even going so far as to provide them with the tools to help design the end product. The company then institutes the innovation and sells it back to the customer, who is, in this case, also a supplier. The customer may or may not receive direct compensation for his input. Either way, the real pay off lies in an improved product, a result from which all parties benefit.

Before launching any crowdsourcing initiative, one of the first steps is to determine what the ultimate goal is: Do you want to draw upon your customers to help design a new product? Are you trying to create a new platform for your community?

Regardless of the overall aim, in the latest report I am working on I look at the relationship between Education and EdTech suppliers. I will highlight a number of areas that I think could be improved upon and my research and findings will argue that this kind of collaboration has a number of benefits for all stakeholders.

While there is a lot of collaboration within FE amongst educators, is there as much collaboration as there could be with suppliers? After all it’s easy to spot the services that work with education in the R&D stages, which is the best way for suppliers to achieve “product-market fit” 

Crowdsourcing in Education
There are examples of this in education for example;

• The Californian Department of Education thinks it can harness the insights and spare time of its teachers to make high quality educational materials available to every aspiring student while saving local tax payer over $400 million every year. The Californian Open Source TextbookProject runs on the same software that powers Wikipeadia. It’s already running a pilot program to create a world history for 10^th Grade history classes.

• Companies like Learn Zillion have a “Dream Team” of 200 educators who they get together to discuss their latest ideas and trial their latest products. 

• For Colleges… By Colleges – In FE we are starting to see colleges develop some really cool services for and by education – Bksb (which 80% of UK colleges use), Bolton College’s Maths Everywhere app and some innovative collaboration at Dundee College blazing a trail with uses for and integration with the Young Scot "Student National Entitlement Card".

• There are also a number of “Hack Education” events planned, one of which was held at Edinburgh’s Tech Cube and others at London’s EdTech Incubator. The results? At the  Edinburgh event educators, government reps, techs, edu suppliers and start ups came together and in the space of one weekend produced this website - Learner Journey Data Jam

This type of co-creation and collaboration seems to be in its early stages but does look extremely promising… there was also a really exciting development announced today.

Co-Creation of Products in FE
I was very excited to hear about OCR launching a new initiative to help teachers design and create innovative educational technology for use in the classroom.

This project will be ran in collaboration with Invent-ed.com where educators will have the opportunity to become more involved with the development of the kind of services they’d like to see being used in the classroom.

If successful then FE could be set to join tech companies like IBM, Sun Microsystems and top universities like MIT, where hundreds of great ideas get developed as a result of some Innovation Jams or developing free open source educational materials that anyone can use and large communities of educators can improve.

If you liked this post and would like to explore these ideas further you may be interested in Crowdsourcing by Jeff Howe, Wikinomics by Don Tapscott, Flip by Peter Sheahan and Winners and Losers of the Internet by Keiran Levis