do educational institutions have a future?

This is a post about one of the sessions in the JISC Innovating Learning 2009 Online Conference.

We wanted to have a session which stimulated discussion around some of the technological, social and organisational issues that are likely to affect the future learner, teacher and institutions. So we found three people to help us with this task. Martin Weller, Graham Attwell and Rob Howe have each taken on the task of producing a short video to offer us a selection of possible futures. do educational institutions have a future?

Martin has looked at this from the angle of the academic/scholar and engaged in a conversation with some of his future selves. I wont spoil the pleasure of watching it by describing any more but the beardyness seems to have caught a few people's imagination. Some people have also responded to his blog post and video by making their own 'conversation with a future self'. This could be catching - I will try to list these at the foot of this blog post in an attempt to pull them together.

Rob Howe has offered us a range of futures through the eyes of four learners and more beards... Personally I really love the last one with the TRIPE invention which involves tingling brains and Tesco's. He also links us to the JISC funded Learner Experience work too...

Graham Attwell offers two starkly contrasting visions of how institutions will cope with the various economic, polictical and technological drivers. From the abolition of JISC and courses costing 20k a year to a federated open innovation approach. Personally I love the 'aesthetics of bots sport' course.

John Traxler Director of the Learning Lab and Professor of Mobile Learning at the University of Wolverhamptonfrom will be facilitating the discussion during the conference who brings a wealth of experience as both an online and face to face facilitator.

I look forward to the discussion around this session and would encourage people to register with the conference to ensure that you don't miss it.

In fact we will be offering free spaces to the best three responses tagged with jiscel09 so get your beards ready and show us your future vision...

Inspired by the videos Grainne Conole has set up a very popular cloud on the OU Cloudworks site.

See also
Alan Cann, Leicester University
Very apt Halloween special vision of the future

Gill Clough, Open University
Interview with future self envisions a pink future; )

Short film for CLT's 2009 away-day. Asked to imagine the state of e-learning in the year 2020... Devised by and starring Jane Secker, Steve Bond & Athina Chatzigavriil

home learnings

we are now really immersed in the home learning and are trying a new routine where each day we do one hour of intense one to one work followed by one hour of self-directed learning. The rest of the time tends to be flexible and of course home learning happens all the time wherever we happen to be.

On this blog I hope to engage with some of the common questions that arise whenever we tell people that we do home learning. These will not be knew to anyone who does this. Every taxi driver in Glasgow has an opinion, as does every family member, shop assistant, and health care professional.

It's almost as if choosing to opt out is a slur on their choice not to. We got harangued by a taxi driver yesterday for being different and opting out - can't say I always deal well with this yet so we just adopted a perky 'we're happy with our decision' response. Was tempted to garotte him from behind as he spouted, ranted and shouted (which was really not OK for Laurie) but decided it was best to make sure we actually arrived at out destination...

what really annoys me though i that I'm so well conditioned that I still gave him a good tip - doh!!! get a grip girl - maybe next time.

One of the key questions that people ask is 'what do you do about socialisation'. Of course this question stems from the basic misconception that sitting in a classroom with 30 other people of the same age, surviving the chaos of the dining room, the harsh playground and the enforced collaborative learning activities all result in positive social experiences. Well I do admit it can teach you deal with negative social experiences and may sometimes be positive.

Laurie may have an ASD but like many kids with Aspergers he craves connection with other children. Our solution is to connect to other families that home educate. I am a member of several forums that share information
Schoolhouse
HE Special
Education Otherwise

The Scottish group - Schoolhouse has a very active mailing list and the level of sharing and information exchange and support is amazing (as is the HE special group - vital for anyone with a child with different wiring). From the Scottish those who live in Glasgow have started regular group meetings and activities. We have a two hour sport session at Kelvin Sports Hall on Mondays and a two hour activity session in Hyndland on Thursdays. We have also been on several museum visits and workhops and we're off to a castle next wednesday.

Laurie is loving it (although we often pay for it later as it does overtimulate him dramatically). Sometimes we have to cancel all activities the day after as he recovers, but the best thing is that he has a new best friend. They talk endlessly about star wars and play football together.

So there we are - question number one dealt with - are you happy now people? Or are you still really a bit bothered at our radical decision...

how dare we dare to be different...

meanings

been a while...

we had a holiday last week - a few days out and visits and lots of home time. nice...

school update...
still no response from the education services since I wrote a letter asking them how we go about getting a "co-ordinated support plan" (new laws in Scotland mean that we need one of these to get the appropriate support. we have no idea whether Laurie will be going to a school in August or not - so can't prepare him - great - really helpful for a kid with Aspergers.

We suspect that we may have to continue home educating and that will mean plan c - getting an au pair to live in to cover when we're not here - not as an educator but as a companion and carer.

Failing that it's plan Z - give up work and home - which will take 3 months notice and selling...

Ah well time will tell.

life update...
In the meantime Laurie has been fine and fairly happy. Tonight though he was having a bath (usually a really good time for him) and I heard him crying. I asked what was up and he said he was crying because he didn't know what would happen if we all died. It went on for a while including questions like -

"what is the meaning of life"

"what's the point of living if we're all going to die"

"what would happen if you two die and leave me alone"

"humans will be left on a dark cold planet" - hmmmn

It was a bit tough - did the cycle of life thing, the part of the universe thing, there's no point in worrying thing!

poor lad - he thinks too much.

just like me.

done a new series on flickr - a story in six pictures which I really like and aims to show positives of Aspergers and some misconceptions - here are two of them.

two sides to every story