Freshly roasted in my shed
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Stetsons are cool
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Freedom rises
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New York City Baby!
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Coming soon: Jotterz for iOS http://jotterz.net
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And if you're that way inclined, Jotterz for Android http://jotterz.net
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100% Kona, from Starbucks
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Definitely my daughter
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Cookie
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October 20, 2011 (22:08)
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October 20, 2011 (12:32)
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I love trains, but this isn't one of mine
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Family
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Monday in the @jotterz office
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Tamar
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Ball?
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Waiting for Napster
A few weeks ago on twitter I passed remark to Matt Johnston that it would be great to have Industry-funded, STEM-focused schools in Northern Ireland. Yesterday, Matt put me in touch with Denis Stewart and his wife, who between them have more experience of the education system than everyone I know, combined.
In the IT industry we love to rail on the "failings" of the education system and think if only we had the chance we could do it better. There are so many factors involved in changing education that it become much more than just changing education; cultural factors, family pressures, financial implications and job vacancies all have to be taken into consideration. There are already schools in NI, who receive funding from Industry and who have specialities in a range of STEM subjects, who I have no doubt are very good at what they do. Innovation is contagious; I'm sure many of these schools developed their speciality from one teacher, passionate about their subject who drove school policy forward.
I don't pretend I can fix things or that I have all (if any) answers. My school has been very good in giving me free reign, setting IT policy and testing out new systems, but we're part of a very small sub-group of a much larger system and as someone put it yesterday in "the Tasmania of Northern Ireland."
Is it enough to have a few specialist schools and a few innovative teachers? What about those who are still unreached? Mostly working class boys, whose career aspirations are either professional footballer, reality TV star, claim benefits, or "get out of school at 16, join a trade and make some money." I'm not being elitist; if I'm honest this is my cultural background. Neither am I saying everyone should go down an academic route. What I ask is, how many of these students would be potential innovators, if we could only get them past, "maths is hard" and "science is boring." How can we show what will be out there in ten years time when to them school is so irrelevant; they have more technology in their bedroom than most classrooms and they make better use of it too.
How can we better connect technology? Not just connect different elements of technology but how can we connect with teachers and students and get them engaged with it. Napster was one of those moments when society became truly engaged with the Internet; I knew it had made a difference when my 70 year old Aunt began using a Napster clone to download knitting patterns. Education needs it's Napster. Not a way to illegally download music in class, but a way to connect existing technologies; meeting a need which it's users may not even realise they have.
Whether it's debating the need for STEM schools/STEM in schools, developing Jotter or teaching, I want to make the best of technology that exists, which we may even have, but aren't using in a useful way. Aspiring that my software project, Jotter be like Napster is perhaps a very lofty ambition; but is it not better to set a high goal and fall short, achieving something, than not set any goal or try at all. Is that not what we keep advising our students and if it isn't, why on earth not? -
The Man Behind The Curtain
It's been a little while since I've blogged, but I've picked up quite a few new readers lately and thought it only fair to share a bit about me.
In case you hadn't guessed, I'm Andrew Gribben and yes, I write all my own posts. I don't have the luxury of having someone write for me. This causes two things to happen:
- For someone who prides himself in proper spoken english, you'll find far too many spelling and grammatical errors.
- Posts come randomly, when I have time and when I have inspiration.
This helpful Venn diagram explains my thought process.
Handy Grib Facts
- I live at the sea-side with, my beautiful wife Lila and daughter Tamar.
- I finally created a LinkedIn profile, which you'll find here and my slightly less-than useful Google Profile is here.
- I'm responsible for http://jotterapp.com. If you don't know what Jotter is, you will soon.
If you came here looking for my address, date of birth and phone number, they're not here. I don't give that sort of information out over the internet and nether should you!
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Coffee'd
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The Red Pill
My move from developing software to teaching high school was extremely enlightening; working and socialising with a tech savvy crowd had made me ignorant to how IT was perceived by users in the "real world."
After watching Objectified I began to think about how you don't need to know about all of your users to make a good product, just the extremes; the middle will fall into place by itself.
On one end there are some really switched-on people in education, Fraser Speirs and David Cleland, to name but two, who are pioneering the use of technology in schools. At the other, you have teachers who have don't have an internet at home or know how to use The Google and who reluctantly go along with new IT policies that come across their desk, they'll need help, but have no other choice. To them IT is an unnecessary inconvenience. In the middle you have teachers who are IT aware, they can send emails, use a printer and probably have a Facebook account, but it's a means to an end. As long as things work they're happy to make use of it.
As software is developed, we not only need to ensure it is relevant, functional and well designed, but that it is usable even by those who have very little IT experience; there's no age barrier either, graduates can have worse IT skills than veteran teachers; none of them will be installing Moodle. Users in the middle might not spend time online searching for a new piece of software (although now that "apps" are such an embedded part of culture, perhaps I'm wrong) but if what they use works, in that it works how they work, then the software itself will melt away.
As I see it, a huge problem with how ICT is used in education is that is still isn't seen as an infrastructure, like the building or the electricity. We get a pile of computers and throw them into a classroom and tell the teacher to work away. In Northern Ireland, C2K has made huge leaps forward, but there are still too few teachers who are happy, willing and/or skilled enough to innovate with the resources they've been given.
The iPad, solution or not, is seen as the "microwave" of the computing world and, what many don't realise, is more cost effective than netbooks, which, my school at least, thought, would be good value for money. If you count up the cost of repairs, and reinstalls we could have bought an iPad and still had change. Its not the only way either, I have high hopes for Google's Chrome OS; I customised Ubuntu on our netbooks so that they don't even have a traditional GUI, only the browser and I've never looked back.
While many in the IT industry (myself included) have called for the death of the traditional IT Teacher and instead have IT as an integral part of every subject, it isn't possible; not until hardware and software become invisible, just like an everyday appliance. I can only hope that Jotter will be invisible to its users.
As the project continues, I'll release more information about exactly what Jotter is. At the moment I'm still not sure how to describe it myself, but hopefully from these blog posts you'll at least see the reasons behind what we are doing.
Andrew Gribben -
More books
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Books
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