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MA Project – What do YOU think? (please)

Image attribution: CC Flickr: EganSnow

I am in the second term of my MA entitled ‘Leading Innovation and Change’ at St Mary’s University College in Twickenham. This module is called ‘Research Methods for Project Enquiry’ and requires I choose a pilot project as a test bed for my ultimate project in the second year. No problem, except I am not sure what to do. As Head of ICT, both discrete and across the curriculum, I have a great opportunity to take one strain of my role and use my MA to focus on it to greater depth. Great, but I cannot decide what to do. I thought people I work with online (you) might be able to help me decide. My choices are all the usual ed tech suspects. Here’s a basic list:

1. VLE. We use Moodle at the moment. I could do various aspects of this:
   1. Choosing a new VLE. I failed to share the VLE decision with my colleagues and pupils. I could do a project that documented the process of including the opinion of all parties into the decision-making process as we evaluated the more costly solutions of Frog and Open Hive and an improved Moodle.
   2. Training teacher(s) to use Moodle and evaluating the impact it has on their teaching and learning.
   3. Implementing and evaluating the impact of using a VLE to deliver and assess teaching and learning.
2. The use of various technologies to engage pupils and improve teaching and learning:
   1. cameras
   2. web2.0 tool(s)
   3. voting systems
   4. podcasting
3. Our recent inspection identified an area for improvement in our Library by providing more opportunities to access independent learning using ICT. This could lead to an interesting line of inquiry examining independent learning as well as how ICT can be used to promote and support this within the context of my school.
4. Using an online service in the classroom. Possibilities:
   1. Edmodo
   2. Twitter
   3. Blogging (posterous, wordpress multi-user)
   4. Collaborative mind-mapping
   5. Google Apps for Education
5. Developing a Professional Learning Network as teaching CPD.

So, you can see there are lots of possibilities and I would like your help in choosing one to focus on. What do you think would be worthwhile? What would be of interest to you? What would be most useful to the development of educational technology?

Any ideas, thoughts and comments most welcome. All my work will be shared online via this blog.

MA Notes: Halliday, J. (2002) ‘Researching Values in Education’

MA Article Notes

Halliday, J. (2002) ‘Researching Values in Education’ British Educational Research Journal. Vol. 28, No. 1, 2002

I found this article hard going. Read it over a period of time (holidays) and had to work hard to follow its arguments. Ultimately I have written this with close reference to the conclusion where Halliday generously summarises his method. I have also included definitions from wikipedia for terms I am unfamiliar with and the links to their source pages. My text/thoughts are in bold to distinguish them from Halliday’s, because I found it difficult to re-write what he is saying.

My conclusions:

For us doing the masters, I think the reason we are reading this is to introduce us to the importance of the impact of our methodology on our research projects. I don’t find that Halliday gives us any answers here. He drags the whole debate into question by saying that we (researchers and educational institutions in general) do not have the means at our disposal to test the conclusions of others research, and, there is a tendency for research to compete to assert correct practice. In this, I think, he is saying that we must explore whatever research has been done into our chosen research area and, if at all possible, to build on that rather than branch off and do our research for it’s own self-serving sake in a maverick-style context. Instead of seeing other research as competition, we are to acknowledge and embrace in the interests of furthering the value position in a particular field. Therefore, our research will become part of the wider fabric of research into that area.

Continue reading…

MA – Critical Commentary: Distributed Leadership

The conference at St Mary’s University College in October was a big event for me. It brought home the significance I felt about embarking on a Masters course and going back to university after fourteen years away. No-one had asked me to do it. I am not certain it will bring financial reward or move me on in my career. I wanted to know more. I was excited to hear Professor Dame Pat Collarbone was presenting the keynote. As one of the fore-runners at the National College of School Leadership, which I had visited in the summer, I anticipated an insight to school leadership national on a national scale. Having worked in many schools, I have evaluated many leaders, in my own way believing I knew enough to judge who was doing a good job. Now I was being invited to evaluate a leader of leaders. Continue reading…

MA – Critical Reflection: Distributed Leadership

Schools are complicated places pulling together swathes of people, old and young, in an ever-changing stasis. Distributed leadership provides a theoretical framework which aspires to channel this change toward school improvement. It is like a riverbed steering water to its destination, seemingly in charge, and yet shaped by every passing drop. In this critical reflection I will examine the theoretical concept of distributed leadership and analyse evidence both for and against it as a model for schools seeking to improve learning outcomes. I will assess the possibilities and pitfalls, and draw on my own experience to show that good intentions alone are not sufficient to facilitate the implementation of distributed leadership. In conclusion I will argue that, whereas distributed leadership provides schools with a theoretical structure to positively encourage and nurture the professional development of teachers, the evidence does not provide enough guidance as to how it might be successfully applied. It is this point, the lack of analysis of how distributed leadership might be managed, that ultimately renders it a theoretical and descriptive tool rather than a model for implementing good practice in modern schools. Continue reading…

MA – Critical review: Harris, A. (2008) ‘Distributed Leadership: The Evidence’

Harris argues that leadership is indirectly linked to learning by influencing the context in which teachers operate. The argument concedes that, if we accept distributed leadership ‘can positively impact on these organisational conditions’ (p44) then we need to examine the evidence about the direct relationship between distributed leadership and learning outcomes. Harris sees this as the root of sustainable school improvement and sets about documenting the evidence. Continue reading…