2024 In Review

Graphic from Co Author Studio

Strange year, 2024. While Scottish education wrestled with AI's implications, I shifted back to consultancy after 7 years leading digital transformation at City of Glasgow College. The timing proved interesting - just as assessment anxiety peaked and international interest in Scottish vocational education grew and with the funding model for Colleges pretty much in crisis.

Some key developments from 2024:

In College -

• Supported Turkish Vocational Authority's education reform programme with workshops in Ankara.
• Led AI policy development at City of Glasgow College and continued to share this work internationally.
• Presented at QAA Conference on assessment in an AI world and delivered series of workshops on Active, Blended, Collaborative Learning for Tertiary Sector in Scotland and garnered welcome support too from SQA.
• Pushed on continued development of Canvas platform and staff digital skills against some interesting internal headwinds.
•Hosted ALT Scottish SIG - this time on-line from COGC.

Post College -

• Participated in UNESCO's Future of Education bootcamp in Bilbao and now authoring bid with international partnership around adoption of open badge framework to support micro-credentials.
• Continued pushing for open educational resources despite system inertia
• Supported hashtag#Canvascon in Barcelona and facilitated a tertiary sector workshop back in Scotland.
• Ran series of workshops for HE and Colleges on blended learning for QAA including online workshops - deploying model developed @cityofglasgowcollege. Active, Blended and Connected.
• Supported an enjoyable workshop on Future of Learning with Prof Martin Bean.

These posts from LinkedIn capture pivotal moments:

"It's not the end of learning design and blended learning - it is just the beginning." Moving back to consultancy while reflecting on 7 years of institutional change.
https://lnkd.in/eb4anc2y

"It was an amazing privilege to be invited to make presentations and chair workshops in Ankara." Supporting vocational education reform internationally while Scottish reforms continue.
https://lnkd.in/em6K23C8

"Scotland is still not even partly on the bus despite best efforts of hashtag#openscot. Yet we are a country proud of education as a public good." The perpetual challenge of advancing open education.
https://lnkd.in/evGZVnrJ

" It was great to have opportunity to be part of cross sectoral expert team to develop this resource for QAA and associated workshops"
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/joerwilson_planning-and-delivery-of-active-blended-learning-activity-7252070604621631488-6Uyb

Grateful to colleagues at City of Glasgow College and the team at Instructure Canvas who helped deliver real change, and to the broader Scottish education community still working to embrace open educational practices despite the obstacles.

Looking ahead to 2025: ready to help more institutions navigate AI integration thoughtfully while continuing to advocate for open education. The challenges around transferable skills and digital capabilities remain much the same as 20 years ago - but the positive relationships between learners and teachers still drive meaningful change.

Broadly I anticipate working with;

• UNESCO - Continue shaping bid for project around better understanding of the open source code available for creation and management of Open Badges in support of Micro credentials.
• Continue work with UK Digital Badging Commission
• Champion - Teachermatic and other AI platforms , Adaptive Comparative Judgement and Canvas by Instructure as means of changing the learning paradigm.
• Hopefully continue to support work of QAA around Scottish Tertiary Quality framework.
• Continue supporting sensible policy and practice around adoption of AI in vocational system.
• Following recent Dubai Summit working with Open Scotland to encourage more open educational practice in Scotland.
• Supporting institutions and staff who want to digitally transform their practice and their learners’ experience
• Continue as chair of ALT Scotland SIG and have a bit more time for community building - perhaps exploring new community platform.
• Where I can, offer informed input on shape of tertiary sector and future of vocational landscape including qualifications. 
• Continue having more me time - great trips since great escape to London, Berlin, Bologna, Viareggio, Lucca and France - along with business trips been a busy end of year.

To everyone working to make education more open and accessible: it is always the people who make the difference. Be as optimistic and cheerful as your learners.  

Here's to more progress in 2025.

Year in Review 2023

A quick year in review - next post will be looking forward.

I managed to fit in a lot of personal and business travel in this year.  Thanks in the main to external organisations who are interested in what we are getting up to at City of Glasgow College. From Cupboard to Keynote - our work around AI has been picked up on a number of fronts. 

That combined with some of my friends' big birthdays and some major sporting events. It's  been quite a year.  Tinged with sadness as I lost one of my big cousins and just before Christmas my 88 year old uncle. 

Had lots' of nice nights out with old pals down the pub , combined with St Mirren and Scotland having great football seasons and caught a number of great gigs including Pulp. 

Venice was great fun for the Carnivali in February, Barcelona was great en famille as was short return to Ile De Re at the start of the summer. 

Our big escape was a tour of France for the Rugby World Cup. Which was just superb - Rheims, Lyons. Bandol , Marseille , Villefranche , Nice and repeat on homeward leg, just great. 

Made even better that our family came out for different legs of the tour and we had a lot of old rugby chums to meet up with along the way. 

That combined with speaking in London (BETT) , Amsterdam (Edutech) , Liverpool (Instructure/Canvas) and Inverness  (#OER23) among other places made for a busy year. 

Looking Back and Forwards - It's that time of year again - Part Two

Janus cc Wikipedis

Janus Image Created by AI 

Perhaps I don't need to write articles any more I can just use artificial intelligence https://chat.openai.com/   and I can add my own images created by Bing Image Creator. 

Perhaps, I could just automate whole process. Scarily how the copy for lots of commercial blogs and internet postings are now created. It is what bots are doing in the background automatically producing content for other bots to produce and flood social media channels with including repetition of any errors. 

I asked for current trends in Educational Technology.

"Here are some current trends in educational technology:

1. The increasing use of online and digital resources in education, including the use of learning management systems, virtual classrooms, and digital textbooks.
2. The use of adaptive learning technologies, which can personalize the learning experience for each student based on their needs and abilities.
3. The growing use of educational technology to facilitate collaborative and project-based learning.
4. The use of virtual and augmented reality in the classroom.
5. The use of artificial intelligence in education, including the development of personalized learning programs and the use of chatbots and other AI-powered tools to support student learning.
6. The increasing integration of technology in teacher professional development programs.
7. The growing use of educational technology to support blended and hybrid learning models, which combine online and in-person learning.

It is worth noting that the use of educational technology can raise important questions and challenges related to issues such as equity, accessibility, and data privacy. These issues are being addressed by educators, policymakers, and researchers in various ways. "

Or Perhaps Chat AI knows more about Open Scotland than many in the Scottish Educational establishment 

"Open Scotland is a group or organization that promotes open education and open educational resources (OER) in Scotland. Open education refers to the practice of making educational resources and materials available online for free, and OER refers to these resources and materials. Open Scotland may work to raise awareness about the benefits of open education and OER, as well as support the development and use of open educational resources in Scotland. "

End..

I've just scratched the surface but echoes some of my commentary from a year or so ago with educational obsession with plagiarism. 

Some useful links to learn about what AI can and cannot do.
With thanks to @brmorris10 and @JonesLearnUK on twitter.

AI In Learning and Teaching @brmorris10
What is Chat GPI and what do Educators need to know about it @JonesLearnUK

and a link to paper on wider implications. 

Future of AI some Cautionary Notes.

Thoughts - I think campaign to make any learner know about Chat GPI is the responsible path. 

Looking Back and Forwards - It's that time of year again - Part One

 

It's that time of year again for some quick reflections on 2022 and a look forward to 2023.

On the learning technology front it's been an incredibly busy and rewarding year.

• The focus has been around delivering a whole College move from a self hosted version of Moodle to Canvas by Instructure.  It was really gratifying to get student feedback from Class reps in November on a complete sea change on learners feedback on our virtual learning environment.  You can get a tiny glimpse in at the first window we opened for learners pre-induction. Prior to procurement we polled and held focus groups around what learners wanted in an ideal learning environment. - Learner feedback is that we have met all of their requirements.
• Along with Canvas we've enabled Blackboard Ally to support greater accessibility across the platform and later than planned added Panopto to our internal tool set to make it easier for teachers to embed recorded teaching content in their blended learning materials. 

With a big internal focus on the technical roll out and the associated internal communications, I've had less space for outward looking activities and blogging. My quietest year ever. No Awards this year ;-) barring nice Fujitsu Ambassador Award for the College in April.

A big shout out to the learning technology, and IT teams , the faculty canvas champions and all of the staff at City of Glasgow College for overcoming the daunting challenge of moving our materials and refreshing the look and feel of blended learning at City of Glasgow College.  

We are just on first chapter now of what will become a rewarding journey for staff and students. 

Other highlights of year 

• Attending #BETT22 great to be out and among people and ideas again.
• On going co-chairing of ALT Special interest group in Scotland and sharing challenges. Here is our "three stars and a wish" summary from December.
• Chairing 'I Was Gonnae' charity and watching team grow business
• Chairing Old Hall Scout Group and almost completing the hall refurbishment. 
• Watching my daughter thrive at first City of Glasgow College and now Dundee Art School and son enjoying his schooling and rugby.  

Lowlights of year 

• On going uncertainties around national awarding , SQA and Education Scotland - no longer directly in my ambit but so awful to see press and general idiotic feeding frenzy. I hope in the end it's a good news story for Scottish Education - but I still see little sign of progressive thinking and all the signs that the system is seriously destabilised. I think many of my initial concerns are still live and no sign of any progressive solutions. 
• I usually just blog about education. I worked internationally for years - I am a great believer in education as a force for good.  Thoroughly sickened by Russian imperial aggression in Ukraine.  I still remember a senior Russian civil servant telling me that there should have been no plebiscite in Scotland, apparently in Russia they would just have sent the tanks in to deal with the separatists. As my jaw dropped a Polish Civil servant quietly explained I had just met the Russian bear.  Peacefully I will do all I can to support Ukraine.  
• The state of public finances will have a long and sustained impact on education at all levels.  

Next post looking ahead - 

2020 Vision and a Happy New Year !

What a year of loss and struggle for so many people. The impact on the economy and on people’s lives won’t really be clear until the end of next year. I know how fortunate we have been in the roles we are in, in that we enjoy a degree of job security and we have been able to help others.

Professionally it’s been great to see staff and learners rising to the challenge of new ways of learning. I work with a great team who have been working flat out.

It’s been great too to see how our two school age children have adapted to online learning and monthly changes in the schooling system - they both miss sport most of all and socialising out of school, but generally their enthusiasm for learning has not suffered. Blended learning really does work.

Personally, it’s been very long hours and dealing too with navigating family illness and the stresses and strains of the new enforced domestic arrangements. We’re so lucky to have a garden and a dog and this space and companionship have kept us all sane. The scottish weather was kind too when we made our great summer escape to Lewis and that made all the difference to recharging our batteries.

Along the way I lost a couple of good pals,  in normal circumstances I’d have been present at the celebration of their lives. Watching remembrance services remotely , Zoom meetings and WhatsApp groups just don’t cut it.

I sometimes make predictions for the year ahead - I don’t think I could ever have predicted a year like this.

I hope things get back to a new normal where online learning is embedded in how everyone learns. I hope too we see a new system of national assessment in Scottish schools. We need some better national leadership around this. There is a lot of good learning that could come out of this pandemic. I am ever hopeful. 

As the economy changes - I expect to be busier than ever , we have ambitious plans for the year ahead and the demand for digital learning and associated skills are not going to diminish.  My inbox is perpetually full with requests for support. 

May the New Year bring you and yours good health, happiness, prosperity and a timely dose of Covid Vaccine.

2017 - Phew ! Happy New Year 2018 !

2017 , What a quick year !

A chunk doing some international speaking, Valletta, Malta, Warsaw , Poland  , Ljubljana , Slovenia  with UNESCO  for open educational resource related policy forums.  Hoping great things will finally come out of the 2nd #OER World Congress.  Scotland could do so much more here. It's been great to be involved in this work with my co-conspirator +Lorna Campbell   around Open Scotland . This could be year when more institutions and above all policy makers in Scotland get on board. Bonus,  I had never been to Malta or Warsaw and Ljubljana is always worth revisiting.

It is always a pleasure too to work with the #oer18 conference crew and the #oer community globally, I've been on #oer bus since the first conference ( in fact part of sharing communities since last century) ,  and of course the Association for Learning Technology in the UK and my colleagues in JISC and those in and around #FELTAG.

Re-building the  Scottish international pages for Education Scotland and the British Council. Facilitating Indian, Uzbekistan  and other international visitors around the Scottish vocational landscape. Where it makes sense our vocational system sells well internationally.
I wear my British Council consultant badge with pride.

Coping with digital disruption; A road map for a global standards setting and awarding organisation. Systems, learning environments , repositories , new quality arrangements for centre approval to encourage and support digital learning .. all that jazz in a global environment with much less Ofqual etc regulation . The new landscape presents challenges to the public and private sectors. It was great to work with an organisation who operate globally and willing to challenge themselves and their centres to create a better offer for their learners. I look forward to seeing the new strategic plan come into fruition.

Facilitating an International Digital Learning Symposium - that was a pleasure, as was becoming an SCQF Reviewer and being in and out of Holyrood once again as a member of Goodison Group's Education Futures Forum.

Working with a UK based partner to change face of teacher training in Scotland - and being amazed and appalled  in equal measure by intransigence and self interest so obviously alive in the teacher training system in Scotland. I think there is probably more to run on this next year.

Ongoing work with innovative companies who want to shake up the virtual learning environment space , digital assessment space , social learning space and indeed all things digital learning.

On going work too , around UK vocational reform - mainly in England.

I can justify graded apprenticeships , I can see the positive impact of embedding a refreshed set of core skills including 'digital literacy ' rather than simply 'IT'  . I understand training accounts and why employers need a bigger say in what they access with their training levy. I can see large employers encouraging learners to take apprenticeships in areas where degrees in the past were the entry route - accountancy , law , financial services.  I can see too that all of this needs a lot more thought in Scotland. I hope the new overarching committee finally lines up the activities of SFC , SDS , Scottish Enterprise and HIE . I hoped that would happen last year . I still fear that whole Scottish system could be usurped by some of these changes

It has been a busy and rewarding year  - since my last report in April 2017 and I've probably missed some chunks out.

But now looking forward to #Bett2018 and driving forward CityLearning4.0 into the new year.

Creativity, Mindfulness , Resilience - I've got that in spades - but I would not have achieved all of this without the ongoing support of all the very capable folk who work in and around vocational education in Scotland, across the UK and beyond. You know who you are ! Thanks for the continued stream of interesting, challenging and rewarding bits or work.

Nor would I have kept this portfolio career going without the support of  my wife and family too - it's been tough sometimes to explain what an 'Educational Consultant' does, one day working from the home office - the next rushing to an airport along with the associated peaks and troughs in income that will be familiar to every consultant.

Thanks to you all for your continued support and all the very best to you and yours for 2018 !

For those looking for a change - there is a sea of opportunity out there -dive in and be the change you want to see in the system !

For goodness sake if you see something that you can fix - speak up and fix it !

In 2018 get your heads above the parapet and lead for the sake of learning and learners !

How is that for some mixed metaphors,  in these mixed up times !

Happy New Year to one and all - and make 2017 special

Hope you are all ready for another busy and productive year . I've not blogged much since early December as we were off visiting extended family in the Philippines over Christmas and New Year - here is a wee tropical tonic.




Looking forward to seeing old friends and meeting new ones in the year ahead.

All the very best for 20017

2013 in Review

Waterlogue  App One of this year's discoveries 

Some quick reflections on 2013   ( 2012 , 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008  etc ) . A lot of this year has been spent trying to push on with the new while getting bits of the system to understand and hold on to the best bits of some of our legacy projects. In everything it is all about communication at all levels. If anything the ever increasing flow of great ideas across education just highlights more how structures and hierarchies need to change to become much more open.  We are still trying to do the same things with new technology plugged in - we are not yet confident enough to really use it to fundamentally change how we do things for learners - and this needs system change and open minds across the educational system.

This year started with an interview for the Times Educational Supplement talking about some of the big changes that are coming and then filled out with usual range of practical projects to support learners.

1. International Articulation work took me to Istanbul and some other exciting places. The work here helps students doing HND and other awards move around the world and cements the international value of our qualifications for Scottish learners. This will open up the doors of more European institutions to Scottish learners  in the coming year.

2. We spent some time looking at the appetite of colleges , schools and training providers in Scotland for more support in direct delivery to learners . There will probably be more developments too here next year
With common units across Scotland there is so much more we could be doing collaboratively in schools , further education and into the workplace - there is huge potential for much greater flexibility for learners.

3. Open Badges .. and finally .. after almost two years of pushing policy changes through system we were able to say some sensible level headed things about the benefits of open badges . I think many folks are just beginning to understand the potential here for learners and there are still some challenges too to be ironed out around display etc

4. Open Educational Resources . Have to thank the on-going support of JISC , ALT , CETIS , RSC Scotland , College Development Network  and many others for helping to open up the policy debate around open educational resources in Scotland . ( It should not be a debate - we should have some national policies here) Special thanks to Lorna Campbell  of Cetis for going  extra mile on this.
We have made some tangible progress . The Open Scotland event was very successful and we suceeded in getting all the right agencies along and engagement from policy makers . Please follow the blog and join ALT and the join our Scottish sig .  I will be moving this debate on again in coming year supporting organisation of both ALT-C 2014 and OER14 

5. I usually get to meet most of the folks with interesting content or ideas for education - this year a lot of these meetings were with different groups trying to get more programming into schools one way or another - robots , gamification , computational thinking . All good stuff but was clearly the year of computing panic across UK . I hope for sake of learners and teachers this gets more coherent next year. At qualifications end the new national 4 and 5 awards in computer science should be able to embed most of this - badges and some other developments should help further down schools.

6. In the evenings and quite a lot of evenings this year I played my part in merging three Glasgow colleges to become Glasgow Clyde College. I am currently chair of the college's learning and teaching committee - having been through the pain of merger and of  regionalisation, next year we will all be looking for the dividends that the new regional structures should give Colleges across Scotland.

And looking on across next year - Early in the new year folks will come to realise how useful the new Glow with Microsoft 365 built in will be for teachers and learners.  In the spring there will be more active debate and finally some action around digital participation across Scotland. By summer the new National 4 and 5 qualifications will be in place for all learners across Scotland . In the autumn and beyond we will see if all the work done to support volunteers , stewarding , security , broadcasting , catering , customer care and more for the Commonwealth Games  Glasgow 2014 delivers the legacy it promises and we will too find out where Scotland's destiny lies 

Over year too I expect to see more coherent attempts by a range of agencies to open up data in Scotland in a way where learners can finally track their own learner journey and they can see potential value of different courses in supporting their journey.

Some observations on my own use of technology this year

Blogging less and less and using twitter more and more
I miss Google Reader , found Digg Reader as replacement but use it less that I thought
Probably picking up more info from Twitter than from RSS Feeds ?
I like my tablet for consuming information and taking notes in meetings .
But I still need a computer -lap-top or desktop to be really productive
I bid farewell to my corporate blackberry and hello to a new shiny Sony Xperia and apologies to all who keep getting twitter invitations  and reminders to join me on twitter from my new phone - still haven't figured out how to switch these off

Finally thanks to my team and all those in SQA for continuing to support me and give me the opportunity to explore new ventures . Thanks too to all of you and all the folks in my broader personal learning network across Scotland , UK and beyond for all the great ideas and support over the year.

2014 will be a great year for global learning - Happy New Year when it comes -

New Year Reflections and Predictions

thanks to  littleperson1832 for image

Last year's predictions were among others that  that "flipped classroom" would become the bullshit bingo word of the year Well I think it came to pass .

I heard it used by number of  touring educational gurus , senior educational managers and academics usually from the lectern or from the stage during  keynotes where no effort was really made to engage the audience. It would be good to get  a greater sense of a flipped classroom at some of the big keynote events like BETT in England or SLF in Scotland. There is still too an attitude that change and innovation comes from above and not from within organisations. Gurus should be setting audiences challenges not coming along with their own stock answers ..I think this was apparent this year in the political domain too across the UK but enough said on that.

It was the year too of the tablet - and they are marvellous and miraculous devices for consuming things . I think they are still challenged when it comes to creating and producing things.

So what to look forward too

1. I think Mozilla Badges and the impact of smaller chunks of assessment. particularly in the computing and coding areas will really support both staff development and learners. It works well in areas like webdesign as the infrastructure is there to support learners.  Have a look at the Mozilla Webmaker tools and badges

We are well positioned to support these in schools , colleges and work-based learning. Our policy in terms of accreditation of prior learning is well developed. I am hoping this helps speed up the adoption of initiatives like this across Scottish education and beyond.  I look forward to pushing this on with Sunny Lee and Doug Belshaw  (Check out Doug's badges on his blog)

2. Is a MOOC a Massive Open On-line Course or a Massively Optimistic Over-Hyped Course ? - Time will tell.   I believe that where the providers of MOOCS make their content open rather use  these as marketing windows or discounted ways to gain accreditation then they will become game changers - as folks will use the content in other useful ways. If the content was open then learners could really see what was involved in a particular course before signing up to it . School teachers could use chunks of learning for their own development and  use these with their students. School students could engage with open material directly. In many workplaces they will  become part of continuous professional development.

I like the optimism and the sense of discovery that surround these programmes.

It is easy to forget that learning is all about a sense of optimism and discovery - it is what spurs learning on.

It also needs to be valued and nurtured - whether it is  happening in a nursery class or with adult and community learners. However humble the learning - the sense of discovery is magical.

3. Open Content is the way ahead . It has been great to share the journey of JORUM over the last 10 years ( If it's inception is taken as the early discussions at the JISC Joint Committee for the Information Environment ) We have a real opportunity to push this on in Scotland through Scotland's Colleges Resource and I hope through the future iteration of GLOW. Ubiquitous and available learning is an important part of the Scottish learning tradition and we need to embrace OER. 

But we do need more policy drivers in this space and I hope through working with the Association for Learning Technology in Scotland we can get these. It would be great if this was the year that the Scottish Government , The Scottish Funding Council and all the educational agencies in Scotland , including my own  could make a commitment to Open Educational Resources. This would support College Regionalisation  break down the local authority silos in schools and almost above all encourage Higher Education to stop pontificating on what happens in schools ,  colleges and work-based learning and encourage them to contribute by sharing  more learning materials.

4. Will Higher Education in Scotland start working with rest of the education system ?  I have high hopes that this might be the year. We've done the right thing in giving HE some more resource over last few years and they occupy a position envied by many in rest of UK . If they opened up a bit more Universities could really support learning across Scotland and beyond. I think a special mention to Edinburgh University for leading charge on joining Coursera but these on-line courses don't come with open educational resources.

Hope that is enough food for thought and may you have a happy and prosperous 2013 when it arrives.