Gnarly

Emma4

(...Emma, looking military, surrounded by gnarly matter...could be wisteria...)

Last year we did an analysis of a UKLA-funded e-communication project. This looked at the potential for using new technology to transform school practices. We contrasted ‘transformation’ with what we see as the dominant model - ‘enrichment’ using ICT. We discussed, but ended up not writing about examples in which new technology actually impoverished provision. We argued that: ‘The problem with transformation is that it always seems out of reach, conceptually far removed from the everyday classroom realities of forming relationships with pupils, organizing learning and teaching, managing behaviour and so on. Whilst waiting for the bright new future, teachers have to get on with coping with the present, with all the rewards and frustrations that involves. And so, in the continually reforming world of education, enrichment may be a more attractive option.’ This work is now published in the Cambridge Journal of Education (Volume 36:1) as ‘Digital connections: transforming literacy in the primary school’ – a collaboration with my good friends Cathy Burnett, Paul Dickinson and Julia Myers. It’s also an absolute delight that the work on anchored and transient identities is picked up here, and that we’ll be able to develop it collaboratively at AERA and then BERA.