On change

I’m still catching up from my new location (see picture), so I need to announce that I’m published here and again here, and that’s probably it for 2007! Meanwhile I’ve been reading Lee Bryant on Emerging Trends in Social Software for Education – a recent Becta pamphlet. Mostly it’s right on the button and oozes optimism. For instance, Lee says "I believe that Web 2.0 tools and social software in general will have a genuinely transformational effect on technology and education over the next few years". They could, but we need to think more critically about the conditions required for that transformation. Deep institutional change doesn’t just happen because the tools are there, or because the time has come. Web 2.0 tools fundamentally challenge the cultural scripts of teaching – they challenge us all to re-think our practices and this isn’t going to happen in a culture where teachers are professionally insecure and educational administrators in a constant state of panic about falling standards and low test scores in print literacy.