Time and space to share our thoughts and practice as teachers are hard to find these days.
Barely did we have a chance to draw breath post-Covid (no pun intended), before we were already diving into a period of “national discussion” - the consultation for which closed this month, although the one for the Hayward review of qualifications and assessment is still open.
We’ve been invited to examine the findings of a slew of reports and a flurry of thought papers - among them opportunities to redefine the place of Curriculum for Excellence’s “four capacities” and of interdisciplinary learning in our schools. In such a time of flux, we would benefit from a safe place to share and explore ideas.
Could relics from our recent past be our best shot at establishing grassroots opportunities to collaborate, share and discuss - as Pedagoo provided for a while - regardless of our geographic or digital locale, if we are to optimise this time of reform and renewal?
Blogs and wikis were once ten-a-penny in the Scottish education sphere, until microblogging rose to dominate the landscape. Unlike social media, these older content-creation tools did not restrict the length of contributions or steal your attention every waking moment with incessant dopamine-releasing notifications. Instead, they allowed developing thoughts to be published, ideas shared and shaped, links made to like-minded thinkers, and documents to be written collaboratively - the very values cherished by both luminaries of the Scottish Enlightenment and the creator of the web.
For over a decade in Scottish education, Twitter has been the space to share ideas or, more commonly, to show off achievements and practice. But, in recent weeks, we have seen an escalation of distressing incidents: racist abuse of staff and learners, personal attacks on early career teachers. Elon Musk’s takeover in November escalated fears that such incidents would become more common and led to a mass migration away from the platform.
Elsewhere online, the challenges are no less significant. Glow, billed as ”Scotland’s national digital learning platform”, would once have been the obvious solution, but many local authorities are turning their back on the platform to pursue their own needs, leaving users frustrated by the need to jockey between logins and switch browsers. Meanwhile, we urgently need to liberate ourselves from Big Tech, which is currently carving Scotland into digital fiefdoms, stifling cross-platform collaboration.
Bringing together colleagues from across Scotland, and across sectors, is one of the notable successes of the Education Scotland professional learning and leadership team. Their leadership courses provide opportunities for collaboration, sharing and network building. However, capacity is finite and the cohorts of these courses (though expanding) make up a tiny percentage of the teaching body in Scotland. How then can we have meaningful discussion of the many reports and ideas?
It is time to look to our recent past. A network of blogs, free standing from any one provider, hyperlinking to one another to debate and develop ideas, formed a healthy part of the discussion on all things educational in Scotland just a decade ago.
What was missing in 2010 was any sort of directory: a working record of the many flowering blogs, themes and ideas. A “ScotsEdu” wiki would quickly establish this, editable by all, allowing for information to be updated quickly and providing a map for educators, linking ideas, papers and research.
In short, it would provide a one-stop shop to support an ongoing national discussion about Scottish education.
Andrew McLaughlin is a lecturer at the University of Aberdeen’s school of education
