Beyond the Buzzwords: How to Make EdTech Purposeful in Schools with Al Kingsley

Discover how to make tech integration meaningful in education with our latest episode, featuring edtech enthusiast Al Kingsley in his second appearance on the Teach Middle East Podcast. We'll uncover practical ways to use technology to improve learning and genuinely support teachers. As the CEO of NetSupport, Al shares valuable insights on finding the right balance with technology—using it to enhance learning when needed and stepping back when it doesn't. Join us for a conversation that will help teachers confidently navigate the world of edtech with purpose.

We discuss building a school culture where teachers feel safe trying out new tools without fear of judgment. We emphasise the importance of inset days for skill-building, teamwork, and understanding the purpose behind digital initiatives. Learn how to create a supportive environment where educators share experiences and raise the standard of teaching.

In the final segment, we look at the future of education, calling for reforms that prioritise skills aligned with employer needs. We challenge traditional assessments and question the relevance of exams in today's changing job market. By adopting a global approach to success, we push for a system that encourages continuous learning and helps students become well-rounded individuals. Tune in to get inspired and empower your students for a future where they can both know and do.

Teach Middle East Magazine is the premier platform for educators and the entire education sector in the Middle East and beyond. Our vision is to equip educators with the materials and tools they need, to function optimally in and out of the classroom. We provide a space for educators to connect and find inspiration, resources, and forums to enhance their teaching techniques, methodologies, and personal development. We connect education suppliers and service providers to the people who make the buying decisions in schools.

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Hosted by Leisa Grace Wilson

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:27

Hi everyone. This is Lisa Grace coming again with another episode of the Teach Middle East podcast. Today I have Al Kingsley. They say if you are good, you should be back on two or three or even more times. So he's making a return visit to the podcast and I'm delighted to geek out with Al today on all things tech, ed, tech, ai. Al is very, very well known in the education space. He is obviously the CEO of NetSport and he's going to tell you all the different things. He wears hats like nobody else does and obviously he's a fur baby, daddy, a furby.

Speaker 2: 1:11

You are listening to the Teach Middle East podcast connecting, developing and empowering educators.

Speaker 1: 1:23

Welcome Al.

Speaker 3: 1:25

Thank you very much. It's lovely to be back here again. I'm doing my usual, you're talking and I'm trying to spot any cool books on your shelf, but it's lovely to be back chatting with you.

Speaker 1: 1:33

Thank you. You know what? I haven't been reading as much physical books. I've gotten into audiobooks nowadays and so I'm out for like a long walk and I'm just listening to really good audio books. But yeah, I'm always up for a good book. So send me some recommendation listeners. If you've got anything good that's come out that you think I should either read or listen, I love to do that. Al, tell us a little bit more about you and your work.

Speaker 3: 2:00

Goodness. Well, you are right, I am certainly somebody who wears quite a few hats, so you know the techie side 30 years in the edtech space, 30 years plus edtech CEO at Netsport. Very much passionate around looking at the way that technology can be an enabler and an empowerer in all sorts of different settings, but very much with an education focus. On the flip of that, I am chair of a multi-academy trust here in the east of England. Over the recent years I have been chair of alternative provision schools, specialist provision schools, infant schools a whole range.

Speaker 3: 2:33

I sit on the Department for Education's board for the east of England supporting academies and the academisation process, supporting schools. I chair our regional SEND board, often the least expert in the room, but I like to provide that challenge and bring together health, social care, education all together into the conversation. I'm an apprenticeship ambassador. I chair our employment and skills board. I get involved in all areas and, as you know, I'm very fortunate and blessed that I get an opportunity to bring all those experiences together and share those online in my newsletter, at events and whenever I attend places. I also get to learn from other amazing people. So the best summary is edu-sponge.

Speaker 1: 3:14

I love that You're an edu-sponge. I would say I am as well. I geek out massively on all things education, especially in the region that I serve, which is the Middle East, and in addition to all those hats that Al wears, he is also a judge on the STEM MENA Awards. I genuinely do not know how you do it, but let me kick off and ask you in EdTech what are you excited about right now?

Speaker 3: 3:42

You know, edtech is always one of those topics that whenever it's mentioned, half the room pick up and get interested in. The other half duck for cover and think, oh technology, we've got enough things on the go at the moment, give it a rest out. So what I'm excited about, I think firstly, is that finally conversations around EdTech are becoming purposeful rather than just shiny shiny. This is something, something cool, there's something nice. It's actually connecting the dots between where technology can really add value and impact. And that word impact is the exciting bit for me because it's changing and I hope many will agree with me that for years. When we say impact in education, we're naturally drawn to attainment and progress of our learners and, of course, outcomes on what our children are learning is fundamental. But we're starting to recognize now that a measure of impact in our schools can be about well-being, linking to our semh, it can be about teacher recruitment and retention, it can be about creating more time for the human to human interaction, and so we're starting to shift our measure of impact and look at edtech as much more of an enabler than somehow this thing that you acquire and it magically has an immediate output that you can measure and, I think changing that sanity check of where we start looking in a more reflective but also in a more challenging way for evidence of using edtech for me is the exciting thing, because for every amazing, amazing product, there's also an average product out there and I think all of us want ultimately to say these tools, you know, across the board, we can actually see how they're used, when they're used and probably just as importantly and I know it's something that that many share is actually having the confidence to say in this setting, technology adds absolutely no value whatsoever. You know, because you know, in our schools that I'm responsible for in our region, there are some lessons that are amazing with technology. We've got a school bus that's been converted as our digital center in an infant school. We have six, seven year olds doing, you know, virtual reality, getting experiences that they would never get otherwise, using augmented reality to go on adventure trails that will then spark curiosity and impact on their creative writing and the language that they acquire. But then, on the flip side, we can walk into some amazing english lessons and drama classes where there's not a piece of technology in sight and it's still and, as we'd expect, it's fantastic because it's passion and enrichment for the language and the collaboration. And I think you know again, we've got some amazing leaders across the industry that are way smarter than that.

Speaker 3: 6:13

But some have perhaps been sucked into the idea that if you're not using enough technology then you're not doing enough, whereas the key is actually it's not about how much you got, it's about the stuff you use. You use it with impact and do your staff have confidence to innovate with it, rather than just swap it in and out, that SAMR model, you know, if we're just going to focus on substitution, why and I think ed tech conversations and I hear lots happening in particularly in the Middle East, which I think in many cases is ahead of the curve we often talk about what we're doing and how we're doing, but the conversation around why we're doing it tends to often be a little bit quieter. And when we do have the conversation at leadership, we're not always as effective at passing that down to everybody else. And generally, when you're asked to change the way that you do something or adopt new tools in your working practice, understanding the why is often the key to whether it's a successful or not project.

Speaker 1: 7:07

Yeah, that's brilliant. How do schools get to the why?

Speaker 3: 7:16

Well, there's one word which is easy to say and often harder to deliver on, but it's the key in any project and it's not unique to education. I just think education is pretty good at it, which is co-production. You know, co-production is always about how do we bring voices together and, given that I've got quite a few gray hairs and a few wrinkles, I'm okay to say this that sometimes, when it comes to digital and it's about creating that digital vision that you can move forward with a project, the leadership are not always the best people to be making the right decisions about their successful use of technology. They don't always have the lived experience in the same way as some of the staff within the school will have. So co-production, you know, starting at that heart, with its teachers and students and, depending on cohort age, it's also parents often about how we can use technology or where it's needed to help engage disengaged learners. Or, you know, close the feedback loop more quickly or effectively, look at data so it can influence changes and impact that we have, and those things all kind of sit at the heart and then that co-production has got to be. Well, you've got leadership who are talking about the. Perhaps they're looking at their own self-assessment and they're saying we've got these priorities over the next year of areas we need to develop, so that feeds into it. You've got your it team saying you know what, whatever the technology, we've got to look at the foundations and if we haven't got the right infrastructure and backbone in place, these things won't grow.

Speaker 3: 8:33

We've got lots of conversations about data protection and privacy. Are we transparent in the tools we're using, the cloud-based tools? Where's the data stored, who has access, how long's the data there for and what's the risks if it was compromised? I think it's a big conversation growing around accessibility and scnd. So are we adding tools in our school that are actually creating a broader digital divide or are we actually closing it? Are we making sure that the technology potentially can benefit all of our learners, not just our most able, and at the same time, also looking at technology that doesn't disadvantage our families? You know, are we going to say that we're going to use this, which means families that haven't got one device per child or haven't got the budget to invest in a high-end device are going to miss out? We've then got the challenge around governance and asking that big question why we're doing it.

Speaker 3: 9:20

I always like to talk about finance being part of that co-production, but we need to get away from finance dictating the journey. Finance dictates the speed of the journey, not the destination when it comes to creating a digital vision, but understanding how we bring that together. And then the last one, I think which is always the most important when it comes to that co-production, is thinking about professional development. Need to get away from just a few hours at the start of the academic year or the term and think about how do we capture from our staff particularly, but also our learners, where their confidence lies and where their confidence doesn't lie, and how do we signpost. You know I refer to them as the flag bearers, but, um, it's something I've said before, but you know I can walk into a school, but I've been asked to go and have support or across a multi-academy trust or a school district and it's very easy for them to signpost to me who are the people to go to.

Speaker 3: 10:10

If you want advice on mathematics or history or STEM subjects, that's the go-to staff across all our schools. And if you ask the same question and say so, who are the go-to people for OneNote or Kahoot or Classroom Cloud or whatever the product is, there's often a pause and we don't actually signpost. So we expect staff to invest their time and effort becoming confident in the tool, but the only real signposting we give them is some resources in YouTube, whereas actually, if we could start signposting, you can always reach out to Al or Lisa or whoever, and they're the go-to people for that product and for that product. These are the people who can give you a steer. They go with two people for that product and for that product. These are the people who can give you a steer.

Speaker 1: 10:47

Often we not only develop confidence, but we also capture insights that shape that vision that we're trying to pull together yeah, and I also wonder, when you talk about professional development, what do you think schools can do to bridge that divide? Because remember, at the start of this conversation you say it technology and divides the room. Some people run for the hills and some people are excited by it, and I think the people who run for the hills are the people who didn't get the proper professional development around the tools that the schools have chosen to employ. What can schools do, apart from finding those key people who are good at the software, good at the tech? What else can they do to ensure parity in terms of professional learning for everybody?

Speaker 3: 11:31

It depends on the kind of school. I mean. I'll be honest, you know many of the schools in the UK. They know where to go to look for best practice and advice, but the biggest barrier is capacity. It's time you know we're short on staff numbers, there's absences, there's pressure on the school system. We really can't spare you to be out of school.

Speaker 3: 11:47

Now I always say that there's often hidden skills within your school. So we take an example. You know September, august, depending where you are in the world start of the academic year. You know we're trying to build and move forward with our digital plans for the year ahead, alongside lots of other strands. And often we don't know about the new cohort of staff that have arrived within our schools, what their lived experiences were in the previous schools. Did we actually ask them what was working well previously, what tools they had, what skills they had? Often all that our new staff receive are our policies and our guidance on our tools and what we're planning to do, and we forget to look outside.

Speaker 3: 12:22

There absolutely is a sense of schools need to think of the often used here in the uk and elsewhere, which is it's instead of thinking of PD, professional development remember the C, continuous professional development and within digital, it's muscle memory. It's about don't do that just a few hours at the start of the year, but think about how you could do simple online teach meets. Think about what we do with students, you know, through the pandemic we were all talking about. Well, when we're doing our teaching and learning between synchronous and asynchronous, don't forget to be recording some exemplars that students can access with the key bits. And then we look in schools and we say are we recording exemplars around the tools we use for our staff to access? And we got some new smart boards last week and we had the manufacturer come in and do some training for the staff whose classrooms they were going into. And you asked the question and did we record that for all the other staff across the building that have had those boards the last year? Because some of those staff are new so they've missed that training? Oh no, I didn't think about that. And so sometimes it's thinking about opportunities to capture and it's about opportunities to allow staff within the school to feel that they're okay to share what they do.

Speaker 3: 13:27

I think the other one, which is the hardest one of all, is, you know, whether it's education or, frankly, healthcare or banking or any sector. You think about the two things that make somebody feel you know that they enjoy their job more than anything else is feeling trusted and feeling valued. And often, when we think about digital, we can often end up being quite prescriptive. This is what you must do, this is what you must learn. We don't give people the confidence to say it's okay to try new stuff, it's okay, if this does or doesn't fit, to adapt to suit. And I also think none of us like judgment. You know, let's all sit in the room, put your hand up. If you haven't figured out how to use this in OneNote or Google Sheets, well, who wants to say? You know what? It's me. I'm the one that's struggling and I'm looking around the room and nobody else's hands are up.

Speaker 3: 14:14

So how do we make people's access support to develop their digital confidence without it somehow being a measure of their capability or their worth in any way? You know none of us are experts at everything or their worth in any way. You know none of us are experts at everything. And so I think if you can create a culture that says again, often that's signposting to the friendly peers who actually have confidence don't worry, have a play with it. And if you get stuck, these are the people to talk to. And if you're still stuck, we've got some recorded exemplars on our central bit. And if you're still stuck, talk to us, because we've got loads of other schools we know around our region that have already further along their journey. Let's find a way for you to connect with them. Let's bring them in or give you an opportunity to go visit.

Speaker 3: 14:52

That's where it gets sticky, because then we're into time and capacity and will sometimes gets trumped by the phone call this morning and three staff are off sick and we can't manage it. You know, and that's why I think, the value of regional events and the value of resources, you know. You've only got to pick up and look at your magazine to say, well, actually there's a whole heap of CPD in there, there's a whole heap of ideas and connections, and connections often is another really understated value, which is why I'm, you know, so much value in my PLN, because I learn things every day. I often use the Donald Rumsfeld approach, which is it's not the known knowns or the known unknowns, it's the unknown unknowns. How can I possibly go away and develop my skills by searching for videos and clips if I don't know what's available to me or I don't know what I could be doing. That would make my life easier. So it comes full circle.

Speaker 3: 15:42

I know I'm babbling a little bit back to that beginning point, which is actually, if we think about some of the measures of impact in our schools, one of our biggest pressures is teacher recruitment, retention, the workload, the pressures on our staff. That becomes another reason to be looking at where technology can have a positive impact to play, not just thinking about how this benefit our learners, but actually if we could find tools that would allow us to close the feedback loop, allow us to do certain things in an automated way, allow us to more effectively plan some of our lessons and our content not completely, but use tools that would actually assist and short circuit. And then we start thinking well, actually there's another reason to help support developing their confidence, because the more time they've got for the human to human interaction, the more they're likely to be able to perform the job that they're there and they want to do.

Speaker 1: 16:30

Yeah, you were saying some key things there and the first thing that came to mind is what cool examples have you seen from any school that has made that whole professional learning piece creative and made it in such a way that staff could dip in and dip out? And really, because we know the constraints and we know schools are under pressure, but there are creative things that we can do to keep that professional learning continuous what have you seen?

Speaker 3: 16:59

absolutely so, so simple examples is stop asking people to complete surveys with their name about their digital confidence. Do it anonymously. Identify across the school so that everyone feels they can give an honest thing. Don't do it all. We've got to pick a time when staff will do a survey, when staff aren't overworked, or what's the best time of the year when they're not stressed. Do you want an honest answer or do you want to try and shape it? If you say, how will you put your name and department and all your details on it? Are you going to be as reflective about what you deem as your own personal limitations? Of course you're not. Secondly, how do I share best practice? You know we have newsletters for all sorts of things.

Speaker 3: 17:36

Is it possible that those staff identified that are leading our digital strategy, our digital vision, whatever we want to call it? Could we collate top tips and best practice and share with everybody so that everybody feels there's an opportunity, without judgment, to dip into things that help for them? Could we do a teach me format for staff that we do on a termly basis, something we've started doing in our trust? You know two, three minute stand-ups about a tool or an approach or a way, something they've learned with the technology in the school that's really helped them, but equally, encourage people to do a stand-up for something they tried that didn't work and why it didn't work, because often we want to avoid the pitfalls as much as learn where the next solutions are and making short, simple things like did you know, with this plugin I could automate this where it always took this data and opened up a Google Sheet for me automatically.

Speaker 3: 18:25

Or have you been playing with and opened up a Google Sheet for me automatically? Or have you been playing with? You know, and maybe it's a topic we'll come on to I'm sure we will you know what's your favourite? Are you a chat GPT? Are you a Gemini? Are you a? You know? Are you a Claude? Did you know? If you uploaded this PDF and said give me a 10-line summary of what this policy contains, it would do all the work for you. You know, and I think those kind of senses of this isn't rocket science. You know, this isn't education specific. We have the same challenge in every sector. If you're in a role, technology is constantly changing, systems and processes are constantly changing. How do you give people the confidence to adapt and thrive? And the thrive is the key bit in all of this.

Speaker 1: 19:01

I wanted to ask you when you were talking about giving people the opportunity to dip in and out. Schools tend to have these inset days. Are we supposed to still have those? Like really are we?

Speaker 3: 19:15

it's a really difficult question. I think there's value. There's value in inset, particularly if you're part of a cluster of schools, because I think you know, the more we use technology, in my view, the more it amplifies the value of human, toto-human interaction. I think it's really important that teams come together as part of their professional development. I think we've got to remember that inset isn't always going to be focused around the technology. In fact, the best schools are where edtech isn't a specific event, it's just woven into what we do. And it's no different on inset to having sessions about behaviour management with our learners or other strands and topics where I think there's real value. But I think we need to reflect when we look at inset days and reflect on how we have teaching and learning in the classroom. Would we sit our students down for four or five hours straight, borrow a coffee break and just talk at them and expect that to all be retained and consumed? Or would we try and chunk it down into activities and make sure that they had something to take away and do in their own time to develop and reinforce it? And often I often just have to ask the question from one step removed, which is. Is this the most effective way to deliver teaching and learning to adults in what we're doing in our inset? And the is? No, it's rubbish, you know, but I totally get the reasoning why because we have those limitations, so it's not to replace those days, although maybe those days could be shaped on different things and often are.

Speaker 3: 20:36

This is not a judgment, because I've seen some amazing insets that I've been invited to come along to, and I did one three weeks ago girls all only trust in l London and they brought together 400 plus staff and teaching assistants which I think was really important together to talk about their digital vision and their plans for the years ahead, but really focused on the why. Why are we doing this? Why do we think now is the time to look at this as the next step for our trust? What are we actually planning to do and how you can not only build confidence but how you can build your skills for it and how we're going to capture your feedback. So that kind of insight works really well, but, like anything, you know it's about now.

Speaker 3: 21:18

We've introduced you to this new tool or this new concept or this new digital plan. We need to find ways to keep reinforcing that with you, keep giving you opportunities to build your confidence. So again, we're back to the continuous, aren't? We have those sessions, but now how do we build on it? On a monthly basis to keep developing, and not one way. It shouldn't be every month. I'm going to give you stuff. It needs to be every month. I'm going to give you stuff and I'm also going to capture feedback from you so we can learn and revise how we're doing.

Speaker 1: 21:45

Yeah, the reason I ask that is because I still have friends who are school leaders, my colleagues, and sometimes they were like, oh my God, lisa, I have to pull an inset together, and they're literally doing it three or four days before and calling you. Know, because it's normally either either the insight is either at the end of a holiday or at the beginning, and so they're always oh my god, what do I do? Do you have any ideas? Do you have any suggestions? And I'm like well, the first thing you need to do is really you should have spoken to your staff about this months ago when you realized the calendar and dates were coming up and really look at how you could utilize. You don't have to use the day for training in the traditional way, where they're all sat and listening to people pontificate about things they're not interested in. But you could get really creative with it. And why does it have to be training?

Speaker 3: 22:39

Why can't you bring people together just to talk, just to network, like there are so many different things you could do with that day instead of panicking and trying to fill it with stuff yeah, I think when, when you see the examples of filling with stuff, we all know you know if you're having a meeting and bringing people together when there isn't a real purpose, people know they just feel like we're just using this time because it's been pulled together. I mean it comes back to the, the context of co-production. You know co-production is a two-way process. You bring all the stakeholders together, you share your ideas, you get feedback on those ideas and it's a living beast. It constantly evolves. Well, actually, bringing staff together on inset days is an opportunity to listen as much as speak. It's an opportunity to capture where the fears, the concerns are, where the pressures are, as well as capture the positives, what's working well, other people's ideas. It's a blend, isn't it? And nothing at short notice ever typically works out with maximum impact. But I think it's always difficult because when we talk about these topics, for every one where there's a rushed inset, there's another one which is really innovative and stimulating and there's lots happening.

Speaker 3: 23:42

But I also think there's an opportunity. Often, within a region, you'll have many of the schools start and finish their academic terms and year on the same date. There's an opportunity for some cross-pollination between those no two schools and trusts and school districts are at the exact same point in their journey, whether it's with digital or, frankly, with anything else. And so, looking outside to say it's okay to bring somebody from another trust who's further along or another school group that are doing something innovative and can we do some swaps. Is you come and talk about your digital journey and we're going to talk about something innovative we're doing in teaching and learning or in STEM or whatever the topic may be? I think that's where we perhaps just need to think about how can we not only be more able and willing to listen internally from staff at all levels, but also enjoy it. Bless you, thank you.

Speaker 1: 24:33

Think about how schools could use something like that to really pull ideas and pull you know, cutting edge things together and disseminate to staff. Do you think that's a possibility or have you seen it used?

Speaker 3: 24:57

I mean I've certainly seen newsletters which aggregate from staff and I've seen newsletters around technology and I've seen ones around wellbeing and bringing together different people's ideas. I think it's the usual, which is there's a little bit of imposter syndrome. Sometimes you know we've got a, we've got a trust-wise newsletter on technology. If you've got any good tips or suggestions, share them in. I'm not sure mine's particularly a good idea. I'm sure everybody else knows more than I will. I won't necessarily put it in there. It's one of those occasions where I think it comes to sharing, where sometimes anonymity, like with surveys, can be a good thing. There's a central repository, there's a form here. Fill in your top tip and your idea and you don't need to say who you are, and if it's a good one, we'll include it on our newsletter. Sometimes you know there'll always be the same staff that will have some great top tips.

Speaker 3: 25:41

I'm a fan of newsletters because I think everybody receives it. There's no perception of you need to read this because you need to develop more than the next person or less than the next person, and I also recognize in our busy lives that actually they're not a format that expects you to consume all in one go. It's a dip in when you have an opportunity and if it stimulates something, you can take it away. So I definitely think newsletters are are on the up because we consume in chunks much more information now bite size, you know, or or by listening, as well, you know. And so I think there's a. There's a really, really good opportunity and in the, the most prevalent conversation that we're all having at the moment about the role of, of ai in education and our lives in general, frankly, given the pace of change, we can't assume that somehow, you know, take the model of changing AI and think, well, how does that fit into an annual or a termly inset? Well, we're going to be massively out of date all the way along the journey. We need to be sharing little bits, little suggestions, little tips that will save you time and little warnings. Don't forget you shouldn't be doing this or be mindful of this, or make sure when you're asking or signposting.

Speaker 3: 26:52

So that collaboration, I think, is really important. It's at the heart of what I try and do. I love curating a newsletter because I learn lots. I try and share a few of my own bits, but I learn far more.

Speaker 3: 27:00

But what it shows is's a such a wealth of information within the education ecosystem and we're back to just a lot of people don't know that these amazing people are out there sharing what they've done, their experiences, their resources. So the more we signpost it I mean, perhaps a good example is you know, if we were all in the same school right now, we might be consuming lots of different information, but our school hasn't fostered a platform that says al, if you spot something good, share it here, so all the other staff can have a look. You know, and that's almost down to the well, we could just have a. You know, if we're an office 365 trust, we could just have a teams channel where you just post articles that are good that others might want to dip into. Or again, if you have the capacity, someone's going to curate the good stuff, you know.

Speaker 3: 27:42

And so I think we just need to think about not trying to be amazingly innovative. We just need to think about the tools we've got and some of the strengths that are key in education. I mean, what sector do you have more people that have strength when it comes to things like reflective practice and sharing and wanting to communicate than in education? So so use our power skills more effectively give people the green light to say come on, share what you know, and if you're not comfortable, just post it in here and we don't need to know where it comes from. But you know, sharing is good, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 28:12

I also think the power of podcasts are being overlooked by a lot of schools as well. So rather than sort of have someone stand there with a powerpoint, why not recommend a good podcast and just let everyone go off and listen and have one of those anonymous forums where people just throw in feedback on what they've learned and key takeaways and then everybody is able to read each other's takeaways and I missed that. Oh, do you know what I mean? I can see a lot of richness in that. What are your thoughts?

Speaker 3: 28:45

I think it works three ways actually. Actually, there's an opportunity for creating podcasts as part of in primary phase, thinking about our oracy skills and radio stations and the skills that develops for learners about how they plan their scripts and their running order and their confidence in presenting and sharing information. The second level is absolutely in terms of professional development. Think about us as human beings. We're much more digitally connected. We're on the move, we're in our car, we're on the train or the bus, we're out walking our furry friends down by the river or whatever it may be, and there are opportunities where we want to consume information in an accessible way, and listening is often the most powerful way.

Speaker 3: 29:31

I think there's something quite nice about hearing the voice of two people with experience talking about something as well, so schools could do more on that, and I also see a number of schools, including within our cluster of schools.

Speaker 3: 29:42

We have an infant school that has a fantastic podcast every week or two that goes out to not just the staff but also the community and actually sharing insights on what we're doing. Great new books interviewing an author about a book that the children are going to be reading next term there's lots of ways to actually use it, not just for staff engagement but broader community engagement and for me, I've always believed, um in terms of our schools, that we are a community cluster of schools. Our focus is on representing, you know, the rich diversity of our community and so the content we share, sometimes it needs to be more than just the school news and results and awards. We want to talk more about the things that are happening that are interesting in our school and how we're engaging in our children getting broader experiences, and a podcast is a great way of doing that. So I guess we tick a box inward for professional development and outward for another way of actually developing our communication.

Speaker 1: 30:41

Yeah, I completely agree with you. I think it can be such a great tool for including your entire community. You can interview parents, you can interview caretakers, you can interview pretty much anyone on staff, anyone in your community, any stakeholder. You can get their viewpoints, you can dip into their expertise. I think it's a fantastic way of bringing the community together.

Speaker 3: 31:06

Sharing lived experiences is something that always enriches, whether it's staff or students. And you know, in every school, the number of different experiences and stories that are at the school gate in the morning dropping their children off and collecting them, that we have the potential to tap into, I think, is huge. I also think, again, it's about appetite. You know there are some amazing podcasts from educators sharing best practice and resources, but how do you find them? You know that's where I think newsletters, that sharing approach.

Speaker 3: 31:33

I think actually helping to signpost some of those is another way that you can be kind of outward facing and helping to take your your small steps. So, again, if you discover one, you know, is your natural persuasion to say I like it, or is it to post it internally for other staff in the school to have a listen to? You know it's it's trying to foster that mindset of no one thinks you're showing off, no one thinks you're overloading the channels. If you spot something of interest, here's our way we're going to share with everybody else in our school and, simple as it seems it, it's uncommon to be done, which is a shame.

Speaker 1: 32:04

Yeah, all right, let's geek out a little bit. Ai, okay, ai. Come on Al, what are you doing?

Speaker 3: 32:11

with it AI or AL.

Speaker 1: 32:13

AI or AL. It's AL on AI Something like that yeah. Yeah, for real, because I know there's just been such a whirlwind of developments. You know, recently Gemini and Claude has now a new version, and there's, you know just so much. Tell me what are you using and what are you using it for?

Speaker 3: 32:36

Oh, choices, choices, choices. I mean, if you want, the lighthearted Al who always likes to create pictures of him being out and about with his daughter on safari. Typically I'm a mid-journey person when it comes to my image recreation, although I think actually DALI, linked into Microsoft Image Composer, is actually really, really good and developing fast. When it comes to looking at creating frameworks for slide decks, I might want to produce or condensing information. Currently I am a Gemini user. I find Gemini to be really good for output. If I want summation of documents and resources, then Claude tends to be my place to go, but I'm not really stuck on one, because Perplexity has had a new update and that brings in data sets from across a number of those different models into one place and actually provides some really good resources with what I think are really good, research-informed kind of references to how they pull the content together. So if you play for Perplexity Pro, that gives you a broader sense. But the thing I always talk about is you know, I'm really interested and I'm learning lots about AI and I learn through use. You know, like a lot of us, you have to play with things to form an opinion. You can't just read about them.

Speaker 3: 33:48

There's some amazing resources being shared across the sector, largely focused around generative AI and the opportunities and they absolutely are opportunities. But within my schools and within many of the schools I visit, most of the AI is non-generative. It's technology that's being used for personalized learning platforms. It's technology that's part of the MIS system that's letting us look at cohort data and spot gaps in learning, helping us to compare tours on bulk data the thing that AI is typically better at than the human being processing lots of information quickly. And the generative AI is actually, for most schools, very much in the early stages. So I think most schools have got non-generative AI being used, although they may not have realised it. Sometimes.

Speaker 3: 34:33

The generative side is absolutely there are staff looking and saying how can I use this for lesson planning, content, resources and a bit of stuff. There's much less of it being woven in effectively into how do we do our teaching and learning. In fact, I'd probably say there's more conversation about what should our AI policy look like in a school and how do we make sure we can still assess a child's learning when potentially, they can cheat, and that kind of ends up being the conversation and I, being where I'm at in my my career, I suppose I tend to say sometimes we get we get so carried away in trying to be clever and technical in an ever-changing landscape we can't possibly mitigate for that. Sometimes, keep it simple, stupid is actually the best way. So so my view, for example in schools, is if you want to empower staff to develop confidence and skills, you've got to allow them to try these tools so that they can see whether there is genuine benefit and whether they build confidence in the quality of the output. But you can do that with a few guardrails. You can say, if you use more than two sentences of AI-generated content, you need to signpost that this was generated using, so that actually there's a history and there's a trail. And if you share a resource with another teacher, they can see and they can validate themselves if they want to. And you can set another one, which is, I know you, it's great for analytics, but right now, until we've got our approved tools in our school, don't be uploading personal information about students into the data sets. So use it for curating resources and content and then let's bring that back together so we can share which tools work best, which ones we think we want to standardize on within this school where possible. Standardizing is easier for cpd. We can share insights and resources.

Speaker 3: 36:07

If we're all using the same tools and then start to be more innovative about well, how can we use it to potentially stretch project work, project-based learning for our students, where you know, we can't say don't use ai because they're already using it. They can access it on their smartphone at home. They've only got to ask siri or alexa and they can get answers to most things. We've got to think about new and innovative ways that we can. We can still assess a child's learning pathway without thinking that you know, ai is going to let them cheat. So in our schools we're both exploring and using different generative ai tools for lesson planning and at the same time we're having a more of a focus around one element of digital citizenship. But much more is understanding about what are the things a child should understand about content that's curated. How do we evidence the authenticity and validity of something? How should we be more mindful that, when using it as a child or as an adult in a personal setting, we can effectively protect our personal data where appropriate, and that we can make sure we get the right checks and balances?

Speaker 3: 37:08

Then the next bit is stuff that I know many of us have shared around, which is seeing some of the great resources. You know I from my time back in the 80s and developing early products. You know the coding language was always garbage in, garbage out, and the same's with most of the generative AI. If you don't ask well-structured, well-detailed and defined questions, you're not going to get well-structured, detailed and defined answers. So developing that set of skills around how to use an AI tool and actually it's not about the first question, it's often about the second or third or fourth follow-up question that refines the output for you is a skill.

Speaker 3: 37:45

And whilst I go on my little journey, you know, I also think, because we're now talking about ai and how that feeds into the workplace it's also fed into a broader conversation from a strategic plan around actually the world's moving to skills being not soft skills but actually power skills, dominant skills. How do we enable our learners with those skills? Because if we keep winding the clock forward, the truth is we've got skills and we've got acquired knowledge and actually we need to learn and retain less because we need skills. More importantly, you know I don't necessarily need to know what the capital city of every country is. I can find it in seconds. But there are other things where I do need to know because it's about context and the knowledge and the context that allows me to shape questions. So I think that we're doing digital skills for staff, but we're also now thinking before we get too carried away. We need to make sure that we've got the right framework and digital skills for our students so they can use it safely and effectively. That was quite a long answer, sorry.

Speaker 1: 38:39

No, no, it's good because it had me thinking about how do we reshape things so that the focus is more on skills and less on content? Because, as things stand, we are doing a lot of talking and I do a lot of reading around this kind of stuff. We still are doing far more talking than doing, because the exams that the students are taking continue to be this year in 2024. In May, when GCSEs begin, they will not be based on skills, they will still be based on content. How do we make that shift? Because we could probably be here in 2026 still having our 3.0 on the same conversation about that shift from content to skills.

Speaker 3: 39:25

There are some things which are kind of definitive in many ways. I mean there is at some point needing to be a more significant. Maybe we'd call it a paradigm shift, but maybe that's perhaps overstating it. Fundamentally, the thing that restricts educational reform certainly when I think about a uk perspective is that governments don't like to implement significant change where the output can be measured and benefited from, within an electoral cycle. That that's always been the barrier to having a long-term plan for education. We want to shift things in small chunks because we can say, yes, we've improved this or that and why don't you re-elect us? Education should be outside of politics in every single way. The second thing is we've started to see for the first time, a few of the exams being available digitally for next year. But the truth of it is that, certainly in the UK context, that's about lack of technology. Actually, schools can't sit all their students down to do them digitally.

Speaker 3: 40:18

The bigger picture, of course, is and this is where maybe I'm being controversial, maybe I'm not is, you know, our exam system and our education system is not fundamentally different to what it was 150 years ago. You know, in the English sense it was the british empire. You could be educated in australia or india or the uk and at the end of it you'd acquire those key numeracy and literacy skills. That means we could drop you up and pop you into an organization anywhere in the world and you'd have those base skills in terms of what we have in our curriculum. Fundamentally our curriculum needs to change because the workplace has completely changed and we know if we speak to employers that the things they list are all those core skills. They're not how much you know about a subject. Now you know it's subject specific. I'm going to hope my doctor probably did learn quite a few facts and things about anatomy and other stuff, but maybe for other disciplines that's less important. There is work going on with that. So I mean internationally, if we go to the highest level of measuring what we do, we end up often at the pisa rankings and we say, look at all the school systems around the world at age 15 and based on the pisa rankings, you know here's finland, here's singapore, here's estonia and and then here's everybody else and we're largely measuring something not that dissimilar, frankly, to the EBAC system in the UK. You know it's those core buckets of those disciplines and I co-chaired a work stream working with Michael Stevenson from the OECD.

Speaker 3: 41:44

Alongside the FED, the Foundation for Education Development in the UK and the OECD are looking and working quite actively on a new measure, a new framework, which is an education system that promotes human flourishing. And fundamentally it says and I absolutely support this is, rather than saying you know how much of these 15 year olds acquired as knowledge at this point in time, um, shall we just pause and say does this child leave school at 16 or 18 thinking I've had the most amazing education and I now have an appetite for learning the rest of my life? Or do they think I've sat in my classroom being passed this information on a daily basis? Thank goodness, that's over, never again. And so the idea of measuring education systems by human flourishing is not just which children learn the most, but which children develop the broader skills, those soft skills, cognitive skills. But also how do you educate or how do you teach a child the opportunity to get a sense of awe and wonder? Why do we appreciate amazing art or landscapes or fantastic music or drama or all those other things that are actually very human qualities? You know, are we measuring a school system based on actually the rounded child or a very narrow measure Now? Now the answer is it's a very narrow measure and there's nothing wrong with academic outcomes. If I had a magic wand and I apologize if anybody listening says well, you're just a fool, al, but it wouldn't be the first time I've been told on that. You know, I I don't think gcses, o levels, whatever your international measure is, which says, retain this information for two or three years I'm going to give you two two-hour windows to prove it are fair or fit for purpose anymore. They absolutely don't meet the needs of our diverse cohort of students anymore and for some I always say thinking of my hat.

Speaker 3: 43:22

I'm supporting our alternative provision children in on the mainstream education. I could sit down and talk to those children for two hours and they could impart all sorts of knowledge that they understand about a subject. Give them a pen and a sheet of paper and the pressure, the environment, the stress, the clock ticking they will convey far less information. So in that regard, you know BTEC's qualifications that were coursework based. I think there's more merit in it and I use the challenge which is what are our most important credentials that we acquire on our learning journey? Probably our university degrees and our qualifications. They're the ones that sit top of our curriculum vitae.

Speaker 3: 44:02

How do we actually acquire a degree? Well, we study for three years, we have written papers and submissions throughout that three-year period and we do have an exam at the end of the three years, but that only carries a percentage of the points. So, in effect, we trust the teachers, the professors at the university to allow children to prove their learning as they go along and at the end of it they award something. And yet in education an A-level or a GCSE we say no, no, no. We couldn't possibly trust the teacher to do that continuous assessment. What we need to do is make sure they save it all up till the end and we judge it. And in essence, that says the exam system isn't fair. If we roll the clock for 10 years, you know, children will be able, and much more capable probably, to respond digitally than they will with a pen in their hand.

Speaker 3: 44:45

Now I absolutely think a child needs to develop the ability to write.

Speaker 3: 44:49

It's a very human thing and I think also it ties in with at the very early stages.

Speaker 3: 44:54

Foundationally it's about those motor skills, but I think there's also something about learning, and writing at the same time helps embed things it's kind of almost dual coding in that different way, but nonetheless, I think the exam system itself needs to fundamentally change and we're just starting to see some schools who are able to saying no, no, we're going to do things a different way, we're going to do things a different way, we're going to capture things a different way.

Speaker 3: 45:15

And I think the reason why it's important, without going on too long, is because that recruitment and retention challenge we've got in our schools, I think, will only amplify and increasingly we have that. Plus, we have a real problem with student attendance. Post-pandemic, we've got much higher levels of young people, with the support of families, not engaging in traditional education because either they find it too difficult to cope with the formal learning setting or they're disconnected with the way that they're taught. And we are also seeing more of the hybrid model where we can actually learn by engaging with teachers online. And again, if we think about equity of access for all sorts of different learners needs, I think we're going to change the way that we consume information and are taught anyway, and so digital will become a natural way of capturing, piece by piece, a child's learning journey, with both that sort of summative and formative capture along the way yeah, I actually agree with you.

Speaker 1: 46:08

And when you said, oh no, because, because when you said oh, I might have been called a fool.

Speaker 1: 46:16

I'm like we'll both be called fools. I really do not think that we are actually serving our young people with this summative really punitive, if you like final assessment that is supposed to then determine what their future looks like, whether they matriculate to university, whether or not they get, you know, the jobs that they desire. It's unfair because that you cannot condense that down into one or two hours and expect them to all perform at their very best.

Speaker 3: 46:49

I was going to say just imagine, when we leave education and our careers and the jobs we choose, if every year, our performance management and our pay reviews was linked to us being tested on what we'd done during the year rather than actually the review of what we'd actually done during the year, that context of we would never apply the same system beyond that point in education further on. And of course there's reasons why we've got to find a way to measure and capture. But we also need to be brave enough to say just because it's been that way for 100 years, it doesn't mean it's still right. We can't always fall back on. That's the way it's always worked and that's the safest way we can think of doing.

Speaker 3: 47:28

Innovation comes with just somebody being bold and actually being willing to say you know. Innovation comes with just somebody being bold and actually being willing to say you know what this is bigger than politics or bigger than anything else. This is a we could actually take the lead and be much more innovative than than others and then, like everything, you know, if you, if you do something that proves to have the right measure and a fairer system, others will follow I think there are some people who are bucking the trend.

Speaker 1: 47:49

I think there are a few examples out there currently of people saying enough of this, we are going to do things differently and I'm hoping it catches on. So to bring it home, al, what are your hopes as we move forward for education?

Speaker 3: 48:04

I think it's about opportunity. I'm very concerned about the pressure on education and the challenge in terms of cohort. Probably my biggest hope which might sound a bit cheesy, but I think it's something as you get older you reflect on is that we return to a period where we have a bit more respect for the education system. I think politicians talk in a negative way about educators in many settings. I think parents have lost a sense of respect for what education does for their children and where their ownership should lie.

Speaker 3: 48:35

As part of that journey, I think I really hope that technology does not become the be all end all conversation, that good technology is something you don't need to talk about. It's just part of the fabric and framework of education. But what I hope most of all is that we can use the digital environments we've got in a positive way, to share better, to learn better and and you know for the first time, location is irrelevant. I can learn from people on all corners of the planet and and get their experiences, and I think we're all richer for it. So if I had one thing I'd say to schools think about your professional development, stretch it through the year and encourage your staff to look outside and when they look outside, encourage them to share what they've learned back. Make it easy, make it non-judgmental, give people an opportunity to leverage this new connected infrastructure we have Brilliant.

Speaker 1: 49:23

That's a fantastic place to end the pod.

Speaker 3: 49:26

Thank, you Al my pleasure, Lovely to see you, as always.

Speaker 2: 49:31

Thank you for listening to the Teach Middle East podcast. My pleasure, lovely to see you, as always.