High-flying executives take extraordinary steps to ensure their companies are fighting fit by going undercover in their own businesses.
In the first episode of this Channel4 second series, David Clarke, Chief Executive hotel chain Best Western, spent five days undercover as new recruit ‘Andy Green.’ His discoveries were mixed: chefs and housekeepers who work beyond the call of duty to maintenance cover ups. On returning to head office, David outlines the lessons he has learnt undercover and ‘reveals’ his true identity to the unsuspecting employees he worked with whilst undercover.
The programme itself has little to do with education itself, but everything to do with leadership and quality assurance. It got me thinking. I would welcome your thoughts and comments, especially those from school inspectors, union officials, headteachers and any Best Western employees (should any stumbleupon this post).
1. The board were ‘eyebrows raised’ by their CEOs announcement and willingness to work the frontline. The employees that supported ‘Andy Green’ were frequently shocked by the true identity of the CEO. What I am most curious about is the impact the programme had on a) the boardroom, b) the wider workforce?
2. The CEO discovered ’the reality,’ within his company. Do planned lesson observation really discover the reality of teaching within the classroom? I just don’t believe they do. Would ‘drop-in’ lesson observations be more revealing. Would the unions agree?
3. As its almost impossible for a headteacher to go undercover in their own school, have / do headteachers ever considered a school exchange, without formal announcements?
4. What are the best quality assurance practices within business / schools at present?
I am aware that my Senior Leadership knowledge is incomplete and I would welcome further discourse. Where do you go to learn this stuff? Work experience with Ofsted?
This post started out as ‘Important and Urgent then Do It Part 2.’ It was reviewing the decision making process within the ICT Department and IT Services. However, as it was neither Important nor Urgent, time passed and a lot of revisions and thinking has gone into the post. In its final form, it is now more clearly focused on the ICT / IT conundrum.
Two and half years into the post, I am more certain than ever that there is a need for schools to separate ICT from IT (I see this more frequently in the post 16 sector). IMHO ICT teachers should be practitioners in the classroom and not cajoled into being pseudo Network Managers, VLE Administrators / Website Designers. Are Design Technology staff expected to support the Premise Manager or English staff expected to support Librarians? If not for professional parity but for logistical reasons. IT Services are busiest when schools are quietest, is it fair to expect ICT teaching staff to oversee IT Services during holiday periods? Where else could this expectation made? Finally, in Sept we will have a HOD for ICT, a Network Manager leading a IT Services team within which, an E-resources Manager working along the ICT/IT boarder.
Edtechroundup last night explored the best methods of sharing and encouraging staff to engage with technology, from that conversation I concluded the following summary.
ICT advocate would be well advised to consider the suitability of introduction (the time, place and readiness of the colleague) the delivery (f2f, email, CPD) as much as the product.
At the very least, the product / tool should somewhat be a) easy to adopt b) make learning more engaging or c) hold time efficiencies.
Speech-to-text apa Dragon Dictation meets ALL three criteria. To put my beliefs to the test, I am going to share Dragon Dictation with our Headteacher of Thursday, in the meantime I am using it to record my thought on Fierce Conversations by Susan Scott.
With that in mind, this time last year I recommended Dragon Dictation to another advocate at a social event only to find out that the app was a US centric, #fail. The good news, as part of their 2.0 upgrade, Nuance announced that Dragon Dictation now supports both U.S. and U.K. English. Its not that I can say its much improved, but as a first look, version 2.0 is promising, if not perfect. Apart from the basic speech-to-text, Dragon Dictation’s pop up tool bar allow dictations to be sent direct to email, text and and social tools and the auto save function has enabled me to make notes on complete chapters of Fierce Conversations before posting to my email. I would advise against using the 60 seconds limit of audio recording and stick to short, but important ‘snippets.’
I will continue to use Dragon Dictation as I read Fierce Conversations and I confident that when I come to review the book, the notes, quotes and reflections will feature heavily in the post. For example, the first note I made was to try act upon Scott’s recommendation to use the word ‘but’ less often and replace it with ‘and.’ Just reconstruct an every day example and I think you will agree, its makes for a subtle but and important improvement.
It took us just over an hour to video 3 full length ‘takes’ and then a further hour or so to convert the files, edit the titles, add the soundtrack before uploading to Youtube.
The students were amazingly patient as we waited for the Sports Centre customers and PE classes to clear the ‘set.’ Complimenting the students, the actual production went smoothly with both the second and third takes rendering decent videos.
What did I learn on the final day of the project?
The students really pulled together. Their teamwork and commitment shone through, they were really having fun. This aside, there were two key lessons that we learnt, both of which can be resolved with a full dress rehearsal.
One or two students forgot to bring props or the correct clothing.
We learnt the most, when editing the actual video, more than during all the previous sessions and class plenaries.
Next time we plan to run a full dress rehearsal with props, (to be stored on site for the final session). Following 2 full takes, we would recommend returning to the classroom, sharing the video with the students for a critique, before planning the final session. On seeing their performance, some were pleasantly surprised, other offered excellent suggestions for possible improvements, I believe ‘showing’ the students their performances, is valuable, insightful learning strategy.
With the help of some of the students that took part (and hopefully a Drama colleague I meant whilst on the NCSL LFtM course) we are aiming to write a short scheme for work for other schools to adopt and create their own lipdub. IMHO, The educational value may in fact be more ‘production / drama’ than ICT but whichever it is, I am more sure than ever, that lipdubs should be a curriculum task.
Back in November I first wrote about my aspirations to create a secondary school class lip dub. I am not sure a Year 9 class is the best place to start, but they are a great bunch of hard working students, so lets through caution to the wind. Do you need reminding what a lip dub is? Well. it is a
type of video that combines lip syncing and audio dubbing to make a music video. It is made by filming individuals or a group of people lip synching while listening to a song or any recorded audio then dubbing over it in post editing with the original audio of the song.
Today is an exciting day, or at least I am very excited. After just six lessons we are about to attempt our first full length take, giving us just one lesson to fall back on. What I have I learnt? Lipdubs are an OUTSTANDING group task that has absolutely heaps of educational potential perhaps not obivously ICT, but heaps of potential nevertheless. This is a very rich learning experience, for me as a teacher and learner, and for the students. What did we learn?
Research and Negotiation – Which track should the group select? Why? Has the track been lip dubbed alread? (We were beaten to our first choice track.) We ended up using a choice activity to vote. Researching prior examples, getting idea.
Organisation – Not only do you have to be organised in creating / filming the lib dub but in our case, working a lesson by lesson, booking facilities, organising where we meet, where to store school bags. In the later stages, what props were needed, who was getting the face paints, Workign around the PE classes and customers in the sports centre. This would lend itself better to a day event, but I dont think this would be possible.
Commitment – Its a long task to execute. You have lyrics to learn, places to stand – basically you have to know your role. Student had to remember props, buy make-up and so the list goes on.
Patience – Sometimes you are planning within the entire group, sometimes within your mini sections. Some times you just have to wait as retake after retake is required to get it right. Mid point car crashes made it a long wait for some students.
Manners – a lip dub works in a live setting. We had to work with and around staff, sports centre customers. Our students had to be trusted and reminded that this was not ‘a typical lesson’ and that their behaviour was paramount. They were excellent.
Logistics – What was achievable in our time frame, 4 weeks, 8 lesson, 60 minutes long, the number of students 25-30 and budget, £15.
ICT – Camera work. Camera angles, wide shots, close ups, it was full of video terminology. If we had more time, we would use a lesson on file types, converting file types and Movie Maker.
However, the last two learning aspects were the most influential.
Creativity and Leadership – It was all about how the students interpreted the lyrics. Their is an ideas, their insights and the leaders that emerged to make it happen.
Teamwork – 3 minute video, 30 students, X number of interchanges. We had to work together. The that took on rolls without asking, the audio team, the camera team. The students that covered one another when absent, the students that improvised and shared ideas off camera.
On the way into her achievement evening, I bumped into a student. Following pleasantries she noted, ‘mum, that’s the lesson I was telling you about. The miming thing.’ It would appear that its captured at least her attention.
Rest assured, I am not the only wacked out teacher out there! There is a very simple hints and tip page @ Universitylipdub page and Lipdub are now offering corporate creative lip dub workshops! Event the Simpsons have there own micro lipdub. I am moving to English next year and I will find a place for another Lipdub. Somehow, I think it would fit better her than in ICT, even better in Creative Arts?
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