Answer – when it’s only a template, or so it seems…An interesting debate going on over on the GLOW Scotland blog about local authority approaches to rolling out GLOW. It appears I’ve ruffled a few Aberdonian feathers with my opinions on what I perceive to be a perhaps a more centralised way of doing things.

http://ltsblogs.org.uk/glowscotland/2008/10/03/glow-for-aberdeen-city-probationers/

As mentors rush to defend their ‘one size fits all’ template central policy I can’t help wondering if there might be a little element of orchestration going on here…the comments from one blogger in particular give me cause for not a little concern…

“One huge benefit to having the general layout created by the central ICT team is that to some extent all schools will have the same feel which makes it so much easier to navigate round each others sites“

This screams out ‘corporate branding’ to me which is something I had hoped GLOW would manage to avoid – a LA deciding on a common look or structure rather than allowing individual looks and approaches to develop.

Of course this again opens up the debate on the function and even desirability of ‘central’ teams’. Whilst there is, I would argue, a place for an advisory service in LA’s who are available to help and assist where necessary and at the request of establishments (and my own LA is an excellent example of how this can work really well to the advantage of everyone) I am growing more and more concerned that GLOW will become just another branded council project, imposed from the centre rather than something to be adopted by teachers to enhance the learning experience available to our students and staff – at least, this is how teachers I’ve spoken too want GLOW to work. A top-down centrally managed project just adds to the feeling of innovation overload so often apparent in schools and will have the real danger of stifling GLOW before its really had a chance to establish itself. The East Lothian model of ‘opt in’ seems to me to tick all the boxes of a bottom-up supported roll-out with the leadership provided by teachers and pupils rather than a management-oriented system. Of course, this does result in a more gradual take-up rate but I think our experience in South Lanarkshire with just this approach has shown that it’s a robust model which results in continued and sustained use of GLOW by schools and their teachers as well as by other local authority mediated groups as well as a confidence to try out different ideas, templates and structures safe in the knowledge that support and encouragement is unobtrusive but only a phone call away. I’m sure East Lothian will find that this way works to their advantage as well…

So what’s the best way… only time will tell on this one of course. But the benefits that GLOW can bring to teaching and learning when placed in the freed-up hands of classroom teachers are too precious to be buried in the one size fits all blandness which is sometimes the result of LA corporate identity branding. Professor Debra Myhill’s idea of ‘creative subversion’ keeps coming back to my mind here. It was certainly a big factor in my own development of GLOW use and continues, with the enthusiastic support of my own LA advisory GLOW team, to be my preferred methodology.

To quote (and paraphrase) Stephen Heppell  we are witnessing  the death of education, but the dawn of learning. This has to include an absolute shift away from centralisation towards learner-centred, community collaboration and the move from delivered wisdom towards user-generated content.

I wish Aberdeen teachers well with their own GLOW roll-out. I also wish that they are allowed to be as creative and subversive as they want to be in this. The future of GLOW depends upon just this, and the future of our  young people’s learning is too important than for us to demand anything less…