So where to now boss?

Clarity of vision is a fine attribute for a leader.  In this age of rapid change, maintaining direction is without doubt a necessity if we are to achieve anything of substance.   We are, however, beholden to one direction and face a multitude of obstacles to continue on our present path.  We are currently chasing down an Education Agenda which is serving schools in an apparantly sucessful way.  It, however, is not serving the operational needs of the Royal Navy with equally sucess.  I guess this is no surprise, well not to me or most casual observers, but it may surprise those who make the decisions on direction.  We are not teaching Key Stage 3 Maths, which is a shame because sometimes we need to.  Our agenda should be just that, Ours.  We need to be able differentiate between what works for Education and what will work in Training Sailors to Fight (and Win).  (Once in PR always in PR). 

Daring to be different is fine but throwing away the box thats houses our reason for being is dangerous.  For the minute the box provides the frame work for something that works and anything new has a place.  We just have to work out where and how and, just as importantly, if, it is worth doing.  Let us not kid ourselves.  The future is bleak in defence, the country is broke and while a few bankers may be to blame they aren’t going to manage the delivery of Defence Training, we are.  So its time I ask again……..  which way boss?

Wasting ammunition…..

I’m not talking about real bullets or high explosives.  I’m a sckoolie. I don’t often get to do bombs and bullets.

I am talking about the waste of young minds, talent and great enthusiasm.  Fresh blood, wasted in delivering school liaison days. Wasted in pushing agendas not directly tied to that of the school.  We have our direction.  It is clear. Deliver modernised training.  Yet we continue to organise a conference on this or that, a day of entertainment for a multitude of schools with some vague recruiting / community connection.  Modernisation as an agenda is beset by counter agendas.  Shouldn’t we throw all the resources at a requirement which really needs it.  The need is not just of modernisation of training which is difficult enough, but on the modernisation of the supporting structures and processes which link into and support the delivery of trained personnel.  We need our young minds, talent and enthusiasm to attack all strands of this considerable challenge.  Unfortunately some one else has their finger on the trigger.

Interactive White Elephants

Interactive White Boards.  Big white Elephant.  Actually more to the point, expensive big white elephant with less utility than a white square painted on the wall.  Our white squares on the wall consume electricity and are serviced and repaired when the little green light goes out.  Not sure who notices they don’t work anymore, but some one comes to fix the most under utilized elephant ever to be delivered to a training establishment.  Why did the RN and for that matter a huge number of training establishments purchase these things??…..   cause they were shiny, advertised at education fairs and schools thought they were ace.  Which they are; If your a school teacher delivering Key Stage 1 maths or simple cat sat on the mat English.  The canny designers of the IWBs created ready made education tools, curriculum ready, as there was a mass market ready to dip their hands into government coffers and raid the nations piggy bank to deliver great, interactive lessons straight from CD.  For under pressure school teachers needing a quick and government approved lesson it made great sense.  Shame then, they didn’t look at Under graduate maths, compression cycles, diesels engines, fluid and thermos mechanics or anything the armed forces really teaches to its trainees.  If they had we could have profited in the same way.  However, our instructors are delivering in the classroom (much like their school teacher counter parts) and do not have the time, or indeed, the inclination to develop these high quality tools from scratch.  Where they have been developed, they are utilised, until the developer moves on and the course changes and no one knows how to make the necessary changes.  No worries, cause we still have nice white, power consuming squares on the wall that, if nothing else, look good.

Woooaahhhaaaaa!!

Its a fine day and Monday starts well.  In fact, life is busy and you think ‘ah its not so bad’. The boss and I haven’t collided and nothing seems to much trouble.  Even the end of the day seems achievable without the usual stress and harassment which is usually associated with a Monday.  And then it dawns on me……….   ah I’m day off.

Leave III

Having had the weekend to reflect, it was probably the worst week in the office I have known.  Nothing went right.  What topped it and put everything into perspective was the realisation that by midday today i had achieved more than I had for the entire previous week.  I left work thinking positively.  Dangerous I know…..   I’ll stamp on it soon.

Leave Blues II

Day 3.  Thought it started ok, maybe it did, but sometimes I’m not sure.  I’m not the only one.  My oppo has that sinking feeling too.  If we bring something positive to the boss it may result in a corronary as all we seem to do is tell him things aren’t quite going to plan.  It’ll get better……………………..   won’t it?

Partnering

We have a partnering set up with Flagship Training limited.  It works on a simple principle.  Flagship sells our spare capacity, our name and reputation and in return we get a third of the profits which helps fill an ever increasing funding void that the RN faces.  I should also point that Flagship also provide services at less cost than would be incurred if a matlow was doing the job.  In all it should be a mutually beneficial arrangement and for the most part it is.  In marketing terms the product is wholly saleable.  The RN reputation is second to none,  our training effective and the infrastructure in place is well established.  We offer a very marketable commodity.  

However there are views that says we are taken for a ride.  That the reputation of the RN is being tarnished.   Or the other side which says we are doing very well out the partnership.  Now isn’t the time but I’ll expand on both as we journey through schooliedom.

Leave Blues

First day back after leave………  the job is back to being shit.  The outlook is shit with shit aspects……..  it’ll get better, slowly.  But for the minute its shit.

Inbound Good Idea, Brace, Brace, Brace…….

And so it begins.  Any good snap ambush commences with the identification of a good killing ground.  Depending on the intended victim of the GI a killing ground can range from the corridor outside the bosses office, over lunch in the wardroom or, if the recipient has been really unlucky their own office.  The GI has little basis of use, other than to glorify someones resume and highlight their climb over those around them.  The GI has apparent utility in that it takes a long time to achieve and therefore must be useful.  It also has the added bonus of being “fire and forget”.  We must be careful here to separate the GI from the Long Screw Driver as they are similar in methodology, can be mistaken for management and are devastating against morale.  The two however differ in that the fire and forget variant is often forgotten, whereas the Screw driver will be followed up by a longer one and a universal adjusting tool for added effect.

A Case for Education…..

We are standing on the edge of major change in the way we deliver training and education across defence.  And no cynics I’m not talking the great white elephant that is DTR.  I’m talking of the advent of Virtual Learning environments and targeted, quality elearning.  The real snag I see is that those tasked with carrying out the change are still in the era of the whiteboard and dodgy powerpoint.  A phrase used by a friend in the field referred to digital natives, digital immigrants and digital Pygmies.  Let me explain as they did to me .

The natives are our target audience, they are the ipod generation, used to 24hr connectivity, at home with Wikki, blog and google technologies.  They have learned in collaboration with their peers and while they have no idea how to use a dictionary, but thats no issue as they know where the spell check function is and can access more information in just a few seconds than most immigrants could in a minute or a pigmy could achieve in a library for a week. 

The Immigrants remember being taught on the BBC micro and have launched themselves with pride and gusto into the facebook revolution.   Unfortunately for the natives however,  they are the ones attempting to implement the changes to training at the grassroots level.  This change will have huge implications to the future training an the careers of those we’re training. 

Even more of a problem is that those directing the so called projects have even less of a clue of this digital revolution.  They are the Pigmy’s and while they speak knowledgeably of wikkis and blogs,  I doubt they’ve used one in anger. 

I make the case that we, the immigrants don’t know enough of the technology to either implement the bidding of the Pygmies or argue cohesively against more braided and ambitious seniors in our midst.  Not only do we not understand the capabilities or requirements of the systems available, we have insufficient experience in the basics of instructional design within this new environment.  Its not difficult to achieve these things but we need exposure and time to grasp, reflect and analyse our findings.  Ah, the same things we ask of our students on a variety of subjects.   But the pace of change is frightening. 

 For more on the digital native argument see below.

www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf