CITERS2014 - Learning without Limits? http://citers2014.cite.hku.hk/program-overview/keynote-humphreys/ 14 June 2014 (Saturday) 09:15 – 10:00 Keynote 4: The SELTAS Platform: Enabling innovation in special education with technology for e-learning that is collaboratively managed and collegially quality assured Speaker: Mr Keith HUMPHREYS (Honorary International Consultant, Centre for the Advancement for Inclusive and Special Education (CAISE), HKU) Chair: Mr. Andrew TSE (Research Associate, CAISE, HKU)

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The SELTAS Platform
Keith Humphreys,
Honorary International Consultant (UK), University of Hong Kong
14 June
2014
 Innovation in special education with
 information technology
 collaboratively managed
 collegially quality assured
A qualitative case study, reporting to the SAME teachers

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The SELTAS Platform

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First premise;
 Education is education and the pedagogical
principles are the same for all students.
 Teacher’s need to be more concerned with
what students are learning
 Students have special needs that require
creative responses from teachers.
 Students only have special education needs at
school, not at home at evenings or weekends.
There is nothing special about special education

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Second premise;
 There is an infinite free range of knowledge,
that one person needs to know.
 Teachers have a diversity of knowledge and
learning needs
 Students should be able to share what they
want to learn with teachers and their parents
 There should be an interrelationship between
the student’s world at home and at school
We are moving from the industrial age of
teaching to the information age, which allows
teachers and students to control their learning

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Challenges for teachers in special schools
 The proliferation of mobile computing devices
and the availability of rich information on the
Internet enable learning to take place
beyond the confines of time and space.
 Learning will no longer be confined to the
classroom or be bound by school timetable
and prescribed textbooks.
 It will become more interactive, self-directed
and collaborative.’
The EDB Hong Kong (2014)
The Education Bureau Fourth Strategy on
Information Technology

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Challenges for teachers in special schools
 Enhancing schools’ IT infrastructure and re-
engineering the operations mode
 Enhancing the quality of e learning resources
 Renewing the curriculum, transforming
pedagogical and assessment practices
 Building professional leadership, capacity and
communities of practice
 Involving parents, stakeholders and the
community
The EDB Hong Kong (2014)
The EDB propose five key actions;

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Challenges for teachers in special schools
 Student attainment levels and diversity
 Student’s wide range of barriers to learning
caused by disabilities
 Student learned helplessness from adults
 Teacher’s educational and special
educational beliefs
 Special school cultures and size
 Ownership; who is the major stakeholder
the State or the student?
Six challenges for teachers in special schools;

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The students are ahead of the teachers

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The students are ahead of the teachers
 The use of one computer lab per school
is fast disappearing
 as are the fixed computer terminals
 and rigid competency based software
programmes.
 Teachers in many of schools are not
keeping pace with the rapid change
Many schools are out of date

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The students are ahead of the teachers.
 “Today’s students are looking at social
media not as a separate thing that you do
occasionally
 but as a pervasive part of the way they are
living their lives outside of school,
 one they want to connect with their lives
inside the classroom.”
Evans (2014)
Classrooms are disconnected from the
student lives

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The SAME Network approach to reform
The SELTAS platform is a facilitative tool

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The SAME Network approach to reform
 To help the principals and senior teachers to
manage their schools.
 To give teachers flexible access to the
knowledge they need.
 To enable all students no matter what their
ability or disability to access information.
 To collaborate with parents to appreciate
student achievement at school and at
home.
The SELTAS platform is a facilitative tool

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The SAME Network approach to reform
Schools have identified eight hallmarks of good
practice

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The rationale underpinning the SELTAS platform
 It provides instant case studies with videos and
lesson plans and articles which the teachers can
immediately access according to their own
needs for their class of students.
 It provides e learning resources with
e teaching plan forms, for fast lesson preparation
 It provides principals with web counter data to
quickly evaluate the effective use of the platform
by every member of staff.
The platform has a remarkable set of resources

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The rationale underpinning the SELTAS platform
 It provides collaborative opportunities for
different school to share common school
schemes of work and teaching plans
 It gives the teachers control of the SELTAS
website so that the ownership is theirs.
 It gives students a means of open access to IT
materials
 It provides a blog for linking classroom based
student’s experiences to the parents at home.
The platform has a remarkable set of resources

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SELTAS platform as an information technology
resource for students
The platform has to be accessible to all students

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The rationale underpinning the SELTAS platform
 If this is successful it will revolutionise our
concept of learning disability and student
potential.
 Many students are trapped by ‘learned
helplessness’ and access to the platform
may motivate them to discover a new world
in themselves.
 The platform has to be accessible to all
parents so that they can see video clips and
photographs of their child in their current
work day.
 This may have huge potential for raising
both the students and the parent’s self-
esteem.
The platform has to be accessible to all students

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The rationale underpinning the SELTAS platform
 to have an ongoing strategy of using the whole of
the platform as a school based resource for
collaboration
 to be encouraged to escape from an insular culture
and to be challenged by the implications of the new
information age classroom
 to ensure that all staff have a personal sense of
accomplishment that is recognised and celebrated
by the school.
The leadership of the principals and the senior
management team is vital. They need;
Without a user strategy the whole platform could
rapidly become a piano with no musicians

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The rationale underpinning the SELTAS platform
 ‘Teachers are a diversified group of learners
 who at different levels of ability and
preparedness to accept change.
 Past experience of innovation have suggested
that staff do not embrace change at the
same pace or in the same way,
 with some more reluctant than others to
adopt new technologies into their practice.’
Wilson and Stacy (2004)
Without a user strategy the whole platform could
rapidly become a piano with no musicians

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SELTAS as an IT resource for teachers and
students

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SELTAS as an IT resource for teachers
 ‘There is an emerging political belief
that for viable professional change to
be cost effective
 it should be driven by the teaching
profession’s awareness of student’s
needs
 and not State sponsored initiatives
based the scores of attainment data.’
Humphreys (2014)
For change to occur in schools;

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SELTAS as an IT resource for teachers
 Those teachers who are traditional in their
approach find IT as being subversive
 and threatens their authority.
 These teachers tend to purposely avoid the
use of IT
 and feel that it distracts student’s attention
from their lessons.’
Mama, Hennessy (2013)
For change to occur in schools;

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SELTAS as an IT resource for teachers
 The complexity of the challenge is to realise
that that teachers are not already behind the
students,
 but that the students are moving ahead in
their use of technology t an even faster rate.
Edwards (2014)
For change to occur in schools;

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SELTAS platform as an information technology
resource for students

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SELTAS platform as an information technology
resource for students
 A systematic approach to the use of assistive devices
 A library of software information that is appropriate to
different levels of attainment
 A set of software tools and apps that enable students to
be creative
 A portfolio library into which they can store and access
their own private information
 Communication between their parents at home about
their school work
 Communication with their teachers about their life and
achievements at home.
It is a resource to enhance classroom practices.

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SELTAS platform as an information technology
resource for students
 A new found freedom in which to own the world in which
they live.
 In doing so the platform provides a source of
independence through which to gain self-respect and
develop their self-esteem.
 The value of using IT for students with special educational
needs is that it already a part of their social culture and a
medium that they are motivated to use.
 The SELTAS platform provides them with a focussed
resource that they can access without adult intervention
as they take control of their own world.
It is a resource for students to explore at home
independently of school.

29. 29 SELTAS contribution to parent partnership
A paradigm shift in parents as partners

30. 30 SELTAS contribution to parent partnership
 The ‘engaged parent’ is now a central issue in
government policies
 as they try to improve educational standards
and shift from parent’s rights to parent’s
responsibilities.
 ‘Whether parents like it or not and whether
teachers like it or not, parents are part of, even
central to, the education strategy’
Goodall and Vorhaus (2011)
A paradigm shift in parents as partners

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SELTAS contribution to parent partnership
 ‘Learning Platform technologies are unlikely
to drive any changes in parental involvement
 unless accompanied by wider shifts in the
‘parent-centeredness’ of a school's
organizational culture.
Selwyn et al (2011)
A paradigm shift in parents as partners

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SELTAS in promoting teacher collaboration
and critical friendship within school.

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SELTAS in promoting teacher collaboration
and critical friendship within school.
 SELTAS is a professional development
resource for teachers that can influence
the whole learning culture of a school.
 Yet the platform in itself has little value
unless it is used effectively.
 Teachers need to clearly understand
what a platform can do and not do.
Teachers use of the platform

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SELTAS in promoting teacher collaboration
and critical friendship within school.
 When teachers seek to improve their
professional practice they are vulnerable to the
pressures of change.
 ‘Increasingly school change processes are
being facilitated through the formation and
operation of groups of teachers
 working together for
improved student outcomes.’
Edwards (2012)
Vulnerable isolation

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SELTAS in promoting teacher collaboration and
critical friendship within school.
 In establishing collaborative groups
 special care should be given to the formation
of the groups
 taking into account not only a balance of
teachers with different willingness to learn,
 but also a balance of participants’
interpersonal skills.
Oliveira, Tinoca, Pereira (2011)
Establishing collaborative groups require
careful planning

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SELTAS in promoting teacher collaboration
and critical friendship within school.
 Information exchange from the platform must
progress and not be static.
 Teaching is an oral culture based on visual
events which the platform can foster
 What is to be learned should be driven by the
teacher’s perception of their own needs
Teacher ownership is essential

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SELTAS in promoting collegiality as a critical
mass of credibility and quality assurance
Developing a collegial capacity through SELTAS

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SELTAS in promoting collegiality as a critical
mass of credibility and quality assurance
 The collegial capacity of SELTAS is vital to the
SAME project to the implementation of the eight
hall marks
 each demanding a paradigm shift in the
pedagogical practices of each school.
 ‘Collegial discussion was found to be important in
developing and maintaining community
 while critical discussion was vital for its role in
transforming teacher’s beliefs.
Prestridge (2010)
Developing a collegial capacity through SELTAS

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SELTAS in promoting collegiality as a critical
mass of credibility and quality assurance
 All the work from the SAME schools has been
uploaded on the platform and is available for
use across the collegial community.
 This has strengthened the resolve of the
teachers to continue what is undoubtedly a
huge challenge.
 The challenge has the important security of
solidarity for the twelve schools
The collegial context was adhesive

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SELTAS in promoting collegiality as a critical
mass of credibility and quality assurance
 ‘from teacher perspectives, the collegial capacity
of ICT implementation strategies
 played a central and mediating role in effecting
changes in student learning,
 of moving away from a teacher-centred approach
to one that is more student-centred’
Wong, E.M.L.; Li, S.C. (2011)
The collegial context was adhesive

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Freedom at last with the SELTAS
but learning has limits
 The State needs to realise the limits it has in
promoting education reform
 Schools need critical collegial communities
 Teachers need peer group collaboration
 Students have limits to the information that
drives their curiosity
 Parents have limits to how much want
to be in partnership

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Yes to learning without limits
 Yes to educational reform from
the industrial age to the information age
 Yes to a teachers culture where they control
their professional learning needs
 Yes to innovation in special education with
information that uses technology
 Yes, to student’s having the freedom at last
to define their own needs and lifestyle.