The Digital Society course is now two years old, and students received their first set of results this summer. So I would like to send out a huge congratulations to all of them including my trailblazing six students - well done! (I believe the milestone is important enough for me to trial my new LinkedIn plugin as well hope it works.) However, I just recently checked the IB statistics for numbers entering the Digital Society course and they are a huge disappointment. The last year of ITGS 2275 students took the course (May 2023), and for Digital Society the first cohort 2360 students took the subject (May 2024.)

Only 85 new students, when the course was specifically designed for specialists (e.g. IT and CS teachers) but also non specialist Individuals and Societies teachers to be able to teach? Over this blogpost I will talk a little more about the subject, its brilliance but also some of the problems that I believe can easily be surmounted; so that hopefully some of you in IB schools may make the decision to add Digital Society to your curriculum offering.

Its forerunner ITGS always had its heart in the right place as a course, but its assessments, age and conceptual underpinning was somewhat lacking. The design of the new course and publicity by Joel Adams from the IB was key in making sure the course was different enough to lead to a successful new pathway for many more students.

As zeitgeist would have it, first teaching in 2022 came at just the point that generative AI and ChatGPT3 boisterously announced itself to the world. I remember starting the units of Media and AI, and focusing on 'synthetic digital media' and showing students a number of uses of large language models to their surprise and wonderment. Guess who were the early adopters of AI in my school! I loved my inquiry based formative activity where, unknowingly to them, I placed the coders and the non coders into competing teams and then gave them two lessons to complete a quite complex coding problem in Python (while telling the non-coding team secretly that they could use a LLM to help them.) Guess the astonishment of the coders when the non-coders were declared victors, and then the groans when they realised why.

'Every IB school, in every context - come on start offering Digital Society NOW, you know it is the right thing to do!

The importance of this course in the IB should not be underestimated. It is an option that I believe each student should consider carefully as they choose their Individuals and Societies subject(s), and if necessary persuade the school to run it!

Take image generation, who could believe at the start of the course that I would be able to place in a text prompt and produce a multitude of creative images to enliven this blogpost. But Digital Society is not just about the 'tech' it is about the multitude of ethical and social impacts that arise from almost every context in which technology is used. Around this area a student of DS would immediately consider:

• Power - Intellectual property, who and where does the data come to train this model
• Values and ethics - Creativity, is the use of generative ai image generators a concern for artists and their future employment
• Systems - How biased are these image generators if the datasets underpinning are biased e.g. are students always white
• Expression - is this really art, without 'emotion' or 'feeling' are these images just empty and generic
• Identity - as these image generators get better and better, and are used everywhere how can we judge what is authentic and how does that impact areas such as deepfakes and misinformation

Prompt for Ideogram - "A captivating cinematic photograph of a monochromatic cityscape, with a dedicated student studying diligently at a table. The student's laptop is open, displaying a digital notebook filled with meticulous notes. An AI robot sits attentively beside the student, seemingly engaged in the learning process. The background features bold, eye-catching graffiti that reads "Digital Society is BRILLIANT," blending urban culture with the scene. The atmosphere is a harmonious blend of technology, education, and artistic expression, creating a futuristic yet grounded ambiance."

Note I use Ideogram - as it is one of the only image generators that can truly spell at the moment. A fabulous discussion for DS students to engage in as they unpick the technology behind the 'magic' apart.

So you guessed it. This is a superb course, which is authentic and deals with real world problems and issues and gets students thinking of ways to intervene; and then make a difference in their use of technology alongside understanding its impacts in areas such as politics, business and knowledge. Its is academic, but practical; it is inquiry led (the multimedia video Internal Assessment is excellent) but really tests a student's critical thinking - what is not to like!

Well hear are those surmountable issues and personal thoughts:

So this post is a call to arms for every headteacher to think seriously about adding this course to their curriculum offering, for every student to consider this as a choice and teachers even if you are not a CS/IT teacher to see that this course is simply great fun and inspiring to teach.

'Here is to more than five thousand Digital Society students by 2026!'

As a lonesome IB Coordinator mostly working in the Diploma and CP realm I have always found methods for authentically embedding the IB Learner profile in 17/18 year old's minds slightly problematic. There are many approaches that have always seem like 'bolt-ons' whether posters around the classrooms, assemblies focused upon different profile words, reports that mention the learner profile words and much more.

In fact at my current school we did a 'student takeover' of the IB learner profile to place in our context (we are a Round Square school as well so students have to manage the Discoveries and the IDEALS as well - don't get me started in the overload sometimes these students feel,) something that the IB tolerates and it is a great activity to give students supposed agency. Here it is to the right in all its resplendence!

Did it make any difference, did any student or teacher or even me refer to it during the rest of the year - NO WAS THE SIMPLE ANSWER!

So after however many years as an IB Coordinator, I had had enough what could I do that really embedded the skills, attributes or ways of being that I knew could so easily have an impact. I must emphasise that there is nothing wrong with the IB Learner profile (I promise IB...) however it just seemed to not work for those final two years, especially in a non-continuum school.

I have learnt over the years to say it is okay that these IB learner profile characteristics at the core of the IB are fine to be implicit rather than explicit. But is it really okay?

What was bugging me is I had had much more success with some 'cheesy phrases' over the years, some of which had stuck with me through different leadership positions. The above trusty phrase was so successful but disliked, that a group of sixth formers all made T-shirts with these words on for their graduation! Did it make a difference, yes, does it still make a difference yes - as it easily identifies a key characteristic of a learner in a really catchy difficult to forget phrase. Which IB learner profile attribute well that could be argued - balanced, open minded, reflective and I wish this one was included resilient.

"Fail well, Fail early and Fail often..." - Lance King

My email signature has also had two or so phrases attached; one from Gladwell and one from Ken Dodd's teacher (and on occasion one from David Hockney) - that i regularly mention, in assemblies, discussions with students. And I know anecdotally had had a lasting affect at least on some students.

“No one - not rock stars, not professional athletes, not software’s billionaires, and not even geniuses - ever makes it alone.” - Malcolm Gladwell (Outliers)

"Just because I'm cheeky, doesn't mean I'm not serious" - David Hockney

“You have not come here to be educated – you have come here to have your minds opened.” - Ken Dodd’s Headteacher (Supposedly!)

At the beginning of the 2023 this made me reflect on what was the best way to transfer habits, attributes and it reminded me a little of the "Habits of Mind" tool I had seen a few years ago, where attributes were linked to simple phrases that had that same catchy bite to them.

Such as 'Laugh a little' knowing that every situation is not the end, and that most important skill of being able to laugh at yourself. The tool is a little old, but it linked well with the thoughts discussed by a very current author Daniel Coyle in his book 'The Culture Code.'

"Don't be an ostrich" - Wikpedia (Apologies I was amused it had a page!)

I won't review the book but he talks about what makes successful companies, and one of the obvious areas is the success of the culture of that company (just as with schools!) Anyway he discusses the difficulties one restaurant owner had with trying to get consistency of service in two restaurants, to such an extent a once successful business was about to go under due to the poor service. The owner looked at priorities and what made them successful in the past:

'He already had an assortment of catchphrases that he used informally in training—he had a knack for distilling ideas into handy maxims. But now he started paying deeper attention to these phrases, thinking about them as tools.' - Daniel Coyle (Page 151)

Some of the catchphrases were excellent '...Read the guest, Finding the yes, Skunking, Put us out of business with your generosity, To get a hug, you have to give a hug...' and you get the idea of the attributes and actions that his whole staff needed to portray to make the restaurant successful again. Surprise surprise it was a success, '...a simple set of rules that stimulate complex and intricate behaviors benefiting customers.'

So as you can imagine this led me in consultation with the tutor team to see if we could emulate this idea, to improve the success and wellbeing of each and every student. Our initial set of 'cheesy phrases' are below:

Here are the posters, which were used in all presentations...

These were introduced to the students, but most importantly were continually used with students in assemblies and in one to one conversations. Each of the phrases, was linked to metacognitive processes and/ or self regulatory strategies through what we call 'Core' periods that all sixth form students are involved in each week. I will hopefully cover more regarding this in another blogpost soon! But was it a success, could like my initiative on sleep be able to show through data any improvements? Well the short answer is no, at this stage their use shows anecdotal signs as my initial 'fail well' phrase that it has become part of the students ' vocabulary.

Can you guess which are favourite? 'Don't be an ostrich' of course, and 'Habits not motivation' - why well I think they were used most and struck true when it came to the ways of working of an IB student. So a mild success, with I think much to do to improve and actually find and judge the ideas success in the future. Here are some thoughts and reflections:

Thanks to VESPA, who through there books and activities also inspired some of these phrases and the associated Core lessons and assemblies.

Thanks to Wisdom Made Easy for some of the graphics for fair use, I hope to have sixth formers create some better graphics this year!

Chance discussions are never to be missed in terms of how they can make us reflect on our practice as teachers and leaders. One such morning recently, a member of the senior leadership team popped by my office to discuss how they had been surprised with the focus on professional reading and theory in recent job interviews they had been having. Their perspective was their experience, not recent educational theory or fashionable books were more important to their ability to excel at the role applied for.

I could see their point of view. Especially when they had suggested they had used Tom Bennett as an example of his professional reading in the area of behaviour in UK schools. Someone I had not heard of, but when I checked their philosophy on behaviour, someone on first reading that I was almost diametrically opposed too.

However as an avid professional reader (apologies see the scrolling list on the homepage) I obviously disagree. I professionally read around my great passions in life: education, architecture and technology. Simply because I want to know different perspectives and be able to critically analyse and if necessary change and alter my viewpoints. And this is why, however much I may disagree with Tom Bennett's approach, the reading of some articles and peer reviewed research enabled me to look and reflect, and question. This links to one of my key tenets regarding the educational world we live in as highlighted by the article on TIE The International Educator below -reading and understanding different perspectives is key!

"The problem of not reading..."

"Next time you read a newspaper headline, or a tweet, a post, a statement, especially one that goes “viral”, ask yourself what the source is and who has read the research. The truth might not be as exciting to read as a dazzling affirmative or damning soundbite, but it needs to be respected." - Conrad Hughes

I also teach Theory of Knowledge and Digital Society at IB Level and it does not take too much for us all to agree the necessity for our students to be able to read, analyse and critically evaluate sources in todays misinformation, social media led world.

This however takes me back to Professional Reading for teachers.

"How much should a leader expect teachers to read?" "How much should senior leaders professionally read?"

Well I suppose like many things each school needs teachers and senior leaders that like to professionally read and then support them in the dissemination of the reading to improve learning within the school.

So I would suggest not everyone needs to read quite as much as I do maybe, but every school should have mechanisms in place to enable this reading and current evidence based findings to be shared in a simple and efficient way to all teachers within the school. One such way is the idea of sharing key texts for those interested by the Senior Leadership team, currently "Making Good Progress: The future of Assessment for Learning by Daisy Christodoulou" is doing the rounds at my school. Another is the dissemination of some great professional reading lists - such as Edutopias 2023 best articles end of year list. Number 8 is a gem, especially as an IB educator surrounded by inquiry sceptics who as all of us need to read before they think!