In the third of our interviews with key new media players, Ewan McIntosh of Learning and Teaching Scotland shares his views on how the new generation of social media software is already empowering the country's educators.

Name:
Ewan McIntosh

Personal website or blog:
http://edu.blogs.com

Day job:
New Technologies Research Practitioner at Learning and Teaching Scotland

How would you describe yourself to the world. After all, we're all more than a job title?
My job and life is spent making learning and working as efficient as possible. That way, we can free managers, teachers and learners to have as much fun as possible. I also have a few ideas on how to do the latter...

What projects that you're working on at the moment?
I am launching two weekly podcasts for Learning and Teaching Scotland , covering educational news, cool learning, new technology and gaming in education. My colleagues across LTS as well as teachers and tech geeks around the world are helping to make this, hopefully, a quality must-hear.

I consult East Lothian Council as part of my job. The main thrust of my work is twofold. First off is getting a toolset and suites of aggregators for different education niches (e.g. a river of info for kids doing projects on volcanoes to school managers looking for some good marketing reads.) That's going to be called eduBuzz.org and will be launched this January. The second part is leading as many educationalists to the edge of new technologies to see what it could do for them. At the end of the day, I can make it as attractive as possible and just have to hope they drink. So far, we've got about a third of the staff engaged to some degree in social media sharing of knowledge or using social media with kids. The final part of my work at the moment is preparing some new talks and workshops. I've got four big international events in the next year in Scotland, England, the USA, New Zealand and Holland. Each place has their own limitations on what can be done with social software, so a lot of time is spent learning about what makes classrooms tick in these places.

I also want to get in touch with local and national policy makers and politicians in these areas to let them know what is possible if only they make social media available in their schools. A lot of them still ban blogs, wikis and so on.

Why do you feel social media has such a prominent role to play in 21st century education?
In Scotland we've got one of the most innovative curriculums - potentially - in the world. The Curriculum for Excellence, as it's called, wants:

• successful learners
• effective contributors
• responsible citizens
• confident individuals.

It sounds to me like everything social media stands for already is represented in these curricular aims but we stand a much weaker of chance of pulling off the curricular aims without social media. How do learners know they are successful without a worldwide audience leaving comments and citing their work (blogs, Flickr pics) to let them know? How can kids be effective contributors if, like in so many schools, social tools are blocked or banned? How can they (and teachers, policy makers, civil servants...) be responsible citizens if they are not tapped into what is really going on in the world, viewed from multiple perspectives, through their RSS aggregators? How can we expect to confident if all we've got to say we're worth something is a school certificate? Social media lets anyone, no matter how young they are or where they live, take part in a global classroom.

You've written that Scottish education is leading the field in social media. Can you give me a couple of examples?
There are around 400 teacher blogs in Scotland, which is only the size of Yorkshire in terms of population, a number which dwarfs the number of 'edublogs' in the rest of the UK. The quality of thinking coming from these blogs about how learning and knowledge has changed is world class.

What is your favourite application ever?
The blog - does that count? I can get in touch with anyone who shares my passion without boring those who do not.

And what single piece of software would you put in Room 101?
Microsoft Word - I can't believe anyone would send around a notated static document and ask people to make more edits when Google Docs is sitting there to be harnessed.

What else makes you rant?
People who rip off others' ideas in the blogosphere without giving due credit or even adding anything new to the equation. It's happening more and more in the education sphere and people are beginning to make tangible profits off others' thinking without feeding anything new back into the pot.

And the most annoying piece of jargon used in digital media?
'Digital natives' and 'digital immigrants', to describe those who 'get it' and those who don't. It assumes that if you're over 25 years old you just cannot understand how to use technology as well as those under 25. After teaching under 25s for six years I can say that, as a 29 year old it's not true. Truth is, we can all learn a bit more and, in social media, it's not so much the tools as how to exploit them that needs to be learnt.

Going back to what you're up to...what gives you most joy?
It's the kids. Seeing a kid 'get' something or seeing a group of kids who hate working together sit back with pride listening to the podcast they made - all alone - and then the even bigger gasps when people actually leave comments saying how good it was.

And the least joy?
People who don't have 10 minutes to sit down and learn something new because it's not been 'tried and tested'. I like risk-takers and people who don't put down the constraints until MUCH later in the process.

So, who is your "must read" blogger then?
Other than edu.blogs.com? ;-) I enjoy Kathy Sierra for her unrelentingly great posts. Actually, that's really annoying. But she makes a lot of sense and often puts across so eloquently what I would take a few more words to express. My previous answers really should have been three times longer if I was to properly state my views.

And which websites do you find indispensable?
Hard, that one. I'm currently tapping into 454 blogs and about a dozen websites each day. Does my NetNewsWire page count? My routine tends to be my Flickr account's 'Recent activity', contacts' photos and new group posts, then a delve into my egosurfing at Technorati and Statcounter before skimming through my 454 feeds. I've had four computers (all Macs) die on me this year and I really missed NetNewsWire and my feeds.

What do you think is the next big thing in digital media?
Google will not die; most people will still like the 10 foot experience of a real telly and not the 3 foot experience of the mobile TV. I think IPTV will be adopted by some of those who had betamax but it'll take time for the rest of us to 'get it'. No, the next big thing is that we will stop worrying about how we publish and just publish. It's already happening with bloggers who Twitter more than they write or amateur photographers like myself who spend as much time snapping and uploading as they do carving out blog posts.

I think as another big thing we'll realise that the Long Tail does have a hierarchy and most people would love to be higher up it than they currently are. With fewer active bloggers only those who have established good audience now and good conversations as a result will be left to fight it out while the others move on to express themselves in other micro rather than macro ways. Flickr might get a ranking system a la Technorati to satisfy the average Joe's urge to be number one. It's sad, and I won't be joining it, but then, my blog might be closer to number one after this interview...

Taking all that into account, do you still do old media?
The Guardian is my paper of choice three times a week for the supplements more than anything else, even though I know I can look up all the stories on my MDA Vario. I like the design, photography and the stories I might have missed if I were being online and efficient... My favourite days are Monday (Media), Tuesday (Education) and Thursday (Tech). I watch EastEnders religiously - is that old media? [Yes, it is, Ewan].

Interviewed by Ian Delaney, NMK editor.