Flogging the Dinosaur
David challenged us to write a post entitled ’flogging the dinosaur’
Well here it is:
I’ve just finished in a feedback session about Ulearn. Thanks to Derek and Amanda whose various blog postings I’ve been able to use as a feedback format, I would have asked but I knew you wouldn’t mind so much.
My Principal has given some ‘big picture’ ideas, focusing on the new national curriculum. Apparently we, as a school, are ‘a way down the road’. Which is great news and a little of a shock for me. We are already doing so much. Great.
I must confess a short coming of mine. I was NOT sitting in on ULearn ticking off all the wonderful things we are doing as a school.
All that Mark Treadwell was saying about the new curriculum and Rosemary Hipkins about key competencies excited my principal no end. He is a measured man and we have ERO on the horizon…. many of the messages at the conference had the potential to freak some folk out. There is, perhaps a bigger ‘digital divide’ between the potential of the ‘net and computers generally, and the realisation of that potential. Technology is moving so fast that education is struggling to keep up. we’ve not got 40 years to wait for implimentation (I think it was that long from the design of the OHP and its implimentation as a teaching tool in schools- but correct me if I’m wrong).
The session finished with mutterings around the room, few of which I could hear, but one stood out: “When in ten years time it doesn’t work we will all just go back to how it was anyway.”
Hmmmmmmmm
Hi Simon
Well said. Nearly every school has them but I don’t think it’s an age thing, it’s a mindset that even teachers straight out of TColl have. Unfortunately
You win the prize! David K will be rolling on the floor! That muttering sure does belong to one flogged dinosaur.
I am laughing, well done, I just don’t think that we are thrashing hard enough! Picture Basil Fawlty and his recalcitrant car! Seriously though, that kind of entrenched, ‘we’ll just sit this one out patiently’ kind of attitude is a real worry. All the while our children are denied the potential to hone C21 skills. Douglas Harre from the Ministry sent me the following link about Broadband penetration in New Zealand today.
http://www.nzinstitute.org/Images/uploads/Broadband%20aspiration%20Sept%202007.pdf
The New Zealand Institute regards our connectedness as crucial to our success as a nation and makes a strong case for investment starting yesterday! Not tomorrw, not next week, not next year etc. I think slide 14 or there abouts indicates the growth to the NZ economy that Education will provide if we have a fibre network nationally.
The so called captains of our industry need to get with the programme and lead by example. If they can’t they must recognise that they have become irrelevant, lick their welts (surely they must be tired of it by now?) and shuffle off their mortal coils, leaving us to get on with the business at hand!
Just gotta remember that one day those dinosaurs will become fossils – we all have them and we all want to flog them hard!!
By the way, I am lucky I have David to do the flogging in my workplace. He does a good job of it.
By the way Chrissy, Simon has set the bar, it is your turn next!
It drives me a bit nuts really. Those that still see ICT as a discreet subject. It’s not! It should be infused into our daily teaching. I also suspect that there needs to be a radical shift in how we deliver the curriculum. I hope that the birth of he new curriculum will be the catalyst!
I agree with Lynne… I know of many ‘older’ teachers who have the mindset and have worked towards integrating ICT into their class as I know graduates who have entered with the opposite attitude, as we all do. For example a trainee who suggests that Yr 6 students shouldn’t be learning iMovie because they can’t type yet? It’s a mindset…