I know by some peoples standards I’ve not been around education all that long and I’ve certainly been around the edublogosphere a fraction of that time. But I have just reached my 365th post, which must count to something. Regardless I have, as yet failed to find an answer to my question: “What is ‘digital literacy’?
However I did com across a slideshare by Dr Tabetha Newman who quoted Allan Martin and suggested it as being one of the most broad, flexible but still tangible definitions out there.
“The awareness, attitude and ability of individuals to appropriately use digital tools and facilities to identify, access, manage, integrate, evaluate, analyse and synthesise digital resources, construct new knowledge, create media expressions, and communicate with others, in the context of specific life situations, in order to enable constructive social action; and to reflect upon this process”
Hardly a bumper sticker so question being:
Can you come up with a better definition? In less than 55 words?

In the brief time he was in classes, he learnt how to draw, write, freeform capture, record himself and insert a sound file into an interwrite document. This shows how easy the programme is to use and how many skills our 6-8 year olds have acquired in guiding him through these processes. He was impressed with the level of technology these children were using.
A fantastic experience for our children and staff.

- Robyn, Owhata Primary School

The priority has to be ‘raising the standards’ – of course we have to raise the standard in Education- Why would we lower them. But I’m wondering how best to do that without developing the League tables for schools idea that has had such a detrimental effect on the teaching profession. How do we raise student achievement without beating the life (and passion) out of teaching?

Shane Taurima questions Helen over Labours failure toward Maori boys. Youth appreticeships form 13?? Surely there is a need for a more though grounding in education than that. I feel that this is spelling of the 19th century model Ken Robinson spoke of with broadening out the ‘working class’ education for the majority of the ’skilled’ labour. Perhaps if education isn’t suiting my kid I could just send off down the pit to work those blast door for ther pit pony’s and leave the educating for those smarter kids!

All I want for my kid in primary school is that he is learning to read and write. Perhaps the two of them are talking about opposite ends of the education system. Of course I want my primary kid to learn to read and write. But equally, I’ll want my 16-17 year old being prepared for the work in the 21st century, I’m not sure appreticeships will address that issue.

Now we’re onto parents paying for Free education. Of course if I want my kid to go on the school trip skiing or to Japan or on some geographical fieldtrip to investigate lava flow I’m willing to pay for that… It looks, feels and probably is above and beyond the classroom experience. But would I expect to be charged for the regular ‘in class’ education of my child, certainly not if it is touted as ‘Free’.

My current situation is partly board funded due to the Ministry of Education stating that the class size is too small to warrent an extra teacher. So what does ‘board funded” mean? It means the school is having to raise addition funds to pay for me to drive up the road and deliver that ‘free’ education labour talks about.

Now I’m off on a rant so feel free to stop reading… but….

It’s a little like the ‘free 20 hours’ for 3-4 year olds. That scheme was under funded and had to be subsided by the parents. The hourly rate underthat scheme was too little to support the wage requirements of the teaching staff. If the government came out saying it was a subsidised scheme there would have been no issue but them saying it was free caused a right row in the ECE sector.

Helen Clark highlights the fact that we do not have to pay these school contributions. Wow what a statement. I’d love to see what would happen if, as a result of that statement ALL PARENTS, EVERYWHERE, right across the country went into their schools and asked for a refund. What would happen to those school budgets this late in the school year.

Today, I think, has to have been the longest day of my life. Certainly since coming to New Zealand.

I have felt like I’ve been trapped in some educationally-bent episode of 24.

The following takes place between 8pm (the night

before) and 12pm the day of the ERO visit.

If I could do the tick-dum, tick-dum noise I would:

8pm (last night) My Prinicpal calls for a quick chat about the run through of the day, beginning with “You know they’re coming a bit earlier, don’t you?”

9.pm (ish) last night, I am reviewing some plans for the ERO visit. Running through the day in my head, checking the resources et al.

11pm-1pm Still running through the events of tomorrow while relieving my bodily system of dinner. I wonder if I ate something funny, I’m not laughing- that’s just great.

2.30am Son wakes me with news he needs the toilet- what a fine time for him to be trying to get out of the ‘overnight nappy’

3.30am finally manage to get to sleep (did I mention, my boy fell asleep whilst on the loo about 2.34am)

6am Woken by son saying – “I can’t go to sleep!” Probably has something to do with you having slept 11 hours I manage NOT to say. Anyway I’m up heading toward the day

7.03am I’m out the door for the $10 ride to school – It takes me 30minutes – 36 km but I measure in the cost of fuel now, not distance.

7.30am (give or take the logging truck I followed up the Taihape road) I arrive at School. Final prep for the visit – remember they are coming in early- I want to check the students desks – if they ask to see an example of the writing matrix in the students books I want to have every confidence that I can open any students desk without the fear of having my digits chewed off by any lurking rodents.

8.25am First bus arrives and I begin my mantra for the morning. “Have checked morning routine, do you have your writing kit out, sharp pencil, been to the loo, cut your toe nails, removed the boggies from your sleeves.

8.40am ERO due any minute, students appear ready and I struggle to find them extra stuff to do to keep them off the computer games (they are maths games- most can be found on my delicious account so its all educational stuff, but not a good first impression I guess)

9am Still no sign of ERO, call comes via the secretary, they’ve gone to the wrong school- That poor principal, just imagine ERO turning up on your door step, no warning just a friendly “Hello, we’re the ERO team come to inspect your school.” – ERK! Apparently they did not actually arrive at the school before they realized- but saying they did paints a much more amusing picture.

9.30am The Board begin to arrive, some earlier than others but all looking a little nervous- Funny that, I was nervous meeting the board for the first time, so where does that put me in the pecking order?

10.05am ish Inspectors arrive. They meet the board and we in the class are finishing up writing and heading toward fitness- I’m actually very disappointed they missed the writing lesson as the principal and I team teach it in a very inter-reactive way (if there is such a word).

10.10am We’re in doing Reading- Big book is on the IWB. Wish I’d printed it out to show then later but hey ho.

10.45am ERO appear in my room as I am mid flow with a reading group. Lots of positive feedback about classroom displays looking great and ‘feel of the room’ being directed toward student learning. Yippee.

11.00am Morning tea. I walk into the meeting one of the inspectors is having with the chair of the board. Oops! Then they have to leave the staffroom on account of my presence- Double Oops!

11.20am DEAR time in the classroom. Observation begins. I hate the few minutes at the start of the session while students prepare themselves for their learning. It always appears chaotic but in reality on lasts a few minutes (despite it feeling like an age when the inspector is right there).

11.42am Been working with a maths group and have set them off on an independent task. One inspector is now working with them. Not sure if it’s a good thing or not, so I head over to check. Everyone is smiling so I return to the individual kid I’m working with. With my current maths group numbers being 2,1 and 2 it is hard to argue that the learning isn’t personalized.

12.30am Lunch- I’m on duty so I sit and eat with the kids- We get into a great conversation about middle names, whose got one, who hasn’t. Then they spend the next 7 minutes trying to guess mine…. And succeed I have to add. These kids are not worriwed about our visitors. And rightly so, I’ve never met a group of kids so supportive of one another and clued in socially and educationally. These kids ROCK and I’m so happy to be called their teacher.

I’m going to leave it there for now but the afternoon was equally eventful. 10.32pm I’m signing off.

The future looks nothing like democracy because democracy which sort to empower the individual is being obsolest by a social order that hyper empowers them.

Mark Pesce

It’s the last session of the term, those that have not finished are very nearly, it has been nine weeks in the creating and they are all nearly done.

In both the morning and the afternoon sessions there a couple of boys on the “Watch out for..” list as relievers often get.

The morning session boys had finished and one came to me saying “Can we listen to my ipod, please Mister.” I thought about it for a little while, scrolled through the menu like I “on the In-crowd” and said; “Sure just so long as your quiet and sensible about it.”

The session in the afternoon, some of the boys had finished and others had not.

The difference between the two: Ipods sat for a little over a hour, drawing and colouring, barely talking to each each other let alone disturbing others.

Non-Ipods threw crayons to another table, left the room when my back was turned and continued a conversation in a loud and somewhat ridiculous manner.

So I’m leaning towards Ipods having a constructive impact on classroom management.

How about you?

Students took the parts of newspaper reporters and illustrators to create a 6 page news paper in 3 hours.

I was delighted with their enthusiasm and desire to meet the deadline.

They worked in pairs to write recounts including the 5 W’s and H. using complex and compound sentences, writing and linking sentences together in short paragraphs…. But shhhhhhhhhhh…. They think they were just designing and creating a newspaper.

Go Ted McCain!!

1. Five year olds in this European city are not due to start school until they are six, in fact ON their sixth birthday. This five old I heard about is very, very bored at kindy and mum and dad want her to start school early. As part and parcel of the procedure for that to happen the kid needs to be assessed by a some Educational Psychologist or similar, there are a raft of result coming through regarding the kid but what stands out is the IQ of 140. The kid begins school immediately and is put in the Y0 class, where she spends the first week learning the number ‘1’. Are her needs being met?

2. Intermediate kid, he has special needs that I am unable to disclose. The school has streamed maths and literacy programmes. His ability is somewhat below even the lowest of groups in the lowest of classes. His class contains 29 students. The teacher sees him for focused teaching time, with 4 others three times a week. Are his needs being met?

The recent push in education towards ‘personised learning’ is merely rhetoric. The reality of one teacher personalizing the learning of 33 students on a continual basic is beyond the time and energy of any regular teacher. It is why Primary (Elementary) teachers have been organizing ‘differentiated’ groups for a long time now; it is the realistic balance between ‘personalized learning’ and ‘whole class teaching’.

When my kid finally hits school I want to know what is really happening in the classrooms. I don’t want some Principal talking to me about their ‘personalised learning plan’ when really its ‘differentiated learning’ in a new coat of paint.

Let’s keep it real people, let’s call it what it is.

Just listening to Steven, through Wes Fryer.

I have to begin by saying that listening to Roger Schank inspired me too, I even posted about it at the time. It was one of the first podcasts of Wesley’s I heard and he really challenged my thinking, in fact I wonder if I can track back to hearing that podcast and that being the catalyst for the challenges I have faced in the last 18 months as I began to push back?

School improvement, are we really doing what our society requires?

Our schools are so NOT “fine they need tweaking”, there needs to be a fundamental shift in what the curriculum is addressing and what schools are supporting. We in New Zealand are quite blessed with the new curriculum, it is very new and shiny and very 21^st Century perspective, however I wonder how these are being implemented in schools. It makes me wonder what the key pressures are on schools that truly define how the curriculum looks, it is not simply the National Curriculum.

Steven Wyckoff spends quite a bit of time talking about the analogue of learning to drive and someone made the comment that while you’re growing up you spend a long time watching people drive. I heard it said once that while you are learning to drive, driving instructors spend quite a while telling people where they need to look. “Focus on what is immediately in front, look out around parked cars”, etc. People’s closest sensory experience to driving? It’s sitting in the passenger seat. So a new driver has unlearn the passive ‘watching’, for example looking at someone walking over a footbridge for the whole time it takes for the car to pass under it. Drivers then need to learn to be active observers of the environment around them. There are so many things that students are learning that are wasting time… We DO need to spend more time on learning the skills that they are going to need in life.

So what DOES a curriculum look like?

What are the other pressures and issues we need address in school?

What are the school teacher:student ratio look like in New Zealand. Are there the same issues as in Kansas where the system needs to be adjusted to lower the ratio or is there a genuine issue around ratios?

“In order to do what?” Brings the curriculum into sharp focus. Steven links the need to focus education on ‘economic productivity’ for the future. But I want to consider, is there any value in learning for learnings- sake? Does it not do something for the brain development, regardless of purpose?

My next question: Are there quality apprenticeships or study-to-work programmes available in New Zealand that realistically address the issue applying students for the workforce?

As I was listening I was thinking this idea about applied learning and the links made to Ted McCain and the discussion/ presentations made by Ian Jukes in Napier last year.

I was discussing with a high-school principal the other day around the issues of NCEA level1 not meeting the expectations required for courses in NCEA level 2, let alone NCEA level1 OR 2 meeting expectations for the workforce.

So how are we going to measure success for the 21^st Century, what are the skills required and EQUALLY, what is the core knowledge required for the future?

]]> http://educatingthedragon.edublogs.org/2008/06/23/natural-learning-what-schools-don%e2%80%99t-do-by-steve-wycoff/feed/ 1 http://educatingthedragon.edublogs.org/2008/06/19/articles-is-a-plural/ http://educatingthedragon.edublogs.org/2008/06/19/articles-is-a-plural/#comments Thu, 19 Jun 2008 01:15:37 +0000 Dragon09 http://educatingthedragon.edublogs.org/2008/06/19/articles-is-a-plural/ Well I have to say I have begun to share longer written pieces under Articles in the sidebar. I’d just like to note that I realise that ‘Articles’ is a plural even though there is but one available for your view. My first piece begins:

"In January 2006, Peterhead School became part of the ‘Champion Schools Programme’ fostered by Sitech Systems. As part of this initiative the author was given an assortment of technology; an interactive whiteboard, a sound system, and the classroom response system called PRS. Professional development sessions focused the author’s attention on the use of PRS to address the Key Competency, Thinking Skills. This paper will critically discuss the potential of a classroom response system (CRS) to develop children’s thinking skills, and in particular higher order thinking."

Read on…