Educating the Dragon

…Considering metacognition

I have  been reviewing Rubert Wegerif’s Litureature Review in Thinking Skills, Technology and Learning (yes, all the capitals are correct).

A few thoughts occurred to me as I read, they are kinda random so excuse me.

The ability to have ‘higher order thinking skills’ should be seperated out from having the ability to express your thinking. But then how is that possible. Thinking is considered to have a collective, social aspect to it and therefore knowing the language of thinking is just as important to thinking itself- some perhaps go as far as to say that without the ability to communicate ideas where is the value in thinking at all. My point is that, yes we should be teaching thinking skills but let’s teach communication skills too. Syncronous and asyncronous alike….

Perhaps this is where WEB2.0 comes in. There is great potential through the internet to develop communication skills. I really not that good synchronously, I need time to contemplate, and consider before replying… that’s what I like about my blog, its asynchrous. Perhaps there are others, students, who for similar reasons would prefer to develop dialalogue in this way.

Another point discussed in the paper is the development of classroom environments, making them more condusive to the development of thinking skills, turning the classroom into into a community that supports discussion and thinking. So how is this done? And what is the advantage of engaging the read/write web in this task? There are possiblilties through Skype, Elluminate and others to have experts ‘visit’ your classroom, or you ‘visit’ other classes around the country, around the world. Let’s broaden the horizons.

“One educational implication is that teaching thinking skills involves changing the social context to create conditions that at least approximate to what an ‘ideal speech situation’”(Wegerif, 2002, p.14) Does this not have Classroom 2.0 written all over it?

So, back here in the real world, with twenty-six Year3’s in my room tomorrow. What does Classroom 2.0 look like at ground level?

That’s what I’m enjoying exploring through the K12 online conference this year!

It has been interesting to share Greg’s post and Chrissy’s posts 1 and post 2 about pedagogy.

 I am of the opinion that it is vital for us as practioners to know the answer to the WHY? question. There are many teachers of various generations that I know or know of who struggle with the WHY? question. I have had to take a stand on this issue recently when a colleague of mine answered me by saying:

“I really don’t think we should concern ourselves with the background to why we have identified these traits as being gifted and talented, we should just concern ourselves with classroom practise.”

I totally agree with her about focusing on our classroom practise but we still need to understand the purpose behind what we do, simply replying to the question “Why do you run your reading programme like that?” or “How did you determine these as valuable traits to worthy of additional time and resources?” with the words “Because Marg told me to” really isn’t going to cut, especially in an ERO year!

 My main focus has to be on the classroom teacher, me specifically. What values and beliefs to I hold to as I develop my classroom practise.

In 1997 Julia Atkin wrote an article entitled “Enhancing Learning with Inforamtion & Communication Technology: Promises, pitfalls & practicalities” 

She uses the term ‘Learning Technologist’ as one possible alternative to ‘teacher’ - Learning technology she states is the applied science of learning.  I do prefer this term to facilitator, coach and teacher, the reason being that the Learning is placed at the heart of the role:

My school is part of the Sitech Champion Schools programme. As part of that programme the staff here have been involved with a professional development model that appears to be working. Hardware and software have been purchased for the school and the company has provided many hours of training and professional development in it’s use in the classroom environment.

Private provision is an interesting situation, company’s vary in there product and support available. I would be interested to know of any strategy or framework which guides this aspect of school provision. As the product and support varies from company to company the experience of both staff and students also varies along with the development of ICT within the school. Is this a good thing, or bad?

Perhaps the diversity of provision is advantageous in Early Childhood and Primary phases but I would surmise that as students’ progress through Secondary and onto Tertiary national parity would be more desirable to ensure an ICT literate workforce.

Sitech Learning Zone

Here are my six ideas for developing ICT in your classroom. They are designed to take the load of the teacher, develop the thinking skills involved for the students and be generic.

1. Peer tutoring – take skills teaching off the teacher.( having to teach someone else is great reinforcement)
2.  ICT buddy system- working with a partner on a project will more than double the learning going on, feeding ideas from one another will intensify the higher order thinking going on- plus using the computer/software/ application as the focal learning object will mean more ‘on task’ conversation and less chatter.
3. Software ‘experts’ in the class are a useful thing. ( Where Jane is the ‘go to’ girl about powerpoint and Adam knows all about imovie)
4. Teamworking is perhaps an extension of 2- but with more people =more ideas- but be careful of the ‘slacker’ in the group they can hide.
5. Make use of skills checklists, cards, mini tutorials
6. Get your groups  in 4 to work on a application and produce the cards, video tutorials, checklists mentioned in 5.

Please add more…..

For those who signed up to my twitter you’ll know I’ve been thinking about ICTPD. Well here is my full thought….. 

There is a huge difference been ‘training’ and professional development. Even so many years through the ICTPD model in
New Zealand there seems mch confusion about the two terms and they remain in the minds of most as synonymous. But that is not strictly true. Sure there is some overlap, and some need for both aspects but when training (as in the ‘how to’ aspect of ICT) is called professional development it often. In my experience anyway squeezes out the true PD ( as in the ‘considering classroom pedagogy’)  

It is often argued ‘upskilling teachers will mean they will begin to use this technology with their classes’ – this maybe true but will it have the maximum desired outcome? I think not- A class’s use of technology after such training of the teacher will remain ‘low level’ – skills oriented level. Where as the desired outcome should be  a ‘higher level use of ICT for learning’.  

Having said that if the focus is purely professional development – the teacher is more likely to be reliant on the ICT literate students to problem solve the applications.  Which may be fine for classes of older students but with juniors their use of ICT will naturally involve explicit ‘skills’ teaching.  

My thought is that the facilitators of ICTPD clusters must take a serious look at what they are providing. Perhaps it needs to be more balanced. Perhaps the balance that needs to be redressed is on a school by school, teacher by teacher basis? But having said that there still needs to be a professional development element that goes beyond up-skilling and into the heart of classroom practise.  

So I would like to leave it there for now.  

What is the most effective ICT professional development you’ve ever had?  

How do you, in your school, go beyond upskilling/ just in time training?   

What does the ‘changing pedagogy’ really look like in New Zealand schools? Or around the world for that matter?

And is there a natural desire with ICT for professional development or is ICTPD seen a ‘you must!” storm cloud of negativity?