Educating the Dragon

How much more motivating for students to be enabled through the use of the IWB to take a lead role in directing class discussion on a text. Not only does the use of technology motivate the student body as a whole but the fact that a student is leading the discussion, asking the questions, noting the comments- not crusty old me! That’s equally motivating. Students sharing their learning and opinions openly and freely. YES!

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?

I don’t know how I’m going to do it. Not being attached to a school at present let alone and ICTPD cluster but I have got to get to Ulearn ’08.

I was flicking through the Education Gazette at lunch today and came across the advert.

Christchurch Convention Centre

8-10 October 2008

www.Ulearn.org.nz

I’m always up for doing a presentation or two, you know me. And it’s always great to meet at the blogger café and get some F2F time with folk. But there are 3 main reasons for attending.

Will Richardson- The Don of the Edublogosphere himself.

Steven Carden – He whose book inspired me to action with my “Did you Know?… NZ” presentation at Learning@Schools08 (I’m kinda hoping it’ll be ready of ULearn!)

And Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach (http://www.21stcenturycollaborative.com/)who I missed at TUANZ that time and am desperate to see.

Any and all ideas about getting there gratefully received.

New Zealand Unleashed by Steven Carden  is a book that is continuing to make we think. I haven’t finished it yet but I just wanted to share with you the value in it, for everyone, and especially to us as educators in New Zealand.

 Just as The World is Flat and Growing up Digital rocked the US so this book should be a ’sit up and listen’ kinda thing for New Zealand. Whether we will or not is another matter, but we should.

 New Zealand is in a locality and has a population situation that makes innovation and change possible, with relative ease as societies go. Let’s make our educational system relevent for our students who are entering a global economy from a very unique direction.

Let’s stop apologising, play to our strengths and make a real difference.

Mindtools are a way of looking at the use of technology in the classroom. Jonassen’s book ‘Computers as Mindtools’ defines it as being able to use computers and their software in such a way as to ‘free up you mind’.

Using the computer as an intellectual partner allows those engaged to play to their strengths- machines are great at recording and recalling facts and information, the human much better at critical thinking, the creation of knowledge and the ability to reflect on their comprehension and conception of knowledge. ‘Mindtools are a media for collaboratively negociating meaning.’

So, according to Jonassen, how should computers be used in school?

Different softwares and applications come under each of these heading but broadly speaking Computers aid learning in the following way:

Supporting knowledge construction, principally by organising and representing information in a useable format.

Exploration, accessing and comparing information, much like the advance search features on Google and Yahoo.

By Doing, simulating real-life senarios or providing students with the ’sandbox’ to experiment with what can be done.

Enabling communication and collaboration, I immediately thought of wikis, blogs, skype and eliminate as online resources.

Reflecting, this is what I briefly mentioned in the opening where the student engages with the computer as an intellectual partner, freeing the student from the mundain to focus on the higher order work.

This use of technology blends well with constructivist theory, but having software used in this manner does not guarentee more effective learning environments in schools. Much pedagogical awareness by the teacher is required. Using technology, Brown (2000) argues, can sometimes can even be counter productive and destract from the construction of generative knowledge. It is insufficient for technology to simply expose students to large volumes of disorganised information. By take such information and constructing new understandings that impact upon one’s view of the world, only then does it become generative knowledge. There are broader pedagogical issues and classroom management considerations to take into account.

Let’s face it, it still always comes down to the teacher and the way they choose to engage with the technology.

Brown, M. Learning in the 21^st Century: Being critical, going deeper and thinking smarter. Computers in New Zealand Schools, 12 (3), 3-7

Jonassen, D. (2000). What are mindtools? Computers as Mindtools for school. Engaging critical thinking (2^nd ed.,pp3-20). Columbus, Ohio: Merrill.